Those are the basis of Trump’s campaign, but what lies behind the rock-hard support of his strongest supporters is even uglier. Trump’s character and appeal rest on an authoritarian personality manifested by hatred and condescension toward minorities, women, and immigrants, compounded by a belief that no method is too base to be used for his benefit, an absolute assertion that might, whether legal or illegal, makes right, and that no one should question the Great God Trump.

Trump supporters will deny this. They’re lying as much as he is, and that’s saying a lot. Those supporters are, for the most part, throw-backs to a time that never was. They think that the fifties were the glory days of American democracy, when women, people of color, and immigrants knew their place – well below imperial white males, but they refuse to remember that was also when factories belched out so much pollution that people couldn’t breathe and filled the waters with so many chemicals that rivers caught fire and that even bottom feeding fish couldn’t survive.

It was also a time when American policy was to suppress popularly elected governments in other lands, if there was any suspicion whatsoever that such a government might infringe the profits and powers of U.S. multinationals, and a time when nuclear weapons tests spread radiation across the entire U.S. southwest, leading to thousands of “downwinder” cancer deaths, if not more. It was a time when unrestricted and unregulated coal mining poisoned the lungs of hundreds of thousands of miners who would later die or be crippled by black lung disease. It was the time when leaded gasoline dumped thousands of tons of lead particles on inner cities, causing massive health problems, including stunting children’s growth, mentally and physically.

Anyone who supports Trump, no matter what their professed rationale, is in effect supporting a government based on hatred, lies and misinformation, a government that has taken step after step to restrict the votes of people of color, a government that systematically devalues women, and, which, if returned to office, will continue along that path.

Make no mistake about it. If you vote for Trump, that is what you support.

I’ve written science fiction and fantasy professionally for slightly more than 47 years, and if I’d put some of what has been in the news in recent days and weeks, any editor I’ve ever had would have said, “That’s not believable. Not even close.” Or words to that effect.

We have a President telling a rally that Californians wear special masks that they can’t take off even when they’re eating.

Friends and neighbors are claiming that the requirement for protective masks to curb the spread of a virus are instruments of oppression and tyranny. I mean, cloth or surgical masks aren’t anywhere like tools of torture.

The acting head of Utah public health lifted the mask requirement for Iron County because the rise in cases has only been 20%, as opposed to the record numbers of cases and hospitalization in adjoining counties.

Right-wing militia members plotted to kidnap and execute a female governor for enforcing public health measures. When Trump condemned the governor’s public health measures at a campaign rally, the audience responded by chanting “Lock her up!”, to which Trump replied,”Lock ’em all up.”

The President is claiming that the country has “turned the corner” and heading in the right direction as case numbers and hospitalizations are reaching new highs in many places and increasing in 41 of the 50 states. What’s even stranger is that huge numbers of people believe him.

The same President is claiming that children ripped from their parents arms are being treated “so well.”

And that in the steepest economic decline in ninety years that United States has had the best economy ever under him.

Or that he holds international meetings in his own luxury hotel chain and bills the government, in fact, overcharging the government – three dollars for every glass of water, for example.

He continues to insist at his rallies that Mexico is paying for his wall, but every dollar has come from U.S. taxpayers, often shifted from other federal programs.

He claims that five foreign auto makers are building new manufacturing plants in the U.S. when no plants have been even announced, let alone built.

Interestingly enough, Trump offers the most lies the most often in forums and media where they can’t refuted as the lies they are or can’t easily be refuted, just like an evil genius would in a F&SF book… except a fictional book based on Trump couldn’t ever have been published except as a farce – at least until now – because editors would have rejected it for being too improbable.

There are two common definitions of “liberty”: (1) the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views and (2) the power or scope to act as one pleases.

For the most part, the political party railing about “liberty” these days tends to be the Republican Party. In my part of the country, as well as elsewhere, they find masks and social distancing “tyranny” and “oppressive.” Most refuse to wear masks except when absolutely required, because they want the liberty not to be inconvenienced and, in effect, the liberty to infect others.

But this desire for “liberty” is only for their liberty.

What I find both ironic and hypocritical is that they support oppression and restriction in a considerable number of areas. They want to dictate what a woman can and can’t do with her own body, even what forms of birth control her insurance, whether private or Medicaid, will pay for. They want to legalize the right of religious believers to discriminate against employees and customers on the basis of their own religion.

They oppose removing barriers to oppression and discrimination, which is, in effect, the same as retaining oppressive restrictions. They close polling places and limit ballot drop boxes, which is certainly restrictive. They gerrymander legislative districts, which restricts the liberty and voting power of those in the other party.

