Italy: “March on Rome”
Germany: Reichstag Fire
America: Attack on Capitol
The United States is ripe for a fascist takeover. Neo-fascists and opportunistic hangers-on won a big victory through the “Republican” Senate, and they’ll move on from here.
28 V 2021: Republican mafia doesn’t want to be investigated.
Well, the attempt to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the Siege of the United States Capitol on Jan 6 has failed. It was doomed from the start. Asking Senate Republicans if they want the Insurrection to be investigated is like asking the Corleone Family if they want an investigation of their Don and the rest of the gang.
What do the Republicans have to hide? Quite a lot. Blocking the bipartisan investigation is far more than routine Republican refusal to cooperate. This is a virtual obstruction of justice, and reveals Republicans’ intense fear that their Boss and Republicans in Congress will turn out to have been very much implicated in the attack on the Capitol.
Comparison of the Republican Party to the Mafia is altogether fitting, for the G.O.P. of today is a gang whose only goal is to hang on to their territory so that they can continue to scam and rob the public and protect the rich. Earlier, it looked like they would resort to anything short of violence to hold on to power. But then Trump, with the connivance of Republicans in the administration and in Congress, attempted a violent rebellion. And now, moving on, some shameless Republicans and unhinged members of the G.O.P. are talking up “armed rebellion” to the suckers that listen to them.
It is time now for a hard look at Section 2385 in Title 18 of the U.S. Code, the Section that forbids and punishes advocating “overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States.”
28 V 2021: COVID19 a test of patriotism
COVID 19 has given us a litmus test for patriotism. I usually avoid the terms patriot, patriotic, and patriotism. As they are commonly used in the United States, these words are meaningless, and when used by neo-nazi factions and political figures they are toxic.
Even so, I will make use of these terms to argue that COVID19 has shown that Trump and his followers, contrary to their abundant pretensions, are not patriots. COVID19 was the greatest danger to the security of the American people. Though Trump knew the danger, he kept knowledge of it secret through the time when he should have been preparing the government and the country to deal with it. Once the gravity of the threat of the plague became obvious, he kept on making light of COVID19 and tried to ridicule and subvert the authority of competent people. His unpresidential, unpatriotic behavior made our country far more vulnerable to the disease and contributed significantly to the deaths of some 589,000 and the infection of 33.1 million Americans.
Of course, Trump’s attitude and behavior instantly became the model for his devotees among the people. Hence came the anti-maskers who considered refusal to wear a mask to be a sign of solidarity with Trump. Prudent closure by public health authorities of places where people gather and spend money was greeted with outrage, indignation, and contempt for law by ordinary people and by business people and by pandering politicians who would put their fellow citizens’ health and lives at risk to protect the cashflow. Citizens who refuse to protect themselves and their countrymen, who set their own convenience before the general welfare, and place profit before citizenship are not patriots.
Next, when an effective vaccine became available, the lack of urgency and the dismissive attitude of Trump and his spokespersons towards the vaccine made refusal to receive the vaccine another pro-Trump gesture. To Trump’s base we must add the many others who are refusing the vaccine, some because of eccentric reservations, some because of fears that no one thought to allay, some because they are simply too idle to go and receive the vaccine. The delusions and selfishness of these people are preventing or, at least, postponing their country’s recovery from COVID19.
The struggle against COVID19 would have been far more successful if the President had not chosen to make light of the country’s peril and ridicule efforts to contain it. If he had stepped up as a model and advocate for all the public health measures against the disease, the damage done our country by COVID19 would have been dramatically reduced. But he chose to minimize and dismiss the disaster caused by his own grievous irresponsibility and became a major obstacle to the containing of COVID19. Trump’s unwillingness to do his duty as President put our country at serious risk. His example gave rise to mindless resistance to efforts to contain the disease. He and his followers are one of the main causes of the medical disaster we are witnessing.
