Our president-elect (heaven help me, it still hurts to write that) tweeted yesterday that he won the popular vote but for the “millions of people who voted illegally.”
Ummm… no.
The sheer irresponsibility in that utterly false statement boggles my mind, but, then, my mind has been boggled so much in the last year and a half that it’s a wonder there’s any room for boggling left. What is “voting illegally”? Do you know what it would take for “millions” of people to vote fraudulently? Does it matter to you, oh incoming leader of the free world (heaven protect us), that you are undermining faith in our electoral system?
As I heard this, and seethed, I wondered what it effect it would have. There was once a time when a president’s statements on broccoli could cause national reexamination. When a whisper of doubt could send financial markets tumbling. Now, everyone shrugs their shoulders at the most egregious lies.
Have we entered a more mature phase, in which we don’t need “dad” to always reassure us, or is he eroding the power and dignity of the executive? Only time will tell, I suppose. Maybe we survive him because everyone just shrugs through four years of his outlandish lies. Maybe we rebuild the dignity of the office after he’s vacated it. For our sake, I hope so.
