Ending a tough year on a note of hope

I am very grateful to have completed this astonishingly chaotic year with the good health of me and my beloved Susan, still happily employed, and living in an America that voted decisively to reclaim the Soul of America by rejecting the toxic destruction of the outgoing president and welcoming the new Biden - Harris administration.

Tragically, lack of Federal leadership has turned America into the world’s most incompetent advanced nation in its handling of COVID-19. I expect strong Federal leadership from Biden based upon science and compassion. And although there are terrible times ahead, I expect we can emerge from this pandemic nightmare.  

Women expressed themselves at the ballot box and helped dethrone the obsolete and putrid hypermasculine attempt at domination by force and fear of the outgoing president and his cult.  Biden’s elevation of women in his administration is more than welcome and overdue.  I hope and trust that the powers of collaboration and caring will prevail over the powers of domination and threat.

Black Lives Matter demonstrations scared the old white folk who tried their best to reframe them as violent uprisings but actually showed the rest of us what life is still like in a still racist country.  I expect the new administration to embrace the blessings of diversity which has long been the bedrock of strength of this country.

Abuse of immigrants during Trump’s reign of terror will not be sanctioned by the new administration, and I really hope that sensible immigration policy can be worked out, starting with the naturalization of the Dreamers.

Hope springs anew at this time each year, and we have reason to be hopeful since the country rejected the fascist, oligarchical potential of a Trump future.  I look forward to the growing of a Biden democracy and the shrinking of Trump and the Trump cult.

Happy New Year!

 

He knows what he is guilty of

Preet Bhahara, former SDNY District Attorney, said about four years ago that a prosecutor has a good idea of the crimes he is investigating, but the criminal knows exactly what crimes he has committed. Trump knows what they are going to find. And his desperation to stay in office is becoming more extreme, more desperate, and more ridiculous.  

His level of desperation is actually a kind of confession. 

I suppose he was so deluded by his astonishingly grandiose ego that he thought he would stay on as el presidente for a decade or so and die in office, immune from prosecution based upon his ability to terrorize any opposition.  But he lost. 

And he will be gone, and I think he will so disgrace himself on the way out that he will seriously erode his grip on his cult. He is becoming more and more pathetic the more desperate he becomes - not exactly the awe inspiring titan he tries to project himself to be.

Or so I pray. 

Without trust nothing is possible

George Schultz, former Secretary of State and many other Federal roles, just wrote a letter at the age of 100.  He said a very important thing that explains just about everything you need to know about government, and life itself:

“Trust is the coin of the realm.”

“When trust was in the room, whatever room that was — the family room, the schoolroom, the locker room, the office room, the government room or the military room — good things happened,” Shultz wrote. “When trust was not in the room, good things did not happen. Everything else is details."

This explains the politics of today. Democrats have thousands of reasons not to trust Trump, and his Republican Party - from trying overturn the will of the people in the Presidential election, to putting out over 25,000 lies while in office, to literally trying to increase the number of COVID-19 infections to create "herd immunity", to refusing to lead and coordinate a national response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to openly courting racists and white supremacists, to betraying American allies while pandering to Putin and other authoritarians around the world.  Democratic distrust of Republicans who knew better but afraid to stand up to him, and worse yet, distrust of Republicans who agreed with him, has been well earned.

And Republicans seem to be lost in a reality distortion field of right wing media paranoia so they literally do not know the actual news, but only believe ridiculous and endless stories that play to their grievances and paranoia, so they don't trust the news, don't trust the Democrats, and don't trust the truth.

This is the result of the handiwork of America's enemies, led by Putin's Russia. Russia's poisoning of the information that spreads through America is having the effect that he desires - we don't trust each other, and without trust nothing is possible.

Failed threats

Although the "Proud Boys" tried to terrorize Washington DC, and although they managed to stab four people and burn Black Lives Matter banners, and although many of the states that hosted the votes of the Electoral College yesterday had to do so under heavy security, and although the loser in the White House continues to deny the reality of his loss of the election --- the Electoral College submitted their votes honestly yesterday as each state voted, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have officially been declared winner of the 2020 presidential race - 306 to 232.

