Trust but Verify
16 Jan 2025
I’ve been seeing a great deal of diverse thought on social media. We have the typical liberals vs conservatives, right vs left, etc. However, now I am seeing that people are flat out calling MAGA supporters a cult. You may say, well that is not all that new, right, the left has done this before, I’ve even been told that, and they knew I was a Trump supporter, I won’t address that discussion. However, this is from a new area of thinkers, folks that are no where near the left (at least by their post on social media), but are more on the right. This interested me.
I tried to discuss with a couple, I was given a list of what a cult is, I agreed with the list, however, it didn’t seem to cover any of the maga folks that I know. I saw Trump get booed when he mentioned the vaccines at one of his events, doesn’t sound very cultish. I see folks questioning him quite a bit that are on his side, doesn’t seem very cultish to me, at least by the definition.
I will call out the Canada talk, I honestly have no idea if it’s a good idea or not, I do think that these should be separate countries and let’s not do anything that may help the new world order, so as of now, I think it’s a bad idea. I also have heard Elon may be interested in TikTok, well I think that is a bad idea. Ballad Health has a monopoly on the healthcare in our area, and now our healthcare is bad.
So what is this really about? I am so glad you asked. Ronald Reagan made famous a phrase that was actually (dare I say it) a Russian Proverb; Trust but Verify. What I am gathering from social media, is people don’t necessarily want to learn, they want folks to believe what they say and not listen to an opposing view. The truth is I don’t think I agree with any man 100% (except my wife in case she reads this). I try to understand where they get their point of view and compare to what I know. Since I do not know everything, I should try to learn.
For years I thought we landed on the moon, 911 was masterminded by Bin Laden, that we had fair elections, that the government had our best interest in mind, etc……. Nowadays I have a lot of questions about all of this, except the best interest part, I know they do not.
So Trump is going to be president, do I trust him. Let me refer to the Russian proverb (thanks Ronnie) I will trust him, but must verify. Last time around I did not like him pushing the vaccine and operation warp speed. But my personality wants me to think, he was lied to like the rest of us and really all he did was cut through the red tape for speed and had no clue about the vaccine. If so, it best be better this time around. But I am not going to write him off.
So yes, at this point I trust Trump, I will verify by his actions. If they go against what I believe to be true, I shall call it out, but I’m not going to label an entire group a cult that supports someone that does what they are wanting 80% of the time. This last cat (Joe), did 0% of what I wanted. As I only agree 100% with my wife (I may get off the couch for this), I am a little forgiving. We can call out folks we support, but we don’t have to write them off if we disagree on a thing or two. I encourage to call them out. When you do, don’t do it by calling his supporters names, do it by laying out facts.
We can trust, but if we can’t verify them to be trustworthy, we can change that trust to untrustworthy. Let us all get in discussions for education and not just listen to those we agree with, that my friend is confirmation.
