2 + 2 = 5

 “I have come very late to the pleasure of sitting still with little or nothing on my mind.” Jim Harrison, The Road Home

Coming to the end of my first month of retirement. My Freedom Summer, the first time in twenty-two years that I haven’t been yoked to someone else’s schedule. It has been brilliant. A run of days of cool mornings and lovely sunny afternoons. I’ve been writing, reading, walking or riding my bike up Garcia Road, doing my training sessions, drinking wine, and watching TV in the evening with my wife. We’re into Dr. Death and The White Lotus at the moment. We enjoyed the Kominsky Method. The money is holding. Everybody’s healthy and we don’t suffer at all; life is crazy good right now. 

But back east in the nation’s capitol, the seat of our government and home of our limited, tenuous democracy, and many of our most cherished national myths, the war between Fact and Fantasy rages on. Trump fans the flame, Fox News amplifies it, and GOP nitwits like Kevin McCarthy and Ted Cruz repeat the talking points. Whatever the issue, employ the same tactic: work a bit of verbal jujitsu and flip it. Thus can Elise Stefanik, the third ranking member in the House GOP hierarchy, blame the breach of the capitol on Nancy Pelosi. Stefanik is banking on the American people being too ignorant to know what Stefanik clearly knows, namely, that the Speaker of the House isn’t responsible for security at the capitol. Not that facts matter. Slinging mud is what matters to the GOP. Anything and everything can be blamed on Pelosi. 

The modern GOP is like the Communist Party in the old Soviet Union, decrepit and morally debased, interested only in clinging to power; it’s a party based on denial -- of everything from climate change to who was responsible for the insurrection on January 6. We learned this week that neither Kevin McCarthy or Mitch McConnell watched the first hearing of the House subcommittee investigating the Trump-inspired insurrection. Couldn’t be bothered, nothing to learn from four officers who battled rioters on that mournful day. Over on the Fox propaganda network, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson accused the officers of “theatrics.” So much for backing the men and women of Law Enforcement. 

Keeping an eye on politics tests one’s faith in human nature. Where else in this country do people so regularly sell out as in the halls of Congress? I’m not talking about the compromises politicians must make in order to craft legislation -- horse trading and compromise is how the sausage gets made. It’s messy and few are happy at the end. It’s the art of the possible and all that. I’m talking about selling out one’s principles. Condemning Donald Trump for inciting a mob one minute, then skipping down to Mar-A-Lago to lick his balls the next, as Kevin McCarthy did earlier this year, is what I’m talking about. Shamelessly describing the mob as a bunch of peaceful tourists, trying to turn rioters into patriots and martyrs, gaslighting people every day into doubting what they saw with their own eyes is my point. 

Insisting that 2 + 2 = 5. 

The last thing the GOP wants is for the full scope of what went down on January 6 to come out. They know where the trail of evidence will lead. They must know which members will be implicated. That’s why McConnell nixed a non-partisan independent investigation and McCarthy did his best to ratfuck the House subcommittee by clogging it with wingnuts and bomb-throwers like Jim Jordan. McCarthy wanted to turn the hearings into a circus, but since being outmaneuvered by Nancy Pelosi, all he can do is carp from the sidelines. Kevin’s not the brightest bulb, but he is scared of Jim Jordan and his ilk, and doesn’t want what happened to John Boehner to happen to him. McCarthy plays all the angles.

I don’t know how these folks sleep at night after spending an entire day pissing on the oath they swore. Corruption is corrosive and power corrupts and absolute power (which is what Trump wants. He wants to be Vladimir Putin) corrupts absolutely. If I were Steve Scalisi, I’d be watching over my shoulder for Elise Stefanik. She likes power, she’s hungry for it. She’s had a taste of it and wants more. 

You can’t swim in a cesspool and come out smelling of lilac. 

Menace

 “At some time or other in life, everyone finds themselves at an important crossroads and must tackle their fate head-on.” Varlam Shalamov, Sketches Of The Criminal World

Menace is at my feet this evening. That’s not the puppy’s real name, not yet, though it would be appropriate. Since my mother-in-law bought her from a woman in LA, the Shih-Tzu pup has answered to Martini, Chula, Cali, Calliope, Xochitl, Sweetums, Lil’ Mama, and Jessie, the latter being my mother-in-law’s choice, which she’s sticking to even though the entire family hates it. Not long after getting the pup Mother-in-Law had to have hip replacement surgery and that curtailed her ability to care for her new charge. We have the baby. I call the puppy Menace because she’s always getting into things, gnawing on power cords, having the occasional bodily accident on the rug. She likes to eat her own shit and will wolf it down in the blink of an eye. Menace has learned that people often drop food in the kitchen, little morsels, crumbs, and if quick enough she can snatch a treat. At this very moment she is sitting by the open back door, chewing on one of my Adidas slides. Tipping the scale at about two pounds, she’s a playful, schizophrenic ball of brown and white fur. The tip of her tail is white. We’re all infatuated with her, though I will be glad when she stops nipping at my toes.  

How can people be happy when life’s so shitty for so many? How can life be so beautiful and so ugly at the same time? Dealing with contradiction is part of the human condition. The cruelty of America often stuns me, though it shouldn’t because our history as a nation overflows with it. We’re not unique and hardly exceptional, except when it comes to the number of savage gun deaths we tolerate year after year. Atlanta and Boulder have joined the club. Columbine, Las Vegas, El Paso, Sandy Hook, Charleston, Orlando, Parkland. Too many places to list because in this American culture mass shootings happen so often they no longer shock. The motives for the killing sprees in Atlanta and Boulder are not entirely clear; young men with serious problems and easy access to killing equipment. 

