"Folks, we just survived something really crazy awful: four years of a president without shame, backed by a party without spine, amplified by a network without integrity, each pumping out conspiracy theories without truth, brought directly to our brains by social networks without ethics — all heated up by a pandemic without mercy.
It’s amazing that our whole system didn’t blow, because the country really had become like a giant overheated steam engine. What we saw in the Capitol last week were the bolts and hinges starting to come loose. The departure of Donald J. Trump from the White House and the depletion of his enablers’ power in the Senate aren’t happening a second too soon." - Thomas Friedman, 'President Donald J. Trump-The End', NY Times, Jan. 21.
As Janice and I watched the inaugural scenes playing out on TV, we marveled at how the bright sunny shimmer contrasted with the glum gray skies overshadowing the inauguration of Dotard Trump 4 years earlier. For those who recalled, the difference was surreal.
This time, thankfully, Trump was no where to be seen, having slinked off in the early morning hours after pardoning some 140-odd sewer rats (including Steve Bannon, shown above). The orange putrescence left the White House for the last time on Wednesday morning, after spewing out a typically pugnacious and misleading spiel as he departed- and offering his parting words to America: “Have a good life, we will see you soon... Hope they don't raise your taxes!”
Well, taxes will have to be raised to support the multi trillion dollar Covid relief packages. As for seeing us soon, not if you're locked up for ten years for multiple crimes of corruption, bribery, tax fraud and insurrection, you won't!
Trump made his getaway on the Marine One helicopter at 8:18 a.m. after- get this - demanding his aides prepare an ostentatious red carpet ceremony at the base accompanied by an adoring audience with cheers. But the ultimate con man got neither - not even Mike Pence - who opted to attend the inauguration. Instead he got a tepid send off accompanied by a sparse gaggle of MAGA stand -ins , with assorted military forced to give Capt. Bonespurs a 21-gun salute.
So finally, after four years enduring a national dumpster fire, the inauguration of Joseph R. Biden Jr. yesterday marked an escape - with the return of the competent adults to the national stage. Professionals, as opposed to overgrown, entitled brats, grifters, con-men, Nazis, white nationalists and other sewer scum. (Like Bannon).
Across the nation, the sane (reality-based) segment of citizenry responded as if a dead weight had been lifted from their collective consciousness. In the words of NY Times columnist Dan Barry:
"The smashing of norms by Mr. Trump, culminating with his refusal to concede an election he lost and then his incitement of his supporters to march on the Capitol — leading to indictments and his second impeachment — made the moment seem seismic: a shift from one distinct era to another, with the question of who we are as a republic suddenly open to debate."
Bingo! And in the words of Norma Luna, quoted in Barry's piece:
"It’s a relief. I didn’t think we could get here. We’re proud to be Americans again.”
Indeed. Our niece Vanessa was so overjoyed with the sight of Biden taking the oath she had to send a message on What's App: "What a glorious day to finally really see the Sun shine on this country again!" Yeah, she waxed poetic, but even if most of us didn't use the same words, we felt that way. It was like an enormous, brain eating parasite had finally been dislodged after sucking our gray matter dry for four long years of endless drama, division, hate and Nazi-like authoritarianism.
What bestowed on Trump such mesmerizing power to enthrall his masses? Peter Simi, a professor at Chapman University, has conjectured:
“That’s one of the things that’s most threatening about his rise to power. He’s kind of an ink blot of sorts where a lot of these different segments of the far-right — and into the mainstream — are able to project on to him their hopes and fears and anxieties and frustrations."
This "projection" is something I often cited in my posts in the wake of Trump's mis-election. This tendency of especially working class voters to adopt Trump as their powerful avatar to "make the libs cry" in the real world. Indeed, this desire to sow misery on the other side even trumped their own needs to gain something positive from having cast their votes for the malignant buffoon. But yesterday, the spell was finally broken and a new sane reality arrived with the inauguration of Joe Biden. Or so we hope!
Vanessa, who 6 years ago was helping new immigrants (green card holders) access benefits was probably thinking of Trump's inauspicious entry into U.S. presidential politics in 2015. That was when the slimeball called Mexicans "rapists" and vowed to build a wall on the southern border that Mexico would pay for. (An idea championed by David Duke the then Klan leader). Well, as we know Mexico never paid a dime for the monstrosity Trump put up (he had to pilfer $$ from Pentagon projects) and it marked the first con he'd have on his delirious followers.
