In my junior year of high school, I decided that I wanted to go to an Ivy League* school.\u00a0\u00a0I was intent on becoming a lawyer and run for political office.\u00a0\u00a0My political heroes, the Kennedys above all, went to Harvard, and almost everyone in power in both parties had Ivy connections. (Bobby Kennedy, the Dad not the current son, went to University of Virginia Law School, a fine institution.\u00a0\u00a0But he was a Harvard undergrad).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a long shot. My grades in high school were \u201cOK\u201d, but not \u201cIvy\u201d. But I did have a \u201cgift\u201d for test taking, and back in the early 1970\u2019s the tests (SAT, ACT, the \u201csubject tests\u201d called the ACH\u2019s now SAT II\u2019s) weighed heavily in admission decisions. Those scores were good. And I had a lot of the other stuff Ivy\u2019s weighed; academic teams, sports, Scouts, political involvement and such.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I applied and interviewed at Dartmouth and Harvard.\u00a0\u00a0I also applied to a \u201cLittle Ivy\u201d, Williams.\u00a0\u00a0And, to be realistic, I applied to Washington University in St Louis, and Denison and Miami here in Ohio.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In December of my senior year, the guidance counselor called me out of class. She told me that Harvard just called, and I was in. For about twenty-four hours I was walking in the clouds. Then the next afternoon, the cruel-thin envelope with the crimson emboss arrived in the mailbox. Harvard thanked me for my interest, but politely declined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It took a minute, or maybe a week. Dartmouth was out, and Williams put me on the waiting list. By January we (Mom and Dad did have a say) decided that Denison, here in Ohio, was my best fit. So in the fall off I went to Granville. It was a great school, a great place for me. They taught me politics from the left and the right, and let me study in Washington DC and even credited me for a semester of working on a Presidential campaign. And, as an aside, I earned an Ohio Teaching License, opening the option for a whole different career. I have no regrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I did learn that, at least academically, only the most successful, the highest grades, the most brilliant students went to the Ivy League universities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So it amazes me when I look at those politicians and political influencers with Ivy League credentials who have bought into the Trump \u201cBig Lie\u201d. It\u2019s not that \u201creal\u201d conservatives aren\u2019t \u201csmart\u201d. The most brilliant professor I had at Denison was a true conservative, who went on to work in the Reagan Administration. But to espouse the \u201cBig Lie\u201d of election fraud? It\u2019s hard to understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is a simple formula. The Republican Party, led by Donald Trump, has spent nine years saying that the election process in the United States is corrupt. Despite all of the evidence to the contrary, many Republicans, Independents and even a few-odd Democrats think that\u2019s true. Their conclusion is based on the \u201csmoke and fire\u201d principle. The GOP and Trump have created so much smoke, there must be some fire somewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s not true. There really isn\u2019t a fire at all. Sixty court cases after the 2020 election failed. Republican officials running elections in contested states know \u2013 for a fact \u2013 that there was no widespread voter fraud (ask Ohio\u2019s Secretary of State Frank LaRose, before he was running for Senate, or the \u201cCyber-Ninjas\u201d in Arizona). But Trump and other Republicans go the next step. Republicans justify all sorts of repressive voting laws, and Trump\u2019s own clearly criminal attempt to overturn the 2020 election, on \u201ccorrupt elections\u201d. The twice-impeached, now thrice-indicted former President\u2019s defense is that \u201c\u2026he believed the elections were corrupt\u201d. But instead of actually proving those elections were falsified, they simply say, \u201c\u2026Republicans believe that the elections are corrupt, so we need to fix them\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s an old trick \u2013 the BIG LIE. If a lie is told over and over and over again, eventually it will sound like the truth. Please be sure, it\u2019s not true, and constant repetition doesn\u2019t become truth. A lie is a lie is a lie. But if a significant part of the citizenry believes the lie, then that becomes a justification to \u201cfix what ain\u2019t broke\u201d. It also justifies all sorts of other illegal acts and lies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the big difference in our current era is that our \u201cmain source of information\u201d, social media, makes their biggest profit by creating controversy and division. So we have one political party\u2019s leadership repeating a lie, and the echo chamber of social media amplifying it a million-fold. It\u2019s not just \u201csmoke and fire\u201d, it\u2019s impenetrable smoke, choking smoke; smoke that all common-sense says must have a \u201cfire source\u201d somewhere. But it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A \u201dcorollary\u201d to the BIG LIE is that the \u201cBiden Administration\u201d is \u201cpersecuting\u201d Donald Trump. It\u2019s simple political geometry: if you believe the elections are \u201crigged\u201d, then opposing those elections and denying the results are \u201cgood\u201d. Anyone prosecuting \u201cgood\u201d people for that belief must be bad. Therefore, the Biden Administration (who really lost anyway) is persecuting Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you don\u2019t accept the starting premise, the \u201cBig Lie\u201d, then the rest of the action falls apart. And from a FACTUAL standpoint, there is no factual basis to the \u201cBig Lie\u201d of election fraud. So you\u2019d think all of the Ivy Leaguers, leading the charge for Trump, would know better. But Hawley (Yale), Cruz (Harvard), Bannon (Harvard), DeSantis (Harvard), and even Trump himself (Penn) are \u201call-in\u201d for election fraud. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And they are bringing all of that intellectual prowess to bear. They\u00a0\u00a0are using their Lie to change America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n