Tom Harker
Is our new president a Jedi? Obi-Don Kenobi?
Long ago, when old Obi-Wan employed the Jedi mind trick on the hopelessly gullible Stormtroopers (“These are not the droids you’re looking for…”), I thought it was a bit weak, but – what the heck – it was a movie; I suspended disbelief. Maybe I was being too critical of the screen-writers. Recent developments indicate that maybe such obvious subterfuges can really work – at least when applied to dedicated Trump supporters.
The most obvious and most widely circulated of Obi-Don’s Jedi mind-twisting statements is that pictures show his inauguration drew more people than Obama-Wan’s inauguration. Well, take a look:
Are you gonna believe Obi-Don or your lyin’ eyes? Our Jedi-Prez has said it over and over and over again: more people attended his inauguration than attended any other president’s inauguration. And if he says it, it must be true.
His latest effort to create his preferred reality was to declare that his executive order banning foreign travelers was not aimed at Muslims. Pay no attention to the fact that Muslims from the seven countries were blocked, but Christians from the seven countries were welcomed. There obviously is no contradiction there; move on.
When critics questioned why her Master would insist so strenuously that an obvious falsehood was true, Princess Kellyanne came to his defense. She applied the Jedi “Alternative Fact” mind-masher: different facts for different folks; you use yours; we’ll use ours; what difference does it make? Besides, Obi-Don’s version of the facts will make America great again.
Such Jedi mind-manipulation is, however, nothing new. As far back as the days of W the Misunderestimated, Ron Suskind reported that Darth Rove informed him that as a reporter he was ” ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ … ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality–judiciously, as you will–we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’ “
Yes, sir! Alternative facts, alternative reality. And, so, today we are taught that the media is “the opposition party” and does nothing but lie, that it should “shut up,” and that we should put our blind faith in Obi-Don and the new Empire.
Truly, the Farce is with us.
This article originally appeared on The Pickaway News Journal
