The Nadir of the American Republic

“But that boundless blind faith is beginning to fade now.” Hunter S. Thompson

My head aches. I listen to bits of the House impeachment proceedings, then read about them on my usual outlets -- Truthout, Truthdig, The Nation, Counterpunch, Politico, Democracy NOW -- and try to make sense of it all. What’s abundantly clear is that the Republicans have sold their souls and their children and their pets to Trump, and can no longer even be described as a political party. Noam Chomsky has said numerous times that the current GOP is a criminal organization. When it comes to the Orange Menace, they see no evil, hear no evil and speak nothing but nonsense. Naturally, the blowhards and miscreants over at FOX News spin and slant their coverage to make it appear that the Democrats are throwing punches but not coming close to landing a glove on the innocent Trump. 

It amuses me to hear Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, talk about how the State Department attempted to school the newly established Ukranian government in anti-corruption practices. Coming from the United States -- whose Representatives and Senators are, with few exceptions, purchased, owned and operated by corporate interests, and whose foreign policy history is rife with coups, election interference, regime change operations, spying, invasions, assassination attempts and other malfeseance -- this is laughable, like a convicted pedophile priest teaching sex ed to teenage boys.  

When I think of American corruption, I think of the silky smooth rhetoric of Barack Obama, who couched the power plays of the American empire in words like self-determination, democracy, liberty and justice, and then turned around and authorized targeted assassinations in Afghanistan or wherever else he felt US power needed to be demonstrated. Measured, reasonable language and a Sidewinder missile is how America has always preferred to operate its Empire. The Trump Administration is completely different, of course, crude, clumsy and overt, the shiny facade ripped away to reveal the base intent of Empire (or is the objective now only to enrich Trump and his family?), which is, lest we forget, to thwart global rivals, control natural resources and markets, put down popular uprisings, and justify ever-increasing contributions to the Pentagon war machine. 

The divide in this country, between reality-based citizens and those who dwell in the FOX News ecosystem, is now so deep and broad that I fear America is finished as a representative democracy. We’ve reached such a nadir the two political parties cannot even agree on the most basic facts. If Adam Schiff asserted that Abraham Lincoln was 6’4” tall in his stockings, Republicans would immediately accuse Schiff of inflating Lincoln’s height, Tucker Carlson would call him the biggest liar in American history, and Sean Hannity would devote an entire show to “Height-Gate.” No republic can survive in this atmosphere, not when the economy is primed to implode and the impact of anthropogenic climate change is accelerating by the day. 

Here’s a dim and not very original prediction. The House will impeach Trump on a party-line vote and the Senate will acquit him, also on a party-line vote. If the economy doesn’t implode between now and election day, Trump will lose the popular vote, again, but prevail in the undemocratic Electoral College, again. Four more years of Trump will spell the end of America as we’ve known it. If you can think about that without feeling a sharp pain in your lower intestine, you must be very wealthy, stone dumb, or high on the most potent chemical concoction Big Pharma can come up with. 

The Worst and Dimmest: the Impeachment of Donald J. Trump

“Rich man wanna be king/And a king ain’t satisfied/Till he rules everything.” 

Bruce Springsteen

If hell exists, Devin Nunes will occupy a front row seat in Satan’s luxury box, near the fiery pit, where the smell of sulphur is most pungent. Listening to his opening statement for less than five minutes made me want to puke. An acquaintance, the comedian Kimmie Dee, put it aptly, albeit crudely, when she posted on Facebook that Nunes’s ability to speak with Trump’s dick in his mouth is remarkable. Indeed. Nunes is quite a talent. 

