The Big Truth - Trump Definitively Lost the Election

I’m publishing this series of articles to share and discuss my ruminations on coping with a troubled and messy world. Please “follow” me to never miss an article.

But His Ardent Supporters Don’t Buy It

One of the worst features of today’s world is how quickly fallacious ideas take hold and spread like wildfire. As a result, it’s not just enormously difficult, but nearly impossible to dispel them. Thus, the belief that the last election was stolen is an unshakeable Truth for Trump and his ardent supporters. As I mentioned in a previous blog, my wife and I regularly walk by a vehicle in our neighborhood with the bumper sticker, “Trump is Still My President.”

To point out that the last election was one of the most secure on record with almost no evidence of voter fraud only reinforces the belief by Trump’s supporters that “Democrats are not to be trusted.” “They will do anything to win elections.” The supreme irony of course that it’s Red States that have concocted some of the most draconian laws to restrict voting and thus win elections, not Blue States.

For the overwhelming majority who voted for Trump, it’s an incontrovertible fact that the last election was rigged, thereby depriving him of the Presidency. It means of course that a vast conspiracy was afoot. Poll Monitors and Election Officials had to be in cahoots and thereby agree to tamper deliberately with ballots. If this were even remotely the case, then local citizen groups and the media surely would have picked it up. The fact that they didn’t participate in ensuring Trump’s victory is thereby further proof that the election was rigged.

In short, all the safeguards that ensure safe and honest elections only reinforce the conviction among those who believe that the election was stolen that they were misused. To say that it’s completely Orwellian is an understatement, “Truth Is Falsity.”

As I’ve written so often, I don’t expect to change the minds of those who buy into The Big Lie that Trump won the last election. I write as much to keep my own mind as to change others.

I’m reminded of the story of an Old Man who was forever shouting on a street corner when a Young Boy walked by and said, “You’ve been shouting here forever and you haven’t changed anyone’s mind.” To which the Old Man replied, “At first I was shouting to change them. Now I’m shouting so they won’t change me!”

Is that what we’ve become? Two Parties who are so divided that all they can do is shout at and accuse one another of literally treasonous crimes.

Ian I. Mitroff is credited as being one of the principal founders of the modern field of Crisis Management. He has a BS, MS, and a PhD in Engineering and the Philosophy of Social Systems Science from UC Berkeley. He Is Professor Emeritus from the Marshall School of Business and the Annenberg School of Communication at USC. Currently, he is a Senior Research Affiliate in the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, UC Berkeley. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Management. He has published 41 books. His latest is: The Socially Responsible Organization: Lessons from Covid, Springer, New York, 2022.

Photo by Joran Quinten on Unsplash