When Discernment Is Lacking

Discernment is a word used frequently these days. But given the illusion under which we’re expected to live discernment can be a difficult, if not impossible, task. Instead of the burden being placed on those who lie, it’s placed on the remainder of humanity to figure it all out, to discern the truth of the matter. It’s the con artist versus the innocent, and we are being played on a daily basis.

Now we find out that the hard-working billionaire is no different than a legacy admission at an Ivy League university. He got in because of Daddy. The million he was loaned was far more than that. And if we’re to believe the extensive ties he reportedly has to Russian mobsters and oligarchs that we learned about from Craig Unger’s recent book, House of Putin, House of Trump, between his Daddy’s money and the Russian mob, did he do anything by himself? Or was it all cleaned up by his father? Or simply funded by organized crime?

The story he told was one that created an impression of someone or something that he never was. Bob Woodward’s book, Fear, along with what we first heard from Michael Wolff in Fire and Fury gives us an inside look at how things either work or don’t in the current White House. We’ve learned that any staffers with an understanding of how the economy actually works are horrified at the president’s lack of understanding of all things economic. This is a great businessman? He believes what he believes irrespective of its veracity and has no interest in hearing the truth. It was said by one journalist that even if only ten percent of Woodward’s book is true, we’re all basically screwed with this guy at the helm.

Probably why some are removing documents to sign from his desk. The current coup is apparently taking many forms.

Because that’s what we’ve got here: a coup. Maybe it happened behind the scenes during the election. Or maybe it simply grew out of truth smacking these people in the face. They got there believing one thing and shortly thereafter discovered everything they thought was real was a pile of garbage. They were working for someone who had no idea what he was doing and had no intention of ever learning anything.

Oh, I’m certain that many see him as an opportunity to get what they want before he’s tossed out on his ass. Clearly, Lindsay Graham is willing to throw any sort of integrity right out the window. I’m still shaking my head after hearing his outburst at the most recent Kavanaugh hearing. What happened to this guy? Or was he always this way and we just didn’t know? His histrionics are telling us a story here, one that we need to fully understand. A JAG officer, no less. As partisan as they come, apparently.

It took the guy in the Oval Office a little time before his mouth bested his common sense. I would have thought he would have begun attacking Dr. Ford far sooner than he did, but it was clear when it began. It began slowly with one slight remark and from there, it wasn’t long before the proverbial dam burst and the bullshit poured out. And now we have a sitting president attacking a survivor of sexual assault, attacked when she was only fifteen, mocking her by saying, I only had one beer. Well, we now know that her alleged attacker loves beer, actually,  beers plural. Really loves it. How about attacking and mocking that instead of the survivor?

Instead, we have to listen yet again to someone occupying the highest office in the last behave in a manner so repugnant that he’s put at risk any dignity the office has left. The world-at-large doesn’t trust him and why would they? Why would anyone? He has disgraced the office along with the people in this country.

At some point, his supporters need to understand that his lies are designed to create division and chaos between us. Discernment will be vital to see the lies that are being crafted in real time to manipulate and control what his supporters believe. He’s turned the people into their own enemy in an effort to stay in power which may be the most shameful aspect of all of this.

As more and more facts surface, will any of his supporters rethink their belief in this man? Will they discern the real truth here? Or will they continue to rail against the so-called fake news? What if all of that was a lie? What if they placed their faith in a man who has done nothing short of lying through his teeth, causing further hatred and division? What if their real concerns over how our government operates have been drowned out by a divisive and deceitful narrative that pits us against each other instead of against policies that don’t actually work?

He’s replaced sensibility with hostile judgment, creating enemies within the people when all each one of us wants is to live in peace, safety, and security. We all want the same thing, yet this man has convinced a portion of the country that the rest is out to get them when nothing is further from the truth. Instead of the citizenry united against a corrupt government, it’s Americans against Americans. Family against family. Friends against friends. Neighbors against neighbors.

His lies did that.

He did that.

Yes, discernment is necessary. But if some of us are going to use Trump’s playbook as a guide, then they’re discerning nothing more than the crap they’ve already chosen to believe. So, I would ask this of them: consider that which you believe is fake news. See if you can discover (discern) a pattern. If you look critically at the information, I think you’ll find the same pattern that I’ve found. One that illustrates a man who never made anything himself, but used others to prop him up whether it was his father or the Russian mob. Instead, he sold a story to the press which they eagerly took as gospel, assisting him in the illusion he would go on to create of himself. Because that’s what he sold during the campaign to people all too willing to believe him. An illusion.

Wake up. Open your eyes. The truth is slamming everyone upside the head. Pick yourselves up off the floor of denial and see what’s happening here. As long as we’re all at each other’s throats, the corruption will continue. There has been no swamp draining, only the carefully crafted plan to remove any checks and balances on government that has become so corrupt, they’ve even managed to convince some of us that it’s all being taken care of now. It’s all going to be okay. The bad guys will be arrested and imprisoned. Of course, it will all happen out of the purview of the American people, because doing things behind the scenes is always the answer when cleaning up corruption and bullshit.

Isn’t it?

Is that the story/excuse we’re expected to believe? Is that where discernment has brought some of us?

Well, I have a feeling that when all is said and done, some of us in this country are going to be doing some soul-searching to discover why they were conned and why they couldn’t see the truth. Why they let their racism and other isms govern their choices. This is heart stuff. This is about how gullible we are when the nasty side of ego is catered to. This is the dark aspect of ego, the dark aspect of self, on display for the world to see. Evidently, we need that, to understand why it’s destructive and will never be the solution we seek.

Maybe we need to see a president attack a survivor of sexual assault and to hear supporters cheer him on. Maybe we’ve become so jaded that it will take seeing children moved to a prison camp during the middle of the night to shake us out of the illusion we’ve been living under. Maybe it will take folks losing Social Security or Medicare to prop up the very rich to understand the gravity of this situation. Maybe it will take seeing a child die because the family can no longer afford health insurance to treat their child’s leukemia. Maybe it will take another child of color killed by police. Maybe it will take election results so outrageous that we all rise up against them. Maybe it will take the cost of food escalating from economic policies based on blackmail of others.

Or maybe we can simply decide that the nation was lied to. Had we known the truth, he would have never been elected to the highest office in the land. See this for the power grab that it was. Maybe he is someone’s pawn. I think it’s fairly certain that he’s compromised in some way. Whether it’s by Russia or the so-called cabal that runs the world, make no mistake about this, nothing is truly generated by him. Whether it’s the funding for his building projects or whatever it is he’s doing as president, it’s genesis is from somewhere and someone else. He’s playing a part in someone else’s game of deception and control. And it’s high time that we got a clue and did something about it.

We can’t undo everything at next month’s election, but we can surely begin that process. I read the other day that approximately 100 million voters didn’t vote in the 2016 election. That’s insane. We can blame the current guy’s supporters for what’s happening now or we can look more realistically at those who didn’t vote at all. What would we look like now had they voted? Would we still have a guy attacking sexual assault survivors, journalists, Congress, law enforcement, etc.?

How about we discern that.

Blessed Be