To operate motor vehicles in this country we require that people have drivers licenses and insurance in case they hit something or somebody. There are tests, written and performance, and fairly strict rules of the road that must be followed after the license is issued. Licenses can also be revoked. This system works reasonably well, although an argument can be made that too many people still die each year in automobile accidents. But the point is that collectively we accept drivers’ licenses as a necessary, reasonable method of ensuring we can all enjoy the privilege of driving with a measure of safety. But when it comes to guns we require very little. Why? Well, one reason is that gun ownership has become -- was deliberately made to be -- a deeply contested, hot-button political issue, a litmus test for conservatives. The GOP and the NRA were a marriage that worked to make gun ownership a third-rail of American politics. After every mass shooting that I can recall, the NRA immediately mobilized its might and pressured Congress to do nothing -- and Congress complied. The 2nd Amendment has been twisted like a pretzel, out of all proportion to its meaning and the context of the time when it was written. The men who wrote the Bill of Rights could not have imagined the lethal weaponry ordinary people would one day find easy to get their hands on. Semi-automatic pistols, assault rifles with extra large magazines. My friend in Michigan knows firearms better than I do, and can quote make, model, velocity, types of ammunition, the whole catalog. I don’t own any firearms, never have, but I respect my fellow citizens’ right to own rifles, pistols, and shotguns, whether used for sport or protection. I have no problem with people owning firearms for these purposes. But I think buying and owning a firearm should require some effort, a few hoops to jump through before a permit to purchase and own is issued. Is a background check or waiting period that unreasonable? Guns are a public safety issue and only the State has the power to regulate them. Regulation isn’t foolproof or failsafe, nothing ever is, and as soon as the government declares something illegal, whether alcohol or heroin, some enterprising, cunning people will find a weakness to exploit and make money supplying the forbidden to willing buyers. 

The gun manufacturer’s lobby is another reason no real action is ever taken; the making and selling of firearms is big business. 2020 was a record year for gun sales. 

The NRA isn’t the potent political force it once was, mired in corruption and bankruptcy proceedings, but the arguments it pushed remain articles of faith among many conservatives, and the likelihood of any sensible legislation emerging from Congress is slim. Republicans will employ the usual scare tactics, accusing Democrats of wanting to take away everyone’s guns. Debate will run in circles and no matter what measures are proposed, they are certain to die on the floor of our dysfunctional Senate. This sick process will repeat after the next mass shooting. Our political “leaders” protect the right to bear arms more vigorously than they protect the welfare and safety of citizens. 

In national polls a majority of Americans favor stricter gun controls, a trend that has been consistent for years. But if there’s one thing our political system excels at it’s ignoring the will of the majority. The next mass shooting is coming to a city, town or hamlet near you. Ready your thoughts and prayers. 

See No Evil, Hear No Evil: GOP Bends Over for Trump

“Some cult leaders have predicted Armageddon and are at a loss when the world fails to end and just keeps plugging along through the indifferent cosmos.” Jim Harrison, The Great Leader

Raining heavily here this evening. Water spills off the overwhelmed gutters.  The backyard approaches quagmire status. It’s 50 degrees outside. My reading stacks up beside me, books and periodicals. I feel wiped out, resigned,  unsettled, and lonely. Yes, I have generally felt less anxious since Trump fled to Florida. His relative radio silence is like a gift to a weary nation. But I’ve still got to divorce myself from the political scene, stop watching, listening, and reading about politics. It’s hurting my human soul. If you swim in a cesspool, don’t be surprised when you can’t get the stink out. There’s some wisdom for you. 

Trump may have left DC, but the Orange Menace isn’t gone -- his shadow still scares the shit out of most Republicans, and, like battered spouses and beaten dogs, they return again and again for more humiliation and degradation. I read that the Republican Party is in disarray, splitting into two factions -- one titularly represented by Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney -- and the Trump Party represented by stellar characters like Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Ron Johnson, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert and many others. Mitch McConnell can’t decide which way to lean at the moment; all depends on the direction of the wind. Mitch has little on his mind these days except obstructing the Democrats and regaining his Majority Leader title. This brigade of cowards makes me despair for our country. They have one and all placed loyalty to Donald Trump above their oath of office and the nation. The GOP is poised to make a public declaration that Donald Trump, and those presidents that follow him, is above the law, above the Constitution, untouchable. It’s that simple. Like Covid-19, the Trump Fever is still raging. 

Does every person who voted for Trump in November still support him? After his year of lying about the election -- if I win it’s fair, if I lose it’s rigged -- and nearly two months pressuring state-level officials to tip the election his way, even after the votes were certified, and lying about his landslide victory that never was. Still with him? After almost all Trump’s legal challenges were thrown out of the courts. And, most of all, after January 6th. Are you still on Team Trump, wearing that red cap, even after the emergence of information that some members of that mob had tactical ability, police or military training? Many were probably swept up in the mass energy of the moment and borne along, but some were there with intent. There was a level of coordination, possibly from Trump loyalists and lackeys within the government. The acting Director of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, happened to be out of the country on January 6. Doesn’t that seem odd? That the security apparatus -- local, state, federal -- was caught flatfooted when it knew in advance that violence was very likely, reeks of an inside job. An order delayed at a critical moment by one of Trump’s lackeys, a bit of information withheld. We need a serious investigation to find out how it went down and how high up the power chain it went, but I have no confidence this will happen on the necessary scale. We must move on for the good of the nation, let bygones be bygones…

Trump may be able to make his supporters feel better, but he’ll never heal their pain. What ails them is deeper, closer to the bone. 

