Mark Twain Weighs In

“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they’ve been fooled.” — Mark Twain

Ain’t it the truth.

The people who stormed the Capitol thought they were doing a good thing.

It’s not they who bear most of the blame; it’s those who fooled them.

If following the wishes of your country’s elected leader isn’t the right and patriotic thing to do (many Germans must have felt) — what is?

Likewise . . . if inciting insurrection against your own country isn’t an impeachable offense — what is?

I’ve been noting for five years that Trump — not a big reader — kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside.

There’s nothing illegal about that; or, for that matter, about admiring Hitler, as some Americans do.

There is nothing illegal about Trump’s affinity for autocrats.

Or about his holding rallies denouncing the free press as “enemies of the people” and wishing he could “punch [people] in the face.”

But I do think it’s illegal to incite insurrection.

The second of these four Lincoln Project ads released yesterday is particularly good:

We have to get past demonizing each other.

Can’t we come together to demonize . . . or at least criticize . . . Trump instead?

Even the New York Post and Wall Street Journal have begun to do that.

One can be for favoring the rich and forcing women to carry their rapists’ babies* — yet still oppose dishonesty, incompetence, corruption, sociopathy, and malignant narcissism.

No?

On most issues, isn’t there a sensible center in which to meet?

> Honor Thomas Jefferson with a statue for declaring the self-evident truth “that all men are created equal,” even though he himself owned slaves — while removing statues that honor those who fought against the United States to preserve slavery?

> Work to make abortion rare — while keeping it safe and legal?

> Respect the Second Amendment — while enacting gun safety laws that even a wide majority of NRA members support?

Focus on the many places we agree?

(Infrastructure!)

GLDD: I sold most of mine at $14.72 yesterday. For the patient — check out this post from 14 years ago — it has worked out well.  With infrastructure likely at last to receive major appropriations, the nation’s leading dredging company seems finally to have caught investors’ fancy.  Sometimes that’s a good time to exit — though I wouldn’t be amazed to see the stock continue to rise.

Have a great weekend.

 

*[UPDATE] Some of you felt this language was over the top.  But quite a few of our fellow citizens — including some in Congress — earnestly believe that human life begins at conception and that to take that life — no matter who fathered it or how — is murder.  So I don’t think it’s a strawman.  Either way, my point is simply that we can have passionate deep disagreement on some things . . . yet agree unanimously that honesty, kindness, competence and sanity beat their alternatives. And that we can  find common ground and compromise on at least some things.  And that we should try.