Critical Thinking: “Pro-Life” Vote Must Include Consideration for the Post-Born

— 228,000 U.S. COVID-19 deaths, half due to corruption and incompetence *

— 5,400 migrant children caged away from their parents for months in a strange land **

Trump supporters still holding on are either grossly, willfully disinformed or amoral.

Disinformed or amoral.

Astonishingly, 45% of Americans still believe a President Donald Trump is good for the country. This is why I continue my call for basic critical thinking instruction to be mandated in our K-12 curriculum. It is for lack of essential reasoning and information-processing skills that 45% of Americans can deny Mr. Trump’s corruption, incompetence, and immorality — his blatant and massive disregard for human life, to support political expediency.

Young People

I cut the young some slack. I have to. Several 20-somethings whom I love are voting for Trump. Nevertheless, they still fall into one of my two categories: grossly, willfully disinformed. Most of the fault lies in the natural tendency of young people to adhere to the beliefs of their parents — for whom I cut no slack.

I have two nephews in their 20s who are influenced heavily by social media videos that reinforce the Trump-Republican views instilled by Mom and Dad. One is convinced — with no room for doubt — that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is mentally unfit and suffers from dementia. This was “proved” by showing me several obviously manipulated videos.

Never mind that Mr. Biden consistently speaks thoughtfully and intelligently in unmodified media footage and has been sharp as a tack in interviews and debates.

The other nephew is convinced that antifa is a violent terrorist group whose sole purpose is to burn and bash property and injure (perhaps even kill) peaceful citizens. I asked him how he knows this. He said, “I’ve just seen too many videos.”

Never mind that the FBI repeatedly has said antifa is an anti-fascist ideology — not an organized (or terrorist) group. It opposes racism, Nazis, and white supremacists (as the U.S. government and military did in WWII Europe, notwithstanding their imperfect opposition at home). And, yes, isolated incidents of violence have occurred — among “very fine people, on both sides” — within right-left clashes.

Never mind that the FBI repeatedly has emphasized the greatest internal American terrorism threat is the vast network of white supremacist organizations, so-called militias, and other far-right extremist groups. But young people don’t come across many anti-white supremacy videos online. One can only speculate why not and why they’ve never heard the FBI’s determinations.

Seasoned adult MAGA supporters — those who haven’t realized their mistake by now — probably are beyond hope. Let’s all encourage them not to vote any more. (I’m half-kidding.) But young-adult Trump voters still have a life ahead of them to become enlightened, albeit after the 2020 election. My young adults have plenty of time to see the light, acknowledge their error, and maybe even thank me some day. “Two things I want my nephews to remember about their uncle long after I’m gone: He loved us with the fierceness of a summer storm, and he did all that he could to help stop Donald Trump” (— thanks to journalist Connie Schultz for the source quote from which I paraphrased).

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking must be taught as part of primary and secondary education. It’s at least as important as the third “R” (of the notorious 3 R’s) and a necessity for properly understanding all other non-“R” required courses. It is for lack of critical thinking that nearly half of Americans believe that 1) Donald Trump has done a good job and cares about them, 2) Joe Biden is a dementia-ridden criminal, 3) antifa is coming to burn our suburbs, 4) white supremacists are benign, and 5) social media videos are accurate information sources.

So-Called Meme

This week I’m introducing only my second so-called meme (graphic with text superimposed) in the history of this country. It could be the greatest, maybe the greatest meme ever made. A lot of people are saying that. Everyone is talking about it. Anyway, my meme (and my health plan) is very big (yooge) and very, very beautiful.

It’s a map of the U.S. with this text overlaid: “4.2% of Earth’s population; 20% of world COVID-19 deaths: You do the (MAGA ‘pro-life’) math.”

Many may remember my first meme, which went spiral: a photo of former president Richard Nixon standing at a lectern giving the thumbs-up sign, with the caption, “Cool, I’m out of last place.” Yes, that one was colossally incisive and clever, as my four likes indicated.

But my second graphic-with-text-superimposed is galactically serious. For single-issue voters, a “pro-life” vote must include consideration for the post-born, for their lives and deaths, no matter their heritage or citizenship status:

— 228,000 U.S. pandemic deaths, half due to corruption and incompetence *
— 5,400 migrant children caged away from their parents for months in a strange land **
— Untold Puerto Rican (U.S.-citizen) fatalities through bigoted withholding, delay of disaster aid
— Attacks on peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters and their factually righteous cause
— Untold U.S. fatalities from climate change denial and environmental protection rollbacks
— Attacks on Latino congresswomen, judges, “rapists,” and “some, I assume, are good people”
— Attacks on Muslim congresswomen, immigrants, and “sh**hole country” residents

And consider this factoid: Abortions have increased in many parts of the world under President Trump’s denial of reproductive health aid, which suppresses birth control (the so-called Mexico City Policy).