And the medical disaster is not the only harm done to America by the behavior and demeanor of Trump and his followers. Americans’ vulnerability to demagoguery, their inability to communicate and collaborate, and their stubborn refusal to comply with government regulation and counsel have exposed to friends and foes the immaturity, selfishness, lack of civic values, and even rebelliousness of a large part of the American people. We are living with the consequences of stupid, self-righteous individualism, willful ignorance, and the almost universal assumption that liberty means license. These have corrupted our character and made us enemies of one another.
25 V 2021: Shh! The children must not know what we did.
The legislatures of our backward states are bubbling with legislation intended to prevent teachers from teaching the truth about American racism. Republican legislators are horrified at the prospect of white students coming to realize the race-centered sins of their ancestors and contemporaries; they affect to be aghast at the prospect of anyone coming to feel guilty or ashamed because of his/her race; and so on and so forth. They intone frightening segregationist slogans that they have exhumed and given some cosmetic treatment for contemporary consumption.
Of what are they really so afraid? They are afraid that the devil that has infested America from its foundation is about to be exorcised. They are afraid that buried truths that question America’s self-esteem will be laid bare to generations to come. They are afraid of change. The actual fears of these legislators and the voters to whom they appeal can be summed up in their prayer: “Don’t make me think, don’t make me change.”
19 V 2021: Republican attempt to obstruct justice
Both Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell oppose creation of a bi-partisan committee to investigate the Jan 6th attack on the United States. McConnell says that the attack has been sufficiently investigated, but many believe that investigation of Jan 6 has only begun. We must know far more than the names of mob members and what each did in the Capitol. The organization of the mob, the planning of its assault, the timid and tardy response of the Capitol Police and National Guard, and the complicity of federal officials are all only partially known. So why do Republicans oppose creation of an investigative committee?
The behavior of congressional Republicans suggests that they know or suspect complicity in the attack by Republicans in both the executive and legislative branches. They know, or even a are part of the conspiratorial effort at damage control for the Party and its Leader. While the trauma of the attack was fresh, a few Republicans denounced the attack and Trump’s instigation of it. But after recovering from the shock, they have striven to draw attention away from the attack (“Let’s move on …” etc), to rewrite the story of the attack by floating various false narratives (antifas, tourists, Jesuits, etc.), and to minimize the threat that it posed to the our Democracy.
The reputation of the current Republican Party has been severely damaged by the large number of weirdos, liars, hustlers, and other sorts of scoundrels it has placed in national and state legislatures. The Party can never outlive the disgrace of its collaboration with the neo-fascist Trump administration. So if I were a card-carrying Republican, I too would be trying to block an investigation of Jan 6. Our Capitol has not been attacked since the British came in 1814. Domestic attempts at sedition and secession never went this far. No one has ever attempted to control a national election by force or the threat of force. How did this attempted banana-republic coup come about? America urgently needs to know, in detail, who was responsible for what. Those who attempt to obstruct this necessary investigation are only increasing the awful burden of shame they already bear.
17 V 2021: Crime of the century?
The Liar now claims that the 2020 election is the “Crime of the Century.” Again, Trump denounces others for what he himself does. It is, I would suggest, a little early to select the Crime of the Century, but when the time comes, I’m sure that Trump himself will be on the short list.
12 V 2021: Which is the junkie?
I had a chance to read Trump’s comment about the winner of the Derby, Medina Star. He wrote “So now even our Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Star, is a junky. This is emblematic of what is happening to our Country.”
This statement is just the same old Trumpian hyperbole and lying extrapolation. But it did make me think: Now that Trump is out of the White House, would he be willing to take a blood test? I don’t know, but I’ve been told that he is virtually addicted to Ritalin, and his speech and behavior do suggest that perhaps his doctors and handlers give him narcotics to keep him from losing it altogether. As he is no longer governing the country, it would be safe now to reveal that he is on a narcotic regimen, or, if he turns out to be drug-free, he would stop a lot of scurrilous talk and rash judgements.
