Background Briefing: July 6, 2021

On By gram

 

How Conservative Elites Have Created Distrust in Government and Profited From It

We begin on this day six months after the January 6th attack on the Capitol which was initiated by Trump who mobilized his supporters to “fight like Hell” to overthrow American democracy to keep him in power. Since then both Trump and the GOP have been gaslighting America creating the fiction that what we saw with our own eyes was something else which we don’t need to talk about or examine. Joining us to provide an historical perspective on how conservative elites have strategized behind the scenes to deliberately undermine faith in our political system for partisan gains is Amy Fried, Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Maine and author of the forthcoming book, At War with Government: How Conservatives Weaponized Distrust from Goldwater to Trump. We discuss how Trump is now going further at his rallies trying to make martyrs and heroes out of the insurgents asking “who shot Ashli Babbitt” and “how come so many people are still in jail over January 6?” And as Trump and the Republicans promote lies and disunity for naked political power, distrust has now taken on a life of its own.

 

Why So Many Americans Believe In “the Big Lie”

Then we look further into weaponized lying and why so many Americans believe in “the Big Lie” and speak with David Rothkopf, a contributing columnist at USA TODAY and the Daily Beast where his latest article is “We Still Won’t Admit Why So Many People Believe the Big Lie.” He joins us to discuss how Trump, like so many demagogues, profits from the deception of the intellectually lazy in lock-step with the indoctrinated masses because Trump knows lies are easy and the truth is hard.

 

Afghanistan’s Incompetent Leader is Making a Taliban Takeover Easier

Then finally we examine why the Taliban are taking over Afghanistan so rapidly in part because President Ashraf Ghani is a delusional and arrogant incompetent whose army is scattered thin and is not getting supplies of food and ammunition because of corruption and a logistical collapse with northern soldiers defending the indefensible south instead of their homes in the north. Thomas Barfield, a professor of Anthropology at Boston University and the President of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies, joins us to discuss how Biden is already out the door before leaving behind a plan to stop a route.