Nowhere Else to Go

“It is to be decision not by election but by assertion, made not by the mere numerical majority but by ‘we’ the patriots, the real Americans.” Fintan O’Toole, New York Review of Books

Of course Trump was acquitted by the Senate. Of course that diseased body let Trump off the hook, again. The final tally was 57-43. Seven Republicans repudiated the cult and voted to convict Trump. All seven are, or soon will be, under merciless attack from state political parties, suffering censure and condemnation for their betrayal of Dear Leader Trump. Fidelity to their oath of office, the Constitution, or their constituents is secondary. Perversely, they will be sanctioned for doing their duty. The same fate will befall the ten GOP members of the House who voted to impeach.

Power rallies to itself, that’s how it works. 

After voting to acquit Trump, Mitch McConnell contorted himself in a manner Gumby would admire and declared that Trump was responsible for the Insurrection and should be held to account -- in the courts. Mitch passed the buck then pretended sanctimonious outrage, assuming everyone had already forgotten how in the days after the Insurrection he claimed there wasn’t enough time for the Senate to try Trump. We should never forget McConnell’s blatant, calculating political ploy to have it both ways. He manipulated the Senate to prevent it from holding a trial while Trump was in office -- in essence running out the clock -- then voted to acquit on the grounds that it’s unconstitutional to convict a president who has left office (false). And there he was, standing upright though he has no spine, assuring the nation that Trump is culpable for inciting a deadly mob. Mitch talks out of every orifice. Spare us the sanctimony, you miserable coward. 

If we don’t strengthen our democracy now, while there’s a chance, we will have only ourselves to blame when we find ourselves under autocratic rule. We need immediate consideration and passage of HR1 (The For the People Act) and its companion, SR1. Most state legislatures are controlled by Republicans and many are already scheming to create more obstacles to voting. Because they are a true minority party, the only way Republicans can win elections and retain power is by cheating. To survive they must gerrymander districts and erect barriers to prevent or disqualify large numbers of eligible voters from voting. They’re very adept at it. HR1 and SR1 are needed to balance the scales. 

Keep an eye on anti-democracy fuckery operations in Georgia, Florida and Texas. 

The choice seems clear: either we strengthen our democracy or prepare for permanent minority rule. It’s not certain that we will fully recover from Trump’s frontal assault on our democratic processes. My gut sense is that within a decade we will be effectively finished as a representative democracy. If elections have no legitimacy in the eyes of millions of citizens why respect their outcomes? If there’s no perceived legitimacy, there can be no peaceful transfer of power. I think, as Hunter S. Thompson might say, we are well and truly fucked, especially if Trump and his entourage pay no penalty for their words and deeds. 

And there he was, standing upright though he has no spine, assuring the nation that Trump is culpable for inciting a deadly mob. Mitch talks out of every orifice. Spare us the sanctimony, you miserable coward. 

Our atomized, poisoned media landscape is one problem I don’t think we will solve. How can we resolve differences and solve difficult social problems like racism, climate change and wealth inequality when we cannot come close to agreeing on the facts? When people don’t know what or who to believe they become easy prey for false prophets and demagogues. Being told what to think and believe is easier than thinking for oneself. My 85-year-old mother has had her mind taken over by Fox News; she’s certain that the Biden administration will force every American to get vaccinated against Covid-19. She survives on a small pension and Social Security and decries “socialism” as the worst evil. There’s no way to reason with her. 

When all is said and done it’s about raw power dressed up as the “will of the people”. What a perverse joke. According to polls, the majority of Americans favored Trump’s conviction, but once again the will of the majority was easily ignored or subverted by those elected to represent us. Cynical, craven Republicans still cower before Trump, terrified of being ostracized from the personality cult, attacked on social media, and losing their privilege and power in primary challenges when election season rolls around. The specter of the next iteration of Marjorie Taylor Greene haunts the sleep of most Republicans. 

As I’ve written before, all Joe Biden can do is use his narrow window of opportunity to slow America’s descent, but he cannot stop it. This train is chugging along a route that will soon run out of track. I’d jump off if I could, but like millions of my fellow citizens, I have nowhere else to go. 

The Isolation/Rebellion Diaries No. 8

“It signifies a fact that has not fundamentally changed since the defeat of Reconstruction: black people can be subjected, usually with impunity, to arbitrary aggression.” Fintan O’Toole, New York Review of Books

Covid-19 days, nights, weeks and months. It feels that we’re almost back where we started in March, as if the virus sent us back to the starting line. Covid-19 is active in Santa Barbara, though tourists roam State Street and dine outdoors; people in masks queue outside the Apple Store, still hungry for the latest gadgets. Life in a pandemic is strange to begin with, but when you live in a country with corrupt and incompetent political leaders, strange becomes surreal. 

Our Trumpian nightmare, our American Horror Show, eternal night. As expected, the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, punted the question of Trump’s tax returns back to the lower courts, where the matter will be drowned in briefs and motions and legal stalling for God knows how long. This has been Trump’s way of dodging accountability for decades. Sue, countersue. The secrets in Trump’s financial records will not be seen by American voters prior to November. Trump won the round. Yes, Roberts and the Court upheld the most basic legal concept -- that no one is above the law -- but if reinforcing that assertion is what passes for courage or justice -- we really are in deep water. 

The wealthy buy justice. No surprise. Even the law has a price tag. 