What is the strange hold Trump has over many Republicans? Why does this bombastic, ignorant, narcissistic, ridiculous failure scare the bejesus out of the GOP’s rank and file, its leadership, and the Republican National Committee? I suppose one can ask the same question about any cult leader. Logic, reason, morality, and common sense go right out the window. Here, drink this Kool-Aid and all your doubts and difficulties will evaporate.  There was never any mystery about Donald Trump or any question that he would govern the same way he ran the Trump Organization or that he would fail spectacularly; spectacular failure is Trump’s stock-in-trade, as is lying, cheating, and defrauding others. What is mysterious, baffling, is the utter, complete lack of honor among congressional Republicans. Damn near every last one of them has debased himself or herself since Trump got anointed by the Electoral College. Loyalty to a political party or a leader at the expense of the law, the country, or principle is a hallmark of despotism. Every last member of the GOP has forgotten that he or she swore to uphold and defend the Constitution. The Constitution, not the GOP and certainly not Donald J. Trump. 

What is wrong with these people? Wake up, open your eyes and look at whose ass you’ve been kissing for three years. 

I’m so tired of hearing Republicans claim that Democrats are trying to overturn the 2016 election. Republicans conveniently forget that their boy Trump lost the popular vote; the only reason he made it to the White House is because the undemocratic Electoral College favors small states over larger ones. Impeachment is not about the 2016 election. Impeachment is about one co-equal branch of our government checking the abuses of power by the executive. Our Founding White Fathers had many shortcomings, but their fear of unchecked executive power was grounded in experience. 

Having no defense, all Republicans can resort to are spurious attacks on the process.

Thank You For Your Service

“We have only outdone the Romans in turning metaphors like the war on terrorism, or poverty, or AIDS into actual wars on targets we appear, often, to pick at random in order to maintain turbulence in foreign lands.” Gore Vidal, Dreaming War

Cal never liked Veteran’s Day. Too overhyped. What were we celebrating, after all, but death and destruction? He avoided the parade down State Street, white-haired WWII and Vietnam era vets riding in vintage Army jeeps, waving little flags at the people lining the sidewalk. Everybody clapping. Every year a foursome of old bombers flew over the city, low and lugubrious. Cal thought WWII was righteous, necessary, but every American war since had been dubious, and the so-called War on Terror was a cruel joke, an endless joke, with too many boys coming back maimed or mental. The government had little use for them then, and Cal saw many veterans camping on the steps of the art museum or under the overpass. If I had a son, Cal thought, I’d never let him enlist in the military. 

Cal served eight years in the Air Force. He spent three years in South Korea, one year in Japan, the rest in Texas. He enlisted a few years after Saigon fell, got discharged before the first Gulf War. He remembered the first briefing at the base outside of Wichita Falls, given by a burly Master Sergeant with a flat-top. “I advise you to steer clear of downtown in general, and in particular don’t go down there in uniform. The good ol’ boys around here don’t have much tolerance for military personnel. A couple of airmen got their asses kicked a few weeks back.” 

Times change. Now it was “thank you for your service” everywhere you went, even if, like Cal, you never served in war time. People just assumed he’d been in combat when he told him he was a vet. Since the draft was long gone, most people were clueless. Wars were remote now, out of sight, forgotten. It was hard to believe that young people once flooded the streets to protest the war in Vietnam. The government doesn’t even bother to declare war any more. It’s usually the president who decides that some country or terrorist group is an imminent threat. Once the shooting starts the media loses its mind, oohing and aahing and interviewing retired generals who can’t say enough about America’s ordnance, which is so sophisticated and precise that only enemy forces are targeted. If civilians die it’s never on purpose. You’d think they were talking about Tom Brady’s throwing arm. Dissenting voices are blacked out, so it feels as if the entire country is of one mind. Cal marveled at the effectiveness of the brainwashing; it didn’t take much to convince people that the latest shooting war was justified. It wasn’t like Vietnam when every night on the evening news there were images and casualty figures. Vietnam felt close and real.  

Cal drew the curtains in the living room. Across the street his neighbor Roger had put his American flag out. Roger never served in the military, but he loved the technology of war, especially fighter jets and drones. Roger thought the US had every right to bomb what he called evil nations like North Korea and Iran. Roger got pissed off one time when Cal told him that the US was the biggest threat to peace in the world. Cal had just shrugged and told Roger to check the history, it was all there. A fact is a fact, even if it contradicts what you believe. 

Don’t thank me for my service. Ask me what I did while I served. The closest I ever came to being injured was one day in a dreary little strip mall outside the base in Wichita Falls when a redneck in a Chevy pickup tossed a half-full can of Coors at my head. 

