The Abscess Has Finally Ruptured But The Infection Is Still Raging

Yesterday was without doubt one of the most shameful and politically abhorrent and consequential days in my lifetime, even eclipsing the events of Watergate and Trump’s impeachment, probably on par with JFK‘s assassination. The storming, invasion and ransacking of the Capitol by a violent Trump-instigated mob including white supremacists and Q-anon conspiracy mongers, was both incredible and predictable, and completely overshadowed the also extraordinarily shameful charade of the majority of House Republicans and a handful of GOP senators objecting to the duly appointed presidential electors from two states, (thankfully at least reduced from four states by the day’s events)! This was clearly the last desperate attempt by an unhinged demagogue and wanna-be dictator to cling to power.

There will doubtless be congressional and other investigations into the inexcusable catastrophic security failure at the Capitol, which was compounded by Trump’s reported outrageous refusal for several hours during the invasion to authorize requested deployment of the national guard to the Capitol, and some heads will undoubtedly and justifiably roll. It is inexplicable why more security was not in place in advance and also why more of the invaders inside the capital were not arrested at the time, but it partly smacks of institutional racism and also highlights the dramatic differences from the police reaction to BLM protesters in DC and elsewhere!

It has been interesting to watch SOME of the elected GOP establishment and even Pence, now having finally been under physical attack themselves by a mob of the very people they were trying to leverage and even stoke for their own political advantage, recoil in righteous indignation at the deeds of the monster that they themselves participated in creating, feeding and nurturing! Some of them (including ultimate political whore Lindsey Graham) are FINALLY publicly breaking with and distancing themselves from Trump, all of two weeks before the end of his term! This as they attempt to conveniently ignore the reality that they were all in on the whole election fraud con from the beginning, especially those participating in the shameful attempt to block certification of the electors! Some of them obviously think the political winds are shifting as a result of the Capitol invasion. At least about half of the GOP senators planning to object to certifying electors were pressured by their colleagues into changing their minds, but only a few House Trumpers backed down.

In some ways this situation is analogous to a huge abscess rupturing…ugly, disgusting and scary, making the condition impossible to ignore, but at least potentially hastening its resolution. The abscess is Trump’s months-long election lies and the rupture is the insurrection he and his lies instigated, which has apparently finally driven the seriousness of the infection into the heads of many of his flunkies and enablers, including some elected Republican officials and current and former cabinet members, even his former lapdog AG Barr. However, given their years of complicity if not active involvement in spreading Trump‘s lies and going along with his flagrant undermining of democracy, their professed outrage at what was a predictable coda to Trump’s attempts to overthrow the election results and their last minute backing away from Trump certainly look like just more political opportunism and efforts to salvage their reputations, now that the bloody pus is on display for everyone in the country and the world to see! And even in the face of this unprecedented assault on their own branch of government, several senators and the MAJORITY of House Republicans still voted to object to certifying the electors!

There are now calls from many quarters to finally remove Trump by invoking the never-used 25th Amendment or even impeaching him again. Neither seems likely, although impeachment without conviction in the Senate could probably be accomplished in the remaining time and would at least send a powerful symbolic message. Failing that, the House should at the very least pass a strong censure motion. Of course the only way the many calls for Trump’s resignation (including by the Wall Street Journal!) would ever be heeded is if Trump could get Pence to pardon him. Otherwise, he will almost certainly pardon himself, as well as at least some of his family and Rudy! That seems even more likely now, as many people are talking about the possibility of criminal charges for incitement to insurrection and violence at the rally just prior to the Capitol riots, particularly for Don Jr. and Giuliani, who said “Let’s have trial by combat”! Any indictments should definitely wait until Trump is out, on the off chance that he may not issue those pardons. Otherwise, if he does, they would have to try to find DC municipal charges to use.

The problem is that the underlying infection which fostered this abscess is still raging on stronger than ever in the country, due to the very large culturally conservative segment of the American population (likely at least a third!) which has both totally embraced the now openly flaunted Trumpian (white) nationalism and willingly and eagerly swallowed the Kool-Ade of all of Trump’s lies and conspiracy theories carefully aimed at stoking their long-simmering grievances. In fact, the people involved in yesterday’s insurrection, who are just a tiny slice of Trump’s 74 million electoral base, but which included radical right wing extremists, actually view themselves as patriots and saviors of our democracy, and will certainly treat the woman who was shot and killed as a martyr. They are the American political and cultural equivalents of Islamic jihadists, and neither they nor their larger cult base will likely ever admit or even realize that they inhabit a false alternative reality endlessly propagated by Fox and the Alt-Right universe. How can that kind of pervasive insidious infection ever be overcome? Even if it is no longer being fed directly from the Oval Office, there will be no shortage of continued sources of conspiracy theories, lies and grievance outrage on all kinds of social and right wing media to keep the Beast alive and kicking! Trump himself will probably be the chief source and proponent of these continued lies from his presidency-in-exile, that is if Facebook ever unblocks him and if Twitter doesn’t permanently block him, which it certainly should! And also if he doesn’t end up in prison, which I fervently hope he does! As a result, I am not at all optimistic that this metastatic cancer on our democracy will be cured or even under control anytime soon. It would not be surprising to see multiple additional probably smaller scale protests and acts of domestic terrorism perpetrated by Trump supporters and right wing groups for the foreseeable future. Thus it is no surprise that so many House Republicans are still carrying Trump’s water and will continue to do so as long as his (and their) rabid base remains solid! The only possible treatment, which may not even be that effective at this late stage of the disease and after their years of complicity, would be to have the large majority of elected Republican officials confront their base about Trump’s lies, thereby jeopardizing their own political future. Not holding my breath for that to EVER happen!

Meanwhile, only one day before the DC rioting, in what would have otherwise been THE major political headline of the week and the best possible news since the November election, BOTH Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won their Georgia Senate runoff elections!! That will effectively give the Democrats control of the Senate after Biden is inaugurated and Harris becomes the president of the Senate!! In addition to outstanding Democratic ground organization and voter registration efforts, they partly have Trump to thank, in view of his and his allies’ relentless election fraud allegations and rather half-hearted campaigning for the two Republican candidates, probably both energizing Democrats and turning off some Republican voters. This is a MAJOR game changer for at least the next two years barring unforeseen circumstances, all but guaranteeing confirmation of Biden‘s cabinet and judicial nominees, allowing at least some Democratic legislation to pass without requiring 60 votes and giving Democrats critical control over both committees and what comes to the floor for debate. They had better run at top speed with whatever they can get done, since they cannot count on keeping control of both houses after 2022!

Hopefully the reactions to the riots by his former friends and allies and the threats of a second impeachment and even criminal charges have shocked Trump into submission for the next two weeks, but we certainly can’t count on it! Seatbelts still fastened!