I don’t think the voters as a whole ever really understood what problems were being presented to them, but Gary Huck is right that we are in a time of militant, hostile ignorance such as we have seen since the brief but evil rise of the the incompetents.

It’s hard to know what to do about it, not just because they’re taking over the school boards and helping to raise more generations of ignorant people, but because it’s a long-term goal that can be achieved. The question is how to achieve it before it comes to fruition.

The original Know Nothing Party only lasted 16 years, but that was long enough considering that its hateful, anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant rants garnered a lot of votes in that short time and that it ended in a civil war that claimed three-quarters of a million American lives.

It is less comforting to quote Jonathan Swift’s advice: “It is useless to try to persuade a man by argument from that which he has never reasoned to.” Yet we know that he was not writing as a maliciously clever satirist and wise guy, but as Dean Swift, an Anglican clergyman giving advice to young priests.

It is also unhelpful to point out that Elizabeth Cady Stanton advocated subjecting voters to some kind of intelligence test because (A) such tests were later abused to suppress black voters and (B) she herself had made comments that led to her being gently marginalized by the women’s movement.

No, if it is useless to argue with fools and counterproductive to try to silence them, then the best thing to do is to prove that they are a noisy minority. And at this point we end up once again with a quote from Edmund Burke, which is idealistic optimism unless you prove its veracity at the ballot box:

Just because half a dozen locusts under a fern ring the field with their intrusive clatter, while thousands of cattle rest, chew their cud and remain silent in the shade of the British oak, please do not think that the noisemakers are the only inhabitants of the field.

Frankly, it is not very edifying to think of the majority as a herd of silent, peacefully chewing cud. And to quote Huck’s cartoon, it is certainly not what Jefferson envisioned, and probably not what Jesus had in mind either.

Darwin, perhaps, but I suppose he would also hope that humans would improve over time rather than degenerate, although scientists aren’t supposed to hope for things, they’re just supposed to study them.

Here is our first

Comparison of the day

Rick McKee — Counterpoint

Michael Ramirez — Creator

The crucial factor here is that neither McKee nor Ramirez can be considered diehard liberals, which makes their mockery of Trump’s loss of touch with reality all the more significant.

McKee offers an even longer list of insane statements, but the helicopter story itself is a sufficient indictment not only of Trump’s impeachment, but also of his honesty.

An honest person would have admitted that he had misremembered the event; a wise person would have let the matter rest and hoped that it would go away on its own.

What do you think of someone who, confronted by several witnesses of the falsity of his anecdote, insists on its truth, produces records that somehow never appear, and threatens to sue a major newspaper because it questions his version of the facts?

But never makes a credible attempt to prove that he neither made a mistake nor intentionally lied?

If he really believes what he says, then we are in OJ Simpson And Jeff MacDonald Area.

Both have fans who protest their innocence, who say they were wrongly accused, and who, given the chance, would vote for them.

Steve Brodner points out that not only Donald Trump declares the Medal of Honor less important as a Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded to a major donor to his campaignbut explained his reasons:

Actually, it’s much better because everyone who receives the Congressional Medal is a soldier. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit by bullets so many times, or they’re dead.

Brodner’s suggestion that Trump is considering erecting a monument to Adelson is satire, a natural but ridiculous consequence of the irrational and ridiculous insult to veterans, especially with regard to Trump’s repeated insults toward dead and disabled veterans.

However, Trump and Vance opponents should be careful with satire, as there are so many perfectly legitimate ways to highlight Republicans’ insults to women, minorities and democracy itself.

As noted yesterday, if you spread couch jokes based on a deliberate lie, you cannot object to spreading deliberate lies about your own preferred candidates.

In addition, one can easily be tempted to spread false accusations oneself without having to invent them, as one can see in

Comparison of the day #2

Morten Morland

Lalo Alcaraz — AMS

Given the outright and deliberate lies being spread about Harris crowds — including fake footage of empty runways that has been refuted by amateur and news footage from the scene — it’s perhaps natural for progressives to believe a scene of Trump waving to a nonexistent crowd.

But Snopes shows the original footage of this momentwhere you can see a large crowd of cheering supporters at the end of the block, barricades and security guards keeping them away from the front of Trump Towers. Trump waved to these people.

Oops.

It reminds me of a children’s book with stories about saints in the foreword, to which the author stated:

Most of the things I have written actually happened to the saints, but some of them are just stories that people tell about them, and these are called legends. All legends could have happened if God had wanted them to, and that is how I think most of them started.

I want that engraved on my tombstone. Most of what I wrote could have happened if God had wanted it that way.

And speaking of self-made legends: Fiona Katauskas explains that crowds and other miracles would have been possible if Trump had wanted them.

And that’s how I think most of them started.

When all this is over – assuming democracy wins – school years in our entire country will be twice as long as in all other countries. (20.11.55)