Tag: GAGOP

Only China can make Putin see Reason

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2022 by Uwe Bahr

Putin will never succeed in bringing all of Ukraine under his control. I am sure that is not his intention either. Contrary to Western assumptions, the man is not a lunatic, far from it – he knows how to play his cards. He is a Machiavellian. Therefore, he also knows what could exceed the forces of his country.

If anyone at all can mediate in this conflict, it is not the Americans, and certainly not the Europeans. Europeans no longer play any role at all in the big decisions. China – to the detriment of the USA – has the decisive key role to play. If Putin listens to anyone at all, it is Chinese leader Xi Jinping. For the same reason, all channels of communication with Putin must be kept open if the war in Ukraine is to be ended as quickly as possible. As things stand, there will be no other way.

Even then, Putin is unlikely to back down from his demands: Recognition of Crimea as Russian territory, the same for the Donbass, but above all: a guarantee by the West of Ukraine’s neutrality. If peace is wanted – and this peace must come – then this is the price that the West will have to pay for its reckless policy of hubris toward Russia.

The only other possibility would be to bring Russia to its knees militarily or, in the end, even economically. Neither seems very realistic, as Biden’s “no” vote on fighter jets from Poland for Ukraine underscores. It would provoke Russia even more with devastating consequences for the whole of Europe. Here, the West is already showing signs of giving in. And the more the West fights Russia with sanctions, the more it brings the majority of patriotic Russians to Putin’s side.

Even the pictures of protests in Moscow do not change that. For more than a generation, the majority of Russians have wondered what the country actually fought for and won in World War II – only to lose so much again afterwards under its own concession. One has to put oneself in this position of Russian patriots – of a country which was, after all, allied with the USA in the last Great War. All this is directly related to the war in Ukraine.

The other victorious nation, the United States, after the destruction of Hitler’s Germany and with far fewer casualties than the Soviet Union, did not shrink a square inch, did not lose power, although it too has since instigated unjust wars in other parts of the world.

The Neoliberal Blow to the USA

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

Children sent to school with guns, a silly never-ending abortion debate, a congressman posing with his family in front of a Christmas tree, all with guns in hand: profit-hungry gun manufacturers with a criminal National Rifle Association (NRA) as their umbrella of protection take precedence over the welfare of the American people, while at the same time the protection of unborn life is prioritized as the noblest of Christian values. The insanity of all American contradictions is supported and directed by the donors of a targeted policy that in the end ensures the greatest possible financial gain for both sides. At the same time, most Americans are apparently unwilling to recognize that their society is vegetating under subversive neoliberalism.

How should they know? If they already associate the term “socialism” with the most ludicrous notions, then how should they grasp the facts about neoliberalism in their very own country? An essential factor is: There is no realistic approach to tangible socialism in the United States; instead, neoliberalism is pervasive. The specter of socialism is meant to ensure that a perception of real existing neoliberalism cannot arise in the first place.

I know both forms of society all too well; I have personally lived among them and experienced them first hand. The second experience occurred in a place of freedom where I least expected it: the United States of America. For in the past, living far away in a completely different world, we looked longingly to America in the firm belief that this was the freest country on earth.

In my “first life”, I was involuntarily exposed to socialism in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) for 28 years. I didn’t see anyone there who was really enthusiastic about it; we were walled in, separated from relatives in the free part of Germany, and there was no escape without a high possibility of endangering life and limb. In 1989, the barrel overflowed, and the long-pent-up popular anger was discharged in an astonishingly peaceful manner. The realization had already grown in us long before: Socialism is indeed a dictatorship, therefore it has no human face and it does not work also because there is no freedom for individual creativity due to the nationalized means of production. Moreover, people in the masses do not function according to predetermined moral norms. For similar reasons, Christianity as a whole has continuously failed in its own demands, with very few people able to live according to Christian ambitions (read the first paragraph again).

I experienced the excesses of neoliberalism for more than eight years in a company called “Walmart”; a lawless space without any legal protection for the working people, some features strongly reminiscent of the GDR with intimidation methods the order of the day, here and there. Of course, in the end you could “merely” lose your job at Walmart, while in the GDR personal freedom was at stake – a disproportionately higher price. In terms of labor, however, the working people in the GDR did have rights, which I could not see in any way at Walmart.

