Commentary
I frequently use this space to comment on what fellow bloggers are saying, not only because I agree with what they’re saying, but because they often say it better than I. And, too, I would like to think that you would be interested in what others have to say.
I often use their thoughts to elaborate on my own. My piece, “We are the Modern-Day Barbarians at the Gate,” on July 2, 2022 was adapted from and credited to According to Hoyt, Sarah Hoyt’s blog.
On July 16, 2022, I gave readers my thoughts in, “The Six-Year Effort to Prosecute Trump Dwindling,” after reading the well-written treatise on the subject by Matt Taibbi, whose work appears in Substack.
Another blogger writes
For obvious reasons, the headline over the blog, NEO, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: Trump is a lawless authoritarian who tore up the Constitution,” stopped me cold. What!?
I soon realized it was the writer’s way to get her readers’ attention, and she was successful.
She opened with a quote from an anonymous “JFM”: “I’m very confused when people on the left start, in all medias, talking about Trump as ‘lawless’ and ‘ripping up the Constitution.’ Where did he do that? When did he do this?”
“There is never any explanation, just as there is none for the ‘everyone knows’ assumption that Trump’s term was nonstop ‘chaos,’” responded Wendy Laubach, adding that “It’s amazing how many people will read assertions like this in the paper, or hear them on TV, and adopt them serenely and uncritically.”
Coincidentally, in my last post, I wrote, “President Biden, who frequently accused former President Trump of by-passing the Constitution and threatening our democracy … “ I have been critical here of those who make charges without backing them up with examples. Put up or shut up.
“Disagree with (the critics of Trump), or even ask that an example be given, and you receive disdain,” NEO states. “You will be marked as an outsider to virtue, and perhaps even a Trump supporter or Trump defender, which puts you beyond the realm of reasoned discourse.
“The effect is amplified, as all such subjects are, by the echo-chamber nature of the left and of the mainstream media. If all the ‘smart people’ believe that Trump is all those awful things, the only ones to doubt it must be dumb or evil or both.”
Well, I’m not dumb or evil or both. I’m fairly smart and I do not believe those awful things.
She writes of something “so innocuous” – a cap with an acronym that stood for Make America Great Again (MAGA) – is said to transmit tremendous evil … a symbol of racism, frightening and terrible to behold.
“Propaganda is a very real thing with very real effects, and Trump has been the target of negative and relentless propaganda from the beginning,” states NEO. “The perceptual mental edifice that propaganda has built over the years is enormously strong.”
About NEO
The creator of NEO claims to previously being a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides. She writes of drifting into conservatism and of family and friends who didn’t want to hear about her inexplicable conversion, so she started the blog to present her thoughts.
In a photo of her at the top of her blog, she holds an apple, making it impossible for one to see what she looks like. She explains that in response to a request for a self-portrait, Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte similarly painted a self-portrait with an apple blocking his face. It speaks of how little he (and she) cared for publicity and self-promotion. Likewise for the creator of NEO, whose work carries no byline.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
