From an Instagram reel, comedian Dave Columbo nails it:
I can’t think of a clearer example of the damage. The Trump era has done to us as a country than this conspiracy theorization of every single event, incident, or rumor that comes down the line. Because when you build your entire life on the stupid idea that perception is reality, when every day you treat integrity like a hindrance and instead lie, distract, insult, reframe, and demonize anyone who challenges your ideas, then you have become become a broken clock that no one is gonna trust even if you happen to be relaying the correct information. Which is what is happening right now.
(It’s now just) Blind rampant speculation because the last thing any of us wanna do is trust the source. And you know what, maybe there are administration officials out there who decided that Trump is the imperfect Messenger of their genuine conservative agenda. They know he’s chaotic and selfish and maybe even have said so in the past, but they’ve resigned themselves that they can overcome the smell if he can just come through on some old school Republican policies. That he’s a means to an end (a.k.a. the look on Marco Rubio‘s face in every picture taken of him in the last year).
And if those people exist, to them I say look at how little trust the American people have not just in your dear leader, but in any of you, in any of this, in government, in checks and balances, in the basic ability for facts to be successfully relayed. He has burned out the part in our brains that can absorb information without immediately wondering what is being hidden from us. And sure, people have never trusted politicians, but it used to be a much more fringe idea to have this little faith in this much of the system.
And no golden statue or ballroom or arch is gonna distract from the fact that Trump‘s legacy is the damage he did to the credibility of American government to even have good intentions, much less communicate them, much less act on them.
No notes.