The deception about socialism is spread in the United States as deliberately and purposefully as is the concealment of inhuman neoliberalism: in the media, in the schools, in the churches, by politics anyway, because the political caste is the essential part of the whole, similar to a referee in sports who has been bribed by one of the participating teams. As shocking as the realization is, but it has been possible in the land of the free and the brave to create a broad stratum of ordinary people whose thinking is directed to the restrictions of microcosm and who willingly allow themselves to be trimmed in almost any direction – except that of reality.

The real disaster of the present is the Republican Party’s nearly unconditional agreement to neoliberalism, thereby dealing a deep blow to the old idea of conservatism on American soil. Large sections of the Democrats are not lagging behind. This is how a country is divided from the top down. Those who speak out against it risk being assigned to socialism, a form of society that is not applicable to practical life anyway.

Thus, a conducive discourse about the country’s problems cannot even take place, especially since every opinion in the U.S. is subject to the principle of deeply divided two-party rule. Even wearing a mouth-nose guard because of Corona some interpret as political orientation.

How conditions are supposed to change for the better under such circumstances is a mystery to me.

DeSantis, the Story Teller

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

“The idea that you can just push God out of every institution and be successful, I’m sorry our founding fathers did not believe that.”

It’s laughable: These words actually came out of the mouth of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis yesterday in Surfside, Fla, in the presence of Florida Legislature and leaders in the local Jewish community. The background is that starting next school year, all public K-12 schools in Florida will be required to hold a moment of silence at the beginning of the day. The phrase “Moment of Silence” clearly replaces the intended wording “prayer” to circumvent the American Constitution. DeSanti’s own, historically untenable commentary unmasked the true intentions, allowing no other conclusion.

This feeble-minded person should receive some history lessons, whether with or without silent remembrance – about the past of his own country. For the “Fathers” during their constitutional convention from May to September 1787 in Philadelphia left the question of religion completely aside to not to prefer one religion over another. For similar reasons, the word “God” does not appear a single time in the American Constitution, on the contrary: The framers of the Constitution in their First Amendment’s Establishment Clause explicitly excluded any endorsement of any specific religion over another as well as the preference of religion over non-religion on the side of the polity, thereby establishing the American Republic de facto as the first secular state in the modern Western world.

DeSantis should quote the founders of his own country instead of putting words in the mouths of the dead. But these lies are purely intentional: American adolescents are to be brought into line before they can even read and write properly. Of course, the better one succeeds in controlling the thinking of others, the better such tactics serve to achieve one’s own goals. Liars like DeSantis have no qualms about hoodwinking the Americans, and they don’t even shy away from children and teenagers. And clearly – “provisions” like the one announced yesterday bring easy votes from the clueless.

Not even the communists in East Germany lied to me to such an extent as Americans lie to their own people.

Adolf Hitler’s Proud Boys: The Schutzstaffel (SS)

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

“Hussars of the leader in black robe, so they overran France in storm …”
“Husaren des Fuehrers im schwarzen Gewand, so haben sie Frankreich im Sturm ueberrant.”
Excerpt from the Nazi propaganda song “Hot over Africa’s soil”

“If you look closer, the enthusiasm even seems understandable.
That does not change anything about its danger” (the author).

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

Any Comparison is flawed, it was often said in the German vernacular. Hence, history, so people subtly think, cannot repeat itself, at least not in the same vein – provided the same people’s political thinking is guided by historic knowledge at all. In most cases, it is certainly not, which is humanly understandable. And so it comes that certain events from the human past remain unnoticed today, despite their educational character to manifest an intriguing scale of similarity to events occurring in our time. These phenomena, indeed, happen repetitiously over and over again, at least in their infant stages, which, however, does not mean their final outcome in any case will always be the same. Nonetheless, for the very same reason we learn from history as a helpful guidance in order to avoid scenarios of horror from the past.

