I really can’t see why my Democratic Party has gone so far to the left to the deep end in both actions and thinking! We should be in an uproar over the crooked way the POTUS election was held, and anyone in [their] right thinking should know that those absentee ballots were used illegally! I [am] actually going to change parties now as our actions don’t show that we want fair and equal treatment to all citizens. This showed me we want to [overrule] the majority!
Anonymous
Dear Clearly Insane Person,
I kid, I kid. I have no idea if you’re insane, but that’s a very easy joke for me to make right now. I get comments like this a fair bit but tend to ignore them, but I think I’ll take this opportunity to talk to you like a friend. I do know people who share your perspective, but I can’t call them friends because, personally, I find this perspective is usually attached to a worldview that clashes hard with my own. It’s easier for me to joke and call them crazy than to sit quietly and parse out the reasons they have chosen to believe in Trumpism more strongly than they desire to maintain the integrity of the American voting system.
There is a cognitive dissonance at work that I find puzzling when I look at the plain-as-day evidence that no voter fraud actually took place on a level that would have swung the 2020 election. It was a close race, but the winner is clear. Trump and his allies filed 86 challenges to the election, and not a single one of them succeeded. There are not two sides to this story, and this isn’t a matter of debate. The fact is that Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, and there is no amount of fist-shaking or Capitol-storming that can change that. Eighty-six failed lawsuits demonstrate that clearly. Accepting and respecting the election results would be supportive of the majority rule, actually, because that’s what the numbers show. The healthiest way to cope with that information is to accept it.
I am not going to discuss this matter with you as if it’s a matter of perspective, because it’s not. It’s math, and sometimes you just have to eat crow. Things aren’t always going to go your way, and you need to find healthy ways to manage disappointment and embarrassment. Hey, friend, we all screw up! We all believe dumb things every now and then. Have I ever mentioned that I used to believe that Princess Diana was actually murdered in a blood sacrifice to the moon goddess Diana, all orchestrated by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, both of whom I also believed were at least part Annunaki reptilian alien? This conspiracy was attractive to me because I patently dislike and distrust the concept of monarchy and inherited authority. I tried to tell myself that Diana was a regular girl from England who was challenging that system and was murdered as a result, but she was actually Prince Charles’ distant cousin and grew up on a royal estate. I made her into something she was not because it fit with my worldview and the things that I personally wanted to see play out on the world stage. In my heart, I know that I actually never truly believed something so indisputably bonkers, but I just hated the ruling class so much that I decided it was true.
Trump lost, and Biden is currently in the White House. Georgia flipped blue, and now the Senate has a Democratic majority. It’s simply what happened, and it’s the world we all have to live in now. This is not a debate, and I hope that you see the benefit of accepting the things you cannot change.
If you’re upset over Trump’s second impeachment, then I don’t know what to say to you. It would be grossly irresponsible and damaging to America’s international reputation if we did not examine the role Trump’s rhetoric played in inciting the violence on Jan. 6. All legal channels are being properly followed, and laws aren’t inappropriate or unjust simply because you don’t like them.
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