I am grateful that the Electoral College courageously did its duty.  And I am saddened that the Trumpster cult thought they could overturn the will of the people. 

Violence is the number one strategy of fascists

Trump lost the election but he is goading his Trumpster Cult into violence.  Fascists dominate by violence. Trump believes in domination. Trump believes in violence. There is a terrible chance that people will be killed on behalf of this psychotically cruel person. 

Monday Trump officially loses when the Electoral College elects Biden. I send all of my prayers and psychic energies to a peaceful day. I hope I am overly fearful. 

Can one lie destroy a country?

 

 Can one lie destroy a country?  Yes.  One did a hundred years ago.  Germany lost WWI on the battlefield, but the generals in charge made up a myth to exonerate themselves - they lied - they created the myth that Germany lost because it was stabbed in the back -  the Dolchstosslegende, or stab-in-the-back myth.

Jochen Bittner writes:

Military officers, monarchists and right-wingers spread the myth that if it had not been for political sabotage by Social Democrats and Jews back home, the army would never have had to give in....In the face of humiliation and unable or unwilling to cope with the truth, many Germans embarked on a disastrous self-delusion: The nation had been betrayed, but its honor and greatness could never be lost....It was also at the heart of Nazi propaganda, and instrumental in justifying violence against opponents. The key to Hitler’s success was that, by 1933, a considerable part of the German electorate had put the ideas embodied in the myth — honor, greatness, national pride — above democracy."

And today in America we have a president, and his avid cult, creating another lie to cover up for a humiliating loss.  They claim that Trump actually won the 2020 election and only lost it because of massive voter fraud by Biden.  This is a total, one hundred percent, obvious lie.  Republican governors of close race states have certified the accuracy of the votes in their states - Georgia for example.  They are not Biden supporters, they are avid Trumpsters, and even they have to admit the truth that Donald Trump simply lost an election.  

Every two years half of the people who run for office lose.  Just like Trump.  But Trump is some combination of insane and malicious. He refuses to accept reality.  And some of his cult doesn't understand that he is lying. Some people actually believe the election was stolen.

And, like Germany in the 1930s, the Trump cultists can take that false myth, that the Trump and they were cheated, and use it to justify anything, certainly to justify cheating in future elections, certainly to do violence to those who oppose them, certainly to establish a right wing tyranny by any means possible.

I hope and pray that most on the right are just humoring the pathetic failure in the White House, and that we don't follow Germany's 1930s footsteps. But if we don't do so it won't be from any lack of effort by the loser in the White House to make excuses for his loss and make himself into a future American despot.

The Trump Captain Queeg meltdown

I rewatched the great Humphrey Bogart movie last night - "The Caine Mutiny".  Bogart played the part or Captain Queeg who had spiraled down into a mental state of paranoia and life threatening delusion.  Over two years ago I wrote that Trump's mental state was Queeg's.  It has become worse now that he is unable to accept his loss of the 2020 election.  

The climactic scene of the movie was watching Queeg unravel before the eyes of the military jury when pressed to explain some of his crazier acts.  We are all seeing that unraveling now as Trump rails against the fair and accurate counts of elections in key states, insisting that they are fraudulent, and having his deluded accusations repeatedly proven false.

Some think that all he is doing is priming his loyal base to follow him as he builds a right wing media empire to replace Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.  Some think he is preparing his base for a run for president in 2024.  Some think he is trying to rouse his base for a military coup on January 20th to refuse to leave office.  Some think he is bluffing (with an powerless hand) to make a deal to become free of prosecutions of his lifetime of crime after he leaves office.  Some think he is doing something rational in preparation for his post presidential life.

Or, he could just be bat shit crazy and unraveling before our eyes just as Humphrey Bogart did so brilliantly as Captain Queeg in the movie.

