“No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. The mistake that is made always runs the other way. Because the plain people are able to speak and understand, and even, in many cases, to read and write, it is assumed that they have ideas in their heads, and an appetite for more. This assumption is a folly.”
This is the long version of the famous quote that has been attributed to P.T. Barnum, and it was written by H.L. Mencken in the Baltimore Sun in 1926.
And this was in the days before radio and television, let alone the 500 channels and the Internet that present some of the most ridiculous lies today.
We’ve got too many people listening to the loudest voice, no matter how ridiculous it is.
This week, people are saying that sometime this summer, Donald Trump will be “reinstated” as president and President Biden will be out in the street. Of course, there is no legal or constitutional provision for undoing an election that has already been certified.
We hear atrocious numbers saying 53 percent of Republicans think the election was stolen from Trump. Of course that only works out to about 14 percent of Americans, but even if that’s all it is, it’s more than 40 million people.
It isn’t just politics, either. Something like 12 percent of Americans believe Elvis Presley is still alive.
That was ridiculous enough when he died in 1977 at age 42. But nearly 44 years later, it’s nearly impossible to imagine someone who lived as hard as he did surviving to age 86. European singer Charles Aznavour made it to 94 and was still singing very late in life, but he’s the exception that proves the rule.
So whether Elvis bought the farm in 1977 … or 1990 … or 2003, he is almost certainly gone now. Although that won’t matter to the true believers. The look at him as if he were a Biblical figure who could live forever.
Speaking of Biblical figures, there’s Noah and his wife.
Joan.
Even though there is no mention anywhere in the Bible of the name Joan. Even though it is described as a female derivation of John that came along in medieval times.
I could be wrong about this, but I have a feeling this came from the movie “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” in which a teacher asked Ted who Joan of Arc was and he responded, “Noah’s wife?”
Wherever it originated, it’s scary that so many people seem to have no knowledge of historical context. They don’t realize Noah and Joan lived about 3,000 years apart, or that the vessel Noah built and Joan’s home town aren’t even spelled the same way.
Look at the ridiculous surveys of high school seniors and college sophomores who can’t identify the century in which the Civil War was fought or who believe our enemy in WWII was Russia.
So of course there are millions of people who believe Democrats stole the election from Donald Trump. If someone tells a lie enough times and with enough confidence, it becomes the truth.
Just ask Joe Goebbels or Vlad Lenin.
It is absolutely amazing that a man who told tens of thousands of lies while in the White House can convince millions of people to believe the biggest lie of all, that he not only won the 2020 election but did so by a landslide.
It seems to me that most people don’t want to think of themselves as outsiders, or failures, or losers. If they lost, it must be that someone cheated them. And what could possibly be more satisfying than a Trump Restoration.
I don’t remember where this expression came from, but it seems perfectly appropriate in describing Trump and those who follow him.
“It is not enough that I win. My opponent must lose as well.”
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn that many of the Trumpanzees don’t care about policy at all. They just want to see their hero back on top, hammering away at all the people they hate.
So whether he actually does anything for them doesn’t matter, as long as he hates they people they hate.
Elvis may have never lived one day past the time he officially died, and Joan may have never known of Noah or his amazing vehicle. But as long as Trump keeps playing to his followers, there’s only one expression that matters to them.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”