Challenge the lies

Roger Marshall and Tracey Mann cast their first votes as our senator and representative to not accept the votes of Arizona in the Electoral College. Their second vote was to not accept the Pennsylvania votes. There can be only three reasons why they so voted.

First, they actually believed the election was stolen and rigged and Trump won. If so, they are unfit to represent us as that is clearly a lie. Second, as some have said, Trump voters believe

Second, as some have said, Trump voters believe that lie, so their concerns have to be heard by the vote challenge. No, the response to that belief is to tell the truth, not perpetuate the lie. If you cannot tell the truth, you are unfit to represent us.

A third reason given by some Republicans for their vote is that the people who believe the lie physically threaten the legislators and their families. If you are being terrorized into your vote, you need to resign. A democratic republic cannot survive representatives who believe lies or who willing refuse to confront lies or who are afraid to challenge lies.

Ron Svaty

Ellsworth

Don’t allow truth to die

Many people find Trump v Hitler analogies offensive, but similarities are noteworthy. Hitler rose to power on a lie: Germany did not lose WWI but was “stabbed in the back”. The lie afforded him absolute power in Germany which he then used to wreak havoc on the world.

Trump built a career on lying and with it a path to the presidency. His lies contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths from Covid-19. Recently his lies fueled a violent, deadly attack on our nation’s Capitol. However, these are not the most egregious results of Trump’s lies. The most dangerous is the threat his lying posed to our freedom and to our republic.

Trump provided American political leaders with a sinister lesson: advantage comes with lying and sticking to the lie. The more one sticks to the lie, the more likely the lie will prevail. We must understand that when lies prevail, truth dies. When truth dies, so does our republic.

The mendacity of the Trump era rekindled interest in the writing of George Orwell, author of 1984. Orwell provides a chilling account of a dystopia where truth becomes lie and lie becomes truth with equal facility. The main character, Winston Smith, struggles to find and adhere to the truth. In his account of Winston Smith’s travails on behalf

In his account of Winston Smith’s travails on behalf of the truth, Orwell offers a trenchant definition of freedom: “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.” Ultimately, Smith is stripped of that freedom, and with complete honesty and sincerity he tells his torturer that 2 + 2 = 5.

Trump endeavored to strip Americans of the same freedom. More than a few of our political leaders joined him in the effort, one being a senator from Kansas, Roger Marshall, who voted in the Senate to ratify Trumps’ big lie: he did not lose the presidential election; it was rigged against him.

The forces against truth are seductive and powerful. The question today and in the future is whether our republic can overcome those forces and whether we have the intelligence and the courage to reject the liars and their lies.

With some luck and help from Americans, perhaps President Biden can put our government back on the path to freedom and truth. “... my whole soul is in this: Bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation. And I ask every American to join me in this cause,” President Biden. “For there is always light/ If only we’re brave enough to see it/ If only we’re brave enough to be it.” Amanda Gorman.

Jerry L. Marsh

Ellsworth