Killer Instinct (Lack Of)

 “The result is a metastisizing corruption at the heart of the polity. About the Capitol coup there is no shared reality.” Mark Danner, New York Review

I understand some of the political calculations being made by Democrats. If they move too zealously to punish Trump for his myriad abuses of power, they risk inflaming Trump’s diehard base, many of whom are armed and waiting for a provocation. But if Democrats don’t act to hold Trump and his enablers accountable, and soon, they run a real risk of legitimizing Trump’s abuses. 

If the tables were turned and a crazed horde of armed Black Lives Matter supporters had stormed the Capitol on January 6, the Republicans would have spent the last six months holding Benghazi-style hearings to the exclusion of any legislative activity. The rabid right-wing media universe would throb and buzz with dire predictions of an incipient attack on God-fearing white people. That’s just how the GOP rolls. By comparison the Democrats seem tame and phlegmatic, totally lacking in killer instinct; they are like a soccer club that always sits deep and defends, with only the faintest hope of hitting their opponent on the counter attack. The GOP plays to win, the Dems are content with a draw. 

While Democrats make their political calculations in wood-paneled corridors, the GOP is doing everything it can to cement minority rule. Writing in the New York Review, Mark Danner notes, “If in close elections Republicans can place the effective power to award a state’s electoral votes in the state legislature, they will have gone far toward establishing a permanent grip on the White House.” This certainly appears to be the operating strategy. Accepting Trump’s Big Lie about a stolen election is the first step, putting in place the mechanisms (blatant voter suppression and nullification measures) to prevent future elections from being “stolen” is what logically follows. 

As I wrote here after he won the election, Biden will do what he can to return the country to a state resembling normal (meaning, I suppose, a less over-the-top level of deceit and corruption than we experienced during Trump’s misbegotten reign), and steady the institutions Trump tipped over, but I can’t help but think he’s the proverbial boy with his finger in the dike. Opposing him is a political party in thrall to a con artist along with millions of people willing to practice magical thinking. Even if Trump is indicted by any one of the agencies on his trail, his supporters will not abandon him. I can’t see the moment when the fever breaks and the reality of who Trump really is becomes crystal clear. As Hunter S. Thompson might say, we are well and truly fucked. A country in which nearly half the population believes in idiotic conspiracy theories and “alternative” facts is doomed. 

What does the reality-based half of the country do, where do we turn, and how can we stop this unholy onslaught? That sound in the distance is the drumbeat of minority rule. January 6 was a skirmish in the war. Under American flag and Christian cross, the aggrieved have begun to march. 

State of Emergency?

“Out of the ashes of the current catastrophe, America’s white working class seems to have fashioned a new culture of pain and trauma, rooted in white America’s peculiar imperative to seem happy all the time (unless you’re sick) and to personalize and depoliticize financial hardship.” Helen Epstein, Left Behind, New York Review of Books

A few weeks ago I said I was watching how the Trump gang would respond to the coronavirus. As expected, the response has been chaotic and incoherent, with false statements, contradictions, blithe dismissals, empty boasts, and, most recently, Trump’s disavowal of any responsibility. None of this is at all surprising. Trump is a decent politician who has seized control of the GOP, but he is a terrible leader, utterly incompetent, insecure, and out of his depth. Trump’s glaring personal deficiencies -- lack of character, morality, empathy, honesty, intelligence -- are now on full display, and as the coronavirus spreads, which it will, and the human and economic consequences deepen, which they will, Trump will not be able to hide. His attempts to blame everyone else for his, and his lackey-filled administration’s response to a deepening public health crisis, will sound more and more unhinged, ridiculous, and idiotic. 

It’s only March. The presidential election is eight months away. A whole lot can go wrong for Trump in that time, and by his own hand, he’s made it more likely that what happens will be bad, not good. The man is running from his own incompetence, and losing the race. Naturally, Trump claims the exact opposite.  

Locally, Santa Barbara is shutting down. Schools will be closed for the next few weeks, UCSB is holding classes online, hundreds of community events, performances, fundraisers and other public gatherings have been postponed or cancelled. My wife and I were in Whole Foods Friday night and it looked like looters had just left: no almond milk or ground beef, empty vegetable bins, a depleted frozen food aisle. Unlike a lot of people, we haven’t hoarded toilet paper or canned goods. I can’t decide if we are being sensible or not taking the situation seriously enough. I want to avoid panicking but the vibe in this city is heavy, fretful, anxious, and scared. 

