Will never fill that hole
You're a man bought and sold
You're a man without a soul”
Lucinda Williams
It’s Round 12 of 15 in the contest between Trump and Truth. Truth has been the victim of two headbutts and one low blow and is bleeding from a gash above the right eye. Truth lands better punches but it’s not enough to stop the lies, conspiracy theories, empty promises about a Covid-19 vaccine arriving any day now, or the stock denials by Trump of his own recorded statements. No thinking citizen can keep pace with the scandals and theft and treason committed by Trump or watch the Evil Doughboy, William Barr, endorse and advance dubious legal gambits for Trump’s benefit or protection without his or her mouth falling open. It’s all so brazen, so in your face, so crude and devoid of style and artistry, and never, ever, even a hint of grace. It’s not there. Trump and his family are the worst of the capitalist ruling class.
GOP senators sit silent, heads bowed, as docile as can be. Cowed and quivering in the glare of Trump’s Twitter feed. Every one a profile of cowardice. Every one guilty of breaking his or her oath of office. Remember them on the day of reckoning when you seek someone to blame.
Who’s carrying weight for the Truth? Hard to say in this divided nation. Trump gasses that flame at every opportunity, makes it all so simple, just a matter of Red -- the good side, the strong side, the Real side, the heavily armed side, his side -- against Blue, the big city snobs, blacks, women, transgender folks, Leftists, Socialists, environmentalists, baby killers, Democrats, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Howard Zinn.
Black and white certainty. Winners on one side, losers on the other. All or nothing. Nuance is for elites.
We’re smarter than this, aren’t we? What say you, America? Is this the final step on our journey to the end of the American republic? A house divided against itself collapses sooner or later. This time we will not solely draw the boundaries in white and black, but in blue and red. America vs. MAGA America.
“We don’t count the dead in blue states. That would make our numbers look bad.”
The low blow was Trump lying to the American people about Covid-19. He knew. He covered the Truth under a blizzard of bullshit. For months. Repetitively. Deliberately. Nearly 200,000 dead Americans. Wives and sisters, husbands and brothers, grandmothers and grandfathers, people with names, with stories.
How many people who have the franchise will cast a ballot? That’s the question, the only question. If it’s a big turnout, a historic turnout, and all the ballots are counted, and all Trump’s subsequent court challenges fail, Biden should become the next President of the United States. Not necessarily on November 3, and maybe not even January 20, 2021. Trump is Trump, he will do what he always does, the same game he’s played keeping his income tax returns from scrutiny; delay and delay and delay; challenge the results as long as possible, by every means possible, and cry foul and theft and stolen and rigged! on Twitter and FOX. What then? How bad might it get? This idea messes with my sleep. We saw enough in the last three months to have a very good idea of how it could go down. Think Seattle. Think Portland. Think Minneapolis. There’s so much fear and pent-up rage, and so many guns, and too many officers of the law who relish conflict in the streets where they have overwhelming killing power. It’s like these fires all over California, Oregon and Washington. There’s enough combustible stuff, just a spark and you ignite a fire that can burn hot and fast and far. Trump will still be the president, and his enablers and lackeys and ass-kissers have bet all their chips on him so they can’t turn back now. The White House is already a fortress. Will it be painted red or blue?
I’m freaking myself out. This shit is enough to make any thinking, rational, reasonable person absolutely miserable. Prime time denial and delusion, corruption every day, and the next and the next and the next on to forever. Trump fights like a punk, but it’s still hard to lay a solid shot on him. He ducks, bobs, weaves, feints. He acts like a spastic and dares Truth to clock him. He lays on the ropes as long as the referee will allow. The rounds feel long, longer than the proverbial Dog Year. Much longer than that. Cockroach years.
Who’s carrying weight for the Truth? The same old bunch, some dead and gone, some living, Martin and Malcom and W.E.B. DuBois, Fanny Lou and Ida B. Wells, Gil Scott-Heron, the Black Panthers, James Baldwin, Angela Davis, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, the NAACP and the ACLU -- send them money if you can -- Democracy Now, The Lincoln Project, Reverend William Barber III, Cornel West and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Black Lives Matter, The Nation and the New York Review of Books, Maxine Waters and Ilhan Omar, too.
My vision tonight has taken on a gray tinge. The sky is too cloudy for any portents to shine down. The next three months will be hellish, of that I am sure. There will not be a smooth passing of the nuclear codes this time around. Win or lose Trump will burn it down and leave nothing but embers and ashes in his wake.
Like Lucinda Williams says, he’s a man without a soul.
And there’s the bell.
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