Cromwell

Trump insisted on his way out that his “movement” would continue. Does this “movement” even exist?

No. Trump is supremely self-centered. He doesn’t care about other people or ideas. He just uses them to glorify himself.

What Trump actually means by his “movement” is his willingness to bond with the Reactionary faction of the GOP by constantly reminding them that he hates the people that they blame for their problems. That division already existed; Trump and Fox News just stoke it, and make it worse, in their own interests.

The QAnon people are confused. The Proud Boys are just pissed off. Trump didn’t fight, as he had promised; he just sold them out after they did his bidding and stormed the Capitol. How could this happen?

The moral of this story is that even right-wing crazoids are marks for the man on golf cart. Trump was only in it, as always, to satisfy his own needs. He’s not the leader of a movement; he would sell out anyone–even a furry Viking–if it gives him a short term advantage.

In their younger days, the Stones were motivated by a variety of interests: money; fame; anger; drugs; women; and the desire to prove that they were the best band in the world. As old men, all of that is gone. The Stones continue to perform because they still have the music in them, and because it makes them and their fans happy. Any other kind of ambition is irrelevant at this point in their lives.

So it is with Biden. You have to believe that he was totally sincere when he said that it should have been his son taking the oath. He has no need for power or an ego boost at the age of 78. He only ran for president because he thought he was uniquely positioned to save the country from Trump. He was right, and we have cause to be grateful.

Life in the time of Trump.

The man on golf cart’s gone.

We’ve reached the day

For which we prayed.

We hope for a new dawn.

It’s been a really long four years

We’ve been through much, my friends.

But I’m happy to report

This poem’s at an end.

In the days following the 2016 election, I listened to Paul Simon’s “American Tune” over and over again. It summarized my feelings better than anything I could write.

The song for today is Coldplay’s “Everyday Life.” Listen to it, and you won’t believe it was written prior to the pandemic, George Floyd, and the election.

Obama’s first inauguration should have been a cause for unvarnished joy. After all, the country had broken its most obvious social barrier and elected a supremely gifted black man as its leader; in addition, there was bipartisan acknowledgment of the failures of the outgoing administration. The economy was falling off a cliff, however, and the immediate future looked very dark, indeed. Obama’s speech was more chilly and grim than inspiring. It was a strange time.

Today, we celebrate the democratic ritual of a transition of power with the pandemic, the economic downturn, and the storming of the Capitol as our background. A field of American flags will replace what would have been a very large crowd. We will be getting rid of the man on golf cart, but the millions of voters and the media infrastructure that made him possible are still firmly in place, and a comeback is not completely out of the question.

It will be a bittersweet moment.

Rupert Murdoch could, of course, have founded a respectable center-right news channel, but what would have been the fun in that? Nobody would have watched it. Instead, he created a house organ for the Reactionary faction of the GOP, with just enough real news to be taken seriously. It mirrored his populist newspapers, but with a vastly larger and more right-wing audience. The results speak for themselves.

It is in the financial interests of Fox to constantly stoke outrage in the base, all the way up to the line of provoking an insurrection, but not crossing that line. The events of January 6 show what a dangerous game that was.

The radicalization of parts of the right has several causes, but the emergence of Fox leads the pack. The Trump presidency was Fox made flesh. Murdoch has a lot to answer for.

Biden plans to make national unity the theme of his inaugural speech. That’s perfectly appropriate under the current circumstances. It won’t do much good, however, if he only gives us generic, warmed-over Obama and MLK.

What he needs to do is specifically address the fears of the white reactionaries who expect the worst from him. He should make it clear that white Christians are a valued part of America, and always will be; their values will not be under threat during his presidency. He should also say, however, that white Christians do not speak for all of America, that it is a complete falsehood to deny his legitimacy as president, and that people engaging in violent crimes for political purposes, regardless of where they are on the ideological spectrum, will be punished in accordance with the law.

Do I expect that? No. I expect generic, warmed-over Obama and MLK. Anything more than that will be a bonus.

MLK dreamed of a multi-ethnic democracy–an American mosaic, if you will–in which everyone, regardless of race or creed, would be treated on equal terms. It was a compelling vision, and one that is as relevant today as it was roughly sixty years ago. It is embraced wholeheartedly by the left.

My reactionary persona, Sebastian, has a completely different dream. In his eyes, white Christians made America great, and thus have established the right to rule indefinitely. People of color are essentially trespassers, but a wicked government intervenes constantly with the support of a self-interested coastal elite to protect their interests over those of real Americans. Ideally, they would be expelled from the country; barring that, they need to be neutralized politically through gerrymandering, voter ID laws, and spurious claims of “fraud.” This America is not a mosaic; it is a sheet of white ruled paper.

The conflict between these two visions has bedeviled American politics throughout my entire life. It still does.

Sunday’s NYT Magazine had an interesting article written by a Yale history professor named Timothy Snyder called “The American Abyss.” Read it if you get the chance.

The centerpiece of the article is a distinction between GOP “gamers” and “breakers.” Is it accurate, and is it complete?

