TERRY TURNER: Politics and fantasy

TERRY TURNER: Politics and fantasy

Published 8:04 am Wednesday, August 12, 2026

It’s amazing to hear high government officials still fantasizing that Joe Biden did not win the 2020 presidential election. That is what they do when, in testifying before Congress and they are asked if Joe Biden won the election of 2020, they respond by saying something like “Joe Biden was sworn in as President of the United States.” They can’t let the words, ”Biden won the election,” slip from their mouths because that admission would be a serious break from Trumpist orthodoxy. Rather, they must claim to believe that Biden lost the election yet somehow slipped through all manner of hurdles to be sworn into office, anyway. 

The worst offenders of this ilk are those who know better but are afraid to speak truth to power. Then there are those who really don’t know better because their personalities or politics make them immune to election facts that have been supported in courts across the country. These election deniers are the people referred to by the old proverb, “None are so blind as those who will not see.”  

All of these deniers join the great throngs of history who have believed fantastic scenarios to account for the events in their lives that they fear or object to. In some cases, they believe those same objectional events can be cured by other fantasies.

Take, for instance, the flu pandemic of 1918. It was called the “Spanish flu” because original impressions were that it originated in Spain. Wrong, but once the impression gained footing, the reality of its origin elsewhere barely moved popular belief. Fantastic rumors also said that German spies were spreading the disease through the mail. Wrong. A rumored cure was to tie sliced onions around the neck to absorb flu germs and toxins. Wrong. What about pouring whiskey through the nose? Wrong! 

One would like to think our country has become educated enough and wise enough to be suspicious of evidence-free claims about the causes and effects of diseases. We would like to think that spurious claims about cures to significant diseases would have vanished into history along with witches and Little Liver Pills. Unfortunately, that is not so. In the recent Covid pandemic, untold numbers of people rushed to obtain medications like Ivermectin, an antiparasitic with an action that was entirely irrelevant to viral infections like Covid. Ignoring scientific facts, rumors of its curative powers spread like wildfire among the credulous on-line and from there to others. Even more bizarre are the examples of President Trump suggesting Covid victims be injected with kitchen cleansers like Lysol or be administered the anti-malarial, hydroxychloroquine. There was no clinical evidence for either and, if followed, the “treatments” could have had serious side effects. Still, Trump’s minions would not correct him. Clearly, they favored political correctness over their responsibilities to public health.

Perhaps the most absurd residual belief about the Covid-19 pandemic among some people is the idea that it was all a fraud. The crowded ERs, the exhausted medical staffs, the traumatized families, the overwhelmed hospitals, the 15-30 million dead worldwide — all of which are thoroughly documented — were somehow a fake, an illusion perpetrated on the rest of us. Believing that is believing the unbelievable. For that, in a rational world, there is no cure. 

Do the Covid deniers matter? They do in that they are like a nidus of infection left after a treatment with antibiotic. They may be silent for a while, but they are there and ready upon stimulation to demonstrate again that being a modern, relatively well-educated country is no protection against political fantasies manipulating the credulous. We should all be wary.  

Terry Turner, a resident of Colquitt County, is professor emeritus of urology at the University of Virginia as well as author of books based on his experiences as an infantry officer in Vietnam.