CREDULOUS PEOPLE may believe such simplistic slogans. Which brings us to the problem of democracy.
I just read an article asserting that democracy is dead. Gone. Passe'.
Winston Churchill famously said that democracy is a very bad system, but that all other systems tried until now are worse.
He also said that the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with an average voter.
Democracy could function when there was a sensible filter between the candidate and the people. A truthful press, an educated elite. Even in the Germany of 1933, with millions of jobless around, Adolf Hitler never did obtain a majority in free elections.
Now, with candidates addressing the voters directly through social media, all the filters are gone. So has Truth. The most atrocious lies travel through twitter and facebook in seconds, straight into the minds of millions, who have no capacity to judge them.
I think it was Joseph Goebbels who wrote that the bigger the lie, the more believable it is, since simple people cannot imagine that anybody would spread such a huge lie.
For example, the claim by President Trump that three million votes were stolen from him, thus causing him to lose the popular vote. No proof. Not even a shred of supporting evidence. Sheer nonsense, but many millions of ordinary people seem to believe it.
But if democracy is becoming obsolete, what is there to replace it? As Churchill intimated -- there is no better system around.
SO THIS is the harvest of the first week in office: more packs of lies, or "alternative facts," by the day.
What about the substantive issues?
If we believed that many of his policy promises were just election stuff, we were wrong. On issue after issue, Trump has started to faithfully fulfill his promises.
Abortion rights. Protection of the environment. Medical insurance. Taxes on the super-rich. All going down the Potomac.
This, too, is a sign of the modern age: the poorest vote for the richest, against their own most elementary interests. That is true in America as it is true in Israel.
AH, ISRAEL. Israel is occupied with endless speculation about Trump's promise to relocate the US embassy in Jerusalem.
One could have assumed that Israel has bigger troubles. There is the kind of civil war raging now between the government and the Arab minority, which constitutes some 21% of the citizens of Israel proper. There are casualties on both sides. And especially with the Bedouin (also in Israel proper) who volunteer for the army, but whose homes the government wants to destroy, to make place for Jewish settlers.
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