[A moment of sudden revelation or insight]

Epiphany is a time after Christmas when Christians celebrate the visit of the baby Jesus by the Magi. Outside of the religious context, it means a moment of sudden revelation or insight. So it seems entirely fitting that the American nation finally had this moment of discovery on January 6th, 2021, when we saw an attempted insurrection to overthrow the results of a free and fair election. The afternoon witnessed the stunning unfolding of a sea of people storming the Capitol building, with the intent of doing damage to people and property. It was incredibly lucky that more damage and loss of life was not experienced in this mayhem.

As the events continued and eventually were brought under control, there were sudden declarations and calls for calm, healing and some expressions of disgust by Republicans clearly rattled by this. ‘Enough is enough’ said a Senator with new found bravery, who just days before had called on GA officials to figure out ways to throw out votes cast for Biden. Another example in ‘courage’ came from the Education Secretary, who miraculously found a way to listen to her conscience and of all things, expressed “concern for the impressionable minds of kids who are watching and learning from us”. There were similar sentiments expressed from various quarters of the Republican establishment ranging from tepid and reluctant acceptance of reality all the way to outright fake outrage at the events of the day. There were some half hearted acknowledgements that the President’s exhortation of the mob to march to the Capitol, crossed some vague line in the sand. But, even in that moment of dim reflection, there were many who were still speculating about the supposed fraud perpetrated in the elections even though it failed almost every single legal challenge across all levels of courts in the land, including the Supreme Court due to no evidence whatsoever.

Mr Trump was introduced to the American public as a political candidate when he rode down an escalator sometime in 2015. His very first speech declared that Mexican immigrants were rapists and murderers. While there were many who were shocked to hear this rhetoric, this was applauded in conservative circles as a breath of fresh air with a political leader willing to speak plain truths and not be chained to politically correct speech. This was followed by an unrelenting avalanche of daily tweets and pronouncements at rallies and meetings by Trump, where the repertoire included him mocking the disabled, threatening violence on the “other side”, calling the media the enemy of the people, misogynistic demeaning of women, constant badgering and subversion of existing government agencies such as the FBI and other departments. This was all being done in full public view with the President proactively discrediting his own agencies and taking the side of Russia and North Korea on security issues. All of this culminated in the impeachment of Trump by the House of Representatives for the Ukraine quid-pro-quo fiasco. Ironically, none of these constituted an outrage big enough to shield impressionable minds from being exposed to incendiary rhetoric or behaviors.

In this backdrop, the cult attraction of Trump continued to grow among various communities in the US. Economically struggling white population saw a leader who would bring back jobs from China, Mexico and other far flung manufacturing outposts around the world. Others were optimistic at the prospect of coal becoming the energy source of the future once again, and many more were enthused at the tried and tested rhetoric of protection for the 2nd amendment. Many others were excited at the prospect of increased water pressure in their Toilets and Showers and perhaps, some mistook the suggestion of ingesting household disinfectants to ward of Covid 19, as the holy grail of cheap health care. Other attractions included “getting along with Russia”, winning against China and Europe with Trade Wars. Of course the piece de resistance was the promise of building of a beautiful wall along the US/Mexico border paid for by Mexico. To many others, he was directly sent by God to make America strong and stand up against the enemy and salivated at the prospect of winning so much, that they would be tired of winning all the time.

Trump did all of the unsavory activities of his presidency every single day, by saying that he would do it and went on to do it in plain sight. He had/has the incredible gift to convince his followers that observable and verifiable facts are fake. No one can accuse him of doing any of the things that he did in stealth. Given all this, one would think for example, that women in general would be absolutely aghast and come out in droves against voting for him or that immigrant groups would overwhelmingly vote against him in the 2016 elections. None of what he said or did, seem to matter if some tax benefits could be realized or if you were able to reclaim lost religious freedoms in the country, which by the way was never lost in the first place.

I would think that no other authoritarian in history would have established a near cult movement from scratch, grown that into the mainstream, and risen to be the most powerful political leader in the world in the very same country that has had an unbroken democratic tradition for 200 years, the mightiest armed forces in history and the most advanced economy in the world – all that, within a short span of a mere 4 years. This singular achievement is perhaps an extraordinary reminder of the malleability and frailty of the human mind when even the most basic critical thinking abilities are cast away under a spell of persistent lies.

Somewhere along the line in the past 4 years, we saw the deadly embrace of conspiracy theorists, evangelical Christians standing up for God’s rightful place in society, run of the mill conservatives in for the ride looking for tax savings, Xenophobic immigrant haters, strength projecting misogynists and white supremacists fretting about the ongoing racial discoloration of the American demographic (as in demographic trends projecting whites to be in the minority in the next 20-30 years). This happy union of contrasting groups created an alternate universe that operated with a different set of laws, completely divorced from reality. Perhaps scientists are indeed right, in that we do live in a multiverse (theory which postulates that many universes exists), except they need to look for it in our own midst – on earth – as opposed to the deep unknown.

It is sad that even after a million of years of evolution, the human brain is unable or unwilling to distinguish reality from whats not real. No matter what, we let our tribal instincts kick in front and center and it may well take another million years of evolution before we get out of this rabbit hole. In the meantime this year, the Christian Epiphany has ended and the past few weeks have given us enough food for thought as a nation, and hopefully, we choose to chew on it.