Bukowski Pissed Here

“Because a man is born with a particular knack for gathering in vast aggregates of money and power for himself, he may not on that account be the wisest leader to follow nor the best fitted to propound on a sane philosophy of life.” James Truslow Adams

My son sends me a photograph of a sign he saw in the men’s room of Cole’s an LA eatery famous for its French-dip sandwich: Charles Bukowski Pissed Here. Old Hank pissed in plenty of bars and restaurants in LA in his day, but if Buk rose from the dead and strolled around LA today he might not recognize his old haunts. A lot of the bars he drank in are gone, as are the factories where he toiled at meaningless jobs. In Buk’s heyday LA was still King of Aerospace, and workers machined parts and assembled fuselages and tested engines. A man could work at McDonnell-Douglas or Hughes Aircraft and make a living wage; he was likely a union member with health benefits and a pension. 

Buk’s LA is mostly a memory just as the Santa Barbara I knew as a boy is mostly a memory. The physical beauty of SB hangs on, but it’s harder and harder to ignore the angst of wage earners over rents and college tuition and medical care, the ranks of unhoused people, and creeping gentrification. Amazon, the behemoth that has done more to kill the State Street retail core than anyone else, will soon occupy a large building on State Street. Irony, I suppose. Seeing the Amazon logo is going to piss me off every time I walk by. Retail cleansing. It’s not that different from a hedge fund buying thousands of single-family homes on the cheap, forcing the owners into foreclosure, and then renting the homes out. Extraction is the name of the game. 

Will the economy belly-flop before the 2020 election? A serious global downturn might be the dagger in Trump’s shriveled heart, and the only thing that can keep him from a second term. His B-team of looters and grifters hasn’t strengthened the economy for anyone except the already wealthy, but then, that was predictable. When the next crash hits the Fed and the rest of the world’s central bankers will have few cards to play. I suspect it will be very ugly for many people, myself included. I don’t own any property or a stock portfolio or a sack of gold bars. I was a working-class kid and I’m a working-class adult.  

Like Henry Miller, Hank Bukowski figured out very early in life that the whole American set-up was a big con, a system of exploitation owned and operated by the wealthy and moneyed interests for their benefit. The rich always climb on the bent backs of the poor. Miller called America “the air-conditioned nightmare.” Then, like now, it was a country of crass commercialism and spiritual emptiness. I think Bukowski saw it as a madhouse, full of dull-eyed, soul-dead people prepared to follow the next snake-oil salesman to come along. Donald Trump in the White House would not surprise Bukowski in the least. Buk watched a number of regimes come and go, Truman, Eisenhower,  JFK, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush I and Clinton. What was the real difference between them? Bukowski would remember that at least until the Carter Administration, the Democrats supported organized labor and needed labor’s backing to retain power. But after Carter the connection between the Democratic Party and labor was ever more tenuous. The Dems began sucking up to banks and insurance companies for campaign dollars. Money started to tilt the playing field. The rich declared war on the spirit of the New Deal and the Democrats helped them wage it. 

The game is fixed, the dice loaded, the house always wins. Figure the game out and a pair of muscle-bound bouncers with thick necks toss you out on the sidewalk. The attention span of the average American is short and Fox News spreads misinformation 24 hours a day. We are lost in a digital wilderness. 

I imagine tracking Henry Miller down to a cliff near his house at Big Sur. I hand him the latest iPhone, demonstrate what he can do with it, and watch as he turns it over in his hands. He stares off at the blue sky. Is he day-dreaming of his days in Paris, living on his wits and guile, hell-bent on becoming an artist and escaping the bonds of convention? He was always more of a sage than a pornographer. Henry wanted to discern the meaning of life, past lives, future lives, all life, every sense awake. I can visit the great museums of the world on this? He asks. I nod. Find photographs of ancient Greece? Yes. Pornography? Yes. Henry smiles at me then tosses the phone over the cliff. 

