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Email doesn’t make blatant lies true
Norman Sherman
May. 6, 2024 5:00 am
This has been a special week. When I had my teeth cleaned, the hygienist found no cavities, an improved overbite, and new teeth where some had been pulled 20 years ago when I was 75. She sent her evaluation by email. That makes it all true, even if I don’t find any new molars.
Phony teeth are a joke, but phony social and political assertions are not. We are fed millions of emails filled with political nonsense, distortions, lies and they do matter. When they destroy trust in government, in our democracy, they are deadly.
Blessing and curse, the internet is an endless source of both truth and fiction.
Every morning, my computer screen is alive with the sound of opportunities to make my life better. I consider new health insurance offers I don’t need, car insurance for a car I don’t own, refinishing floors in my rental apartment, buying new Pella windows at Lowe’s, making a political contribution to a stranger, or believing Donald Trump’s favorite book is the Bible. I mostly just peek and delete.
But this morning was different. I heard from Lara Trump, whose profession is daughter -in -law of Donald Trump. She’s the wife of his ill-begotten son, Eric. It may surprise you that Lara and I are on an immediate first name basis and that she knows a lot about me. It certainly puffed me up.
Here is what she wrote after checking me out. “I was very impressed. Few in the GOP have demonstrated the kind of commitment to Conservative values that you have, which is why I'm nominating you to become a Republican Living Legend.” I never thought that possible, but I figure I’m a shoo in with her support.
One problem I have as a soon-to-be legend is that other Republicans can also find me. Vivek Ramaswarmy has risen from the political dead and he and I are now buddies. Here is his message,
“I hoped to email you on a lighter note, but I didn’t have another choice with everything happening right now.” Vivek then shared the wisdom that got him such support during the Republican primaries.
“The unholy alliance between Joe Biden, the corrupt Deep State, the DC Swamp, the Liberal Media, and the Radical Left Democrats is a national disgrace. “
They “desecrated Easter Sunday with wokeism, arrested the leader of the Republican Party, removed Trump from the ballot in key states, raided Mar-a-Lago with armed agents, censored conservative voices, spied on Catholic worshippers, gutted election integrity measures, peddled Russian hoax stories for years.”
Vivek says, “the list goes on and on and on! Never in the history of the world has a truly great country fallen so far from grace in such a short time. If the Radical Left Democrats somehow win control of the White House, the Senate, and the House … America will be lost forever. “
That email compulsion of irrelevance, nonsense, and political paranoia is not a Republican addiction alone. I have heard from Adam Frisch who is running for Congress in Colorado. He included his bar mitzvah picture, a 13-year-old Jewish kid’s rite of passage to manhood. Then, I got a copy of Corey Booker’s mother’s birthday message to her son.
Unvarnished lies and absurdities are killing us. Oh, the hygienist didn’t really write that.
Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.
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