Once a mighty totara is mortally wounded by chainsaws, it creaks and groans a bit before crashing down to the forest floor. These are the sounds I’m hearing from that great country, America, the nation that stood for freedom and democracy all the years I was growing up, writes Paul Charman.

This mighty nation stopped fascism engulfing Western Europe, Asia and the Pacific during World War II, saving us in the process.

Having won at great sacrifice, America rebuilt Europe through the Marshall Plan and led the way in foreign aid through the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

But now the country which did away with dictatorships during the 1940s looks more than halfway to becoming one itself.

Like all dictatorships, the present US Government has begun to use misinformation, physical force, and intimidation to rule.

The Trump Whitehouse bullies judges, universities and media companies. It spreads misinformation through right wing media outlets; has deployed masked militia to attack, detain and deport alleged illegal aliens without due process and, most worryingly to me, uses religion to justify it all.

Stephen Miller, the same servant of Trump calling for prayer in schools, told the media last week the president had “plenary authority”, which suggests he has assumed total power over deploying the National Guard (and now regular army units) to various Democratic led cities.

Trump argues that his use of the troops is necessary to quell violence in Democratic-controlled cities, crack down on crime and support his deportation initiatives. It looks more like a military takeover.

Common sense suggests armed militia untrained in police work should not be sent out to police protests.  

On May 4, 1970, the National Guard was sent to the Kent State University Campus to police a rally of unarmed students protesting the Vietnam War.

Firing for just a few seconds, National Guard soldiers shot four students dead and wounded nine others, one of whom sustained permanent paralysis.

Short of a genuine insurrection, there is no justification for using the military to control the streets. Trump should have mobilized the National Guard when 2000 rioters smashed windows and beat up police at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. He didn’t.

How did we get to this?

My explanation is that at the root of it all American politicians and especially Republicans have decided it is acceptable to lie in a good cause. Both Republicans and Democrats lie – of course – as do politicians all around the world.

A new brand of right-wing religiosity seems to have removed the shame of doing so.

White Christian Nationalists on the MAGA side see that homosexual marriage, trans rights and abortion are against the teaching of the Bible.

So, as they see it, to oppose the side advocating these things, any lie is justified.

I’m Christian – I have beliefs on all these issues – but see no basis in the Bible for forcing others to adopt them.

More to the point, the minute I do lie to back up my beliefs, I know I’ve lost the moral high ground.

Old-school Republicans would have agreed with me on this.

But in the late 1990s, a Republican speaker named Newt Gingrich came along and instilled the current combative approach into the party, where hateful language and hyper-partisanship have become commonplace, and where democratic norms have been abandoned.

Essentially Gingrich changed Republicanism to a political force where the end justifies the means, and any other philosophy could be laughed to scorn.

His message was “win at any cost”. I doubt he knew what he was unleashing.

Gingrich laid the moral foundation for Bush and his Neo Conservatives to lie about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction in order to justify a disastrous second invasion of that country.

The philosophy was also the basis for Donald Trump’s big lie that the Democrats stole the 2020 election.

Now the white supremacist Christian Nationalists who control MAGA are prepared to lie about the presence of insurrection on the streets.

Perhaps they want a civil war to consolidate control and do away with future elections.

I am not sure the Bible means much to this group, whom I see as more pagan than Christian.

However, I’ll quote a verse from its last page.

Almost right at the end, Revelation 21:8, says: “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”  

So, lie away MAGA people. Just don’t expect it to end well.