I think that not only has he lost, but that he is lost, lost in a fantasy world that he cannot impose on the real world.  He has a long history of conning people into believing delusional worlds that he constructs - from giving him money for charities that aren't charities but are just ways to line his greedy pockets, to getting people to invest in his Trump University where there is no teaching or learning at all, to getting people to work on his real estate projects and find out that he refuses to pay for their work, to getting people to vote for him for building a wall to keep brown people out that never gets built, to getting people to buy into the deadly fantasy that COVID-19 is just a harmless illness so they dutifully refuse to wear masks and socially distance - and end up in hospitals - and some end up dead.

In the movie we have compassion for Queeg who has been at war too long and has been battle shocked into fear and paranoia and delusion.  And I suppose it is possible to have some compassion for this terrible president who has been responsible for many scores of thousands of needless COVID-19 deaths if we consider the terrible effect his heartless father had on him and on his brother - who died of alcoholism as his way to escape the sickness of that terrible man. I feel sorry for Trump's lost soul, but the amount of damage he has done to the country and the world is too great for legal pardons.

I hope and pray that his final act of paranoid delusion does not include war against Iran.  If it does, his cabinet will be in the same spot that the officers on the deck of the Caine during the typhoon that was about to sink the ship and kill all on board - they will have to mutiny, to relieve him of command, declare the 25th amendment and pronounce him incapable of rational thought and incapable of carrying out his constitutional duties.  

I don't think that will be necessary, but I will bet that there are people in the White House right now who are thinking about this.  

The appeal of Trump to his cult – a twisted version of manhood

What explains the election and remaining support for Trump?   Many things, but I think there is an underlying energy that helps understand the rest.

Too much of the support for Trump comes from those who want authoritarian leadership, or who are overtly or covertly racist, or who are desperately trying to preserve white supremacy and preserve white rule in the country.  But….

All that is true, but I think there is something underneath that which gets more to the heart of it – a twisted idea of manhood – domination, crushing your opponents, making people afraid of you, macho man, chauvinism. (Not everyone, of course, many just want tax cuts, or deregulation of business and industry, or want Christian judges to promote their version of family values, but here I am thinking of the underpinning of the Trump Cult which leans pretty hard toward fascism)

I point to football as an expression and promotion of this misunderstanding of manhood.  Red Sanders and Vince Lombardi said “Winning isn’t the most important thing, it is the ONLY thing.”  The despicable Al Davis said “Just win, baby”.  Football - Throw the bomb, blitz, ground attack, aerial assault.  A big man on the line when I was in high school was 250 pounds, now they are 320 – a caricature of a big man. Football has affected the way men see themselves and we have a nation of obese men who measure themselves against the super-sized football players.  And, of course, tragically, football itself damages the brains of the players, many of whom end their lives in a nightmare of the brain damage of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).  Steroids in baseball and football, blood doping in cycling, anything to win. Anything, including cheating.  Cheating to win for some is a sign of manhood.  Tragic.

We have come a long way from the Grantland Rice quote about the aesthetic and purpose of sports about 100 years ago – “It is not whether you win or lose but how you play the game that counts.”  Sport is supposed to build men of character, and it has been twisted into encouraging men of corruption.

So, we have a president who is a caricature of this twisted cartoonish version of chauvinist fear inducing masculinity.  A “man” who is an overgrown child who thinks being a man is scaring people and dominating them. And he is a pitiable. 

Time to move out of this old, obsolete and dysfunctional version of manhood.  Being a man is not about dominating.  Leading is very different.  Humaneness is as much a part of manhood as it is a part of womanhood.  Manliness is not about frightening and destroying, but about caring and building.

 

Why falsely claim fraud?

Why is Trump refusing to concede the election?

His ego can’t admit a loss?

He thinks if he can get to his Supreme Court they will give it to him?

He is setting himself up to replace Fox News and Rush Limbaugh as right wing media?

He wants to foment right wing rage and violence for his armed coup?

He is just too stupid to know what’s going on?

He is so mentally ill that he is delusional and thinks ha can overturn an American election?

Maybe all of those, but my bet is that what he is really doing is undermining elections themselves - making huge percentages of the country disbelieve and distrust democracy itself.

Why?