The Democrats still haven’t learned that Mitch McConnell can be trusted no more than one would trust a coiled viper.  

It looks clear that Republican senators will not vote to convict Trump. What they saw and experienced on January 6th didn’t convince them. Marco Rubio and Rand Paul have no issue with how Trump abused the power of his office to  invalidate an election and incite a mob to invade and desecrate the US Capitol. That’s just fine with Paul and Rubio and 43 others. Nothing to see here, folks. Let’s move along. Forget the officer the mob murdered, and all those who were injured. Give them no justice. I hope history holds a harsh judgment for any elected official who had the chance to hold Donald Trump accountable for his assault on democracy, and caved. 

When did the concept of honor die in America? Is it buried at Wounded Knee, Antietam, or on the banks of the mighty Mississippi? Can it be found at the Alamo or in a field near the Potomac? Is it bobbing on the tide in New York Harbor? 

A two-party democracy with only one functioning party cannot long survive. Our democracy is reeling. I fear that within a decade, or less, it will be effectively finished. 

A Season of Waiting

 “These are dangerous times for democracy. The danger can be seen in rising xenophobia and growing public support for autocratic figures who test the limits of democratic norms.” Michael J. Sandel, The Tyranny of Merit

For those Americans who see Donald J. Trump and what remains of the Republican Party for the clear danger they pose to America, the past year has been a season of waiting. We waited for the Democrats to nominate their presidential ticket; we waited for the party conventions, and then the debates. We waited for November 3rd, election day, and hoped Joe Biden would win by a margin too big to steal. He did. Then we waited for December 14, when the votes of the Electoral College were certified. We have since waited for January 5th, and the Georgia run-off election which will decide if Mitch McConnell retains his seat atop the smoking heap that is the Trump-owned GOP -- a party that for more than a quarter century has cared about one thing and only one thing: power -- and is now devouring itself, split between Republicans who still believe in ordinary reality and the Constitution, and the Trump wing which believes in fantasy and is ready and willing to trample the Constitution. 

And then there’s January 6th, when a heretofore largely ceremonial process -- the acceptance by Congress of the electoral college votes -- will be turned into a fascist spectacle by Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz on the Senate side, and nearly seventy-five percent of House Republicans, led by the likes of Kevin McCarthy and Louie Gohmert. 

While those of us who care about democracy have waited, and waited, Donald J. Trump and his ragtag cast of enablers have filed bogus lawsuits alleging election fraud, made seditious statements in the media, and called the legitimacy of Biden’s win into question. Some of Trump’s pliant minions, like Cruz and Hawley, are playing along for reasons of ambition and self-promotion; others, like the aforementioned Gohmert, who is simply a nitwit, have contorted themselves to curry favor with Trump’s base, which they see as key to their future political advancement. Cynical? Yes. Dangerous? Absolutely. 

And then we learn of Trump’s hour-long phone call with the Georgia Secretary of State, in which Trump -- two months after the election, and with the vote counts certified and submitted to Congress -- put on his full mob boss act, alternately cajoling, threatening, and pleading for the Secretary of State to “find” 11,780 votes so he, Trump, could be declared the victor in Georgia. This act by Trump was shocking, but in no way surprising. We saw the same gambit with Ukraine. That escapade led to Trump’s impeachment by the House of Representatives, and should have led to his removal from office. 

The only surprising thing is how pathetic and demented Trump sounded on the call, rolling out wild conspiracy theories that have already been debunked. As mob kingpins go, Trump simply isn’t up to the task, he’s too stupid. After his experience with Ukraine and Bob Woodward, what man goes into an hour-long phone call with other people on the line, including legal counsel, and lays out the play as if he’d never heard of audio recording? Answer, a really dumb, desperate man. 

I expect a circus on January 6th, and quite possibly some violence in the streets of DC. The coup plotters will drag out the proceedings as long as possible, but when all their rounds are expended, Biden will be declared the winner, again. And then those of us who believe in democracy will wait for January 20th. We will wait, and we will hope that a desperate, cornered Donald J. Trump will not launch a war against Iran. That two-week span might be the most dangerous time of all. Desperate men commit desperate, destructive acts.

Our season of waiting continues. 

Running for the Cliff

 

“Mercy is most empowering, liberating, and transformative when it is directed at the undeserving.” Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

Where’s Mike Pence? Where’s the VP while Don-the-Denier wanks and whines and blows idiot winds every time he opens his mouth? Has Mike jumped the Trump ship? Is he working on his story, a patriotic tale of how he, and he alone, prevented Trump from blowing up the world? Contrary to all the evidence, you can bet Mike Pence will portray himself, not as Trump’s docile lapdog, but as a ferocious behind-the-scenes champion of the American Way. Start putting the campaign ads together, because Mike Pence will be running for something soon enough. 