In a more scientific approach, it is also possible to establish a probability calculation by use of historic knowledge, which, of course, can neither serve as the proverbial crystal ball, nor replace it. For that, too many aspects at different times under different circumstances in different situations come into play for each single event that eventually becomes history. It is as if five balls were in the air above our head, and we can only follow the trajectory of two balls at most with our eyes in the split of the second we have available. We now certainly can get at least an idea of what we could do to prevent dangers from arising in the first place: we can place two or three of those balls safely on the ground, thereby removing them from the game before they spin even more out of control and smash the valuable crystal vase. Projected on a society, this means: we should have the ability to distinguish the difference when something has a tendency to slip away in a direction that might, very likely, prove harmful to the human society as a whole – meaning, people do have an opportunity to influence and change the direction of the course, but the process of change must first start in people’s heads with an “inner protest” toward the defects, and before it is too late.

In the author’s view, the United States of America has maneuvered itself into a precarious situation, certainly not for the first time in its history, but this time mainly through 74 million intransigent voters in the recent presidential election, sending all five balls up in the air at once, most of them now dangerously out of control. It is eminently notable for a democratic system that the loser of an election is subsequently endowed with a plentitude of power in a way that he can keep the country literally in suspense. In the present instance, an intersection has already been reached, where the looming danger calls for a widely distributed rethinking within the entire society in order to avoid an even steeper slide into radicalism as we have seen so far. For this time, equations in an incipient stage to a tragedy that happened in the history of my own country, exhibit similarities that are as startling as they are fascinating, in particular for the observing historian.

In this context: Especially if you are a German citizen, which this author is, and if you have a link to such a past through your own relatives, which this author has; if you have listened to the ones who escaped the hell of Stalingrad, the ones who have spent years of imprisonment in Siberia, the ones who went through air raids, burning infernos, concentration camps and the rubble of a lost war, with whom this author has spoken – you then should have more than just a glimpse where insanity can end by noticing the breaking of windows at the Capitol in Washington D.C. on 6 January 2021; because this is how it all started back then in the history of my country: with broken glass.

The Waffen-SS (Weapon-SS) originated from a pathetic rabble
of an orientation-seeking mob founded by Adolf Hitler

To be continued (don’t know where, don’t know when)

Blue Grass

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

A Clueless President Might not be Responsible?

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

In a recent interview with “Politico”, Nikki Haley, former US-ambassador to the United Nations, whose parents were born in India, made the following, intriguing statement about Donald Trump and his belief that the election was stolen, quote: “That would be like you saying that grass is blue and you genuinely believing it. Is it irresponsible that you’re colorblind and you truly believe that?”*

I have often used the same expression, “Blue Grass”, in a very similar context, not only assigning it to Trump, but rather to at least half of the US populace. Instinctively, one could also compare it to the tale of the people jumping out of the window from the tenth floor because they were told to do so. This is exactly the central issue in this country and the reason why things more than likely will not change as they certainly would have to in order to facilitate social progress: People, not seldom trapped in religious delusion in their desperate quest for stability and thus restricted in their mental powers, have great difficulty to recognize facts and truths – because they have lost the ability of independent thinking.

The telling anomaly of human error refers not only to the election, it is much more: It is the reality of the virus and facts about wearing masks; it is the issue about man induced global warming; it is the propagation of insane conspiracy theories; and it also is, as an example of many, the gun mania in this country. The latter is also a very dangerous problem, and those who think they have Second Amendment rights are simply on the wrong track, to put it mildly. All it would take for them to recognize their error is a look into the history books of their own country and listen to their own scholars, and have the capacity of being candid with oneself: It is not what you wish it would be, because facts and evidence prove otherwise.

But, anticipating the ability from obstinate people to separate fact from fable will be nearly impossible. It is no accident that Trump literally could say and do what he wanted during his term, and he still received the votes of more than 74 million Americans in the past presidential election. There are certainly several reasons that might have contributed to an individual decision voting for Trump. But the core factor remains that Trump perverted the facts nearly on a daily basis, which was visible and audible on-camera, and he furthermore violated and imperiled the standards of American democracy even before he was elected. Those who voted for him anyway should question themselves about the stability and sincerity of their own mentality and character.

As an aside: The same lady mentioned at the outset of this little story, Nikki Haley – a potential Republican candidate for the presidency in 2024 -, also said this a few days ago: “Give the guy [Trump] a break.”