Because Putin told him too. And he does what Putin tells him to do.  Because he has to.  Because Putin has something on him that will crush him and send him to prison for life.  Because he works for Putin. And he is a traitor. And Putin is trying to destroy America, American democracy, and the entire concept of democracy itself.

George W Bush wanted to make the world safe for democracy (and blew it, but...), but Putin wants to make the world safe for Kleptocracy, Oligarchy, Plutocracy, Autocracy.

Or, maybe it is just taking time for this mentally ill man in the White House who has lived his entire life in a self delusional bubble to face up to reality when it finally hits him over the head. 

Whichever, he lost, and he won’t be able to stay, and he is a very sad little man.  How many people will he try to hurt in his last days? 

Fuck the law, who are the judges?

Joseph McCarthy’s repugnant lawyer, Roy Cohn, was to have said “Fuck the law, who are the judges?”  Cohn was a mentor to the repugnant Donald Trump, who seems to be acting out that approach to the “law”.  

Trump knew he was going to lose the vote long ago, so he went on a months’ long campaign to suppress and invalidate the votes.  This evil campaign has failed to keep the Biden vote below his own,  but....he is throwing as many lawsuits as it takes to get the election before the Supreme Court.  False claims of voter fraud (which Reps have been trying to prove for decades and can’t because it is just a fantasy and an excuse, not a reality)

So, he has just appointed a sixth “conservative” judge, Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court on the clear understanding that she would rule in his favor on the election.

So, Trump is saying that the law doesn’t matter if you have the judges in your hip pocket.  I think he may be in for a big surprise and discover that at least a couple of “his” judges won’t ignore the law for him.

And then he gets to deal with lots of judges as a private citizen for a multitude of financial crimes and corruption.  

It's not about policy this time

This election is not about policy this time.  It’s about the battle between democracy and despotism. Many life long Republicans know this and are voting for Biden in order to save the American experiment of democracy even though they don't like the policy.

It’s about whether America survives as a democratic Republic, or if it degenerates into an authoritarian dictatorship. It’s about whether Americans choose America’s destiny or whether Putin continues to direct his puppet in the White House to destroy America, destroy democracy, and destroy America’s leadership in the world.

As I wrote in earlier posts this last week, under Donald Trump and his craven Republican Party, America has abandoned decency, abandoned science, abandoned the rule of law, and abandoned its leadership standing in the world. 

And, oh yes, it has sickened and killed probably four or five times as many as would have been sickened and killed because of their refusal to lead a nationwide, world wide, federally led response to COVID-19.

It is time to renew America, renew America’s goodness, renew America’s actual greatness.

The leader makes a difference

A few decades back, a friend of mine was upset that his manager was losing his job.  He was ranting and raving about what a big mistake upper management was making in not realizing what a good job his soon to be departed manager was doing.  That manager calmed him down and told him not to worry, both of them would be just fine.  He would find a new job and do fine.  And my friend would have a new boss and all would be well.

He said that a manager was like putting a hand in a bucket of water.  The hand is in the bucket and the water rises to a certain level.  Take that hand out and replace it with a different hand and the water rises again to a new level, maybe not quite as high, maybe about the same, maybe higher. He said that it doesn’t really matter whose hand is in the bucket. 

Well, I thought that was true for quite some time, but with Donald Trump as president it has been vividly proven to me that the hand in the bucket theory is not always true.  It is probably true for middle management in a corporation, but we have seen that this president has gone a long way to destroying so much of America and America’s influence and leadership in the world – loss of decency, turning away from science, attacking the rule of law, failing to handle a pandemic, and withdrawing American leadership in the world. 

The person at the top can sometimes make a huge difference. 

In the private sector another example might be Steve Jobs and Apple – after he was let go the company floundered and was failing.  When he came back in he got it focused and visionary again.  And can there be any doubt that Elon Musk is not replaceable at Tesla? 

So, I no longer am able to take comfort in the idea that different hands in the bucket don’t make all that much difference.  The current hand in the American bucket is there with a drill to poke holes and drain the bucket.

Plug the leak.  Vote for Biden, please.