An observation frequently attributed to Mark Twain, that "it is easier to fool people than to convince them they've been fooled," is the most accurate explanation I can find of where we are today.

I will add this one caveat: it is easy to fool people only when they willingly choose to be foolable when they allow others to tell them what's true and what's not.  Because it's infinitely easier to do that.

It was easier to believe that Trump was uncouth than to take the risk of being kicked out of the Cool Kids' Group, the group that includes Hollywood stars, Jimmy Fallon, Rachel Maddow, and Washington cocktail parties.

It was easier to believe that Russian prostitutes urinated on a bed on Trump's orders than to believe that Hillary Clinton had so little respect for the American citizens in clandestine jobs that she created an email server in her bathroom to get around the rules every other State Department official had to follow, thus exposing and endangering the lives of these officers; hired a company to create the story about the Russian prostitutes to distract the public from her illegal server; was the opposite of a champion of women, evidenced by her vicious attacks on the multiple women who accused her husband of assaulting them; and was unlikable, partly because of a grating speaking voice, but also because she had a history of treating everyone around her with disrespect and disdain, often humiliating subordinates.

It was easier to hate Trump than to believe that what the progressives said they wanted to do to America was actually what they would do to America.

It was easier to believe that Trump-supporters broke into the Capitol and threatened the lives of legislators and Capitol Police than to believe that House speaker Nancy Pelosi reduced the police presence at the Capitol, Capitol Police actually opened the gates and welcomed protesters, and a Capitol policeman shot and killed a protester — who was not armed and was not posing a risk to anyone else — without warning.

It was easier to believe that a man who could not fill a room with supporters before the election could win an election over a man who filled stadiums.

It was easier to laugh at a man with a distinctive hairdo and spray-on tan than to admit that his opponent had ties to the Chinese Communist Party and whose son was an active participant in relationships with China, thus completely and thoroughly compromising the entire Biden family.

Even now, it is easier to believe that the "anti-vaxxers" are all conspiracy theorists/selfish/murderers than to consider 1) that Big Pharma, the CDC, WHO, and Big Media may have colluded to prevent information about safe, inexpensive, and effective treatments for COVID-19 in order to make money and to cover their — what should be criminal — culpability before any long-term side effects start showing up, or 2) that people who have decided to forgo the vax are simply people who do not want to participate in what is arguably a clinical trial.

It's always easier to believe the lies than to search for the truth.

I would like to be the better person and forgive all of those who have come to regret voting for a mirage.  But I just can't.  The information was out there.  The "regretters" just didn't want to take the time to look for it and take the risk of losing their place at the Cool Kids' Table, at being laughed at themselves.

The situation we find ourselves in is what all of these regretters have wrought.  Period.  Although Boris Ephsteyn on Steve Bannon's War Room expressed the same sentiment on Thursday's War Room and thus beat me to the punch, here is my own similar message to them:

I and all of the other Trump supporters have been ridiculed, maligned, disrespected, physically attacked, stereotyped, and criminally charged for the last five years.  In stark contrast to the summer riots last year, we have for the most part endured this with the grace and respect the president himself modeled for us.  We protested — sometimes loudly, and sometimes by really angry tweets — but we didn't riot or pillage or vandalize.

We have had to watch the mainstream media scoff at us, the Supreme Court rule we had no "standing," and our heroes toppled — both literally and figuratively.

We have had to watch the only man who had ever stood up to fight for us be impeached twice, while we watched others who committed real crimes get not even a mention.

We have had to watch criminal aliens get priority over us as American citizens and the Chinese Communist Party interests given priority over ours.

We are now having to watch in real-time as Afghan citizens' lives are given priority over the lives of American citizens.

So if you voted for Biden or promoted him; if you hid or dismissed the facts about Hunter and the information on his laptop; if you voted to impeach Trump; if you acted in any way to make our election fraudulent; if you claimed you had no authority to honor states' requests for time to make sure their electors were correct (that's you, Mike Pence); if you sanctimoniously judged Trump-supporters as yokels or laughed along with those who did; if you criticized and voiced shame for being an American — don't waste your time looking to me for absolution.  I don't have the time or the energy to be glad or grateful you've joined the fight.  I have my hands full just trying to take in all of the destruction you've caused and to figure out how to fight for my own family and all the people who won't be prepared for what is coming.

To be clear, all of you — not just Joe Biden — own this.

Maybe the next time this happens, you will take the time to remember it has happened before.  At the time, as I recall, we actually promised "never again."

Remember that?  It started in the 1930s when it was just easier to hate the Jews.

I am just praying there will be a next time.

Petra North is the pseudonym for a retired high school teacher.  She may be reached at Petra.north@livingingrownupland.com.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.