What Will It Be America, Rule of Law or Rule of Trump?
“The teaching of history, when grounded in truth, isn’t anti-anything. Instead, it’s a careful consideration of historical facts.” Kali Holloway, The Nation
I completely agree with the journalist Charles Pierce, who said in an interview with Bob Cesca that living in these times is akin to being a fireman in Hell. One hardly knows where to begin. Pick an ailment, from Covid to the attempted subversion of the presidential election of 2020 by Donald J. Trump and his henchmen and women; to the systematic denial by fossil fuel extractors like Exxon-Mobil, Shell and BP of the oncoming climate catastrophe, as well as the regulatory agencies they bought in the free market bazaar; to the corrosive influence of money in political campaigns; to the obscene size of the recently passed defense budget, supported, as always, by both parties without debate or hand-wringing about deficits; to the right-wing takeover of the US Supreme Court, which next year will almost surely overturn Roe v. Wade; to the rising tide of overt white supremacy and the waves of disunity washing across our country.
Merry Christmas, America. We have wrought this, make no mistake. Me, you, all of us, of whatever political persuasion, gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation. We ignored all the warnings, thrust our collective heads in the bog, and now the damage is irreversible. None of this started with Donald Trump — he’s corrupt enough, but far too lazy and incompetent to be given credit — it started way, way back, with the Goldwater presidential campaign and the 1971 Powell Memo, Reagan’s triumph versus the PATCO union, NAFTA, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and the utterly idiotic War on Terror thrust on the world by George W. Bush and his Dark Lord, Dick Cheney.
The hollowing-out has been going on for a long time, a slow erosion, like water against rock, but it has been no less relentless. For God’s sake, the corporate elite and capitalism’s most ardent cheerleaders convinced us that making “personal brands” of ourselves was akin to becoming an entrepreneur, and that precarious gig work meant freedom. Personally, the idea of branding myself is sickening. I hate the fucking term when applied to a human being. “It’s not on brand.” Fuck you. I’m human. The point is that the language of capitalism pervaded our lives to the point that it couldn’t be questioned, criticized or critiqued. Sounds like religion, doesn’t it? No wonder I’m an atheist of the Christopher Hitchens variety.
A day or two after January 6 of this year, I wrote on my blog that finding out who plotted, planned, financed and supported the attempted insurrection was imperative if we are to salvage what remains of our democracy. The walls have been breached, and now I won’t be surprised if Trump returns in 2024 — by hook, crook, under indictment and suffering incontinence and complete insanity. It was obvious to me, watching on TV, that there were elements of coordination and planning in the attack, and that it was likely people inside the government were involved. I hoped a real bipartisan investigatory commission would be appointed, but we saw what the GOP did to that idea. Kevin McCarthy and his gang couldn’t scurry down the memory hole fast enough. Once the initial mortification passed, the Trump troops filed back on the bus, all singing from the same hymnal. January 6? Oh, you mean the peaceful gathering of patriots? Forget the five people killed and the hundreds injured; forget the property damage; forget the calls to hang the Vice President; forget the gallows and the bear spray and the aluminum baseball bats. It was just a routine day in the nation’s Capitol. No biggie.
Forgetting is easy when you have no shame or morality.
In 2019, I wrote on my blog that if Trump lost the election he would not go quietly. He would be the first to throw a spanner in the works and disrupt the peaceful and legitimate transfer of power from loser to victor. It was clear to me that something unpleasant would happen when the day arrived, though I never anticipated that Trump would rile up and unleash an armed, rabid, and unruly mob. At the time I didn’t grasp that the violence Trump frequently alluded to was nothing less than the planting of a seed. There’s a lot of media chatter now about what Trump was doing in the White House while his MAGA mob was storming the capitol, and why he refused all requests to issue a public statement telling the mob to go home. Trump refused for a simple reason: he loved the spectacle unfolding on his TV screens. The red hats worn and Trump flags flown by his supporters were thrilling, the highlight of a lifetime seeking attention and adulation. I imagine Trump was as giddy as a toddler with a new toy. Those beautiful people were protesting for him, not America or the Constitution or democracy, but him. Trump wasn’t about to call it off, it was the greatest feat in American history. An election overturned on the basis of a fabrication — a baseless lie — rejected in dozens of courts of law, and even by William P. Barr, the most corrupt AG in American history. If you cannot convince a man as haughty and ethically bankrupt as William Barr to join your plot, it’s a sign of how far across the line you have drifted. Not that Trump cared. Many others would fall before Trump’s turn came, and many, like Mark Meadows, could be sacrificed.
Several key players in the January 6 coup attempt — and the emerging information shows it was a coordinated effort by members of the executive and legislative branches to subvert a fair, free, and legitimate election — got their start in the Tea Party. Mark Meadows. Louie Gohmert. Jim Jordan. The goal of the Tea Party was to delay, stall, kill, eviscerate, and castrate Barack Obama’s legislative agenda. Do you remember the name of the Tea Party chairperson? Michelle Bachman. One of the first of a gaggle of attention-seeking right-wing whack jobs who no sane person would allow to watch their dog for more than two hours. The GOP embraced them. And still does.
Of all the annoying aspects of Trump’s ridiculous Big Lie, the most annoying is the lack of proof. Trump’s election fraud claims lost nearly sixty court challenges. That’s because there is no credible evidence of election fraud or fixing on the part of the Democratic Party. The much ballyhooed “audit” in Arizona proved the opposite of what Trump predicted; he lost to Biden by an even wider margin. The My Pillow guy’s fever dreams evaporated upon close inspection. Trump lost, fair and square, understand? Do you honestly think the Democrats have the capacity and cajones to steal an election? Get real. Ratfucking for the sake of power is a Republican thing. Democrats still respond to shame, still believe in facts and science. But have you watched them in action? They can’t even figure out how to change the filibuster rules, something Mitch McConnell manages while soaking in the bath. The election wasn’t stolen, Trump lost. He got fewer votes. The majority had seen enough of him.
Funny thing about what happened on January 6. On that symbolic day, when the seat of our democracy was attacked by an armed mob, and while the mayhem was going on, official Washington wasn’t in the least worried about the safety of the President. Trump wasn’t whisked away to a fortified bunker. It was nothing like 9/11, when the Pentagon was attacked and W. Bush and Cheney and others were evacuated. On January 6, official Washington knew why those people were there, who asked them to come, and who they believed. Donald Trump was never in danger.
