Killer Instinct (Lack Of)

 “The result is a metastisizing corruption at the heart of the polity. About the Capitol coup there is no shared reality.” Mark Danner, New York Review

I understand some of the political calculations being made by Democrats. If they move too zealously to punish Trump for his myriad abuses of power, they risk inflaming Trump’s diehard base, many of whom are armed and waiting for a provocation. But if Democrats don’t act to hold Trump and his enablers accountable, and soon, they run a real risk of legitimizing Trump’s abuses. 

If the tables were turned and a crazed horde of armed Black Lives Matter supporters had stormed the Capitol on January 6, the Republicans would have spent the last six months holding Benghazi-style hearings to the exclusion of any legislative activity. The rabid right-wing media universe would throb and buzz with dire predictions of an incipient attack on God-fearing white people. That’s just how the GOP rolls. By comparison the Democrats seem tame and phlegmatic, totally lacking in killer instinct; they are like a soccer club that always sits deep and defends, with only the faintest hope of hitting their opponent on the counter attack. The GOP plays to win, the Dems are content with a draw. 

While Democrats make their political calculations in wood-paneled corridors, the GOP is doing everything it can to cement minority rule. Writing in the New York Review, Mark Danner notes, “If in close elections Republicans can place the effective power to award a state’s electoral votes in the state legislature, they will have gone far toward establishing a permanent grip on the White House.” This certainly appears to be the operating strategy. Accepting Trump’s Big Lie about a stolen election is the first step, putting in place the mechanisms (blatant voter suppression and nullification measures) to prevent future elections from being “stolen” is what logically follows. 

As I wrote here after he won the election, Biden will do what he can to return the country to a state resembling normal (meaning, I suppose, a less over-the-top level of deceit and corruption than we experienced during Trump’s misbegotten reign), and steady the institutions Trump tipped over, but I can’t help but think he’s the proverbial boy with his finger in the dike. Opposing him is a political party in thrall to a con artist along with millions of people willing to practice magical thinking. Even if Trump is indicted by any one of the agencies on his trail, his supporters will not abandon him. I can’t see the moment when the fever breaks and the reality of who Trump really is becomes crystal clear. As Hunter S. Thompson might say, we are well and truly fucked. A country in which nearly half the population believes in idiotic conspiracy theories and “alternative” facts is doomed. 

What does the reality-based half of the country do, where do we turn, and how can we stop this unholy onslaught? That sound in the distance is the drumbeat of minority rule. January 6 was a skirmish in the war. Under American flag and Christian cross, the aggrieved have begun to march.