The Republicans, or as I now refer to the GOP, the Trump Party, hasn’t seemed to miss Pence. You don’t hear much about his whereabouts, which is a pretty good clue that even corruptible Mike Pence has a limit to what he’ll put his name behind. Mitch McConnell and the rest of the congressional gangsters, gadflys, goofballs, geeks, and grifters have no apparent limit. They represent a cesspool with no bottom. They lust after the power to force their minority viewpoint on the majority in this country. They’ve grown accustomed to wielding or withholding this power as they please. To them, compromise is a foreign, dirty word. Duty is in the eye of the beholder. Honor is reserved for the winners. 

The Democrats are generally less corrupt but no less owned and operated by Corporate America. I promised myself that I would not pay much attention to Biden’s picks for his cabinet and key agencies, knowing they would piss me off and make me feel discouraged before Biden assumes office. I  have watched Joe Biden for years, and to me he’s less a Democrat than he is what we used to call a “moderate” Republican. Believe it or not, there were quite a few of them back in the day, and they often joined Democrats in passing legislation that made the lives of working-class America less precarious. They’re all extinct now, not one to be found unless you count Mitt Romney, or possibly Larry Hogan, the Governor of Maryland. Hogan neither disgusts or scares me -- he seems like a sensible man and a decent human being. Mitt Romney disappoints me. He’s a wealthy man, beholden to no one except the Mormon church, with nothing at risk, and even Romney won’t step out and flatly declare that Trump’s clumsy, inept and stupid attempts to subvert the will of the voters is not only wrong, it’s dangerous for the nation.

Hey Trump Party members, answer me this: are y’all really going the Joseph McCarthy route, full batshit, conspiracies behind every door of every house in blue America; fever dreams about about brown and black people threatening to take over major cities; dire warnings about death-crazed Muslims intent on imposing sharia law in the white suburbs where the Christians live. Is that the deal with you people? Are you going to be bullied by a nihilistic movement -- I’m talking about Trumpism -- that is doomed to consume itself, and you with it? You need to repent by declaring yourself free of Trump’s hold. Crazy doesn’t work. Stand up and condemn the crap that Trump’s foisting on the nation day after day. Can’t you see how desperate he looks, and how dangerous what he’s doing is? Surely you can see. He lost. You know he did, the numbers don’t lie. The Supreme Court just sent you a very clear message. Joe Biden got 7 million more votes than Trump. Biden thumped Trump’s ass. That stupid Texas lawsuit is going nowhere. The election was a resounding repudiation of Donald Trump’s brand of dangerous, callous incompetence and madness. That so many people voted for Trump worries me greatly, but the majority declared that enough is enough.  

But no matter what, on January 20, 2021, the Trump Party will still be here. That diseased herd is running full tilt for the cliff, all chasing Trump’s long and ugly shadow, all willing to sell mind and soul for another handful of magic beans. They keep backing Trump’s play, mucking around at the perimeter of the law, afraid that Dear Leader will frown with disfavor and sic his most demented followers on them. Trump’s people are loud and mean on Twitter and Facebook, and  some of these fools are now showing up at the residences of elected officials, demanding they break the law and put the fix in for Trump. As for Trump, he’s never shy about his corruption, it’s business-as-usual to him, the way it’s done, so he calls the governors of swing states in broad daylight, from the Oval Office, and pressures them to rip up their state constitutions and order their attorney’s general to subvert the law and make Trump win. 

Trump is one dumb fucker, I have to say. It’s astonishing to me how stupid he is, how illogical and childish and moronic. He says the most ridiculous shit, like, “I won. I’m 2-0 in elections. I got more votes than Obama.” But you got 7 million less than Joe Biden, your opponent, or were you running, in that gelatinous brain of yours, against Obama’s ghost?

And how about Trump’s understanding of the Supreme Court? It comes down to this: If Trump appoints them, it means they are forever beholden to him and must always rule in his favor. It’s that transactional, that simple, they must obey the king. Trump still believes the Supreme Court, his Court, will somehow, some way, reverse the election results and hand him a second term. 

Where’s Mike? I don’t know and don’t really care. Maybe he’s hiding in the wings until Trump summons him to do him a service, to bend forward and kiss the ring, then produce a magic wand and make it all come true. 

A Recipe for Discontent

“A terrifying number of Americans would prefer to see their republic wither than have to share it with Others.” Anand Giridharadas

As I write this, Joe Biden has amassed 253 electoral college votes to Trump’s 213. Biden’s path to victory is wider than Trump’s. Key states are still undecided, among them Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina. 

As I predicted a week or so ago that he would, Trump tried to declare victory prematurely. 

Right on cue, Trump’s campaign issued its first legal challenge, in Michigan. More will follow. That’s how Trump plays. 

November 4 was a somber day for me, a tremendous letdown, and a learning experience about election polling that I won’t forget. As was true in 2016, polls this year painted a picture of election day that didn’t materialize. The Blue Wave of 2020 petered out far from shore. The men and women behind the Lincoln Project are experienced, bright, full of purpose, and I relied on their prognostications, but even they read it wrong. Democrats will not take control of the Senate, meaning at least two more years of Mitch McConnell with the gate key in his blackened hand, smirking with delight every time he blocks, impedes, or undermines a Biden legislative proposal. Nor did the Dems fare well in the House, they will have the majority, but there was no expansion. Divided government. Divided nation. In a time of crisis. That’s a recipe for suffering and even deeper discontent.  

Trump can pretend all he wants that the pandemic has disappeared, but the pandemic won’t forget him, and history, I hope, will not forgive him. Because this man deserves to pay a price for his arrogance and stupidity. 

