GOP's irrevocable split with truth

            I'm not going to blame Associated Press for the clear typo in a recent story about Republican aversion to science. AP does incredible work.

            As the story reported, "Republicans' faith in science is falling as Democrats rely on it even more."

            Nothing incorrect with that wording. Sadly, in this pandemic it appears demonstrable. What came next, however, had to have been an error -- about a "trust gap" pertaining to expertise.

            Gotta be a typo. Republicans don't have a trust gap. What they have is a truth gap.

            Trust? Republicans have it aplenty -- even on the most complex scientific matters. They just award it to barbershop oracles like Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Kid Rock.

            This has resulted in two nations: one that relies on those who actually understand science and one that, in the words of University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd, relies on "fear, lack of critical thinking, confirmation bias and political tribalism"— in so many words.

            Hence, according to the 2021 General Social Survey, while 64 percent of Democrats express a "great deal" of confidence in medical science, only 34 percent of Republicans share that confidence.

            This discrepancy translates directly to the abominable disparity in vaccination – and death – among Republicans and Democrats during this pandemic.

            Those who would change the subject by pointing to vaccine hesitancy among Blacks should know that after balking early, Black Americans embraced the vaccine to the point where by October, Kaiser Family Foundation reported roughly equal rates of vaccination for Blacks, Hispanics and white Americans.

            But of course, the truth gap – the rate by which Republicans flee from truth about vaccines' and masks' safety and effectiveness – far exceeds their aversion to scientific consensus.

            We've seen it in embracing a huckster for president who called climate change a "Chinese hoax." We've seen it in efforts to undercut the teaching of evolution.

            (By the way, neither the greenhouse effect nor evolution is a theory, as in an untested hunch. It's simple science.)

            And since truth is the enemy for the majority of today's Republicans, no more frightening foe exists than that schoolchildren learn how human exploitation and institutional racism underlie the American experience.

            Since truth is the enemy, the secret of success in the Republican Party today is to genuflect at Donald Trump's knee and take as sacrament his cavalcade of lies, particularly the Big One about 2020.

            The race for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in Ohio has demonstrated that any candidate who won't lie the Trump way won't win.

            Ohio state treasurer Josh Mandel, Republican seeking nomination to the U.S. Senate, has declared not only "the election was stolen" from Trump but that the pandemic is the result of "a bio weapon manufactured by the Chinese Communist Party," indeed, constructed in China's labs to punish Trump.

            His rival for the GOP nomination, author J.D. Vance, was highly critical of Trump – before entering the race and getting a whiff of the winds. Now he, too, claims the election was "stolen."

            To make points with people whose eyes weren't burned irrevocably by what their TV screens showed them Jan. 6, 2021, Vance now calls the terrorists who tried to stop the electoral count "political prisoners."

            That's a good boy, J.D. Have a biscuit.

            Truth is the enemy, people. Your eyes are what lie.

            A recent poll of Republicans finds Trump comfortably atop the field of GOP pretenders for 2024, despite the Big Lie, despite his attempted coup, despite criminal and civil probes, despite a covey of crooks who owe their freedom to his pardoning pen.

            No, Republicans don't have a "trust gap." They simply, irrevocably, refuse to acknowledge truth.

            The dollar says "In God we trust." The majority of Republicans have a whole other dogma in 2022, which is to trust in The Donald.

            Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.

Leaving out Joe's No. 1 accomplishment

            It's odd. I just watched one of those dreary year-anniversary treatments of the Joe Biden presidency, and it left out his most important achievement.

            In newsroom talk, that's called "burying the lede."

            Staying in journalism mode, I'm going to pronounce it the editorial omission of the century.

            It's easy to explain, given the nature of the news beast – to treat it all like a horse race and each matter a zero-sum pronouncement.

            Not surprisingly, the rehash focused mostly on Biden's frustration -- how two conservative members of his party helped the party on the outs prevent great things.

            Even when focused on his accomplishments, which have been substantial, the spin was "what might have been."

            The amazing thing is that a quite lengthy treatment of Year 1 left out the most important "would have been" if not for Joe Biden: Donald Trump still would be president.

            You can put everything else aside – the defeat on voting rights, the frustration on climate change and extending the expanded child tax credit. You can also set aside saving the lives of millions through vaccination and dogged pandemic precautions.

            Set it all aside, because nothing – nothing at all – outweighs this:

            Donald Trump is not president.

            The person who got the most votes – 3 million more – is our president. Novel, eh?

            The person who thought he could snake his way back to office by pandering to southern bigotry and Rust Belt desperation could not.

            Now he can't deliver pardons to anyone, certainly not to "patriots" who brutalized Capitol police, who defecated in Capitol halls.

