Land of the Free & Other Fairy Tales

 

“Those overwhelmed by despair seek magical salvations, whether in crisis cults, such as the Christian Right, or demagogues such as Trump, or rage-filled militias that see violence as a cleansing agent.” Chris Hedges 

I’m writing this on the morning of the final debate between Trump and Joe Biden. I’ve listened to a number of pundits and political junkies talk about the format, the moderator, and how Trump might react if his microphone is silenced. Can Trump keep his shit together this time and allow Biden to talk without being interrupted? I agree with the pundits who maintain that this last debate is more important for Trump than Biden. The former vice president may be the challenger but the pressure to deliver a “normal” performance rests on Trump’s back.  Biden prepped, it’s a certainty that Trump didn’t bother. The lies, as always, will come thick and fast. 

Given the way Trump has ranted at his recent rallies, his attacks on the press, and the way he rambled on about low-flow showerheads and toilets at one of the gigs, I wonder if Trump is headed for his Howard Beal moment, a full-on meltdown on national television. It would be fitting if the medium that made Trump is also the medium that brings him crashing down. I don’t imagine this debate will change many minds, any more than I can imagine how any voter can be undecided at this point in the game. 

Let’s be clear: if Trump pulling himself together and pretending to be rational for 90 minutes is portrayed as a near-miracle in the media, that’s because the bar is down in the muck and Trump put it there.

American myths -- freedom, liberty, justice for all -- crash head-on into American hypocrisy. For decades the United States painted itself as the gold standard when it came to free and fair elections, and we never shied from lecturing less civilized and sophisticated nations about their election practices even though for most of the 20th century we systematically disenfranchised millions of African-American voters. Voting procedures vary from state-to-state and, since 2010 when John Roberts and his Federalist Society pals opened the spigots and flooded our political system with  unaccountable corporate cash in the Citizens United decision, then gutted the Voting Rights Act three years later, making it possible for Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, Texas, and North and South Carolina to erect new obstacles, resurrect some old ones, and once again render the act of voting difficult for folks of lesser means and darker pigment. 

Those in power don’t like to share. The powerful and wealthy make voting difficult for certain segments of the American electorate because they want as little democracy as possible. 

LATER. 6:30 P.M. 

My wife and daughter are watching the Trump-Biden “debate” behind me, but both are on their phones. I’m plugged in, listening to Fela Kuti at higher than normal volume in order to drown Trump’s voice out. The man sickens me. He is everything that is crass, cruel and crooked in this life. He’ll lie for his life tonight, force Biden to defend, maybe stumble. My phone keeps pinging, another Democratic Party group warning me that Trump will be reelected unless I chip in $25 in the next five minutes. Joe is counting on me. Brian, it’s Kamala...Then, ominously: TRUMP IS KILLING BIDEN...saving his presidency...staging a last-ditch assault for reelection. It’s too much. I need more music, louder... have to keep these voices out of my brain. Twelve or thirteen days until the last day to cast a vote. Feels like an eternity. 

Trump is like Dracula. He has an insatiable appetite for power and wealth, to be loved and adored, and the only way to kill him is to drive a stake in his heart, shove a crucifix up his ass, and take off his hairpiece. Trump needs his hair, it’s like his battle armor. The debate should be nearing its merciful end, and then the tea leaf reading can begin, hourly polls, trends, probabilities, what ifs, analysis, the hunt for nuance and secret messages, a clear winner. Like I said this morning, if Trump managed to behave himself and exercise a 12-year-old’s impulse control, he may do his campaign a boost, give it a last spasm of life before the lights dim. How many undecided voters is Trump chasing, how is he going to turn them at this point? Let’s be clear: if Trump pulling himself together and pretending to be rational for 90 minutes is portrayed as a near-miracle in the media, that’s because the bar is down in the muck and Trump put it there. Trump hasn’t acted normal or been coherent in months. If Biden held his own, got in a couple of good licks on the Coronavirus and the economy, he should be fine. 

Here’s my mantra: It’s not 2016. This is a different race under very different conditions. 