Donald Trump: “There should be no public impeachment hearings. No private hearings, either. There should be no hearings because it’s all a hoax. My call with the President of Ukraine was perfect, perfecto, no quid pro quo, no collusion. The Bidens should be investigated, they’re crooked. What about Hillary’s emails? All those disappeared emails? The Democrats should investigate that, not me. I can’t be investigated, I have unlimited immunity, perfect immunity, it says so in the Constitution…”

What to do but uncork another bottle of wine and raise a glass to those who refuse to be bought, bribed, fooled, fucked with, deceived or defeated. 

Trump Will Not Go Quietly

“With so much wealth sloshing around, it should not come as a surprise that Blackstone is the largest landlord in the world. Run by Stephen Schwarzman, who spent close to $20 million on his 70th birthday party and is a good pal of fellow real estate magnate Donald Trump, it is the driving force behind gentrification everywhere.” Louis Proyect, Counterpunch

There are no fires burning in Santa Barbara County, yet, but the sky is hazy from fires burning in Ventura, and the air has a familiar burnt smell. Last I heard there were eleven major blazes in our state, and it feels like an apocalypse is drawing nigh. Has a breaking point been reached? Will climate deniers finally acknowledge that climate change is real, global, and happening right now? Not likely. Odds are much better that politicians and their capitalist bagmen will cling to business as usual as long as possible. 

Remember Baghdad Bob or Chemical Ali as he was also known? His real name was Muhammad Saeed al-Sahaf and in 2003 he was Saddam Hussein’s spokesman as the United States unleashed shock and awe on Iraq. Even as American ordnance was raining down, Baghdad Bob insisted that the Iraqi forces were repelling the invaders, blowing fighter jets and bombers out of the sky, and killing Americans by the score. “The Tigris is running with the blood of American soldiers!” Bob would insist, even though it was abundantly clear that Iraq was being bombed into submission. Climate deniers, including King Donald I, remind me of Baghdad Bob. They will keep repeating, “Climate change is a hoax,” until sea water laps up to the doorstep of their estates and the only birds left in existence are seagulls and crows. 

I read on Democracy Now that about 20% of the men and women fighting California’s rash of wildfires are prison inmates. They do the same work, with the same risks to their health and safety, but for pennies per hour, and their service protecting homes and property earns them little in regard to reducing their sentences. No thank you for your service salutes for these inmates, even though the dangerous work they do is far more useful than that of soldiers chasing shadows in Afghanistan or guarding oil fields in northern Syria. 

Some people understand that it’s the oligarchs against the rest of us, and that the only way to beat them is to flood the streets. Ecuador. Venezuela. Hong Kong. Iraq. Puerto Rico. Haiti. Lebanon. People are tired of austerity policies, lack of democracy, perverse wealth inequality, high prices for fuel and food, and inaction on climate change. People are fed up with being deemed disposable. They are tired of being trod upon by the rich. I can’t help but believe a reckoning is coming. 

Trump will not go quietly -- unless he loses the support of enough Republicans, and at the moment his cult followers are holding firm. To move most Republicans to ditch Trump, the impeachment inquiry must produce irrefutable evidence and enough public outcry to make Republicans worry about being on the losing side. If Trump survives impeachment -- and he very well might -- it will be down to November 2020. The Democratic Party machinery is working overtime to secure the nomination for Joe Biden (or someone of similar ilk, corporate-friendly, supporter of tax cuts and free market solutions to all problems, etc.) which likely portends a repeat of 2016. Mainstream Democrats would rather have a second Trump term than lose control of their party to Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. This is familiar territory, 1968 and 1972 redux. Joe Biden is out of ideas, out of step, and out of touch. If he wins the nomination and Sanders or Warren do what the party will expect them to do -- hold their noses and climb onboard -- how many young voters and women will stay home on election day? 

If Trump isn’t soundly defeated at the polls and in the Electoral College he will not accept the election result. If he loses by a slender margin, a questionable margin, Trump will contest the results, and unlike Al Gore in 2000, Trump will never, ever, concede defeat for the good of the country. Trump is for Trump and only for Trump. He will give the middle finger to every norm established for the smooth transition of power. Every autocratic impulse in Trump’s bloated body will twitch at the prospect of being the first American president to refuse to hand over the reins.   