I said it months ago: to avoid a divisive fight about legitimacy, the Democrats had to win overwhelmingly, take the White House, the Senate, expand their majority in the House, pick up some governorships, and do well down the ballot. It didn’t happen. 

The Dems left their best attacking players -- Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, Sherrod Brown -- on the bench and went with Joe Biden, the safe choice of the party bigwigs, insuring a campaign that lacked vision and a message with the emotional power to make people dream of a better country.  A vote for Biden was a vote for a known quantity, something to grab hold of as we plunge toward the abyss, something to slow our fall and offer a chance to regain our balance. 

Our American Dreams are nightmares now. Lines are drawn, sides and colors chosen, walls built. 

Never again can the United States lecture another nation about “democracy” and “free and fair” elections. Our voting systems are a travesty. The GOP has made a science of voter suppression and disenfranchisement. 

I can’t believe 60 million of my fellow Americans voted to keep Donald Trump in the White House. I honestly don’t understand what they see when they look at him, listen to him, watch him on TV. I want to understand, but I find it very difficult. A day or two after the 2016 election, still reeling, in shock, I wrote on this blog that Trump and his cronies would do serious damage to our country, its vital institutions, the rule of law; they have succeeded. Trump hasn’t single-handedly shoved our country into the shadows -- he had help from the GOP -- but he bears a ton of responsibility. Trump can pretend all he wants that the pandemic has disappeared, but the pandemic won’t forget him, and history, I hope, will not forgive him. Because this man deserves to pay a price for his arrogance and stupidity. More than 220,000 dead Americans, some due to Trump’s bungled response to Covid, his lying about it, downplaying the severity of it, his war against masks and expert opinion, on science and knowledge. Four years of corruption and lying. Trump pulled down his trousers and pissed on the Constitution, the American flag, and Abe Lincoln’s boots. 

Millions of Americans could care less, they voted for him and his GOP enablers; they voted for an incompetent authoritarian; they voted for a grifter; they voted for magical thinking and make-believe. The election reveals who we are and the depths of depravity many millions of us are willing to tolerate. 

Sad and somber. We may as well lower the flag to half mast, and leave it there. 

Are You Ready for Minority Rule?

 “Things are always changing. This is just one of the big jumps instead of the little step-by-step changes that are easier to take. People have changed the climate of the world. Now they’re waiting for the old days to come back.” Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

It was cold in the apartment this morning. I started the coffee brewing and donned my heavy Chelsea Football Club sweatshirt. Although I didn’t want to, I looked at the news; it confirmed what I knew -- the GOP had succeeded in ramming Amy Coney Barrett down our throats eight days before the presidential election. 

Mitch McConnell achieved his dream of cementing minority rule, and said as much on the floor of the Senate. The cynical, corrupt man from Kentucky held the power, and he used it with ruthless efficiency. I wondered what might have happened if the tables had been reversed and the Democrats held a majority and tried to seat a moderate associate justice at warp speed. Would the Dems have trampled Senate rules, procedures and norms? I doubt it. They don’t have the killer instinct or sufficient disregard for the institution. For far too many years, the Dems believed they could deal with the GOP on level terms, as if both sides play by a common set of rules. They don’t. It was this naivete on the part of Barack Obama that drove me crazy during his first term. No matter how many times Republicans dissed him, Obama kept trying to find common ground. Obama wanted to make policy, the GOP only wanted to expand its power. Even if the GOP had been a minority party, I think McConnell would have found a way to block the Democrats from rushing to confirm a justice. Appeals to rules and fairness work on Democrats, but bounce off Republicans like BB’s off armor plating. 

I don’t know what will happen on November 3rd and in the weeks after. I’m not confident that Biden will win, despite early indications that the turnout will be record-setting. What I imagine, though, is that regardless of the results, Trump will preemptively claim victory, either on election night or the next day, and FOX News and Breitbart and all the other Trump mouthpieces will amplify his claim. Trump will blitz the public with tales of massive fraud, cheating, and fake absentee ballots. Lawsuits will follow in all the states where the vote tally is close. Trump might hold rallies in those states, and encourage his supporters to demand a halt to the count by marching on election offices in a sea of MAGA red. After living through the 2000 election, it’s not a stretch to imagine the final outcome being decided in Trump’s favor by a hyper-partisan Supreme Court. 

And then what? 

For many years the Dems believed they could deal with the GOP on level terms, as if both sides play by a common set of rules. 

Even if Biden prevails -- and let’s hope he does -- Trump will have more than two months to plant boobytraps, string Claymore mines, and retaliate against his perceived enemies. That’s a long interregnum, particularly with Covid-19 resurgent in many states. Trump & Company have surrendered to the pandemic, raised the white flag, folded the tents and let the horses and mules run loose. Damn the needs of the people, let them fend for themselves. The coming winter looks long and dark. Despair lives next door. In less than four years, Donald J. Trump has driven a wedge between millions of Americans. His talk of red and blue states, his sowing of mistrust in public health experts, and in simple measures like wearing a face covering; his constant lying about the severity of Covid-19, which he knew about in February; his demands for loyalty over competence; his grift and self-dealing; his cruelty and stupidity. The man is a reckless and destructive sociopath, and we are not free of his evil stench, not by a long shot. Trump may lose at the polls in a margin too big to steal, as legal analyst Glenn Kirschner puts it, but we shouldn’t for a moment think Trump will leave the national stage. His cult followers, the people who wear the red hats and can’t get enough of his act, will still believe in him, listen to him. If Trump calls them to Mar-A-Lago, they will go. If Trump tells them to march into the Gulf of Mexico, they will, like lemmings off a cliff. 