Note: *Haley in an interview with Politico, published 12 February 2021.

Game without Referee

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

I once lived in both Germanys [1] and have watched and listened to (West)-German news from my childhood on to this day, now on the Internet: Over there – at least ever since the wall came down – I have never seen news channels contradicting each other with facts and “alternative facts” to a degree it has long become daily routine in the US. One American station offers its audience a sometimes completely different story about one and the same topic than the other, with the clear intention to affect and often manipulate public opinion. Needless to emphasize that these brainwashers do not fit any category of “independent news.” Americans, it seems, are so used to it that many of them have surrendered their ability for differentiation, inconsiderately choosing the source of information closest to their perceptions best match.

The only weapon against such delusion is knowledge: historic knowledge, in this case. If people in their majority would only – no matter whether they prefer CNN or Fox News – think more for themselves, and, most importantly, ignore everything tossed at them carrying bogus dummy-labels like “Socialism” or “Liberal”, clueless about the fact that their own country has nothing but liberal roots. Instead, leave party ideologies aside and take the time to listen to the history of your own country. The examples are innumerable: 26th President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, a Republican, used the power of government to regulate the market and implement measurements in support of the little guy from the street. He openly sided with the Unions and deemed every American worker the right to join them. Did it make him a Socialist? Certainly not. Franklin Delano Roosevelt created social security and public work programs to pull millions of Americans out of the despair of the Great Depression. Read George Washington, even better: the writings of John Adams and his vision and apprehensions about the American society, and make up your own mind if developing and implementing ideas in support of the ones in need has anything to do with things like the “radical left”, “radical socialists”, or anything else associated with it.

This polarized country could be easily united if certain people would make use of common sense instead of letting ideology determine their political alignment. Opinion can differ and find its expression in arguments – that is part of a democracy in a fair contest of ideas to find the best way possible. But if unsubstantiated and plain rhetorical remarks, not seldom paired with a lack of knowledge, are the result of a different intuition about which course the society should take, then the result can only be an irreconcilable, often even hateful nation. Since the emergence of a party system in the infant USA, stemming from the days of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, this country has endlessly suffered from ideological division – and back then, newspapers were occupying the places of CNN and Fox News to play both ends against the middle. It was already bad at the very beginning of this nation.

The maltreated United States of modern days runs under a free, uncontrolled, exploitative market economy with millions of its citizens subsequently being left behind, virtually without any option to protect themselves at their work place [2], not to mention the ability to obtain adequate health care insurance. The correction of both issues should constitute a basic right, not a privilege. Why does a system of more equal justice works relatively well in other western countries? Why can’t a more fair distribution of wealth be arranged in the United States?

Every football- and soccer game comes with a referee, who is in charge of the unbiased observance of the rules, ensuring a fair outcome of the contest. Without the referee, there would be chaos, and club law would be the order of the day. In a democratic society it is the task of the parliamentary bodies and the government to establish protective rules (laws) for its citizenry; rules that also reach into the work environment, and thereby serve as a referee. This would move the United States’ economy from a wild-west system to a civilized Social Market Economy, whereby “Social” should not to be confused with “Socialism.” [3]

But, the economic and social system in the United States thus far never knew such a full-time referee. Regulation seems to run counter with the American notion of unlimited freedom. And too many Americans will always fall into the trap of dividing populism – a sinister trump card played at the service of the ruthless gentry, taking shameless advantage of the many.

Notes:

[1] After World War II and mounting divergences among the three western powers and the Soviet Union, a free, democratic Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) under the protection of the United States was founded in September 1949 in the west. Sixteen days later, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was established in the eastern zone, controlled by the Soviets. The GDR disappeared from the world map after a peaceful revolution in 1989/90, tolerated by a transforming Soviet Union under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev. 

[2] The author has worked eight years for America’s largest retailer, Walmart.

[3] For a more optimistic outlook, it is my prediction that the United States of America will slowly move toward that direction. Otherwise, the country as a unity would have no chance for survival. With more demographic changes in the future inevitable, I am sure the younger generation will confront the challenges of the 21st century with more progressive determination and a sound sense of reality than most self-declared, conservative farts living in certain hillbilly-regions of the US. Movements like “Fridays for Future” certainly give rise to that hope.  

