The Waning Nights of Count Trumpula

“From the very first wave of the virus, Trump and his entourage of quacks and enablers have failed the most basic tests of governance and leadership.” Elie Mystal, The Nation

The waning days of December. Here on the central coast of California the weather is gorgeous, clear skies and sunshine. It’s almost enough to make one forget the pandemic and the economic misery faced by so many in places where the sky isn’t filled with light. It’s winter now, according to the calendar, the winter of American discontent. Congress (at least the half that flies under the Trump Party banner) dithered for months while both the pandemic and the economy worsened. Then, at the eleventh hour, the benevolent servants of the people agreed to dole out a measly $600 for those eligible. That’s what people are worth to this Congress, with its tame Democrats and ideologically stunted Republicans, some of whom had the gall to complain that giving more relief to citizens would expand the deficit. Let’s be clear: Republicans gave not two shits about the deficit when they lavished tax cuts on their wealthy donors and corporate sponsors. The hypocrisy never ends. 

State and local governments got left out of the relief package, which surely portends deep cuts in public services at a time when the public needs those services more than ever. Such is the logic of our cruel capitalism. The rich get tax breaks, the poor get austerity. Trickle down economics means the same thing today that it meant in 1980: the rich piss on the poor from ever greater heights. 

Mercifully, Donald Trump has been dragged from the spotlight where he loves to twirl and preen, but this can only be a temporary lull. The deluded president, prodded by a small cadre of extremists, continues to claim that he won the election in a landslide. This isn’t even in the same zip code with the truth -- Trump lost, and he lost badly. What he cannot accept is that more than 80 million people voted against him, rejected him, fired him. Trump’s fragile ego and fear of being exposed for what he is -- a broken little boy who could never win the love of his mommy and daddy -- cannot handle such a public rebuke. Trump is the worst kind of rich punk because he’s also an asshole, and a cruel one at that. This frightened little man can’t bring himself to offer even a sentence of empathy about the more than 320,000 Americans dead of Covid-19. He doesn’t care, it’s just a number, an abstract idea. 

We will pay dearly for the damage of the Trump years. He has amplified differences and a perverse brand of patriotism. Fear rules in TrumpLand and the ranks of threatening “others” grows all the time. It’s you or them. Choose your side, there’s no middle ground. But once you start demonizing people as “others” where does it end? Where do you draw the line? Who decides who is in and who must be expelled? 

What’s to become of a country indifferent to the deaths of some 320,000 of its citizens? How many of these deaths were preventable? How many were sped along because so many Americans lack access to affordable health care? How many can we lay at the feet of our Market God, who demanded that commerce continue even if it meant that millions of people would be exposed to Covid-19? 

Count Trumpula roams the White House after midnight, looking under beds for conspiracies, tugging at the corners of rugs in search of fake ballots, listening for the ghost of Hugo Chavez. What’s his exit plan? How can a strong man leave the stage voluntarily without appearing weak? The notions from the Fever Swamp become more unhinged: Declare martial law and re-run the election, says retired Army general, and convicted and pardoned felon, Michael Flynn. Seize the voting machines! Stop the steal! It was a landslide and we won! If the Secretary of Defense was a public servant instead of a Trump toady, Flynn would be recalled to active service and court-martialed for sedition. Flynn, whose retirement is paid by American taxpayers, is only too happy to subvert the will of the voters, and piss on the Constitution he swore to uphold and defend. 

The nearer we draw to January 20, the more erratic Trump will become. His only instinct is self-preservation. In his mind, nothing came before him, and nothing will come after. He is the sun and the moon and the stars. He is thunder and lightning, hurricane and flood, fire and ash; he is Death. 

The Gates of Hell

“How Venezuelans choose to conduct their political affairs never has been and is not now the business of the US government. One need support neither Maduro nor Guaido to reach this conclusion. It’s simply not up to Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Marco Rubio, or any other American politician to run Venezuela.” Thomas Knapp

I don’t know much about the history of Venezuela or its politics. I do know that Hugo Chavez was a meddlesome figure for the George W. Bush administration and that back in 2002 Chavez survived a coup attempt orchestrated behind the scenes by the US. No surprise there. The US has meddled in Latin American for a century or more, destabilizing countries that refused to hand over their natural resources or open markets for US firms or adopt American-style capitalism or obey the dictates of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (the arms of American-style capitalism). Heaven forbid a Latin American country get chummy with Cuba, Russia or China, or stand in opposition to US whims. That’s a big no-no. I know that when the US can’t have its way it often resorts to force, covert or overt; it can bring enormous financial and diplomatic pressure to bear on a target country, and if that fails to unlock the door, the US can, and will, obliterate the door with military might. Chavez survived in 2002, his hand-picked successor, Nicolas Maduro, may not. This is a different time than 2002, the third-stringers are running things in the US, leaping from the bench with their tattered imperial playbook. The US corporate media is reluctant to call what is happening in Venezuela a coup, though it certainly smells like a coup and walks like a coup and looks like a coup.

If Venezuela wasn’t oil rich would the US care about it so much? Dumb question, right? Would we go to such lengths for apples or grapes or bell peppers or cauliflower? Or maple syrup? Or coconut oil?

I have heard media pundits blame Maduro’s socialist policies for wrecking Venezuela’s economy. I have also heard pundits claim that the economy collapsed due to punishing US sanctions. Andrea Mitchell, NBC’s old talking head, said that Venezuela was thriving when Chavez took over, the people’s pots overflowed with bounty, life was good, but if that was true and the populace was content, why did they elect Chavez? Other pundits claim we have to recognize the unelected opposition leader Guaido in order to save democracy in Venezuela, and that the crippling economic sanctions are actually helping people. Where are you, George Orwell? But it gets truly comical when the US claims that Maduro’s reelection was marred by massive voting irregularities. After the American election in 2016, and last year’s midterms, with those infamous now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t polling stations, faulty voting machines, and purged voter rolls, that’s just flat out hysterical.

The truth is always more complicated than the “official” narrative makes it out to be, but if you live in the US and swallow corporate media, you will be wildly misinformed, and not only about Venezuela. The situation in Venezuela is extremely complicated and cannot be reduced to ten second sound bites or 140 character explanations.    

The writer Chris Hedges likens the US to a wounded beast, thrashing around in its death throes. Hedges isn’t optimistic about the immediate future, or if any meaningful future is even possible. The murder of the planet continues while Trump and America face off over his vanity wall. The American empire is still powerful, but also hollow, ruled by corporate interests and abetted by a corrupt political system full of unscrupulous hacks like Mitch McConnell and Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, not to mention hopelessly compromised souls like Chuck Schumer and, yes, even the darling of the moment, winner by TKO of the Great Wall Showdown, Nancy Pelosi.

What to do? What to think? Where to turn? Feels to me that we are closer to the gates of hell than to the gates of heaven, but perhaps this is business as usual for our species.