A Season of Waiting

 “These are dangerous times for democracy. The danger can be seen in rising xenophobia and growing public support for autocratic figures who test the limits of democratic norms.” Michael J. Sandel, The Tyranny of Merit

For those Americans who see Donald J. Trump and what remains of the Republican Party for the clear danger they pose to America, the past year has been a season of waiting. We waited for the Democrats to nominate their presidential ticket; we waited for the party conventions, and then the debates. We waited for November 3rd, election day, and hoped Joe Biden would win by a margin too big to steal. He did. Then we waited for December 14, when the votes of the Electoral College were certified. We have since waited for January 5th, and the Georgia run-off election which will decide if Mitch McConnell retains his seat atop the smoking heap that is the Trump-owned GOP -- a party that for more than a quarter century has cared about one thing and only one thing: power -- and is now devouring itself, split between Republicans who still believe in ordinary reality and the Constitution, and the Trump wing which believes in fantasy and is ready and willing to trample the Constitution. 

And then there’s January 6th, when a heretofore largely ceremonial process -- the acceptance by Congress of the electoral college votes -- will be turned into a fascist spectacle by Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz on the Senate side, and nearly seventy-five percent of House Republicans, led by the likes of Kevin McCarthy and Louie Gohmert. 

While those of us who care about democracy have waited, and waited, Donald J. Trump and his ragtag cast of enablers have filed bogus lawsuits alleging election fraud, made seditious statements in the media, and called the legitimacy of Biden’s win into question. Some of Trump’s pliant minions, like Cruz and Hawley, are playing along for reasons of ambition and self-promotion; others, like the aforementioned Gohmert, who is simply a nitwit, have contorted themselves to curry favor with Trump’s base, which they see as key to their future political advancement. Cynical? Yes. Dangerous? Absolutely. 

And then we learn of Trump’s hour-long phone call with the Georgia Secretary of State, in which Trump -- two months after the election, and with the vote counts certified and submitted to Congress -- put on his full mob boss act, alternately cajoling, threatening, and pleading for the Secretary of State to “find” 11,780 votes so he, Trump, could be declared the victor in Georgia. This act by Trump was shocking, but in no way surprising. We saw the same gambit with Ukraine. That escapade led to Trump’s impeachment by the House of Representatives, and should have led to his removal from office. 

The only surprising thing is how pathetic and demented Trump sounded on the call, rolling out wild conspiracy theories that have already been debunked. As mob kingpins go, Trump simply isn’t up to the task, he’s too stupid. After his experience with Ukraine and Bob Woodward, what man goes into an hour-long phone call with other people on the line, including legal counsel, and lays out the play as if he’d never heard of audio recording? Answer, a really dumb, desperate man. 

I expect a circus on January 6th, and quite possibly some violence in the streets of DC. The coup plotters will drag out the proceedings as long as possible, but when all their rounds are expended, Biden will be declared the winner, again. And then those of us who believe in democracy will wait for January 20th. We will wait, and we will hope that a desperate, cornered Donald J. Trump will not launch a war against Iran. That two-week span might be the most dangerous time of all. Desperate men commit desperate, destructive acts.

Our season of waiting continues.