Arguing with idiots

Chris Quinn, editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, wrote this now famous editorial a couple of weeks ago. It is a sad day when the editor of a big city newspaper is forced to go on the record defending the concept of reporting the truth. I'll just give an excerpt, in case you haven't read it.

The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information.

The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.

This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw, but our eyes don’t deceive. (If leaders began a yearslong campaign today to convince us that the Baltimore bridge did not collapse Tuesday morning, would you ever believe them?) Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it.

The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it.

 

I'll actually go a lot farther. Yes, the blatant lies about the 2020 election, the attempted coup -- to seize the presidency by violence -- that was bad. And a lot of what went with it was bad, trying to subvert state governments, brutally defaming innocent people, lying relentlessly about the real president and members of his party. But that's just the beginning.

 

If I were given the assignment of designing the most vile, repulsive human being imaginable, I would come up with Donald J. Trump. He is as profoundly evil as any human can be, with no redeeming qualities whatever. He is a malignant narcissist, a sadistic psychopath, and an ignorant idiot. Every word that comes out of his mouth is a lie. He is a habitual sexual predator. He has not the least caring or concern for any human or any living creature but himself, with an insatiable need to fill the black hole at the center of his soul with adoration. Somehow, in one of life's greatest mysteries, he manages to find people to give it to him. He is a career criminal without a single worthy accomplishment in his entire life. He is just a con artist, and a thief. He is also physically repulsive, by the way, which makes the cult all the less explicable.

You will find people who say, "Well, I don't think much of Trump personally, but I like his policies." Okay, here are his policies. This is what you like. 1) Rich people shouldn't pay taxes. 2) Supreme court justices should be far right extremists, mostly so we can outlaw abortion, and maybe stuff gay people back in the closet. 3) We should kiss Vladimir Putin's ass and let him conquer whatever countries he wants to. 4) Donald J. Trump should be exempt from responsibility for all of his crimes. 5) It's okay for politicians to spout racism, mock people with disabilities, and lie with impunity. As for immigration, that's all just a lot of bullshit. He employs undocumented immigrants in his own businesses, for starters. And he ordered the Republicans in congress not to pass more resources for border security because he wants to use it for a campaign issue. Not that it's valid in the first place for reasons I won't get into here but might a bit later.

So what the hell is going on here? I'm far from alone in finding this mysterious, actually. People have various ideas, of varying degrees of plausibility, but nothing really satisfactory. And yeah, I know the comments I'm going to get - I'm demeaning half the country, why can't I respect other people's opinions. Well, first of all, it isn't half the country, it's more like 30% and second, there are some opinions I cannot respect. And we aren't actually talking about opinions here, we're talking about the truth, which is not the same thing.