            He can't do a thing for those who otherwise broke the law in all manner of ways to do his bidding.

            Rudy Guiliani no longer is on retainer from us. Roger Stone is no longer on Line 1.

            When Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn come up with their latest scheme to end democracy, they aren't ushered into the East Entrance.

            Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka, and Jared no longer are making a buck in the mold of the Great Grifter, not even leaving fingerprints on our furniture.

            We no longer are paying for White House lawyers whose job is to make sure we as citizens know nothing whatsoever of what this man, our foremost employee, has done or is doing with the office a minority of voters awarded him.

            We no longer are paying for photo ops that frame a thousand lies. That Bible the Great Miscreant held up after the gassing of protesters is back in its "In case of emergency: break glass" holder.

            That bunker in which he hid when the heat got intense has been fumigated and disinfected.

            The civil case the DA in Manhattan is investigating about the Trump Organization's corruption is Trump's burden to bear, not taxpayers'. So, too, with the criminal case in Georgia where he threatened election officials who balked at his demand to "find 11,780 votes."

            Because Donald Trump is no longer in office, our attorney general no longer is his caddy, his concierge. The AG is an independent law enforcement official investigating the former president's role in the Jan. 6 coup attempt.

            In the extenuated rehashing of Biden Year 1, we of course heard about our Afghanistan exit and how disastrously that shook down. We heard that 13 Americans died in the process. What we didn't hear about were any of the Americans who didn't die last year because they weren't fighting a forever war.

            Oh, and in each rehash we heard about Biden's not-so-hot poll numbers. But guess what? As I write this, his average approval rating, 42 percent, towers like a colossus next to Trump's rating -- 29 percent – as he slunk off in the most disgraceful way imaginable.

            Whatever Joe Biden does or fails to do, nothing will compare to causing that exit.

            Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.

 

Readying airlift for reproductive rights

            What state will be next to fall under the Iron Curtain?

            We speak here not of the '50s-'60s, Commie kind. We speak but of the '22 Republican kind – the 12 GOP-controlled states prepared to ban abortion as soon as the Supreme Court gives the word.

            In a land based on "freedom" – a word on many a pickup truck – it's the most oppressive thing a state can do: order a woman, once pregnant, to gestate to term with almost no exceptions.

            Several nations do that: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Indonesia, Nigeria and the Philippines among them.

            Most developed countries, like ours once upon a time, came to reject this oppression.

            Dating back to the '60s, Romania banned abortion and contraception under a Communist government. When the Iron Curtain collapsed in 1989, an estimated 170,000 deprived children were found in decrepit orphanages.

            One of the first things Romanians did when the Red thumb was lifted was legalize abortion and birth control.

            In a country like Communist Romania, women truly were captives of the state. They could not flee to Switzerland or France for these services.

            Fortunately our nation has open highways and willing organizations to help women deal with unwanted pregnancies as they see fit.

            With Gov. Gavin Newsom and key Democrats leading the way, California is making plans, if necessary, to become an abortion "sanctuary" -- to help women get the service there, including paying for air fare, lodging and medical care.

            With the Supreme Court refusing to stop Texas' abortion ban, we have already seen women traveling out of state for the procedure.

            This happened routinely before Roe vs. Wade, but of course for women who could afford a plane ticket. Too often in states that banned abortion, women without such means self-aborted or went to shady back-alley providers.

            People who support a woman's right to choose – and that's most Americans based on poll after poll -- should shake out of their stupor.

            The GOP has become a party diametrically opposed not only to abortion but holistic means of avoiding pregnancy, like birth control. This was not the case when President George H.W. Bush and many other Republicans identified family planning as a smart and sound policy.

            Republicans have continued and heightened their political vendetta against Planned Parenthood, though the preponderance of what it does helps women avoid the abortion dilemma.

            So, what can be done for women in Texas, for instance, who need this service?

            Sarah Wheat with Texas Planned Parenthood said that though prohibited from providing the service, organizations aren't prohibited from helping women get it out of state.

            To that end, "an incredible network of organizations is working together to help people who are traveling out of state."

            Such groups include the Austin-based Lilith Fund, Fund Texas Choice, the West Fund and the Texas Equal Access (TEA) Fund. From these organizations a woman might get help with gas and lodging, as well as direct contact with a health center.

            Add to this the possibility of plane fare from California should the Supreme Court do what most expect of it because of court picks whose ideologies on this matter do not match up with most of America's.

            Though what California has in mind -- as these funds to aid women -- is not the same as the Berlin airlift of 1948, which focused on food and fuel. Nonetheless it's a mission that, like efforts to fight Red oppression in a sad and scary time in another era, will end up on the right side of history.

            Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.