Last night, I watched the second part of the second Democratic debate. I did not watch the previous three. I could not bear the thought of seeing more than twenty Democrats rip each other down when our real target needs to be the man who is currently desecrating the White House — him and all his enablers including #MoscowMitch.

As a few of the candidates said, any one of them would be better than what (not who) is now occupies the presidency. That is a fact.

Each one of the folks on stage spoke with knowledge and passion and made reasoned arguments in grammatically correct sentences. Generally, they adhered the rules of the debate as outlined by CNN, and this indicated to me that they would adhere to the traditions and institutions of our political process which ends with the election of the electors who actually elect the president (weird antediluvian idea from the founding fathers).  They are all decent, rule-following folks.

But they are not vying to challenge someone who follows rules or cares about any rules. Neither the man in the White House or his supporters believe in following the rules if they can get away with bending or breaking those rules. They just trample on the rules or the traditions.

Why?

The President of the United States and his supporters honestly believe that the entire world is out to get them and that justifies them using any means to subvert and defy precedent, justice, and reason. They are conspiracy theorists mainstreamed.

Elizabeth Kolbert wrote an article for the April 22, 2019 New Yorker exploring whether Americans are suckers for conspiracy theories. Click here for the article. She summarized the work of two political scientists who examined letters to the editors for the past 100 years and concluded that Americans’ tendency to promulgate conspiracy theories has actually declined. But newspapers are not the only source for the spread of conspiracy theories — just think of the internet and cable tv which have specific little corners where conspiracy theories hide out and emerge to scare and titillate readers/viewers. Or the fact that the current president spews conspiracy theories with unsettling frequency. If the liberals are the source of the “Deep State,” why doesn’t this very democratic liberal have no idea what the “Deep State” is and would reject it immediately.

According to work done by Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent, the folks most likely to believe in conspiracy theories are:

• those with less education
• those with less money
• those not aligned with any political party

Keeping these points in mind, I did some reading on voting patterns from the 2016 presidential election. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight had the most comprehensive data set showing that generally, those who voted for tRump were less educated — income level was not a major factor. Click here to see his article and statistics.

Now the connection.

I am watching the debate last night and asking myself who among the people up there would be able to reassure a stressed nation that we can overcome the suspicions and divisions? Who up there can calm down the conspiracy theorist? Who up there can make folks believe we can come back together as a nation? Who up there will calm down those folks who are afraid of others and change?