Tell me, please, what happened to America? 

In a week at least the fund-raising text messages and emails that daily barrage my phone will end. I remind myself that the antidote to despair is to focus on what is within my control. The present is a soap bubble. The old days aren’t returning. Octavia Butler is right -- things are always changing. 

The Isolation/Rebellion Diaries No. 4

“If you’re black you might as well not show up on the street/’less you wanna draw the heat.” Bob Dylan, Hurricane

America is being taught a hard lesson, one I hope we don’t soon forget. The lesson is that competence in our public institutions matters. As Masha Gessen points out in her excellent book, Surviving Autocracy, Donald J. Trump routinely ridiculed the government while a candidate in 2016, and then continued his assault on competence and expertise when he assumed office. Trump’s former advisor, Steve Bannon, boasted about dismantling the administrative state. Trump filled his Cabinet and federal agencies with unqualified hacks like Ben Carson, Rick Perry, Betsy DeVos, Wilbur Ross and Steve Mnuchin. Everyone Trump appointed seemed to share one trait: hostility and disdain for the departments they headed.

Is it any wonder that the Trump Administration response to the pandemic has been so disastrous? Not in the least. Incompetence breeds chaos, and as Masha Gessen notes, “Trump’s incompetence is militant.” I still laugh at people like Van Jones and Fareed Zakaria who opined that Trump would grow into the presidency; others said the office would change Trump, but the fact is that the opposite has happened -- Trump changed the office -- and not for good. I can’t think of an America president who has more thoroughly debased and disgraced the office. 

As his reelection hopes crater, Trump draws from a rancid well of division, hatred, and racism. He speaks about Confederate monuments as if he had been born and raised in Georgia, refers to Covid-19 as the “Kung Flu” even though he praised China’s leader Xi Jinping for his handling of the outbreak, and rambles on about real Americans who believe in real values, all while Covid-19 stages a counterattack and the death toll rises to nearly 125,000. Trump practices a politics of grievance, self-pity and revenge.  Add the scandals, the staggering abuse of power, the self-dealing and blatant disregard for the rule of law and it amounts to a deadly confluence of incompetence and venality. 

I still laugh at people like Van Jones and Fareed Zakaria who opined that Trump would grow into the presidency; others said the office would change Trump, but the fact is that the opposite has happened -- Trump changed the office -- and not for good.

Because the potential for voter suppression or foreign meddling in November is high, I’m in no way counting Trump out -- he’s like a vampire who cannot be considered dead until a stake has been driven through his shriveled heart. November is a long way off and Trump’s capacity for destruction isn’t likely to diminish. Even in the midst of a worsening pandemic, Trump wants the Supreme Court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act, which would cause millions of people to lose their health insurance coverage. Why now, Donald, just because you have some twisted need to act callous and cruel to fulfill your strongman fantasies? 

Cowardly members of Trump’s party play to him, not the constituents they’re sworn to serve. They fear Trump’s Tweets, name-calling, and other retribution. I can’t remember a time when an entire political party has acted with such cowardice. It’s political malpractice. 

The reckoning must and will come. Trump is far too limited a human being to change that which inflicted him upon us in the first place. He knows one dance step, and one only, and he will perform it until the floor collapses beneath his feet. Overcoming Trumpism will not be easy or quick, it will need to be rooted out. The energy and determination on display during the protests and demonstrations against police brutality must continue and expand outwards, to include other forms of social justice, most important among them, health care for all Americans, followed closely by environmental, economic, housing, and electoral justice. These threads cannot be separated; together they form a rope that can hoist millions of people from the basement of precarity. 

The Isolation Diaries No. 16

“He who has wandered in these mists, he who has suffered much before death, he who has flown over this earth bearing on himself too heavy a burden, knows it. The weary man knows it.” Mikhail Bulgakov

Numbers, abstract pandemic numbers. Over 17,000 deaths in the US, a number that is almost certainly underreported; 16 million people unemployed, also a number that is likely lower than the actual number. Mass graves in New York. Refrigerated trailers filled with the dead. Sirens wailing around the clock. 

Trump is the only one that believes the worst is behind us. He’s getting bored. 

Will Wisconsin see a big spike in Covid-19 cases after going ahead with its one vote, one potential death, primary election last Tuesday? Watch the numbers, but also watch who dies. Data from across the nation shows a grim pattern: Covid-19 infections and deaths are more predominant in poor communities of color, African American and Latino, where daily life is difficult, healthcare is below par or absent, decent housing is unavailable, and educational opportunities are scarce. The virus strikes hard in places that have suffered from deliberate neglect, where the water is polluted and the air is dirty. Poverty is always a factor in a pandemic. Imagine trying to practice social distancing in a cramped apartment housing more than one family group. Imagine the lives of low-wage workers who can’t work remotely, and won’t be paid unless they show up. 

I’m sure the emerging demographic data gives Trump a jolt of pleasure in his racist loins. He’s never cared for black and brown people. 

Thank you CVS workers. Thank you Ralphs workers. Thank you Trader Joe’s workers. Thank you doctors and nurses and technicians. Thank you delivery drivers. Thank you public servants. Thank you US postal workers.