General Bone Spurs

“The only way for a reporter to look at a politician is down.” H.L. Mencken

Press Event, The White House, Washington D.C.

President Trump enters the press briefing room looking agitated, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. After wiping his nose several times, Trump begins reading his prepared statement. 

PT: I have big news today, very big news. The biggest. At my direction, our brave military forces launched a raid in Northern Syria and killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, one of the most vicious killers of all time. al-Baghdadi died like a whimpering dog, begging for mercy, but on my order he was afforded none. We took him out very beautifully. Only a military leader such as President Trump -- the greatest president in American history -- could have planned and executed this operation. It was extremely dangerous, ten times more dangerous than the raid that  killed Osama bin Laden. I want to thank our wonderful allies Russia and Turkey for their assistance. They are great countries with strong leaders who lead strongly. al-Baghdadi was a very bad hombre, many times more dangerous than Osama bin Laden. I took out the worst of the worst. 

Reporter: Mr. President, you stated that you planned this raid. Can you tell us when you did that planning?

PT: I planned the whole thing on the 14th hole at my golf club, a beautiful course by the way, world class, and by the time I arrived on the 15th tee I called my generals and told them how to take this killer out. I’m the best strategist, even better than George Washington. Then I teed off on 15, drove the ball right down the middle about 350 yards. I’m a big hitter, you know, the best golfer to ever occupy the White House. I could beat Obama with a putter, a pitching wedge, and a 4-wood. Even if I let Obama tee off from the ladies tees I’d still beat him. 

Reporter: Will you toss out the first pitch for Game 5 of the World Series?

PT: We’re still considering that. The last time I threw out the first pitch was for a game between the Yankees and the Mets. The pitch was clocked at 95mph and had so much movement on it that the Mets offered me a contract on the spot. I turned them down because I was too busy making billions of dollars. People have always said that I was one of the best baseball players in the history of New York City, a phenom, the next Mickey Mantle. I was a classic 5-tool player which is why it’s insane for the dirty Democrats to talk about impeachment. Witch hunt! 

Reporter: Mr. President, the news on the impeachment front over the past two weeks hasn’t been favorable. Are you concerned about the reaction you might receive from fans at the World Series? 

PT: That’s fake news. The economy is the best it’s ever been, my administration has created like a billion new jobs, we’re building the Wall to keep our country safe, and many people are saying that no American president has ever been more popular. They love what I’m doing with China on trade. You should see the massive crowds at my campaign rallies! So many people, so many red hats, so many signs. They love their great president. They can’t get enough of me. My only concern with attending the World Series is that I’ll get a very long standing ovation that will disrupt the game. 

Reporter: The latest polling shows your approval rating at less than 40%. 

PT: Fake news. Fake news. Fake news. My poll numbers are consistently high, 60, 70 percent of Americans think I’m doing a fantastic job. And now that I’ve taken out this very bad hombre, al-Baghdadi, I expect my approval rating to go even higher. The dirty Democrats know I’m unbeatable in 2020, which is why they’ve launched this illegal and very phony impeachment. Adam Schiff is like a rabid dog. He’s got nothing on Trump, nothing but smoke. The whole thing is very illegitimate and the Democrats know it, they know it, especially now that Trump is a war hero, the man who took out al-Baghdadi, who was a very bad hombre with a lot of blood on his hands. Many people are saying nobody except Trump could have pulled this off. You think Joe Biden could have done this? No way. Joe’s too busy trying to help his loser son. 

Reporter: Mr. President, speaking of loser children -

PT: It’s illegitimate, the whole thing, because the House hasn’t voted to impeach. It’s right there in the Constitution, in black and white, and the Democrats know it, they know it. They’re making it up as they go, with no respect for the law. They will learn a hard lesson in 2020. My very good friend Vladimir Putin told me not to worry. 