A Herculean Task

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

This was a perfect inauguration, despite the pandemic and the fragile status of the country. And Joe Biden, as expected, offers a conciliatory, modest tone. The question is: How many Americans that have not voted for him, can he reach with his unifying message?

With the populistic, nationalistic spook coming from the White House in the past four years now being over, there were really and still are Americans convinced that the election was rigged; that the new president would never be inaugurated, and, if he did, would instantly evoke marshal law and take away social security from the people. Even the corona pandemic would miraculously come to an end on 20 January, 2021, finally exposed as a hoax. This is the pathological extremism affecting the heads of conspiration ideologists and circulating worldwide; a dark, ancient theory merely revived and radicalized by Donald Trump. 

How could it happen that so many people have fallen for something like this? How is that much stupidity on one pile possible? That just can’t be true, one might assume. And, this appalling movement is not going to disappear from now on anytime soon.

In addition to this fairly bleak outlook, it is hard to imagine that Trump will now sink into obscurity, but brooding on revenge instead. In America, everything is possible. He might emerge as the populistic whip on his own TV-channel. Even more dangerous: He did already announce his intention to found a new political organization; the Patriot’s Party. If successful, the destruction of the GOP is indeed conceivable, for most of Trump’s proponents will go with him. Only a slight minority, if at all, of his 74 million voters will finally come to their senses, able to return to the true definition of American patriotism.

The history books tell us that the United States has always been a country divided by populism, coming more than just once close to civil war-like conditions. And sometimes, history even repeats itself: If Joe Biden, like once Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the outset of his first term and in the midst of the Great Depression, succeeds in adopting measures the people will profit from, he might be able to reach into the Republican faction, which will be necessary to pacify the country. A sheer Herculean task among all the other huge problems the new president faces. He does not have much time to produce success.

Are They Done Praying?

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

Are Trump supporters and voters done praying for a peaceful country?

It was Holy church people who like no other group have allowed and enabled with their vote a clown and criminal to occupy the highest office and who are, of course, thus morally complicit in the hideous insurrection that happened at the Capitol.

By supporting Trump, they have also indirectly fueled the reemergence of a white supremacy, right-wing extremism, which was made socially acceptable through the widely applauded hate speeches (“Send them back”, “Proud Boys: Stand back and stand by”) from the outgoing president. This phenomenon will not disperse overnight considering that a civilized administration is going to take the White House back in a few days. On the contrary: It must be seriously feared that the United States will be confronted with existential domestic terror threats in the foreseeable future.

Let it be understood: Any potential and imminent danger the country faces neither originates from a considerable, extreme political left nor from “radical socialists,” as preferably propagated by advocates of the Republican party. The events of 6 January 2021, at the Capitol in Washington, DC, speak for themselves. The American Republic miraculously escaped a carnage by a right-wing mob showing aspects of a military approach. It was the Republican party and their Trump-mania that have called the ghosts.

In view of the shocking violence and what the country still might be in for – can anyone expect some sort of introspection from those lost characters who have cluelessly trusted an even more clueless charlatan named Donald Trump?

written 2000 years ago to make illiterate people submissive and willing followers of the authority, the Bible to this day, quote: “instructs us to pray for our leaders” (Franklin Graham[1]). If humans living in the 21st century are naïve enough to fall for such elusive nonsense no matter what, then they might as well nail the Bible to their shin.[2]

Independent from that – the clerical instruction manual obviously must have reduced itself a long time ago to a matter of random interpretation. How else could all the evil in the world of Christianity, now and then, possibly happen? I am sure, this Holy Booklet also contains a frivolous paragraph allowing, if not urging, pious people to possess guns and support entire wars – but we are against any abortions. To compare such aberration with a mix of thought disorder and shameless hypocrisy might pass as a generous understatement in the minds of those still able to develop a rational, independent chain of thought.

A person with a minimum level of knowledge and decency did not vote for Donald Trump. But the following is the most devastating part of the American tragedy: Allegedly, 40 percent of those who did vote for the deranged crook think the assault on 6 January was either justified or a logical consequence of “stolen elections.”

