RUTHFULLY YOURS

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In recent months the phrase “conspiracy theory” seems to have taken on a whole new meaning. At one time the phrase was reserved for only the craziest of crazy far-out and unprovable theories. For example, there was Lyndon LaRouche’s theory that Queen Elizabeth was secretly running the international drug trade. Or how about the theory that Freemasons conspired to bring about the sinking of the Titanic? Now those were truly worthy of the label of “conspiracy theories”!

Obviously, those kind of crazy theories could only be promoted by people who were severely mentally deficient. And that implication is likely how we have come to the new usage of the phrase “conspiracy theory.” In the new usage, the phrase is simply a label you apply to the someone’s position when you want to convey that you think that person advocating that position is mentally deficient. The great thing about tossing out the “conspiracy theory” phrase is that it relieves you of having to go to the trouble of refuting the position itself.

And thus we now have voices in the media using the phrase “conspiracy theory” to refer to President Trump’s assertions that people in the permanent bureaucracy are working to undermine his administration and remove him from office. From the Daily Beast, October 8, headline “The Deep State Conspiracy Is About to Go Into Overdrive”:

Trump is now reactivating and trafficking a theory that started after his election, but that was left to fringe elements on the right and largely ignored. This is the belief that Trump’s opponents, most coming from the camp of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama supporters, and their holdovers still sitting in major government positions in various agencies, are using their positions to slowly undertake a coup d’état, meant to remove from power the legally elected president and destroy his administration.

Or consider this piece from the Independent on September 30, with the headline “The Deep State conspiracy theory is making us all play defense”. Excerpt:

The “Deep State” is a supposed cabal of powerful, unelected bureaucrats secretly pursuing their own agenda, as opposed to that of the president and his administration. In the case of Trump, it’s a bunch of career operatives in the State Department and the intelligence community, hell-bent on making sure Trump’s agenda gets foiled at every turn.

https://spectator.us/age-invective/

A healthy democracy requires free speech and free assembly, tolerance for different views, and peaceful transfers of power among contending parties. It requires honest elections, where losers do more than concede. They acknowledge the legitimacy of the outcome, as Al Gore did in a highly-contested 2000 president contest. These fundamental pillars of liberal self-government are now being challenged across Europe and the United States. It is crucial to recognize the challenge, call out the worst violations, and push back.

Vitriolic, white-hot rhetoric now paints political opponents not as loyal opponents but as traitors, determined to overthrow not only specific leaders but the democratic system itself. It paints elections and their winners as illegitimate. Democrat Stacey Abrams, who lost the 2018 governor’s race in Georgia, does so explicitly and has been supported, not rebuked, by her party’s national leaders. Worse, national Democrats have implicitly rejected Donald Trump’s legitimacy as the duly-elected president. They began the day after the election, and they haven’t let up. The national media are their active allies. Democracy dies in such derangement.

President Trump’s own rhetoric is equally damaging. For years, he implied Barack Obama was not a legitimate president because he was allegedly born in Kenya. No evidence to the contrary was enough for him. These false claims fed our country’s worst instincts, and Trump only abandoned them when he ran for office himself.

Since Trump’s victory in 2016, he has frequently claimed – with no evidence at all – that he actually won the popular vote. He was deprived of that honest result, he says, only because millions of illegal ballots were cast. Not thousands. Millions. At recent political rallies, he compounded the damage by charging his political opponents ‘hate’ the United States (his words). They don’t.

The proliferation of these accusations is a troubling sign of political decay. It’s time to recognize the cumulative damage this noxious rhetoric is doing to our country. It’s time to shout ‘no’ and make that shout heard over the vitriol.

The latest invective came from Hillary Clinton, who called two other American politicians ‘Russian assets’. Without supporting evidence – she presented none – it’s an execrable charge. It echoes her constant refrain that she lost to Trump only because the Kremlin opposed her. Now, in excuse number 6,327, she damns the Green party candidate, Jill Stein, for siphoning away her votes. Last week, Hillary said flatly that Stein was a Russian asset and added that the Kremlin was now ‘grooming’ a Democrat to run as a third-party spoiler in 2020. Hillary didn’t mention any name, but it was obvious she meant Tulsi Gabbard.

Gabbard is an elected member of the US House from Hawaii, running (near the bottom of the field) for president. She has served honorably in the US military and is still in the National Guard. Now, Clinton is effectively charging her with treason. Did Hillary present any evidence? Nope. Did she present any evidence against Stein? Nope. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, ‘Facts fly out the door when accusations come innuendo.’