"Legitimate Political Discourse"

 “If fossil fuel corporations are allowed to continue heating the planet, mounting food and water scarcity could well induce civilizational decline.” Daniel Sherrell, The Nation

Another week in the open-air asylum that is America. The Republican Party censored two of its members, Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, for doing their sworn duty and upholding their oath of office. Pause and allow that to sink in. The Republican National Committee then, believe it or not, called the riot of January 6 “legitimate political discourse.” Sit with that for a moment as well. This is the stuff of which authoritarian regimes are made. Absolutely fidelity to the Great Leader, and belief in fantasy. Is it legitimate discourse when five people die, hundreds of law enforcement personnel are injured, and the seat of our democracy is damaged and desecrated? Is this what the Party of Lincoln calls “legitimate political discourse”? If Dwight Eisenhower was on the scene today, he’d be booted from the GOP. Hell, back in the 1950’s the John Birch Society claimed that Ike was a communist. The nutty fringe is now firmly in the mainstream. Thank you Koch family. Thank you Roger Ailes. Thank you Rupert Murdoch. Thank you United States Supreme Court. 

Stop the presses, Mike Pence said publicly that Donald Trump is wrong! The ultimate blasphemy. Pence was one of Trump’s most subservient lap dogs, who believed as many evangelical Christians did that Trump was the second coming of their beloved lord and savior. Whatever Trump says, spews, or barks is gospel, no matter how witless, idiotic, illegal, or insane. That’s the public belief system that must be expressed at every opportunity, the Party line. Pence was already a pariah in the GOP, the man Trump’s addled foot soldiers sought to hang on January 6, on the gallows they hastily erected, so stating the obvious won’t cost him. Mikey wants to be President almost as much as he wishes to sit at the right hand of the father, but his chance is gone. But let’s not anoint Pence as a courageous man for doing his duty under the law. That’s the bare minimum we should expect from any person in public office. No accolades or praise is necessary. 

Trump’s endless whining about fraud and corruption in the electoral machinery might backfire, and I bet many in the GOP know it. They wouldn’t be disappointed if Trump was struck by lighting and rendered mute. Trump’s unfounded claims could dampen Republican turnout in November. If the whole process is as bankrupt as Trump claims, why bother to vote? Stay home MAGA people, wave your big Trump flag in protest, torch Nancy Pelosi in effigy, stick needles in your Adam Kinzinger voodoo doll. Listen to your false idol, the Fairy King of Mar-A-Lago. 

To watch this country descend into such madness and stupidity, to watch millions of Americans embrace a man as ridiculous as Donald Trump, to watch an entire political party fall to its knees and declare loyalty to Trump rather than loyalty to this country’s institutions and laws, is mind boggling. How can so many people be so gullible? How can so many be so terrified of examining our history, accepting and coming to terms with it? “Real” Americans see liberals as wimps, soft, mush-brained, as Rush Limbaugh told them daily for nearly thirty years. Turns out that Limbaugh’s people, the ones with all the guns and ammo, are a pack of wusses, scared shitless by ideas and historical facts. All this activity around the nation to ban books from school libraries, and etch into law a requirement that teachers not present ideas or concepts that might upset pale-skinned Jack, or high-strung Caitlyn; we can’t run the risk of upsetting the delicate sensibilities of white children. Might harm them for life. Throw those terrible and frightening books on the fire. 

Joe Rogan and Marjorie Taylor Greene are America’s new prom King & Queen.

Remind me, how is the GOP any different from the Taliban?

I’m almost finished with Alfred W. McCoy’s fine book, To Govern the Globe. The world order stitched together by the United States after World War II, which included the Marshall Plan to help rebuild Europe, the creation of NATO, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and mutual security pacts with Japan, South Korea and Australia, is unraveling. While there was plenty of hypocrisy in Washington’s order (professing democratic ideals and human rights while simultaneously toppling duly-elected governments it disagreed with, climbing into bed with dictators, and so forth) it has managed to maintain relative stability and prosperity for 70 years. What comes next we can only guess at. McCoy theorizes that China has the economic and military potential to supplant the Washington order as early as 2030. If trends continue, the US, with a declining share of the world economy under its control, will be unable to maintain its massive global military presence, and in particular its hegemony over the Pacific Ocean. Climate change is the wild card. McCoy writes, “Through its ever-increasing intensity, global warming will have a destructive impact on world orders for the rest of the twenty-first century and beyond.” What McCoy shows in this book are the circumstances -- political, industrial, diplomatic, social, and military -- that cause empires to fall and world orders to shift. The US is a hollow lion, losing its global edge a little more each year. Trump hastened our slide by stupidly attacking NATO, the WHO, and settled international agreements like the Paris Climate Accords. The framework erected during the American world order, global symbols for order, cooperation, and the rule of law, were either weakened or eliminated under Trump’s reign of error. This country is in for a great reckoning. 

I may not see it, but my children surely will, and that is why I am constantly in a state of anxiety, because time is not on our side and collectively we have failed to take climate change seriously. Baby Boomers, like me, will die in an era we may hardly recognize.