Life in the Age of Corona
A Daily Diary
Wednesday, May 12th, 2021
The Big Lie
Of course I woke up to another picture perfect day, albeit with temperatures around 18C, but lovely in the sun, where I spent a half hour lizzarding after my noon swim.
It is simply unfair what the weather spirits are doing.
My garden is littered with husks of what I guess must be the Cicadas. They are definitely on their way out of the ground! Apparently they like to lay their eggs for the generation emerging in seventeen years into tiny trees, so we have protected our three tiny trees, as have the neighbors.
The big news today is the Republican party’s ousting of Liz Cheney. Now I can not say I am a big fan of the former vice president or his daughter for that matter, but she is one of the few Republicans who appears to have a shred of decency left in her body.
Post the January 6th insurrection she voted to impeach the orange Cheeto who claimed to be president. She was one of the few Republicans to not question the election as fair and free of fraud. She has consistently been calling for the party to distance itself from the former guy andwhat is called "Big Lie" in the United States.
A lie so big, so preposterous, that people cannot possibly believe someone would tell such untruth. The lie put out by #45 and his disciples that the election was not lost but stolen. Some 60-70million Americans believe a president would not lie to them and hence actually believe the democrats “stole” the election and that voter fraud occured at a massive scale, as in 8 million votes. Never mind that the steal only pertained to the presidents and all votes down the ballot like congressional or senate seats or local state legislature were not stolen. I mean seriously, if anyone would rig elections, they surely would not stop at the presidential election, but make sure to take a big majority at all levels.
Never mind the logic. There are facts:
Over 60 court cases contesting the validity of the election have been declared invalid by Republican nominated judges.
The Attorney General appointed by #45 is on record stating there is no, zero, zilch, nada, evidence of election fraud.
Likewise, the head of cybersecurity at the department of homeland security, another appointee by #45, state there was no evidence of voter fraud or election interference.
All of this has not stopped the GOP from falling into lock step with the former guy’s Big Lie that the election was stolen by voter fraud. The only evidence out there for any voter fraud, by the way, is by Republicans; proven and convicted. Not enough to be meaningful by any stretch of imagination though, just a couple of hundred votes at the most.
Now this party, claiming to be the party of law and order and free speech, is prosecuting everyone calling out the Big Lie for what it is.
In the beginning Republican governed States began by enacting voter suppression legislation to supposedly curb voter fraud. Funny, how it makes it so much harder for people of color, young people and people in Democratic districts to vote, by simply reducing the number of places one can cast ones vote and giving governors the power to override the popular vote by allowing them to choose the electoral college representatives along their own party line rather than the will of the people. Voters in certain districts will now have to wait for many hours to cast their ballots, they may not bringchairs, they may not be given water or food while they wait. What a great understanding of democracy! One person, one vote was the slogan in apartheid South Africa, well none of tha in the supposedly greatest democracy in the world, where one person one vote is illusional at best given the consitution as it stands. The popular vote is meaningless in this country given it is the electoral college who elects the President and that electoral college goes by who won which ever State.
So how des this connect to Liz Cheney?
Well she has been calling out the Big Lie. Stating the elections were fair and Biden is the rightfully elected President of the United States of America. As a result, the GOP has now asked for a vote of confidence in the GOP speaker of the house and the majority of house representatives have voted her out of office for her honesty.
The Republican party does not conduct politics through policy anymore, but rather employs ANY means it can, to grab power in States and at the national level, gerrymeandering included.
Bidens policies are hugely popular, even with Republican voters, and the GOP is committed to stop any of them from being enacted rather than shaping policy to become a compromise of their values and Dem values. The Republicans are beginning to set the scene for calling any Democratic win, in 2022 mid-terms or the 2024 Presidentialelection, fraudulent.
My take away: there is nothing even remotely democratic about this country. It is well on its way to become an authoritarian cleptocracy with a bunch of elitist and corporations ensuring their well-being over that of the people. The discussions around stopping unemployment benefits is just more proof, with 23 GoP controlled States stopping payments so people take any job just to survive. And by any job I refer to jobs in the tipped services industry. No benefits, meaning no paid time off, no sick leave, no medical insurance and paying US$ 2.30 an hour.
In my mind the USA is a power in decline. Today was a sad day for American democracy.
Numbers are slightly up compared to yesterday with 35k new infections reported over the past twenty-four hours to bring the US total to 33.58 million.
There are increasing discussions in the public domain about the equitable distribution of vaccines as the worldis beginning to realize we are only safe if all have access to shots. There are four things we can do: (i) stop export controls, (ii) distribute excess orders of wealthier Nations equitably, (iii) provide more funding to COVAX, and (iv) support the transfer of technologies as well as skills.
It seems the UK is taking the lead in sharing vaccines. It is planning to donate 20% of the vaccines it has procured to poorer countries. The UK has orders for 517million doses but only needs around 160m to vaccinate all adults and give them booster jabs in the autumn, as planned.
Numbers for the USA are similar, so what is stopping you people from sharing and doing the right thing?
