If you believe Trump is bad, you’ll believe any accusation is true

To The Daily Sun,

I was at an assembly recently and the speaker asked the question, “How do you know what you know?” The answer was one of three ways, experience, reasoning or believing.

Here is an example. If you are driving your car and notice the gas gage is on empty just as your car shutters and stops, that is “experience.. If it happens again that is “more experience.” No one can convince you that your car will run without gas. Next is “reasoning.” If you have knowledge of an internal combustion engine you know that the three items required are FUEL, COMPRESSION and IGNITION. If any one of the three is missing your engine will not run. If a mechanic told you that you didn’t need fuel you would most likely not believe them but I suspect a few would until they “experienced” what happens when they did run out of gas.

The last is believing. In this example I’ll use a first-time driver who knows nothing about and internal combustion engine and again, they drive their new car until it runs out of gas and is dead on the side of the road. In this case a shady tow truck driver comes to the rescue and realizes that the driver is clueless about engines so tells the driver it’s an electrical problem and needs to replace the ignition module for $1,000. So off to the shop they go and while driver is in the waiting area he fills the tank with gas and tinkers under the hood for an hour. The driver leaves with a car that runs and “believes” that the mechanic did a wonderful job and would recommend this mechanic to all their friends. The “belief” has been set.

So why do I bring this up? Because I have been racking my brain for the last year and a half trying to understand why close to half the country is not behind this president. I have come to the conclusion it is the “belief” that “Donald Trump is bad.” Think about it. I’ll use Russian collusion as an example. Like many people I followed the news during and after the 2016 election. Shortly after the election rumors began that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the election. I thought the evidence was thin at best but if the FBI was convinced then there must be something to it. The president is now 1-1/4 years into his term and no evidence has been found. I believe I’m a “reasonable” person so my thought process goes like this: “The president was accused of collusion, no evidence was found, therefore he didn’t collude.” Seems like a no brainer to me until I throw in “believing.” If I believe the president is a bad person then my thought process would go like this: “The president is bad. Bad people do bad things, therefore he colluded with the Russians, we just haven’t found the evidence yet.” Makes sense, right? It does if you believe Donald Trump is a bad person.

Here is a second example. I wrote a letter to the editor titled “CAN FBI INVESTIGATE ITSELF? LET’S WATCH AND FIND OUT”. (https://www.laconiadailysun.com/opinion/letters/can-fbi-investigate-itself-let-s-watch-and-find-out/article_301186ca-47f6-57d7-b850-87ee8fd29768.html) It detailed how I came to the conclusion that Hillary Clinton committed a crime based on “reason.” It now makes sense why some would not agree. Here is the alternate train of thought. “Hillary Clinton is a good person. Good people don’t commit crimes; therefore, no crime was committed.”

I have spent the last year looking into various claims the Democrats and left-leaning media have published as truth and fact, only to find neither to be the case. It reminds me of what I read in history books about the rise and fall of the Nazi party. They started a propaganda campaign year’s before they took power based in part on the “belief” that the Aryan race (German descent) was superior to all other races and the Jews were less than human and should be exterminated. I’m absolutely not implying that the Democratic Party are Nazis and want to emphasize that right now. I used that example to show how a “belief” not based on fact can be so damaging to humankind. In my opinion the anti-Trump movement is more propaganda than fact and leading this country closer to “civil war” like we have not seen since the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s. It does not have to be that way. I pray that we can practice what we learned in grammar school. That, “We are one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” God bless you and God bless America.

Bruce Jenket

Moultonborough