Burning In The Dark

“The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one’s heart have a common provenance in pain.” Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Parts of California are burning again, and here on the coast it’s nearly 90 degrees at the tail end of October. A few days ago local residents were advised to prepare to be without power for 24 to 48 hours as Southern California Edison planned to shut down its transmission lines to prevent potential fire danger, much as beleaguered Pacific Gas and Electric had already done up north. Both utilities are desperate to avoid further liability. Stock up on batteries, bottled water, canned food, fill the gas tank in the car. As I write this, half a million people in Sonoma County are without power. 

SCE and PG&E are loathe, as is most of corporate America, to connect the dots between climate change, prolonged drought and deadly wildfires, but their silence can’t change the reality that climate change is already impacting our lives, and most thinking people know this is just the beginning. California is drier and wildfires burn hotter and longer. I don’t know if shutting down power lines is useful except as a way of limiting corporate liability. 

I’m reading American War by Omar El Akkad, a novel that imagines an America at war with itself in the year 2075, when most of Louisiana is submerged by water, and the capital of the north has relocated from storm-battered Washington D.C to Columbus, Ohio. Mexico has reclaimed most of the territory it lost to the United States in the 19th century. A few southern states have banded together, not because of slavery this time, but because they refuse to stop using fossil fuels. The entire state of South Carolina is under quarantine, completely walled off due to a virus so virulent it killed 110 million people. The world’s superpowers are now China and a conglomeration of former Middle Eastern countries called the Bouazizi empire, who provide basic material aid to war-torn America. Mighty no more is America, either militarily or economically, hopelessly divided against itself, and dependent on the generosity of other countries.   

American War is a depressing read because, like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, it feels plausible, particularly at the speed we are moving toward climate catastrophe. I’ve never been able to re-read The Road; once was enough. The novel terrified me, probably because when I read it my son was five or six years old. In the years since, we’ve moved nearer to McCarthy’s dark vision. When the imbecile who occupies the White House isn’t stoking the fires of division and hatred, he’s doing everything he can to make life easier for fossil fuel extractors and polluters. The very wealthy in this country seem to believe they can sidestep the climate bullet. Perhaps they will, for a while, but even if they buy a little time, the degradation of our air, soil, water, and infrastructure will ensnare them eventually. 

Meanwhile, the Kincade Fire has scorched 20,000 acres. Here in Santa Barbara the air outside feels reminiscent of fires past -- the Tea, Gap and Thomas. I keep waiting for a plume of smoke to rise from behind our mountains. It’s not windy now, but later in the afternoon the wind will likely pick up, adding to the danger. 

1000 Days of Madness

“If we are not currently an authoritarian nation it’s thanks in part to the insubordinate spirit of a good deal of the American public and the underlying confidence behind this relative fearlessness.”  Rebecca Solnit

1,000 days of the madness of would-be King Donald I. At times it feels like a bad dream and I long to snap wide awake and breathe a sigh of relief that Trump never happened except in our imagination. The idiocy, cruelty, venality and mendacity is almost too heavy a burden. When we look back at this period -- if the republic survives and what remains of our institutions hold -- one question that must be answered is why many of our fellow citizens followed Trump, believed in him, and thought he was doing good for the nation. Any conscious, sane person who listens to Trump for more than a minute should reach the conclusion that the man is nuts, insane, a sociopath. I don’t think all of Trump’s supporters and followers are bad people, but I do marvel at how misinformed they are.

Trump is P.T. Barnum on crack. 

Has Trump made us stupid or did we make Trump because we are stupid? During the reign of George W. Bush the late journalist Hunter S. Thompson often said that America was trapped in a downward spiral of dumbness. W. Bush, now being rehabilitated as a kindly nitwit, seemed the epitome of elite decay, a man buoyed by his family name and connections and wealth, a serial fuck-up who always landed on his feet, smiling, a faux cowboy. Donald J. Trump makes George W. Bush look eloquent by comparison. I never thought I would see that. Trump doesn’t have as much blood on his hands as Bush does, not yet anyway, but who knows if he manages to escape impeachment and scandal and win another term via the undemocratic Electoral College. 