Just as Trump’s complete failure of leadership isn’t surprising, it’s also no surprise that the United States government is ill-prepared to combat a pandemic. How can it be otherwise when for nearly four decades, we’ve had it drummed into us that government is the problem, and that unfettered capitalism, where individuals are responsible for themselves, is the path to freedom, security, and happiness? Why do we need government when we have markets? As Helen Epstein notes in the quote above, we have depoliticized financial hardship. In other words, each of us has shouldered the weight, the total responsibility to grab and realize the American Dream, while ignoring the structural reasons we cannot get ahead no matter how hard we work or how many jobs we hold down. We’ve been told that a price can be fixed to every human endeavor, that we have nothing in common with, and no responsibility for, anyone but ourselves and those nearest us. Now comes a pandemic, and America’s disinvestment in the Commons is coming into crystal clear relief. Why do so few American workers enjoy paid sick leave? Because too many American workers are not represented by a union. And why are there so few unions? Because neoliberal ideology, starting with Ronald Reagan, killed almost all of them. 

Working people in America need an advocate.  

Live Update: I just ran down to the Trader Joe’s on Milpas Street, hoping to find ground turkey, almond milk, and coffee creamer. The meat section was bare; no almond milk to be had, though I did find creamer. No cereal. Half a dozen boxes of maple and brown sugar oatmeal. The canned food aisle had been picked clean -- no tuna, salmon, beans, soup. There were plenty of bananas and eggs. No shortage of wine and beer. There wasn’t much bread. Look how quickly our lives have changed; our needs and desires and comforts are suddenly harder to fill. 

In our small pantry we have 1 can of pinto beans, 3 cans of refried beans, 1 jar of mayonnaise and 1 jar of pizza sauce. I’m afraid to count the remaining rolls of toilet paper in the hall closet. 

Turbulence Ahead

“The curse of the human race is not that we are so different from one another, but that we are so alike.” Salman Rushdie

New year. Like a child peeking out from under his blankets I peer out at this new year. Is the Orange Menace still holed up in the White House, wreaking havoc while he watches Fox News and issues insane Tweets about “border security?” As I write this, the NYSE is down another 500 points, below the 23,000 mark. Since the market began sliding in December, Trump hasn’t had much to say about the economy, except to blame the Federal Reserve for hiking interest rates. Trump is never responsible for anything negative, only the good, what little of it there is. Trump’s ability to debase whatever he touches is astonishing. America has had lousy presidents, but never one so blatantly inept and dishonest. Ditto the entire Trump junta. What a pathetic assortment of brutes, shitheads, assholes, and jerks. Like attracts like. Perfidy begets perfidy.

I’m not one for making resolutions, other than to stay in the present moment and try to be calmer and kinder, worry less, and enjoy more. I’m a lucky person, blessed with fortune. I have a rich life. When your chief wank is that your beloved football team (Chelsea) is playing uninspired, boring football, it means that the major aspects of your existence are damn good. I attribute my good fortune to luck more than anything else. I won Santa Barbara in the birth lottery and was reared before the American empire turned overtly, openly, cruel and maniacal. That’s the most disheartening aspect of the post-9/11 years, how America has lost whatever moral bearing we had before the Towers fell. Now we run side-by-side with rogue nations and make no excuses for it.

Because the federal government is at a standstill due to Trump’s temper tantrum over his Wall I have been thinking about the border with Mexico, our long suffering neighbor. As pointed out by Francisco Cantu in the New York Review of Books recently, the border area is one of the most heavily patrolled and surveilled on the planet. Migrants face a staggering array of obstacles, not to mention terrain that easily becomes deadly. Drones, helicopters, Humvees, infrared cameras, ground sensors, heavily armed agents. Against all this, and the fact that border crossings are down, the Orange Menace demands the public pony up the money for his vanity Wall. Colossal stupidity. When have walls, fences, moats or barricades ever worked for long? People always find a way under, over, around or through.

We don’t look at root causes, how from our very hand fell the seeds of the Central American migrant “crisis.” The elites in both political parties always have convenient justifications, plausible deniability, sound reasons, and, of course, historical amnesia. America is due a reckoning. We have to get over our 9/11 trauma and change cruel and inhumane systems, starting with our winner-take-all, survival-of-the-richest economy. The rich will have to take less, give more, and our tired empire must soon fold its tents, herd its livestock, and begin the long journey home. Trump is only a symptom of a disease, and even were he to be frog-marched from the White House in shame or shackles -- and no matter how good it might feel to witness Trump’s long overdue comeuppance -- the disease would remain, malignant cells rampaging over healthy ones.

Keep your seatbelt fastened. There may be turbulence ahead. If you ignored the flight attendant while he went over important safety features, you might want to take a moment now to identify the nearest exit.