That picture up there is of Kay Ivey, the governor of Alabama. I’ll get to her — and a broader issue — in a moment. Today’s Impromptus has a variety of subjects, as usual. I begin with politics in France.
Once more, Marine Le Pen has qualified for the final round of the French presidential election. In the first round, she got 23 percent of the vote. Let’s call it a quarter. France is the country of De Gaulle, yes. It is also the country of Vichy. This should not be forgotten. Both strains run through France. Both sides have their constituencies. This is a pill that must be swallowed.
I also discuss the pandemic: Who does a better job of confronting it? Democracies or dictatorships? And flags: the American flag and the Confederate flag, and the commingling of them. And Kmart: the demise of, after all these (glorious) years. And so on.
I’ve admired Governor Kay Ivey, for her straight talk during the pandemic. (See this column, for example.) But now she has cut a campaign ad, saying, “The fake news, Big Tech, and blue-state liberals stole the election from President Trump.” In this, she has proved herself a pretty standard Republican — a pretty standard Republican of today.
Does she believe what she’s saying? I doubt it.
In my observation, many people look the other way, when it comes to the kind of thing Governor Ivey is doing. They sweep it under the rug. I’m talking about people who know full well how the 2020 election went down.
Their attitude, as I have sensed it, is this: Look, you have to say the election was stolen. It’s what the folks want to hear. It’s the cost of doing business in the Republican Party. The people can’t handle the truth. So you just give ’em the line, in order to serve the greater good. We have to defeat the Left.
From Plato onward, people have spoken of the “noble lie.” I say, to heck with it.
It’s not nice to lie. It can be, among other things, very insulting. Condescending. It’s not snobbish to tell the truth. It’s not elitist. You may recall a song lyric: “Who else but a bosom buddy will sit down and level, and give you the devil, will sit down and tell you the truth?”
“He tells it like it is!” Have you ever heard that about a politician? Well, that’s what I’m looking for: a politician who will tell it like it is. Including about the 2020 presidential election. Anyone can tell it like it is when it’s comfortable. How about when it’s uncomfortable, both for the teller and for the audience?
There’s a lot more to say about this — I may do a biggish piece — but that’s the gist.