Mob Boss

 “A hideous farce against a backdrop of sweat and misery.” Henry Miller

I enjoy walking in our yard in the evening, when the sun reflects from the windows and the air feels soft, the sky clear overhead. We have two small lemon trees, a jacaranda, and an old olive tree. Fuchsia bougainvillea, many varieties of cactus. Cars whiz past on Milpas, but with part of the yard shielded by a seven-foot hedge, the noise is muted. It’s a gift to have some turf to move around in. I give the compost bin a spin. My good fortune astonishes me. After 22 years working for the same employer, in the same building, I’m moving into a new phase of my life. It feels right, so I’m going with the feeling, see where it leads. For the first time in years, I feel comfortable in my skin, I’m not envious or jealous of others as I might have been in the past, and I’m treating myself with more kindness. 

When I go back in the house my wife is on the phone with her sister who lives in Santa Maria and is nearly blind and plagued with other serious health issues. Her little dog escaped from the yard again and was found strolling down the street. They talk about In The Heights, the movie that was released this week to Oprah-style hype. Underwhelming, says my wife. She’s more of a purest, Broadway is her passion, and she didn’t think the female leads had the voices for the roles. 

My news feed is full of reports about Trump’s corrupt Department of Justice, and how the DOJ, first under the reign of Jeff Sessions, and then The Dirty Doughboy, AKA William Barr, subpoenaed the digital records of at least two members of Congress, both Democrats, as well as reporters from the New York Times and CNN. Apple was also subpoenaed. We’re finding out about this now because the gag orders issued by federal judges have expired. The House members, Democrats Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, were harsh critics of Trump, in particular Schiff who prosecuted the first impeachment trial. It reads like a reboot of the old Nixon Enemies List. What’s interesting to me is the tone of surprise from the talking heads on MSNBC and CNN, as if they can’t believe these revelations. I’m not surprised at all. Trump is as corrupt as the United States is unequal. The true extent of the damage Trump caused won’t be clear for at least another decade, but the essential point is that you can’t hand the levers of political power to a person as corrupt as Trump without being certain that he will use that power corruptly, for his own ends and the ends of his friends and people useful to him. To understand Trump think only of The Godfather, the book by Mario Puzo, the films by Francis Ford Coppola. Trump desperately wants to be a Mob Boss in the style of Don Corleone, feared and respected, but he is doomed to play Fredo. Trump’s understanding of power isn’t sophisticated, it comes from the mob idea, that’s why he treated federal agencies as if they worked for him. Like a mob boss, Trump prizes loyalty to him above nearly all else, and punishing the disloyal is reflexive. I have long wondered what Trump and Putin talked about for an hour and a half in Helsinki a few years ago, but I’d wager that not only did Vlad have plenty of advice to offer Trump, but that Trump was receptive because he respects the power and fortune Putin has amassed. Look at Trump’s pardons of Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and the noxious Roger Stone for further evidence of straight payback. Trump plays the game out in the open. How will the sycophants and boot-lickers in the GOP spin these latest developments? We will hear cries of “Witch Hunt” and “this is all politically motivated by the Democrats.” Those ruses are reliable ways to deflect and distract, clog up the news cycle and social media, and confuse people about what it all means. What it means is that we had better invest some effort into reforming the Department of Justice, Trump-proofing it while there is time. A house won’t stand for long on a cracked foundation. 

America vs. MAGA America

“All the money in the world
Will never fill that hole
You're a man bought and sold

You're a man without a soul”

Lucinda Williams

It’s Round 12 of 15 in the contest between Trump and Truth. Truth has been the victim of two headbutts and one low blow and is bleeding from a gash above the right eye. Truth lands better punches but it’s not enough to stop the lies, conspiracy theories, empty promises about a Covid-19 vaccine arriving any day now, or the stock denials by Trump of his own recorded statements. No thinking citizen can keep pace with the scandals and theft and treason committed by Trump or watch the Evil Doughboy, William Barr, endorse and advance dubious legal gambits for Trump’s benefit or protection without his or her mouth falling open. It’s all so brazen, so in your face, so crude and devoid of style and artistry, and never, ever, even a hint of grace. It’s not there. Trump and his family are the worst of the capitalist ruling class.