I think the post-game analysis is underway. 

Injustice Nation

 

“For five decades, the Court has, with striking regularity, sided with the rich and powerful against the poor and weak, in virtually every area of the law.” Adam Cohen, Supreme Ineqiality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle For A More Unjust America

Dispirited. Another week of soul fatigue. The fuckery goes on as the election nears. Suppression tactics in full swing. It’s not subtle. Strip large urban areas of ballot drop-off boxes. Reduce the number of polling places so voters have to endure long lines and hours of waiting to exercise their right to vote. If the powerful wanted people to vote in large numbers, they would make it easy to do so. Instead they (state level Republican legislatures and secretaries of state) make it hard for as many people as they can. Aided and abetted by the Supreme Court’s gutting of the voting rights act, they create formidable barriers. According to Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project, Florida excels at election fuckery, which explains, in part, why so many of the leeches that squirm their way to the top of the GOP hierarchy hail from Florida. Rick Scott. Ron Desantis. Marco Rubio. The list goes on. Right-wingers and the State of Florida have had a long love affair.

Ever since Robert Bork spoke his mind too freely, the confirmation process has been like bad Kabuki theater. The whole shebang is a farce, and most of the time the hearings are dull, ponderous, long on posturing opportunities for senators, and devoid of substance. 

Amy Coney Barrett will be confirmed as the newest Supreme Court Justice and will park her uptight, reactionary butt in RBG’s old chair. The Democrats can’t stop this confirmation train, not even with dynamite. It’s a done deal. The Court will soon have six Catholics. Think of that. When John F. Kennedy ran for Senate in the mid 1950’s, and then president a few years later, his Catholic faith was a big deal, a campaign “issue” because it made WASPS uneasy. Today’s WASPS have nothing to fear because this Catholic-laden court will protect their class interests. Amy Coney Barrett hails from some weird Catholic sect in South Bend, Indiana, and reminds me of someone who has been indoctrinated. The first time I saw her photograph I thought she could be a character from Westworld. Like a robot, she was programmed to evade, to duck and dodge, to bob and weave, and refuse to take a position on the simplest matters of law, like whether or not the Constitution allows the president to change the date of a national election.  Ever since Robert Bork spoke his mind too freely, the confirmation process has been like bad Kabuki theater. The whole shebang is a farce, and most of the time the hearings are dull, ponderous, long on posturing opportunities for senators, and devoid of substance. 

I felt the weight of the times today. It was 95 degrees outside in the middle of October, in a year when 4 million acres of California has been torched by wildfires and the long term weather forecast points at a mild, dry winter for a swath of the country. The drought will worsen, the risk of devastating wildfires will increase; the cycle is as vicious as it is obvious, but don’t bother trying to convince the US Supreme Court; after all, climate change is a contentious public issue. Fuck. I have this sinking feeling that the next several years will be grim for millions of people. My family isn’t impervious to these riptides, and I find myself worrying about the future.  Even if we manage to push Biden and Harris across the line next month, the road will be rough. It’s going to take a concerted effort to powerwash Trump’s shit stains from every federal agency. Even if Democrats flip the Senate -- which is absolutely necessary if we are to have any hope -- the GOP, though weakened by it’s romance with Trumpism, will still do everything possible to thwart Biden and Harris. We can’t fool ourselves. A Biden victory will not restore the nation to the state it was in when Trump took the reins. The shit we’re in is much deeper; Trump has done a number on America. Trump bent the nation over and sodomized it. 

To stop backsliding into the abyss, the Democrats must win the Senate and the White House and hold both long enough to appoint justices who are not products of the Federalist Society.  If the country is to make any progress on the thicket of intertwined problems staring us down -- from climate change and health care as a right, to racial and economic justice, gun control, campaign finance reform and mass incarceration, mass surveillance and militarism -- we must have more democracy, not less, but thanks to Mitch McConnell and the reactionary Federalist Society, that’s a ways off. The Nixon Court has become the Trump Court. Fire in the hole, America. 

Power must be one hell of a high, better than opium.