Two recent news stories highlight serious concerns about the survival of our democracy.

The Republican attorney general’s office in Arizona has confirmed spending 10,000 hours investigating claims of election fraud in the last presidential election. It concluded each such claim was unsupported by evidence and therefore false. But because Arizona Republicans won’t fairly consider the attorney general’s truthful findings, he continues publicly supporting the very same election fraud lies he proved false. Why? Because he values power and winning elections more than truth.

Dominion Voting Systems has conducted another investigation through its slander litigation against Fox News. Following Fox’s early correct call that Joe Biden won Arizona, Fox hemorrhaged viewers, and therefore dollars, to a surging Newsmax. Internal Fox documents show Fox feared its Arizona call lost it the “credibility and trust” of its audience, and sharing any additional Trump-lost-fair-and-square truths could destroy it. Fox therefore sought to regain its departed viewers by broadcasting, with Fox’s endorsement, Sidney Powell’s and Rudy Giuliani’s claims of election fraud.

Remember how Powell and Giuliani claimed Dominion’s voting machines were created by Hugo Chavez to guarantee his election, and were programmed to flip votes from the former president to Joe Biden? Well, turns out that these allegations originated in correspondence Powell received from a woman who also shared that she was a ghost capable of time travel. Really. So, do you still believe the election fraud claims of the time-travelling ghost?

What’s more, internal Fox communications and sworn Fox employee testimony show no one at Fox believed any of the election-fraud claims. Fox employees called them “ludicrous,” “mind-blowingly nuts,” “insane,” “shockingly reckless” and “lies.” Fox head Rupert Murdoch called them “really crazy stuff.” Trump’s own attorney general labelled them “b—s—“. Even Tucker Carlson called the former president a “demonic force” for seeking to destroy our democracy through his spewing of election lies. Yet Fox continued to endorse those lies. It wasn’t about Red or Blue, Murdoch admitted; it was about Green. Fox knowingly and repeatedly broadcast election lies to regain the viewers who left when Fox stopped reporting the lies they believe. And the Dominion v. Fox judge just held that all the Dominion election fraud claims Fox reported were clearly false.

I understand that economic hardship, and being made to feel like less than, take a serious toll on anyone. I understand that toll worsens the longer those circumstances prevail. I even understand that the resulting pain is fertile ground for the spread of conspiracy lies, and for the demonizing of minority “others” one chooses to falsely blame for one’s own problems.

But this country was not designed to function when a sizeable minority accepts the same lies as truth. In the late 18th century, three documents established the moral and political foundations of our new nation. They declared every human being was created equal, and endowed with the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They guaranteed freedom of speech, press, assembly, protest and religion.

These documents established a free marketplace of competing ideas within American society — a public forum meant to respect the equality of each citizen and the collective wisdom of our citizenry. This free marketplace of competing ideas, perhaps more than anything else, led to American greatness.

This marketplace of ideas generally and eventually quashes lies and historically disproven populist tactics, like banning books, reveling in hate and demonizing minorities. Instead, today’s Republicans seek a long-elusive presidential popular vote win through lies and failed populist tactics. So they label a criminal, deadly and violent insurrection a tourist visit, refer to participating traitors as patriots, and defame immigrants as rapists. They proudly welcome, or silently consent to, Republican support from white supremacists and neo-Nazis. There is no alliance, tactic or lie too false or dangerous to employ, so long as it yields more Republican votes.

This all sadly leaves God left to wonder how His greatest living creations have so willingly corrupted or ignored His greatest gift to them: a human brain capable of rational thought. As long as its delusional voters remain in significant number, Republican candidates will continue to lie to their supporters, prioritizing power and winning elections over truth. And our nation will continue to pay the price for the delusional thinking of far too many Republicans.

News flash: the No. 1 person who tried to steal the last presidential election was the losing Republican candidate. Do you remember the gallows the MAGA traitors built on our Capitol’s grounds for Mike Pence? Or do you still choose to believe the time-travelling ghost?

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