The Great Forgetting

 “How hard will the Democrats fight for the majority that elected them, and how hard will the Republicans fight to enshrine minority rule in our institutions?” Waleed Shahid, The Nation

He’s gone. The blessed day finally arrived. Trump lumbered away, disgraced, deflated, and defanged.  The people’s house is under new management; Joe Biden is now president. No riots broke out, the hallowed steps of the Capitol weren’t stormed by heavily-armed Trump supporters. It seems those malign forces went back to ground. 

But no sooner did Biden sit down in the Oval Office -- after it had been thoroughly disinfected, fumigated, saged, and exorcised -- than did the Great Forgetting begin. Republican halfwits like Lindsey Graham called for unity and warned of angering millions of people if Trump is tried by the Senate. Cries of “Putting a former president on trial is unconstitutional!”were heard on the cable networks. One piece I read on Politico or The Hill even argued that in the name of national unity Biden should pardon Trump as Gerald R. Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. The argument didn’t sway me. There can be no unity unless there are consequences for Trump and all connected with the January 6th Insurrection. We must call it what it was: a brazen attempt to seize political power by force, and by terror. Some of the folks who stormed the Capitol at Trump’s instigation believed they had license to rampage and immunity from consequences. Where did that notion come from, who planted the seed? 

America has to look under its bed and find out who gave aid, comfort and money to Trump’s foot soldiers, but I fear the January 6 Insurrection will slip out of focus, lose purchase as time passes and Congress gets distracted by shiny political objects. We need to immediately establish a commission invested with broad authority to investigate, hold public hearings, and out the enablers on the inside, the ones with badges and government-issued ID, and possibly even a few who sport Congressional lapel pins. 

In our investigation of the Insurrection, we must determine what Trump was doing and who he communicated with while the insurgents ransacked the Capitol and chanted for Mike Pence to be hung. Phone records, text messages, emails -- we need to see it all. 

Donald Trump will not enjoy his final years on this earth. Too many arms of the law encircle the worst president in modern American history, twice loser of the popular vote, twice impeached, and let’s hope once convicted. 

I repeat what I have written before -- it will take a few years to gauge the full effects of Trump’s single disastrous term. He drove the country blindfolded at full speed, convinced that only he knew the way, and millions of people took his word for it and went along for the ride. Biden’s crew has just begun to sort through the slag left by Trump’s people, and will no doubt be stunned and horrified by the incompetence and stupidity they discover. 

Like millions of my fellow citizens, I felt a sense of relief when Inauguration Day came off without a hitch. It was a good day for the country, a great day for women as Kamala Harris assumed the vice presidency. I see America too clearly to get weepy about the performative rituals of American democracy, but I do not dismiss their value. The spectacle surrounding the peaceful transfer of power was all the more remarkable and meaningful after four long years trapped beneath Trump’s oppressive ego. It was solemn and serious and steadying, a measure of comfort for a weary nation. The Trump years were hard, marked by cruelty and stupidity on a stunning scale. When the helicopter carrying Trump cleared DC’s airspace the tone of the country immediately changed. Biden gave a heartfelt speech full of platitudes about unity and American ingenuity and our essential, enduring decency, but along with the words themselves, it was the sound of a reassuring voice that many needed to hear. 

I don’t have any doubts about Biden’s basic decency, honesty, and sense of honor. It’s his policies on the economy, the use of military force, mass surveillance, climate change, and racial justice where I worry about Biden. Policy and time. Let’s not forget that Biden is a 78-year-old man faced with multiple challenges. 

After only a couple of days’ time the rose began to wilt. The usual political fuckery began with Mitch McConnell reverting to his obstructionist role. Biden’s doing as much as he can by Executive Order, but sooner or later he will need to pass legislation and that still entails striking deals with McConnell.  

Unity and reconciliation will come through accountability for Trump, as well as his enablers and collaborators.