Opinion

KLAVAN: 2020’s Big Question: Will Americans Choose Reality?

   DailyWire.com
Voters leave a precinct after casting their ballots during Georgia's primary Super Tuesday's presidential election January 5, 2008 in Savannah, Georgia.
Photo by Stephen Morton/Getty Images

In reality, the Trump presidency has been such a spectacular success that, if things continue this way, the only question that will come before the voters in November is: Do Americans actually live in reality?

The economy is now doing so well that even President the Donald can’t exaggerate about how good it is. New trade deals with our allies and – upcoming this week if all goes well, with China – have vindicated Trump’s nervous-making style of negotiation. Without any help whatsoever from the body formerly known as Congress, the administration has brought down illegal immigration and, after a victory this week in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, may receive new billions for the border wall.

And, of course, also this week, POTUS delivered a stunning blow to one of the world’s worst actors, Iran. Not only did he successfully order the killing of two of their top terrorists but, when the Iranians responded with a face-saving kabuki of vengeance, he behaved judiciously and wisely. After eight years of an Obama foreign policy that left the Middle East in flames and the terrorist cause ascendant, Trump may finally be bringing the region to the point where we can reduce our presence there – which is clearly what he wants to do.

If he keeps this up, Trump – this deeply flawed American original – may become one of our greatest presidents.

But again, that’s only in reality. And, of course, a vast corporate power, with an interest in preventing its power from falling into the hands of the deplorable American people, has dedicated itself to creating an alternative universe of the imagination in which everything is going oh, so wrong. Corporate news networks, social media, and entertainment are working around the clock to create a fantastical landscape in which Trump’s peccadilloes are mortal sins and his successes are catastrophes.

It would be too wearying to rehearse the shameful anti-American drivel with which our corporate journalists tried to elevate the blood-soaked monster-man Qasem Soleimani to hero status this week or the dithering absurdity with which they reported the Iranian terrorists’ point of view as if it were on the same moral plane as our own. Suffice it to say that if the Constitution weren’t printed in miniature on every individual cell of my body – if my all-American soul were not the living fractal of the First Amendment that it is – I would have the lot of them horsewhipped, tarred, feathered, and hurled into the nearest river where they belong.

So the question is: are they succeeding in smothering our minds beneath their fantasies? Is the Empire of Lies prevailing or have The Daily Wire and other information revolutionaries made inroads on the vast territories of the nation’s understanding?

The news from the front is worrying. A survey by the non-partisan information group Just Facts shows that fake news has its effects. The survey asked people questions about quantifiable facts concerning public policy: who pays most taxes, how much does the government spend, where does our education system rank worldwide, what’s the truth about global warming, and so on.

Taken on average, most people got the answers wrong. The most right answers – 46 percent and 43 percent respectively – came from Trump voters and men. The fewest right answers – 32 percent and 36 percent – came from Democrats and women. Being both a man and a Trump voter, I would happily gloat, but being right under 50 percent of the time is not exactly a triumph.

And I would be delighted to blame the Democrat hacks who lie with straight faces from behind their network news desks. But I can’t help but wonder: are American voters dedicated to reality? Can we, to coin a phrase, handle the truth? Or are we so safe, so spoiled, that we would rather feel virtuous than do the hard work of knowing the world as it is?

What I found so bracing about Ricky Gervais’s viral takedown of the self-congratulating Hollywood bloviators at the Golden Globe Awards this week was his simple statements describing the reality of their moral condition. They work for slave drivers. They cover up for sex abusers. They are ill-educated make-believers who have no business preaching to the public. And yet, that didn’t stop many of them from standing at the awards podium and using their considerable genetic advantages and performative skills to push the atrocity of abortion, or their kneejerk hatred of the president, or their childish hysteria about the climate.

So who are we going to believe in November? Them or our lying eyes?

Professional knucklehead Alexandria Ocasio Cortez once said, “There’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.

Man, I hope she’s right about that. It’s never happened before, but I hope this time she’s right.

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