Alaska Republicans and the dangerous silence about Trump's lies
Alaska’s leading Republicans, with the notable exception of Sen. Lisa Murkowski and some others, accept the gibberish of Donald Trump as the price of membership, never daring to question his competence or identify his lies.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, Nick Begich the third and the entire Republican Party apparatus—from Carmela Warfield and Craig Campbell to Cynthia Henry and Cheryl Markwood don’t dare openly discuss the matter of whether someone who rambles incoherently about sharks and electric boats and World War III can be trusted with the power to order a nuclear holocaust.
Discussing that in the open would require them to confess that Trump’s mental state, as expressed in the dear leader’s lies, should disqualify him from the presidency. As close as any of them come to backing Trump’s behavior is the often-expressed excuse from Sullivan that “maybe the rhetoric wasn’t so great.”
Over the weekend, Trump picked up on the bogus claim—easily settled by the evidence—that Kamala Harris faked a crowd photo. He displayed his inability to grasp reality with this rant:
“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!” Trump wrote. “She was turned in by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake crowd picture, but there was nobody there, later confirmed by the reflection of the mirror like finish on the Vice Presidential Plane.”
“She’s a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the “crowd” looked like 10,000 people! Same thing is happening with her fake “crowds” at her speeches. This is the way the Democrats win Elections, by CHEATING—And they’re even worse at the Ballot Box. She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!”
Trump’s delusions, lies and his fixation on crowd sizes are a symptom of the broader challenge, as Washington Post columnist Philip Bump puts it:
“Why would Trump and his allies spread a false claim about attendance at a rally that was covered on C-SPAN? In part because many elements of Trump’s base have embraced rejections of basic reality (like the existence of “mules”) for years. In part, it’s confirmation bias, with partisans being more likely to accept false information as true when it supports their preexisting beliefs. But in part, it’s because Trump and his allies are already eagerly raising questions about the reliability of measures of Harris’s support — and by extension, the reliability of the results in November.”
If Trump loses, he will lie and claim the election was stolen from him. By staying silent about Trump’s constant lying, Sullivan, Dunleavy, Dahlstrom, Begich and the Republican machinery are already helping with the groundwork, putting allegiance to Trump above all else.