And thank you to the people who warned us of this dangerous possibility, including Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Rachel Carson, and Sheldon Wolin. Why do we always ignore the true prophets? 

Hearing Trump jabber about re-starting the economy (the Malignant One must believe it’s as easy as flicking a light switch) I recalled something I read somewhere about the Black Plague and how the wealthy opposed calls from laborers for higher wages. Check this out from a scholarly article called The Economic Impact of the Black Death of 1347-1352:

“RULERS RESIST WORKERS’ DEMANDS FOR HIGHER WAGES

The plague had an important effect on the relationship between the lords who owned much of the land in Europe and the peasants who worked for the lords. As people died, it became harder and harder to find people to plow fields, harvest crops, and produce other goods and services. Peasants began to demand higher wages.

European rulers tried to keep wages from rising. An English law in 1349 tried to force workers to accept the same wages they received in 1346. A similar law, the Statute of Laborers, was issued in 1351. The statute said that every healthy unemployed person under 60 years old must work for anyone who wanted to hire him. Workers who violated the Statute of Laborers were fined and were put in stocks as punishment for disobeying the statute.”

That is essentially Trump’s call for a return to the business of America -- which is, lest we forget, making the wealthy wealthier -- even without a massive Covid-19 testing regimen to guard against returning to “normal” prematurely. Trump, stable genius that he is,  doesn’t believe widespread testing is THE prerequisite to everybody trotting back to the office, the auto body shop, or the kitchen. Trump wants the serfs to return to the fields, even if they drop dead shortly after arriving. 

Seeing news footage of long lines of people in Wisconsin waiting to vote made me think of all the so-called third world nations the US once laughed at…

The GOP, in particular, has made it very clear that they prefer certain people do not vote; they want to choose their own voters. The GOP admits this. 

Mighty Amazon is losing its shit over the actions of one man in New York state named Christian Smalls. Remember the name. Smalls single-handedly intimidated Amazon by organizing a walk-out to protest against unsafe working conditions in a massive Amazon fulfillment warehouse. He was fired, naturally. Amazon, the avatar of Predatory Capitalism, will not tolerate any agitation or unwelcome noise from its serfs. Work. Don’t dare complain. Who do you think you are? 

I watched again that strange White House briefing last Sunday in which Donald Trump sounded out of his mind, like a demented used car salesman, as he urged people to try hydroxychloroquine. “What do you have to lose?” Trump asked again and again. Take it, it’s great, very powerful. Hydroxychloroquine. Trump could barely pronounce it, but he wanted people to take it and see what happens. Might work, might give you a heart attack. But what do you have to lose? Look at this pill, this beautiful pill. So powerful, so wonderful. See for yourself. What do you have to lose? 

That bizarre performance failed to frighten a single member of the GOP to demand Trump be removed from office under the authority of the 25th amendment. If that’s not enough proof that the GOP is a death cult, I don’t know what is. 

This is going to be far worse than we imagine, both from a public health standpoint and an economic one. It won’t end one day and be gone, not by a long shot. The world will be dealing with Covid-19 fallout for years, and the US will not be exempt. Our country is hollowed out by forty years of predatory capitalism, the structures are weak and rotted, and the levers of power are in the hands of greedy, cruel, and incompetent people. The comfortable elites will try to delay the reckoning as long as possible, but the wave that is visible now will grow to tsunami proportions; many millions of human beings will be swept away.  

Bully in the Pulpit

“Plenty people even in the middle of sufferation going pick the bad they know over the good they can only dream about, because who dream but madman and fool?” Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings

The bloated bag of wind plays by his own rules, always has, because craven people let him. Like a school yard bully, the obnoxious, loud, and petulant kid who somehow commands the respect of others like him, who never walks alone, who acts brave even if he’s shitting himself, boasting and preening, craving everybody’s attention, the kid who figures out that in America presentation rules over substance; it doesn’t have to be good, it only has to look good, smell good for awhile, and be sold like the most valuable object on the planet. Sell the name, the mystique. Go gaudy or go home. Even his failures aren’t failures, they are great successes. The man makes magic, you have to admit, like an alchemist, dog shit to silver, black to white, up to down, he flips it all on its head then flips it again, just to keep us guessing. We can’t help but watch the show, read the Tweets, get pissed or laugh our asses off at what has become of America. TV and the Internet and social media, and non-stop, everywhere-you-turn advertising, has made us fearful and stupid.

Bat’s in the belfry, mule in the stall, bully in the pulpit, damage done, how much more to come? You think it will be easy to scrub Trump’s excrement from the walls? Gonna’ need Captain America and the Ghostbusters, a Navajo shaman, a battalion of shrinks and the largest sage bonfire in the history of the world. Can an entire nation have PTSD? Trump trauma? How are we going to behave once this fool falls off, drops dead on, or gets pushed off the stage for the final time? Are we just going to return to peace and love and goodwill for all, civility on Fox News, maybe even a smattering of truth now and then? Like the Obama years? Back to business as usual? What about Trump’s people, the potent (heavily-armed?) base we are always hearing about, what will they do when the clock runs out on their man? Will the evangelicals lay down their bibles and their crucifixes, their fascination with female reproductive functions? Will Republicans lose their blinders and find their balls and their backbones, maybe reform their party into an actual, recognizable political party again, rather than a criminal cult? Yeah, let’s drift back to the good old days, follow this neoliberal, corporate-friendly, Anita Hill-shaming fossil named Biden back to normal times, forget that Trump and the GOP ever happened. Forget that Mitch McConnell ever disgraced the US Senate. Forget how a broken political system gave us Trump in the first place.

