“So it was not without a keen and profoundly morbid sense of curiosity that kept me and Cromwell locked into the TV news all night -- mainly waiting to see who was going to get blamed for an outrage so awful and massive as to snap the mind of Richard Nixon… “
Hunter S. Thompson, Songs of the Doomed
Long days, strange nights, Covid here but not there, Covid rampaging through the White House, rumored to be a ghost town with only a few lights burning. House of shadows and gloom. Trump lumbers through the hallways, sweaty, breathless, confused and angry, like when your grandpa goes off his meds for a week. Where’s Jared? Has Melania left? Is Barr sick? Trump sucks attention like a Dyson vacuum run at full, screaming volume. His stunts become more pathetic and empty, a fat white man on a balcony above a courtyard strewn with trash and broken folding chairs. He may still be contagious, but we don’t know. Trump doesn’t want us to know. Donald is starting to spin toward the drain. This river of shame and failure narrows ahead and the canyon walls rise high and sheer, and with every passing day it feels like the end is nearing. There are no escape routes from this canyon, no gaps in the sheer stone walls. The only way out is through, to where the river widens. The king has the plague, half his court is in hiding, his coffers are depleted, the jesters run through their usual tricks but find them stale and dry. Dip too many times in the Well of Absurdities and this is what happens.
But, good people, don’t think for a minute that the Orange Menace is done, he’s not. The polls tell a story, and we can take some hope from the fact that this is not 2016, but we cannot let up. Turnout is the key. Trump’s defeat must be overwhelming so it can survive the BS legal challenges Billy “Evil Doughboy” Barr will attempt as all the votes are being tallied.
Thankfully, it’s not 2016. Hillary Clinton isn’t on the ballot, and Donald J. Trump is no longer an outsider; he’s the Man, with the weight of abject failure and humiliation hanging from his neck. He knew Covid was going to hit hard and he lied, again and again and again. He waited too long to act, and when he did act his effort was feeble and bungled, a disgrace to his office. More than 210,000 Americans have died. More dead than on 9/11. More dead than in all our recent undeclared wars, invasions, and occupations.
Democrats, people of goodwill who hate politics, Republicans who voted for Trump in 2016, back when it was easier for some people to believe in Trump’s myth of winning, but can no longer avoid the hard truth, is an odd coalition, but I’ll take it. Folks who rolled the dice on Trump in 2016 will not make the same mistake in 2020. They’ve seen enough. Trump’s on TV, on radio, jabbering and frothing to keep his hardcore base from collapsing, but that’s all he can do, keep his base. He isn’t expanding it. Voting is already underway in many states. The number of undecided voters is far less than it was four years ago. That bodes ill for Trump.
Voters, it’s time for us to kill the game, as soccer commentators like to say. Just because the polls look favorable, we cannot take our foot off the gas. It’s no different from a great football club like Liverpool or Bayern Munich, elite teams who are never satisfied with a 1-nil victory. Liverpool and Bayern are ruthless and unrelenting; when they score one goal they immediately want another, then another. They don’t back off and defend, they press high up the pitch and swarm their opponents to force mistakes. We have to be as hungry to send Trump and his entourage packing as Liverpool and Bayern are to score goals and win titles. That means we play hard and smart until the final whistle shrieks. Vote. Encourage people you know to vote. If you can, donate a few bucks to candidates in close races for senate. America needs a reset, and that cannot happen while Donald Trump and the GOP is in charge.
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