As we saw this week, any translator who has to make sense of Trump’s gibberish is in a most difficult spot. “The Kurds have sand, a lot of sand. More sand than is good for them. Lot of sand, too much. It’s hard to imagine so much sand. You can’t believe it. Sand everywhere. Gets in your shoes and your hair. Hard to get the sand out of your hair. I’ve got great hair, the best hair of any American president, ever. Very soft, very shiny, it’s beautiful, my hair, my great and unmatched hair.”

1,000 days of madness, drifts of BS up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, Abraham Lincoln turning in his grave, George Washington sobbing uncontrollably as King Donald tramps over the republic. This can’t be happening, yet it is. It’s not a dream. Trump and the fourth string crew who surround him are becoming more and more blatant and defiant of every norm. Wholesale disregard for the Legislative branch. Total disdain for the rule of law. This is dangerous territory. 

A Quick Flash of Light

“The government’s central evil is its willful failure to distinguish the quality of intent or motive.” Jim Harrison, The Beast God Forgot to Invent

I am having a long conversation with myself about this blog and why I keep writing it. 15 years. Through George W. Bush and the Iraq Disaster, that unbellievably stupid strategic blunder, which has since caused distress and death for thousands of people, from Egypt and Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. We meddled, and we’re paying and paying and paying. I doubt  they can even keep count of all the money the US spent destroying those countries. 18 years in Afghanistan. Longest war in American history, and nobody’s pissed about the milestone except a few middle-aged liberal cranks like me. The Obama years were disappointing to me, a fumbled opportunity. Obama lost his political nerve and turned in the direction he was oriented in anyway, center-right. Outwardly kinder and far more sophisticated but no less deadly than W. Smoother by a mile. With no push forward, we stayed in place. But the optics as they say, the presentation of Barack and Michelle Obama, was to me always reassuring, even hopeful. Cautious man, that Obama. Measured. Honestly seemed to be a very decent person, and never for a minute did I doubt that Obama was doing his best for the country. The man was calm, cool, polished to perfection, and that drove some people in this country into anger, then near madness. I believe, historically speaking, in black backlash. Happens every time there are any widespread gains for people of color. 

Obama didn’t do much for the Democrats as a party. But he stayed smart and elegant and cool until the last day of his term. Only doubted the policies and decisions and compromises, not the man.

And then the system goes haywire and vomits up Donald Trump. And here I am three years and countless unread blog posts later, living in Trump Time. America is an amusement park violently flipped upside down. Donald Trump. Fuck! I don’t know what else to say. I cannot even keep track of all Trump’s high crimes and misdemeanors. Everyday there’s a new transgression. And his party of supposedly rational, decent people, the Grand Old Party, continues to follow Trump, fear Trump and, if not licking Trump’s ass, at least kissing it. They keep turning a blind eye and a deaf ear, afraid of Dear Leader and his Twitter machine, but secretly hoping he falls, and falls hard. 

The ship’s taking on a lot of water. The captain is addled, to say the least, but pretends that everything’s alright, that he’s the greatest man ever to sail, king of the sea, even though he knows deep down that this is the caper he’s not getting away with. The ship’s not listing, yet, but it’s taking on a lot of water. When are the rats going to start jumping, by ones and twos, and then trios and quartets? When will the sailors turn on the captain? This captain will sell his mother’s soul if it means saving his own. He’s fucked things up pretty well, and now it looks like his treasure maps are soon to be let out in the world. 

The age of Obama feels a long way back, a quick flash of light in the dark. The man read real books. He understood the law. He followed the law, for the most part. He was eloquent, even inspiring. Obama in eight years left no stain on America’s soul or hole in her heart. He kept the world at bay and the American empire humming. That takes a bucketful of skill. Obama had that. He also hired competent people. There were no personal scandals during Obama’s tenure in the White House. And then Trump and Company tramp in and the beautiful white walls turn a shade of ochre, the windows grow a film, a smell of rot permeates the whole place, and soon the only people that remain are the most immoral, crooked, cruel, and stupid. Barr. Pompeo. Mulvaney. Mnuchin. It’s not even the fourth string. It’s a coup alright, a coup by a bunch of people you’d never invite into your home for a cup of coffee. Redolent of sloth, all of them. The bottom of the barrel, the dogshit on the bottom of your boot. A decent God would smote them one by one, or at least plague them with disease, but as Tom Waits sang, God’s away on business. 