It seems reality (and decency) DOES have a liberal bias. ■

IBATR: Your Critical Thinking Primer (~Tom Ersin)

COVID-19 Deaths

02/06/2020 — U.S.: 1 | World: 620
10/29/2020 — U.S.: 227,703  |  World: 1,175,684
Conservatively estimated Trump malfeasance deaths: 113,852 (50% of total U.S. deaths)

The United States accounts for 4.2% of Earth’s population, 20% of world COVID-19 deaths.*

“Debate #3: Advisers Win, Trump Civil but Still Yooge Fabulist; Biden Wins Big per Polls” (10/22/2020)
“PANDEMIC: New Record: 84,000 U.S. Cases in 1 Day” (10/23/2020)
“PANDEMIC: As Trump Continues Superspreader Rallies, Virus Spikes Left in Wake” (10/23/2020)
“PANDEMIC: Trump Disbanded Vaccine Safety Office Last Year” (10/23/2020)
“Trump EO Strips 10s of 1,000s of Civil Service Workers’ Protections to Promote Loyalty” (10/23/2020)
“PANDEMIC: 3 Pence Aides Pos., Pence Travels Anyway; Trump Tried to Suppress News” (10/25/2020)
“PANDEMIC: 35 States Trending Up in Cases, Hospitalizations” (10/25/2020)
“PANDEMIC: WH Chief of Staff: ‘We’re not going to control the virus’; WH Has Given Up” (10/25/2020)
“PANDEMIC: The Hill: Universal Mask-Wearing Could Save 130K U.S. Lives by Spring” (10/25/2020)
“PANDEMIC: Documented Spikes (5) Continue Following Trump Superspreader Rallies” (10/25/2020)
“PANDEMIC: 2 More VP Pence Top Aides Infected, Brings Total to 5; Pence Still Travelling” (10/26/2020)
“Amy Coney Barrett Confirmed to SCOTUS 52-48, to Replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg” (10/26/2020)
“ELECTION: Top N.H. Conservative Newspaper Endorses Dem (Biden) for 1st Time in Hx.” (10/26/2020)
“ELECTION: Fmr. Attorney General Eric Holder, all Legitimate Experts Agree: Trump Attacks on USPS Have Made It too Late to Mail in Ballots; Must Be Dropped off to Be Counted” (10/27/2020)
“PANDEMIC: Top Trump Aide, Son-in-Law Jared Kushner, Bragged in April That Trump ‘took back control of the country from the doctors’ to Re-Open U.S.; Brokered ‘negotiated settlement’” (10/28/2020)
“ECONOMY: Dow Jones Drops 600+ Points Mon., 900+ Points Wed., on Word of U.S. Virus Spikes; Down 2,400 Points Since Sept. 2, Repudiating Trump Promises of Rebuilding ‘greatest’ Economy” (10/28/2020)
“PANDEMIC: 38 States Up; Record 500K Cases, 7 Days; Hospitalizations Up 46% in 1 Mo.” (10/28/2020)
“PANDEMIC: For 1st Time, Top WH Dr., Fauci, Sounds Alarm, Advocates Mask Mandate” (10/28/2020)
“PANDEMIC: Trump Ridicules CA Mask Mandate on Another Day of U.S. Virus Records” (10/28/2020)
“ECONOMY: 22M Jobs Lost Since Feb., Worst Since WWII; ½ Returned; 50% GDP Rebound” (10/29/2020)
“PANDEMIC: U.S. Has 4.2% of World Population, 20% of World COVID-19 Deaths” (10/29/2020)
“PANDEMIC: U.S./World: 8.9M/44.6M Cases; 227.7K/1.2M Deaths; 7:52 a.m. ET” (10/29/2020)
“PANDEMIC: Conservatively Estimated Trump Malfeasance Deaths This Week: 2,658” (10/29/2020)

* (Redlener, Irwin, MD, Columbia University National Center for Disaster Preparedness director; MSNBC’s Deadline: White House; 10/1/2020.) (Gupta, Vin, MD, MPA, MSc, University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation professor, global health policy expert; “Dr. Vin Gupta: 70% of Lives Could Have Been Saved if Trump Acted on COVID-19 Earlier”; MSNBC.com; 9/23/2020.) (Glanz, James & Robertson, Campbell; “Lockdown Delays Cost at Least 36,000 Lives, [Columbia University] Data Show”; The New York Times; 5/20/2020.) (as conservatively extrapolated from COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University; 10/29/2020.)

** (Soboroff, Jacob; Separated: Inside an American Tragedy; HarperCollins; 2020.) (“More Than 5,400 Children Split at Border, According to New Count”; Associated Press; 10/25/2019.)

Trump Corruption Chronicles — We Must Never Forget