That comes pretty close to my estimate: At least half of the American citizenry is unfit for the realities of the 21st century, not even aware of the challenges their country is facing – from a wretched social system to the facts of man-induced climate change, which many are in denial about.

How will you govern your country with people further away from reality than the backside of the moon, Mr. President Biden?

Notes:
[1] Graham, a known American Protestant, evangelist, supporter of the Iraqi war in 2003, and also an instigator of the deepest dye since the days of Joseph Goebbels, a short while ago compared ten Republican lawmakers supporting to impeach Donald Trump with “Judas” – the same lawmakers who are trying to respect American law and the constitution to avert further damage from the United States.

[2] When I attended the millions of people in the fall of 1989 in East Germany kicking the leading members of the socialist political system to the curb, there was not a single person getting the idea of “praying for our leaders.” I considered those leaders back then the most criminal and dumb clique I have ever lived under until I witnessed the emergence of Donald Trump and his hate speeches in the so-called “freest country of the world.”

Doomed To Fail

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

The GOP is preparing their next booby trap

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

As it was expected, Vice President Pence does not fulfill the lawful duty that his office demands to act for the good of his people. For spurious reasons he will not invoke the 25th amendment to remove a dangerously unhinged, criminal president from the White House instantly – the most un-American president the history of this country has ever seen.

The true reason for his complicit conduct is obvious. 75 million Trump-voters – most of whom will recur, although they might currently feel like stateless Muppets after losing their American La-La-Land – are a too powerful base of the Republican electorate to be alienated for the foreseeable future. But, in this way, the next Republican calamity has been commenced already: Instead for the GOP to at least demonstrate strength toward American law and justice, possibly with an emerging new and true conservative leader (the potential is available), the basis for another deception of the American public is already looming underneath the surface. This once more foreseeable design of a moribund Republican strategy forces two questions: How much more has to happen before a sufficiently educated and civilized part of the American society takes decisive, peaceful action for progressive changes stringently required in this country? And how is it, time and again, that nearly everything in the United States is measured by the shortsighted prospects for swift success and profit?

Before the future can even begin, the presence is daunting: Security authorities are apprehensive of more violence in the wake of the political change, potentially in all 50 States. The United States of America is a sick country because at least half of its populace is mentally unstable, to put it in rather friendly words. How else can the appearance of somebody like Donald Trump as president be explained?

A collective mass stultification in their churches, an adolescence obviously left forsaken and uneducated about the liberal foundation of their country, millions of presumably literate people not knowing the definition of expressions like “left wing radicals” or “socialism”, instead seriously referring to a manipulated second amendment completely taken out of historic context and written in candlelight 232 years ago – these are perfect conditions to delude a populace and, over time, result in millions of people becoming a mental pitfall for any future administration to deal with. And all of this in a society of blatant racial unrest, social injustice and unfair distribution of wealth not seen in any other western country to this extent.

Who will protect the country from further waves of domestic violence? A police recruited with tens of thousands of Trump supporters? Or maybe even a “proud military”, infiltrated with ex-convicts and drug addicts?

Update: Just hours after I had published this article, several senior US military leaders “reminded US military service members of their obligation to support and defend the Constitution and reject extremism” in a statement that “underscored the unprecedented challenges facing the country in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection attempt by President Donald Trump’s supporters.” Source: CNN
The author: Just like the statement of ten former secretaries of defense reminding the military of “basic democratic principles” only days before the mob invaded the Capitol, the latest exhortation proves that there is cause for concern that the US-military as a whole obviously cannot be entirely regarded as a reliable factor of American democracy – otherwise such statement would hardly be necessary.

Trump’s Legacy

gdrthinktankLeave a comment

The true longer-term problem will not be a mob of lunatics as seen in Washington two days ago, but the alarming number of modest conservatives according credibility to Trump’s general propaganda, rhetoric, and lies about the virus and a stolen election victory. His legacy is to have successfully abolished the sense for truth in the minds of too many Americans, thereby fueling conspiration theories and at the same time harming any effort to overcome the ever growing chasm the American society is confronted with. This is a very dangerous constellation for the United States of America.