Contrast that with Joe Biden's s compassionate demeanor and desire to honor democracy and decency yesterday - as opposed to endless egoism and entitlement, excluding most Americans. In his stirring inaugural address (perhaps the finest speech he's ever given) Joe Biden said:
"The will of the people has been heard, and the will of the people has been heeded. We’ve learned again that democracy is precious and democracy is fragile. At this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed. This is America’s day. This is democracy’s day. A day in history and hope, of renewal and resolve."
Biden also appealed to national unity and that we need to end this "Uncivil war", between red and blue, rural and urban, liberal and conservative. But even before he uttered those words the traitor seditionist Sen. Josh Hawley had deliberately held up at least one of his cabinet picks, Biden's cabinet selection for Homeland Security.
This showed that while Biden's words may be aspirational it is doubtful they will move his opposition to come to their senses. FT columnist Janan Ganesh put it in stark terms in his column yesterday:
"Not since 1945, when Harry Truman felt the weight of the “moon, the stars and all the planets”, has more rested on a new US president. If he governs well, mending the economy, dispensing vaccines, and calming the home front, he can stem the trickling away of US (and by extension western) credibility since the millennium.
What started with the US’s “forever wars” and worsened with the 2008 financial crash reached a negative apotheosis with the still-raging pandemic. The west needs a success story for its own morale as much as its outward reputation."
FT senior columnist Martin Wolf, while appreciating the spectacle of restored sanity was nonetheless sober in his assessment ( 'The American Republic's Near Death Experience'), noting:
"Mr Trump attempted a coup. Worse, the great majority of Republicans agree with his reasons for doing so. A huge number of federal legislators went along. The coup failed, because courts rejected evidence-free cases, and state officials did their jobs"
Yale Professor Timothy Snyder was even more direct in an earlier op-ed column for the Times:
Trump’s coup attempt of 2020-21, like other failed coup attempts, is a warning for those who care about the rule of law and a lesson for those who do not. His pre-fascism revealed a possibility for American politics. For a coup to work in 2024, the breakers will require something that Trump never quite had: an angry minority, organized for nationwide violence, ready to add intimidation to an election. Four years of amplifying a big lie just might get them this. To claim that the other side stole an election is to promise to steal one yourself. It is also to claim that the other side deserves to be punished.
Informed observers inside and outside government agree that right-wing white supremacism is the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. Gun sales in 2020 hit an astonishing high. History shows that political violence follows when prominent leaders of major political parties openly embrace paranoia.
Our big lie is typically American, wrapped in our odd electoral system, depending upon our particular traditions of racism. Yet our big lie is also structurally fascist, with its extreme mendacity, its conspiratorial thinking, its reversal of perpetrators and victims and its implication that the world is divided into us and them. To keep it going for four years courts terrorism and assassination.
When that violence comes, the breakers will have to react. If they embrace it, they become the fascist faction
Snyder adds: “Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president.” If truth is subjective, force must decide. There can then be no true democracy, only gangs of rival thugs or the boss’s dominant gang."
And even as all eyes turned last night to the "Celebration of America" and its ending fireworks display, many of us remained uneasy that the constructive, hopeful version of America will manifest Even as those fine words emanated from Biden, we learned The Sovereign American Project, based in West Palm Beach, began recruiting in August. It envisions an America separated, as in the days of segregation. The group, flagged by the FBI in recent days, demands “the end of forced integration” between races, according to their website.
Its goals, according to materials on its website, include: dismantling affirmative action programs; undoing “the fallacy of feminism” and demolishing the gay rights movements; as well as reversing multiculturalism, which the group’s website calls “a pressure cooker” ... “not a melting pot.”
Hate group monitors and experts said the group stands out because of its international network, with allies in the Ukraine and Portugal; an online sophistication in covering its tracks; and its brazen incorporation as a “social welfare” nonprofit with an address on Clematis Street, the main street of West Palm Beach.
“Any privilege Whites have has been earned and passed down through generations,” the website says, urging white people not to “become a minority in the land our ancestors fought and died for.”
One thing we do know: President Biden will have his work cut out for him in leading this nation back to sanity, civility and some degree of unity. As for Bill Maher's and others' (e.g. Barack Obama's) appeal for us to reach out and "talk to the other side", that is only possible if both sides share the same reality and basic facts. Right now, they do not.
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AND:J
by Pierre Tristam | January 21, 2021 - 8:28am | permalink
by William Rivers Pitt | January 21, 2021 - 7:21am | permalink
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