Bias and Donald Trump

This piece is too long for a letter to the editor and too short for an Op Ed piece or even a Ben Paine blog post.  Here it is anyway.   When I write I publish.

On September 11th, 2023, the NY Times published an article: Trump Seeks Recusal of Judge in Federal Elections Case, as she had shown bias against him.  In the end, can Donald Trump get a fair trial anywhere?  Can this, or any, judge sit in judgment on Donald Trump without bias?

Who Can You Trust?

I have a young friend whose politics are informed by a lack of trust in government, a position that I am sympathetic toward.  Our presidents have lied to us, especially about the most momentous thing of all – going to war!  Woodrow Wilson lied to us, FDR lied to us, LBJ and Richard Nixon lied to us.  Donald Trump lied to us when he need not have.  But mistrusting the establishment and/or the mainstream media has its perils, like compelling you to ask: who do you trust?  One answer is, no one: but that kind of nihilism leads nowhere.  Another answer is the anti-establishment.  But who are they?  Donald Trump, the Prince of Lies, has tens of millions of Americans who trust him, despite the clear evidence that no one else in the American tradition has ever been accused, justly, of SO treating the simple truth like poison. 

Perspective

Both Carl Sagan and his god son Neil deGrasse Tyson had “cosmic perspectives.”  That is, they thought about the cosmos, the universe, everything.  Although they both were professional astronomers/astrophysicists, their cosmic perspective forced them to include physics, chemistry, biology, zoology, botany, and a host of human sciences in their quiver of useful knowledge.  As scientists in the public eye, who never ceased to enjoy teaching us stuff we didn’t know, their true roles were as advocates for scientific literacy.