What I started with was the question of why I continue writing this blog. I’ll put that aside for now. 

It has been a strange week. I feel like I spent three days in a dark tunnel, with the faintest light at one end, and only today did I return to myself. I’ve been depressed. What Ernest Hemingway called the Black Dog. I bet my aura was tar black. I realized all of a sudden that I was garnering little joy for my day job, a job I have always performed very capably, but not one my heart is always in. The job pays the rent and puts food on the table and allows us to go to the clinic or the hospital. 20 years I’ve been there. 60 years old. I wonder about the remainder of my life, how we might survive on some pension money, my freelance work, and maybe a job at Trader Joe’s or something like that. The big worry is losing employer-based health insurance. I’m too young for Medicare. 

Grifter's Carnival

“Impeaching Donald Trump would do nothing to halt the deep decay that has beset the American republic.” Chris Hedges

On the one hand, it’s absolutely comical to watch Donald J. Trump flail around like an orangutan with a mongoose attached to his testicles, but on the other, what we’re witnessing is the outing of the entire corrupt American political system. It’s laughable enough when Trump warns his base that they stand to lose their guns, their religion, and their military if he’s impeached, less so when both Republicans and Democrats have mercilessly pursued whistleblowers like Reality Winner, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden into prison or exile. And when either party spouts off sanctimoniously about doing the business of the American people -- which neither party has done since the mid-1960’s -- it’s hysterical. As I’ve said on this blog many, many times, we do not have a democracy and our government only marginally works for us; we have a tyranny of a minority of people and corporations that have the money and influence to buy legislative favors and judges. Tax holidays for the rich, corporations and special interest groups, and cruel austerity for the poor, is not how a democratic government works for its citizens. 

There are only two instances when the American government can be roused to action: undeclared military interventions that go on without end is one. Cutting taxes for people and corporations who already have more money than they know what to do with is the other. Think I exaggerate? A majority of Americans want decent jobs, affordable housing, health care, educational opportunities, meaningful action to curb the effects of climate change, plus reasonable, commonsense restrictions on the sale of military-style assault weapons. The political class, which purports to represent “the people,” wants none of these things and will never deliver it under the current capitalist framework. 

The journalist Chris Hedges wrote recently that while the impeachment of Donald J. Trump is necessary,Trump’s ouster won’t change the underlying system one iota. Yes, impeachment -- if the Senate convicts (not likely) -- will remove from office the most idiotic, malignant, amoral, and corrupt president in American history and possibly key underlings like Mike Pompeo and William Barr, but loyal servants of the status quo like Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will remain in place, as will douchebags like Kevin McCarthy and Devin Nunes and Rick Scott and Ted Cruz and Susan Collins. Many congressional districts will remain rigged and widespread voter suppression will continue; North and South Dakota will still have the same disproportionate political clout in the US Senate. The Supreme Court will remain a subsidiary of the Federalist Society. The undemocratic Electoral College will still supersede the will of voters. 

What astonishes me is the utter lack of honor on display in Washington D.C. It’s just a big grifter’s carnival, with damn near everyone in the trough up to his or her neck. Maybe it has always been so. Did Joe Biden make calls and open doors for his wayward son, Hunter? It’s highly likely that he did, but rich, well-connected people do this for their kids every single day. It’s risible to hear Donald J. Trump accuse Joe Biden’s son of being a know-nothing loser who walked away with millions, when his own offspring carry his criminal DNA and would be working behind the counter at Wendy’s without Daddy Trump’s money and name, but no level of hypocrisy, or irony, is too much for The Donald. Born halfway to home plate with a platinum spoon up his ass, Trump still made a hash of every business venture he tried. 

It’s all a perverse joke. I might laugh if it wasn’t so serious. Donald J. Trump has waged a two and a half year siege on the rule of law; the GOP has been content to stand by and help him do it, and the Democrats too feckless to fight.