What is the common thread?

Of current topics in the press:

Climate change denial: Jim Inhofe, Congressman, Oklahoma, tried to prove climate change was false by bringing a snowball into Congress, despite there being over 12,000 peer reviewed papers from the scientific community to the contrary.

The "deep state": This idea has been promoted by Mick Mulvaney and more notably by Sen. Rand Paul and Steve Bannon, former national security adviser to Trump.

The pandemic conspiracy: This idea from our own bizarre Heather Scott.

QAnon: This well known conspiracy theory is embraced by almost 2 dozen people running for House or Senate, 2 of whom are now in Congress, Boebert and Greene.

Election fraud: As of this writing, this is still rampant in the press, most notably OANN and Newsmax, both extreme right wing web ites, plus a large but decreasing number of Republican politicians.

Obama birther conspiracy: This lie was spread by thousands of people, but most notably Donald Trump.

Most of these topics are in the news each day.

Every one of these have been found to have no merit whatsoever.

Every one of these has been de-bunked repeatedly, but are constantly re-enforced on social media and extreme websites by endless repetition.

Every one of these ideas has been formulated specifically to undermine political stability, trust in public institutions, and trust in science.

Every one of these has been conceived, presented, supported, or repeated by Republicans.

And there is the common thread.

DANIEL STRAYER

Bonners Ferry