They want the liberty to pollute the air and water, which restricts and oppresses the ability of others to breathe. They want the liberty to pay workers as little as they can, even when people can’t live on those wages, and then they complain about government providing aid to those underpaid workers, calling the taxes required tyrannical. They’ve pushed to restrict the ability of people to obtain affordable health care.

But they claim they’re for liberty.

Just whose liberty is another question.

For Republicans and Trump supporters, apparently all Trump has to do to claim “victory” in the debate is for Trump to be relatively polite and coherent. There’s certainly no requirement for factual accuracy, and the repetition of popular lies apparently passes for intellect and truth among his supporters.

The most brazen and bare-faced lie that Trump delivered, at least to me, was the idea that separated refugee children were being treated excellently.

Biden’s natural courtesy, and the fact that his voice is softer, tends to work against him when dealing with someone like Trump.

Trying to accurately explain complex issues in a debate is usually not a good idea, because most of the audience is looking for soundbites with which they can identify. Biden had a very good point on oil industry subsidies, but didn’t explain it well. Oil and gas producers get to exempt as much as 15% of their gross income from taxation. That’s a subsidy that other industries and workers certainly don’t get.

Trump kept asking why Biden hadn’t done things while he was a senator and vice president. While it was an effective line, it was particularly effective with Trump supporters because most of them don’t understand government. The vice president literally has no power at all, except to break ties in Senate votes and whatever the President delegates, and that’s seldom much. Trump certainly hasn’t delegated any real power to Mike Pence. Individual senators also have very limited powers. They can propose, but unless they can persuade at least fifty others, and sometimes sixty, they’re powerless. Both the House and Senate are legislative bodies that have to work out compromises with other members. Almost never is legislation the result of one member. But trying to explain that in a debate comes across as weak and whining. All Biden could do was to cite some of his documented accomplishments. Given the power a President has, and how little power a vice president or an individual senator has – except to stop legislation from occurring – Biden was better off doing what he did, which was to point out Trump’s shortcomings, given how much power the President does have.

Republicans and Trump supporters make a big deal over the allegations about Hunter Biden, allegations that Trump’s own FBI declares represent Soviet disinformation, but are quite comfortable with all the money flowing into Trump properties because Trump is President. They also seem to have little problem with his keeping his tax returns hidden. Yet Biden’s tax records are public. So Trump and company use fabricated allegations against Biden’s son, while ignoring, if not dismissing Trump’s own sad and checkered financial history.

…the rise of misinformation, and “Covid fatigue” have been, in my view, the principal reasons for the surge in Cobid-19 cases and the coming increase in fatalities.

For most human beings, what we see and what we hear is far more important to us, and we’re more likely to believe what we see or hear – or what we don’t – than what we read in the newspapers or online (unless that online contact is a “trusted” source or friend), and our behavior reflects that.

Here in Southwest Utah, in my county, there have only been eight hundred cases of Covid-19 and three fatalities all year. Yet, as I write this, in Salt Lake some 250 miles to the north and in St. George 50 miles to the south, case numbers are surging, and ICUs are almost at full capacity.

Has that made any difference in behavior here? More people wearing masks or social distancing? Not that I can see. People wear masks only where they’re absolutely required, and there’s certainly no social distancing in public spaces. Outside, college students are unmasked and congregate in close proximity.

Almost no one knows anyone who contracted Covid-19, and the few cases they know about turned out to be mild. Then there’s the fact that Utah’s the reddest of the red states, and Trump signs and banners abound. And what is Trump saying? That Covid’s not a problem, and that we’ve “turned the corner.” With a resurgence of cases all across the Midwest and in Utah, we may have turned a corner, but it doesn’t look to me like that turn is toward a quick recovery.

But people are tired of not having sports and getting together. While restaurants here are open, they’re required to have social distancing. People are having large gatherings, without masks… and without social distancing. The governor is under intense pressure to relax what restrictions do exist, and the Mothers Against Masks [in school] continue to press against that requirement.

Why? Because no one’s seen much Covid-19, and what serious cases have occurred are quarantined, so that families don’t even see how debilitating the disease can be. Studies show that roughly ten percent of those hospitalized for Covid-19 have permanent systemic damage, but that damage isn’t visible to most people either. People can’t think or breathe as well, and there are a host of other complications.

We’re approaching 220,000 deaths in the U.S., but for too many people (largely Republicans) – those who haven’t lost someone or suffered that permanent damage – 220,000 is just a number, a meaningless and impersonal statistic… and that’s why the cases and deaths will continue.