7 V 2021: Is popular irrationality a fad or a permanent threat to national security?
It seems that around 50% of the American population are delighting in the licensed irrationality promoted by the Republican Party and extreme right wing. “Facts? Phooey! Think? Why bother? Let’s raise some hell!” This behavior is, of course, being modeled by our former president and his Republican punks in Congress, in slavish state legislatures, and everywhere dim and angry people assemble. Half the nation has gone on a spree of thoughtlessness and impulse driven speech, acts, and opinions. Insanity has become our pop-culture.
What I wonder is: Is this self-indulgent thoughtlessness and willful stupidity a fad, like Prohibition and the KuKluxKlan, or is it to be a long-lasting feature, if not a determinant, of American life? If the latter, it is more than an embarrassment. It is a grave weakness and internal threat to our national security. For no foreign power antagonistic to the United States is likely to be constrained by any national unity, gravity, and common resolve on our part, but will be encouraged by our current disarray.
18 III 2021: Another creep from Texas
There is an ancient proverb, “Ex Africa semper aliquid novi,” i.e., “From Africa always something strange.” I am prompted to substitute the Texas of today for the Africa of old, for Texas regularly is always bringing something weird into the nation’s politics. Recently, Texas has given us the likeable and steadfast Senator Ted Cruz. Then there’s Rep. Louis Gohmert, a perennial embarrassment to the Congress, who did his own little bit to cause the 6th of January attack on the government. And one cannot forget Texas’ Attorney General, Mr. Ken Paxton, who files one foolish suit after another so he can keep moving and stay one jump ahead of federal law enforcement.
And today yet another Texan monstrosity blundered his way to national attention. The incoherence and insensitivity of Rep. Chip Roy’s remarks at the House hearing about the Atlanta killings were the equal of anything we used to hear from our former president. Roy denounced China and the Chinese government. He denounced criticism of extremist rhetoric as an attempt to stifle free speech. He pledged his devotion to the “rule of law.” And then topped it all off with positive remarks about lynching, quoting “old sayings in Texas about find all the rope in Texas and get a tall oak true.” These “old sayings in Texas” were derived from a 2002 song written by Oklahoman Toby Keith.
I have heard there is a movement in Texas to secede again from the United States. I can only applaud this initiative and wish its advocates all success.
17 II 2921: Can Ron Johnson fill Trump’s shoes?
As one might expect, various Republican politicians entertain ambitions to take over Donald Trump’s voter base. They are re-using one of Trump’s more successful game plans, namely, keep yourself in the public eye and do whatever it takes, however degrading, to stay there. Trump kept himself in the media spotlight for four plus years by continually saying something stupid or vicious and by behaving in novel brutish and criminal ways.
Now the leading competitors for the throne they hope Trump will soon abandon are Ted Cruz, the lounge-lizard of Cancun, and Josh Hawley, whose elite heart bleeds for the common man. But at this time the figure who seems most regularly to be copying Trump’s plan is Trump’s sycophantissimus, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Ron cannot open his mouth without making a fool of himself and he seizes every opportunity to open it. He is afraid that he cannot be re-elected, and so he keeps forcing himself into public consciousness by acting the fool. This ongoing campaign of outspoken foolishness plays well with the Trumpian base, as it must with Trump himself. But it is also attractive to the news media that report Johnson’s every embarrassing utterance, because, I suppose, he creates a kind of scandal with statements that are outrageous, borderline screwy, and offensive to good sense. A senator’s saying or doing something stupid is hardly surprising, but really transcendent stupidity is, I suppose, newsworthy.
But I keep asking why the media cannot refuse to play along with “no such thing as bad publicity” campaigns of Trump and his epigonids? How can they refuse? Good editing is not the same as censorship, and if right-wingers complain that they are edited out of the news coverage, they should be told that responsible reporting is not a venue for nutty ideas, lies, and political melodrama.