 GOP senators sit silent, heads bowed, as docile as can be. Cowed and quivering in the glare of Trump’s Twitter feed. Every one a profile of cowardice. Every one guilty of breaking his or her oath of office. Remember them on the day of reckoning when you seek someone to blame. 

Who’s carrying weight for the Truth? Hard to say in this divided nation. Trump  gasses that flame at every opportunity, makes it all so simple, just a matter of Red -- the good side, the strong side, the Real side, the heavily armed side, his side -- against Blue, the big city snobs, blacks, women, transgender folks, Leftists, Socialists, environmentalists, baby killers, Democrats, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Howard Zinn. 

Black and white certainty. Winners on one side, losers on the other. All or nothing. Nuance is for elites. 

We’re smarter than this, aren’t we? What say you, America? Is this the final step on our  journey to the end of the American republic?  A house divided against itself collapses sooner or later. This time we will not solely draw the boundaries in white and black, but in blue and red. America vs. MAGA America. 

“We don’t count the dead in blue states. That would make our numbers look bad.” 

The low blow was Trump lying to the American people about Covid-19. He knew. He covered the Truth under a blizzard of bullshit. For months. Repetitively. Deliberately. Nearly 200,000 dead Americans. Wives and sisters, husbands and brothers, grandmothers and grandfathers, people with names, with stories. 

How many people who have the franchise will cast a ballot? That’s the question, the only question. If it’s a big turnout, a historic turnout, and all the ballots are counted, and all Trump’s subsequent court challenges fail, Biden should become the next President of the United States. Not necessarily on November 3, and maybe not even January 20, 2021. Trump is Trump, he will do what he always does, the same game he’s played keeping his income tax returns from scrutiny; delay and delay and delay; challenge the results as long as possible, by every means possible, and cry foul and theft and stolen and rigged! on Twitter and FOX. What then? How bad might it get? This idea messes with my sleep. We saw enough in the last three months to have a very good idea of how it could go down. Think Seattle. Think Portland. Think Minneapolis. There’s so much fear and pent-up rage, and so many guns, and too many officers of the law who relish conflict in the streets where they have overwhelming killing power. It’s like these fires all over California, Oregon and Washington. There’s enough combustible stuff, just a spark and you ignite a fire that can burn hot and fast and far. Trump will still be the president, and his enablers and lackeys and ass-kissers have bet all their chips on him so they can’t turn back now. The White House is already a fortress. Will it be painted red or blue? 

I’m freaking myself out. This shit is enough to make any thinking, rational, reasonable person absolutely miserable. Prime time denial and delusion, corruption every day, and the next and the next and the next on to forever. Trump fights like a punk, but it’s still hard to lay a solid shot on him. He ducks, bobs, weaves, feints. He acts like a spastic and dares Truth to clock him. He lays on the ropes as long as the referee will allow. The rounds feel long, longer than the proverbial Dog Year. Much longer than that. Cockroach years.  

Who’s carrying weight for the Truth? The same old bunch, some dead and gone, some living, Martin and Malcom and W.E.B. DuBois, Fanny Lou and Ida B. Wells, Gil Scott-Heron, the Black Panthers, James Baldwin, Angela Davis, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, the NAACP and the ACLU -- send them money if you can -- Democracy Now, The Lincoln Project, Reverend William Barber III, Cornel West and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Black Lives Matter, The Nation and the New York Review of Books, Maxine Waters and Ilhan Omar, too. 

My vision tonight has taken on a gray tinge. The sky is too cloudy for any portents to shine down. The next three months will be hellish, of that I am sure. There will not be a smooth passing of the nuclear codes this time around. Win or lose Trump will burn it down and leave nothing but embers and ashes in his wake. 

Like Lucinda Williams says, he’s a man without a soul. 

And there’s the bell.