I studied the architectural plans for the office’s HVAC system while heating a cup of water in the microwave. The schematic might have been Sanskrit and I understood little of what it communicated. In my next human incarnation I wish to have two skills: carpentry and music. I want to be able to build a tool shed or a doghouse, erect a fence. My father was a butcher, a skilled one, but he had no mechanical aptitude and neither do I. Taking things apart to understand how they work never has intrigued me, and I regret this fact. Same with music, I like many forms of music but I don’t understand how it works and my attempt to learn the guitar was a failure. I am tone deaf, can’t keep a rhythm. I remember being in the second or third grade, forced to play an instrument; my mother chose the clarinet. I was inept. All I made that instrument do was screech like nails on a chalkboard. It was torture, an embarassment. 

I’m deep into Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography. Like his legendary live performances, the book is long. I’m to the part where Springsteen has just released Nebraska, his dark, spare, and haunting masterpiece. I’ve always liked the album, though I didn’t discover it until many years after it was released in 1982. “Nothing feels better than blood on blood.” The early 1980’s. I was living in Japan then, cut off from what was happening in America. The early days of the conservative political revolt led by Uncle Ronnie Reagan, the AIDS crisis, the death twitch of American manufacturing. The Japanese economic juggernaut was going to eclipse us in an avalanche of Honda and Toyota automobiles and SONY boomboxes. Long ago. When I think of the 1980’s my memories are dim as ash. 

Springsteen’s quieter albums, Nebraska, The Ghost of Tom Joad, Devils & Dust, Magic, and Western Stars won my respect and admiration. The imagery, mood, and beauty of the writing, the empathy are why I return to them over and over. The autobiography fills in some of the spaces, explains Springsteen’s state of mind and circumstances; his childhood in Freehold, New Jersey, exerted a tremendous pull on his imagination and heart. Poor, working-class, houses with thin walls and no hot water, a taciturn, distant and sometimes menacing father, a vivacious and loving mother. Springsteen willed himself to become the leader of a band that could follow his voice, ambition and vision. The man’s a product of hard work. Springsteen hauled his Catholic guilt around for years. Many of his songs are rooted in the fear of, and longing for, his father’s love. 

I understand that longing. My dad passed away long ago, aged 57, his body ravished by a pack-a-day smoking habit and too many years of heavy drinking. He never met his grandson. He wasn’t present when I got married. I assume he would be proud of me. I wish I could talk to him about his life, his dreams and desires. 

Covid-19 summer. Fruit falls from the trees, rots on the ground. My emotions swing like a frayed rope bridge over a deep ravine. Am I a fraud and a failure? Have I slept-walked through my days and nights, always searching for a prize I cannot see or name? I wrestle with my contradictions, kick myself for wasting time searching for clues in dark corners. Too selfish I conclude, too stingy with my love, too walled off from other people, too solitary, too locked in my own head. Feels too late to slip this skin now. I have to harvest the seeds I’ve sown. 

The Isolation Diaries No. 35

“Lives are being destroyed on the altar of profit.” Chris Hedges on the Truth Report with Chauncey DeVega

Until today I was feeling decent emotionally, neither too high or too low, taking it day by day, but the minute I went into the office this morning the wheels fell off my mental bus and I plunged down a ravine. I still can’t put my finger on the exact cause, which is as frustrating as feeling like the climb out of the ravine is more than I’m capable of. Even a hard training session failed to lift my mood. 

The Great Forgetting is underway. Coronavirus? What Coronavirus? I listened to an interview with the Irish writer Fintan O’Toole, who said the US under Trump looks pitiful. How, O’Toole wondered, can the country rebound with an actively malign presence in the White House? Good question, and the answer is that it can’t. Trump’s reality show presidency was destined to destroy, not build. Why people thought his run in the White House would be any different from his multiple business failures still baffles me. The American Empire was low on fuel when Trump took office, and now it’s running on fumes. 

Trump is the dark lord of America’s slimy underbelly. 

Remember when Trump said his administration had shut down the Coronavirus? That was almost 100,000 American deaths ago. Here’s the latest from the Trump Death Clock: 59,311. That’s the number of deaths that could have been prevented if Trump and his pathetic administration had acted with competence. 

The Trump Gang is full of political hacks and incompetent dickheads. I thought Lawrence Kudlow or Ben Carson or Betsy DeVos led the pack, but then along comes Trump economic advisor Kevin Hassett, who claims that America’s “human capital stock,” by which he means working people, are itching to get back to serving the millionaires and billionaires who own and operate our economy, even if it costs their health or their lives. Human capital stock. Had he been around in 1830, Hassett would likely have been an owner of human chattel, African flesh and blood, to be used, abused and discarded in the cotton or cane fields. I imagine Hassett as a squeamish owner who outsourced the discipline of his slaves to men even more heartless than he. 

No savior waits in the wings. This isn’t a Hollywood blockbuster. No, Joe Biden isn’t Donald Trump. Biden isn’t a sociopath, but if you think all our troubles -- social, political, economic -- will magically vanish should Biden pull off an upset and defeat Trump in November -- if we even have an election -- you need to spend some time reviewing Biden’s long legislative record. It’s not pretty. Biden’s policy stances are one of the reasons America has been hollowed out like a Halloween pumpkin. 

Hypocrisy. Stupidity. Cruelty. 

It took a long time for the Greedheads to put truth and honor and decency to the sword. They stood gloating over the bleeding forms, sword in one hand, Christian cross in the other. The Greedheads believe in death and of death they can never get enough.  

Night falls over my ravine. A coyote howls. Come the first light of morning I might climb out.