Anything that describes Mitch McConnell as a “gamer” (i.e., a Republican who recognizes the systemic advantages the GOP has, and uses them for all he’s worth) clearly has some merit. However, I think the distinction falls short in some respects:

1. There are serious ideological differences within the GOP, reflected in my four factions, that the article doesn’t consider;
2. Some Republicans are neither “gamers” nor “breakers”: Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, for example.
3. Cruz, Hawley, and probably most of the House members who tried to overturn the election aren’t really “breakers;” they’re just gaming the GOP base for their own personal advantage. They didn’t anticipate or welcome the riots; they just thought they could suck up to the base and fan the flames without creating any negative consequences. They were wrong.
4. There are, as the article says, plenty of “breakers” within the party, but the vast majority of them are voters, not members of Congress.
5. Donald Trump, the Flight 93 president, can certainly be described as the ultimate “breaker.” He damaged our institutions without creating anything to replace them except a malignant personal cult; the vacuum is being filled by furry Vikings and Mr. Zip-Tie. Will we recover? Much depends on Biden’s political skills; if life improves in the next four years, and the extreme right feels less threatened, the answer will be yes.

It appears that sea shanties are all the rage on the internet. I can’t help noting that my wife discovered and embraced them a decade ago when searching for appropriate music for the DVD of our Cape Cod trip. We were obviously ten years before our time.

If you can find it, I recommend the version of “Soon May the Wellerman Come” by a guy named David Coffin, who is quoted in today’s NYT article on sea shanties. It has a deep melancholy feel to it that never goes out of style, but is particularly appropriate for where the country is today.

During the first round of impeachment, the predominant GOP defense of Trump (although not the only one) was that the offense did not meet the standard of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” We aren’t hearing that this time, and with good reason. If inciting an insurrection doesn’t meet the constitutional standard, nothing does.

Instead, these are the arguments made by his defenders, with my responses:

1. AT ONE POINT IN HIS SPEECH, HE TALKED ABOUT PEACEFUL PROTEST, SO HE DIDN’T INCITE VIOLENCE. RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE RIOT IS PURELY ON THE RIOTERS, NOT HIM: This argument ignores the totality of Trump’s speech, which clearly called for more than a simple peaceful protest. In addition, several of the rioters who have been charged with criminal offenses are maintaining they were called to do it by their president. Their understanding of his meaning should be given a lot of weight.
2. THE RECORD SHOWS THAT AT LEAST SOME OF THE RIOTERS FORMED THEIR INTENT TO STORM THE CAPITOL BEFORE TRUMP SPOKE. HE CAN’T BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS: Yes, he can, based largely on his public statements prior to January 6, including, but not limited to, the representation that the day would be “wild.” The legal issue presented to the Senate is not limited to the specifics of his January 6 speech.
3. THE VICTORS OF THE ELECTION HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO TRY TO UNIFY THE COUNTRY: Rich words, coming from a party whose principal reason for being seems to be to own the libs by telling us how much they hate us.
4. THE IMPEACHMENT SERVES NO PRACTICAL PURPOSE, AS TRUMP CAN NO LONGER BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE: I’m sympathetic to that one, but only because I don’t think the public will learn anything new about Trump’s conduct during the trial. That sets this round of impeachment apart from the last one.
5. THIS IS VICTORS’ JUSTICE. THE DEMOCRATS WANTED TO IMPEACH TRUMP FROM THE BEGINNING: Actually, the last thing the leadership wanted to do was to impeach Trump. The magnitude of his crimes, and the danger they created to members of Congress and the country as a whole, drove them to do it on both occasions.
6. THE PROCESS HAS BEEN RUSHED AND SLAPDASH: The idea was to send a message as quickly as possible in order to avoid any further outrages in Trump’s waning days in office. In any event, the facts are known to everyone, and are not remote in time. This is more analogous to direct contempt than the average criminal offense.
7. WHO CAN BLAME THE RIOTERS? THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN FROM THEM!: Give me a break! The real message here is that Trump won in a landslide among “real Americans.” The rioters would say they are the only people who are entitled to vote. Alas for them–our country doesn’t work that way.

Many of the Capitol rioters were middle-class business owners wearing outlandish costumes which made them look more ridiculous than threatening. What does it tell us about our society that these people apparently view themselves as characters in a superhero drama, not ordinary citizens taking sides in a political dispute?

That we watch too many cartoonish movies, that our grasp on reality is slipping, and that Trump has always encouraged this kind of thinking. No one is going to see Joe Biden as a superhero. That’s a good thing.

John Roberts is the Mitch McConnell of the Supreme Court. Both men are intensely partisan; both care deeply about the public perception of their respective institutions; both are pragmatic dealmakers; and both take the long view.

McConnell has made it clear that he thinks the GOP would be better off without the albatross of the extremist wing of its base. You have to believe Roberts feels the same way, and was shaken by the images of the riot, which was directed at his part of the establishment as well as Congress. How will he respond? Will he move slightly to the left, and become the judicial equivalent of a Never Trumper, with Thomas and Alito in the opposing role of Flight 93 justices? Or will he embrace Christian carve-outs and abortion restrictions in the hope that appeasement of the far right will put the evil genie of fascism back in its bottle?

If you have to bet, put your money on the latter.

Newt Gingrich is often viewed as a kind of Trump precursor. Is that accurate?

Yes and no. If you look at the Contract for America, it isn’t a reactionary wish list; it is primarily a CL/PBP agenda for smaller government. Even the items that echo Trump’s statements about “the swamp” sound like they are coming from a CL perspective. In that sense, the two are quite different. Trump never had any real interest in reducing the size of government; he just wanted to keep the reactionary base happy and own the libs.

On the other hand, Gingrich was the first real bomb thrower in Washington in my lifetime. His play to the conservative media and take no prisoners style was very much like Trump’s; it isn’t a coincidence that he still supports Trump after the January 6 incident.

You could call him the Flight 93 Speaker. He broke the existing patterns of civility in the House and replaced them with . . . incivility and grandstanding. We’re still feeling the effects of that today.