Part of our problem is that we forget too soon. We let the wrong people off the hook. We get caught up in the fruit, never get to the roots.  

Been thinking: How far will they let the bully go? What’s the bridge-too-far for Donald J. Trump? Rape, incest, murder? Video of him and Putin getting it on? Or Trump Daddy smacking Jarod’s bare ass with a riding crop? Or the both of them with a bobcat? C’mon, Nancy Pelosi. Give us a sense of the threshold that only you can see. Just want to know what to expect.   

Pelosi’s brain is working overtime, she’s a woman with as many problems as Medusa had heads. She’s got nervous people in her party, not sure of the best strategic move, today, and for 2020, but they are wavering as Trump tears at the Constitution and spits on the notion of the rule of law. She’s got a posse of younger, female, progressive, and insistent voices telling her to get the I-Train warmed up and ready to roll. These folks are fighting for the principle, not only the politics, but it’s not an easy fight. On a good day, the Dems are weak, feckless and incoherent. Turning advantage into defeat is second nature, ingrained. They want the cake, and they want to eat it too, as the saying goes, so they compromise or capitulate here, shave a bit of principle there, bargain with various devils, and wind up looking like they stand for nothing.  

Pelosi’s got to play this one like Lionel Messi making calculations in his head before his foot strikes the ball that skims across the turf with the perfect shape and pace -- a pass only Messi can make -- into the path of Luis Suarez who easily one-touches past the keeper and into the back of the net. Inch perfect. Does Pelosi have that in her locker? The corporate media says she’s smart. The more important thing to know is, is she also cunning? She’s got to understand she’s up against a wounded animal who is steadily backing himself into a corner of the shed. He’s coming out fighting, blowing smoke out of his mouth and his ass, holding an olive branch in one hand and a metal pipe behind his back. She knows this, right? The question she’s mulling is when to do what, when to commit numbers to the attack. Her play has got to be inch perfect, like Messi, neither too soon -- before the chance fully develops -- or too late, when the chance is past. Takes genius.  

A Step Closer to the Gallows

“What we know for sure is that the path to the criminal prosecution and imprisonment of the president of the United States is now clear. How it is handled will be a major test for the American system of government.” James Risen

Trump pals Manafort and Cohen are convicted and Fox News ignores the evolving story, sticks its collective head in a pile of Trump’s beautiful clean coal. Not surprising. Fox is the real fake news, a phony network that acts as the official propaganda organ of the right-wing and Donald J. Trump. But in the real world of facts, the noose is clearly tightening around Trump’s fat white neck. His former campaign manager and his lawyer/confidant/fixer face jail time, and that bleak future usually renders people quite cooperative. Sing, men, sing.

Day by day the sleaze oozes out of the White House, drips down the front steps, and streams toward the gutter. Trump’s criminal gang falls like dominoes. Who will be next? I’m old enough to remember Watergate, Nixon, the cover up, All the President’s Men, John Dean, Erlichman and Halderman, the web of lies, how the unraveling gathered speed and ended with Nixon waving like a spastic from the helicopter that carried him away. What’s happening with Trump is much worse. Not only is Trump an ignorant douchebag, he’s an odious human being, a liar and a grifter. If hell exists, Trump is headed there, express ticket, non-stop. He has debased his office, insulted the world, and divided this country.

Though Trump is marching them to the edge of the precipice, the lapdogs and sycophants of the GOP, having forgotten their oath of office and obligations under the Constitution, stand by their man. Trump says bend over, they do; Trump says spread your cheeks, they do. The Party of Lincoln. Sorry, Abraham, poor sod. When will Republican members of congress find their spines and turn on Trump? How much more water does the ship need to take on before the rats sprint for the exits?

Of course, the Trump spin machine is now on overdrive, denying and deflecting and dissembling and defending, insisting that there is no crime, no collusion, no campaign finance violation, even though Cohen copped to two counts of federal election violations. “Nothing to do with campaign finance,” Trump says. “I don’t know Cohen that well. Hardly know him, rarely talked to him. Might not be able to pick him out of a police lineup.” The detestable Huckabee Sanders ridicules media questions, regurgitates Trump’s ludicrous denials, and the machine spins on, black is white, 1+1=4, coal burns clean, and the economy of West Virginia is the envy of America. Here’s what the Orange Menace said to Fox News:

“I don't know how you can impeach somebody who has done a great job,” Mr Trump told Fox News. “I will tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor because, without this thinking, you would see – you would see numbers that you wouldn't believe, in reverse.”

Great job? The market would crash? I’ve said it before, but I have to say it again, the President of the United States of America is a fucking imbecile. There’s no point in even deconstructing his comments.

What happened to us, to America, a country that has been occasionally good but never, ever great? How in the world have we fallen so far so fast? Or does it only feel fast? Capital has been on the ascendancy for 40 years, buying politicians to write laws in their favor, chipping away at the welfare state and New Deal institutions, labor unions, environmental regulations, shifting manufacturing to low-wage nations, freeing capital from restraint, packing the federal courts with corporate-friendly judges; little by little amassing more power, more control in fewer hands, always a recipe for tyranny. Facebook, Amazon, Google, Boeing, Goldman Sachs. A corporate coup, as Chris Hedges might say.

And so it goes in Trump’s capitalist wasteland.