Amid the long-awaited announcement from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week that the House of Representatives was launching a formal impeachment inquiry, I started reading Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, “Talking to Strangers”. In his book he begins with the assertion that we as human beings tend to believe that people we meet are telling us the truth despite multiple red flags and evidence to the contrary. His examples of how far we go to give people the benefit of the doubt, helps me understand why so many people continue to listen to and even support a proven liar like Donald Trump.
In my opinion Donald Trump is the worst kind of leader. He has learned to exploit this human vulnerability to immediately believe lies told to them. And what’s worse is that he does this for his own gain. He spews lies, half truths, and innuendos about the media, his political opponents, and factual statistics in service to whatever his personal agenda happens to be for the moment. He is dangerous because he is also corrupt and even criminal and quickly lies to deny his misdeeds or tries to convince us that each misdeed wasn’t really wrong. From the beginning, he lied about his tax returns. Business people and women publicly exposed his dirty business dealings and sexual assaults and he simply plays the victim of “fake news” and “false accusers”. How many times did he say things like, “I never met that woman”? Then pictures surface and he claims, “fake news” even louder. Those who expose him are viciously attacked with lies and insults. His willingness to weaponize false accusations has silenced his opponents in his own party.
Sadly, there is a segment of our population that only listens to Trump and Fox News. When an entire media outlet supports a liar by ignoring the lies, minimizing their impact, or outright spinning them to sound like truth, the listeners become unwitting accomplices in the undermining of our common good. According to Gladwell, on balance it is good that trusting each other is our default setting. However, this default setting makes life easy for people with corrupt intent like our Bernie Madoff and his ponzi scheme to do real harm for a long time. Trump is like Madoff, trying to swindle the American people for his ego and his financial profit. And he is willing, as we learned this past week, to invite a foreign government to take down his political opponent Joe Biden. This is in violation of his oath of office and an action for which he deserves to be impeached and removed from office. And there are so many other impeachable offenses.
So, I’m not saying silent as a citizen. It is only when the American people rise up and demand justice that justice will be served. I contacted Nancy Pelosi three times this week pressing for action. I contacted Mitch McConnell and will continue to do so as he and the republicans are the ones standing between American justice and this president. I contacted Senator Devin Nunes in real time to express my disgust during the hearing of the inspector general after Nunes acted again as a ridiculous human shield for this lawless administration.
With the exception of Fox News, investigative reporters are doing their constitutionally sanctioned job by exposing what our government officials are doing on our behalf. It is time for the Congress (both the House and especially the Senate) to be pushed to do theirs. Only when the American people press them will they do what is right and what is needed to clean house. And I’m talking about the White House. We do have a role to play and that is to make some noise to press for impeachment.