The Lesser Evil
It is an illusion that there are "sides" dividing the nation. This illusion is perpetuated by an alliance of con artists. This alliance includes billionaires who don't want to pay their taxes, Christian nationalists who can only achieve their objectives under a minority rule, and various bigoted organizations who want to be normalized. This alliance paints a dreadful picture of liberal authoritarianism for its base so that their plans go mostly unnoticed. This con artist alliance gives birth to "Project 2025", which is in progress to install a power hungry buffoon they think they can control with ultimate executive power. But what they will find is that the narcissism of this buffoon cannot be controlled, and the normalization of what was once inexcusable will cause the Project 2025 alliance to deteriorate into warring factions. The conflict of these warring factions will eventually cause the downfall of the Republic sometime in the 2030s. From there, the United States will cease to be a superpower and fall into decline.
The carefully constructed alternative view of our downfall is of a socialist ideology hell bent on giving everything away for free using the tax dollars of the working man. An absurdist liberal agenda using "cancel culture" to mask censorship, take all the guns away, and then oppress the American people under an "elitist" authoritarian regime. Issues of racism and diversity are blown out of proportion to give unqualified invaders positions of power to help usher in this new regime. In circles still considered "extreme" there is already a deep state or illuminati type organization in place to ensure all of this happens.
How can we the people decide which of these downfall scenarios is true? In an age where most political leaders are viewed as incompetent, how can we truly choose the "lesser evil"?
I believe there are three main litmus tests which reveal the true nature of our united predicament. Each citizen must be able to educate themselves on how to run these tests.
1. Understand the scientific and medical community peer review process.
Our trust in science is marred by conspiracy, ego, and an overall lack of interest until it suits our needs in some social media debate or thanksgiving dinner argument. In order to check our ego, each citizen must understand how to access and read abstracts from scientific journals. They should have some understanding of the scientific peer review process and how theories and findings are properly challenged. Furthermore each citizen should understand how different medical and scientific fields relate, so when they are given a number like 95% of all scientists in the community agree, they have some concept of how much work, experimentation, cross analysis, and peer review went into such a massive community consensus. This understanding will protect citizens from media embellishment, misinformation, and fear of government agenda influence.
2. The Religiously motivated need to read scripture from at least two other religions other than their own.
Faith is powerful. It creates terrific motivation, hope, inspiration, and love. It also gives birth to terrible fear, and fear is easy to manipulate. The Religious Ego is a security blanket of truth. With God on your "side" how can you be wrong?
The religiously motivated must understand that scripture is a wonderful tool for discovering truth, but it is NOT the end all be all truth. Truth in faith must be discovered, peer reviewed, and tested just like science. One of the best ways to do this is to read scripture beyond what you are given as the ultimate truth. As a Christian if you have not read from the Quran or perhaps the Pali Canon, then you have not peer reviewed your own spirituality. You are not looking for items which differ, but what makes us all the same. The lesser evil understands that faith is a personal search. Even if the secular world is often hypocritical, it is better to be a hypocrite in a constant search for truth, rather than a hypocrite who claims to know the truth more than others.
3. Understand the circumstances where the constitution is strong versus situations where it is weak.
The constitution is a human document. Compared to other republics in history it is incredibly resilient. The system of checks and balances has allowed us to progress through time toward a more and more equal society. But the document is only as strong as the sincerity of those taking the oath to defend it. We the people often make the mistake of trusting the insincere of both parties. We the people have also distrusted the very sincere due to our economic pain. President H.W. Bush and President Jimmy Carter were both very sincere leaders who were eventually distrusted due to their environment. If leaders in both our political parties are telling us the other party is a threat to democracy, we cannot rely on our judgment of who to trust.
Instead, we need to understand how the constitution is deliberately designed for a free market. Capitalism is a right guaranteed by the constitution, but after our long journey it also limits the scope of this form of government so that individuals can be protected against the dangers of monopolistic or laissez-faire capitalism. In order to degrade democracy under a socialist agenda, it would require the complete destruction or disregard of the constitution almost unanimously from all three branches of government. Placing undocumented immigrants in jobs around the country or allowing Chinese companies to build industry and spy on us would not do the trick. Conversely, the laissez-faire protections can easily be removed by a narrow majority in all three branches, and if one executive is powerful enough and has unquestioning loyalty, the checks and balances of the constitution can be degraded over time.
We are seeing this now.
Too many of us have taken for granted our preferred leader or media outlet to tell us what is a threat. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of our guiding document requires more than reading it. It requires study of the history and development of each amendment. From there a clearer picture of threats begins to emerge.
In conclusion, I hope this helps at least one person accept that there is indeed a greater evil to be concerned about. Especially a person who thinks "every option was bad". It might mean letting go of pride. And that person should know, if they want to keep their pride, that it is perfectly acceptable to pretend you knew the greater evil all along. Just help us convince a few more people once you have figured it out by following the three research steps I recommend in this essay.
