We had an insurrection yesterday, an American Beerhall Putsch. I will address that, I have to, but let me calm myself first recounting my day.
I had a pleasant morning, during breakfast, eggs Horvendile, I watched The Expanse, the best show on TV. Last Wednesday I forgot to watch. Yesterday I watched as soon as I was finished blogging and cooking. The show is amazing on so many levels. So much of what was said had relevance to the rest of the day. “Civilization is what keeps us civil.” “People are tribal, during a crisis the tribes become smaller. We are now a tribe of two.” I know I say it every week, but you need to watch it.
Then I broke down and finally watched A Muppet Christmas Carol. When it came out I couldn’t bear to watch the Muppets without Jim Henson at the helm. I now see that this and Treasure Island were trying to follow in the footsteps of The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo which I loved as a kid. That was an outgrowth of the one-shot Mr. Magoo A Christmas Carol and included an adaptation of Treasure Island. As the opening credits rolled I was delighted to see that Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit was given top billing over Michael Caine as Scrooge. Magoo did the same thing, often playing supporting roles such as Friar Tuck in Robin Hood. He did play Scrooge and was masterful in the role. As the film progressed I liked it less and less. The songs were forgettable, just breaks in the action. It’s take on the story was tepid. I should have gone in with my initial skepticism, then I wouldn’t have been disappointed.
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My Gord’s Gold on Alice Hasen aired on Folk Music Notebook. Not a good day for it, people were distracted. The best part was that it led to a correspondence with Alice about other things, our first non-musical conversation. I made the wonderful discovery that Hasen means rabbit, her first name is Alice. What do you get if you cross Alice in Wonderland with the White Rabbit? Alice Hasen. What I liked was that I not talking like Gordon Nash International Man About Folk, but pinball brained me.
At night I actually accomplished something for my Mixcloud. I combined the piece about Alice with three older editions of Gord’s Gold, ilyAIMY, Cynthia Kaplan, and Carolann Solebello and posted them as one archived show. They are now all available to listen to on demand here. I intend to post all my old shows there. Please subscribe, that way you can see the setlists and support both the artists and me. The artists split 60% of the subscription and I get 18%.
Now back to the assault on democracy. It started while I was watching the Muppets. I didn’t know about it for almost an hour and played catchup. I followed the live feed from the New York Times on my computer and watched PBS. I wanted to get my news from sources I trust, not sources with an axe to grind. They aren’t the only ones, but they are both excellent and depend on their reputation for honesty and quality reporting. I found it hard to keep quiet myself and started with reposting segments of the Times’ live feed. Things like this:
From the NYT:
Jim Rutenberg
Writer-at-large
Incongruity on the television screen: images of protesters lashing out at police, disobeying orders while waving flags for Blue Lives Matter, a slogan of police support.
I called on my Trump supporting friends to decry the violence and said that I know they can’t all be supporting it. My other friends thought I was over-optimistic. None of my Trump supporting friends did, and one doubled down, but I can’t believe they all went along with this. Even Senators McConnell and Graham, whole-heartedly condemned it. My friends are better than they are. None said anything but I understand how difficult it is to speak against those in your tribe and that it’s even more difficult to admit you were wrong.
I then do what I always do, tried to keep my tribe honest and grounded. I am Frodo who spent the Battle of Bywater preventing angry hobbits from needless killing. For my efforts I was called a reactionary. My reactionary friend that doubled down was incapable of understanding that people want the police to not kill and assault people. They aren’t arguing for ending policing, though their rhetoric does at times make it sound that way. He had no harsh words for the rioters, only for those that opposed them. Too many people on my side see things through the same Manichean lens. How many people did I see say, “if blacks had done that they would have been shot.”? One of the insurrectionists was shot and killed. They asked why wasn’t tear gas used? it was. They had their truth established in their head and ignored all evidence to the contrary. When I pointed these things out I was attacked. People are tribalists and in a crisis the tribes contract. If you aren’t with us, you are against us.
The country survived the crisis, congress met and certified the election. Many, but sadly not all of the Republicans stopped objecting. I hold particular contempt for the eight senators who continued the political theater even after seeing the harm it caused:
- Sen. Ted Cruz
- Sen. Josh Hawley
- Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith
- Sen. Roger Marshall
- Sen. John Kennedy
- Sen. Tommy Tuberville
- Sen. Rick Scott
- Sen. Cynthia Lummis
To my surprise much of corporate America is fighting the insurrection. The National Association of Manufacturers said that Pence should consider convening the cabinet and invoking the 25th Amendment. Corporations are saying that their PACs won’t support candidates that objected. I shouldn’t be surprised; chaos is bad for business. They have gone along with the radical right’s social outrages in the name of keeping their taxes low, but when it threatens profits, they won’t. Without the backing of the megarich and corporations it will be difficult for the far right to keep their activities at the same level.
Some good can come of all this. The way Graham and McConnell have forcefully condemned what happens might foreshadow the decline of Trumpism. It won’t end but it won’t be prime power in the Republican Party. I said might, I am not a seer, but it is now a reasonable possibility. Some good advice to everyone, remember that you can’t see the future and you have no expertise in making predictions. I wonder if any of my many friends that said that loudly proclaimed that Biden couldn’t win are examining their thought processes?
I am not holding my breath waiting for a second impeachment. Even Bernie Sanders is against that. There are some people working in the White House telling reporters that Trump has lost it. If this is how Trump looks to Pence and the cabinet I could see them fearing what he’ll do and invoked the 25th Amendment. It’s unlikely but it could happen.
More likely the threat of that might keep Trump quiet. It’s the outcome that has the best chance. In Nixon’s final days Hague, his chief of Staff, had plans to prevent Nixon from starting a nuclear war. Hague was not a bastion of righteousness. It’s not unreasonable to expect the same from today’s White House.
I’m wondering how security for the inauguration will be handled. If Trump is not removed, he will have the final authority on security measures. The writers of the constitution did not imagine that the president was the one we need protection from. Pence is the one that called in the National Guard yesterday and I expect him to do the same. They might get assistance from Maryland and Virginia as they did yesterday. Even if Trump is president he only has power if people think he has power. That power drains as his term expires. Who will want to take responsibility for a lapse in security at the inauguration? Pence, McConnell, and Graham faced the abyss and wouldn’t jump in, despite how close they came to its edge. I expect the same will happen on January 20th.
Wise Madness 