Be it resolved: those who forget history are doomed to repeat a grade. Worse, adults whose rearview works, and who can see what’s ahead as well, and who make bold to try to warn others are liable to be shunned. Jeered. And thrown under the (campaign) bus.
Be it resolved: a cult/party that OFFICIALLY calls its own barely failed coup attempt “legitimate political discourse” can’t help but be quintessentially un-American. Inhuman. And (for all its holier-than-thou religiosity) steeped in pure, distilled evil.
Be it resolved: the past is out there. Even in 1860, with conflagration looming, no one tried to thwart the electoral vote tally; no firebrand (orange-skinned or otherwise) honked that Lincoln had lost (“by landslide” or otherwise).
In our history, such gall as Trump’s is unique. And yet, across a wide spectrum, our media marvels (with rare exceptions) peg J6 a mere “riot.” (Not to pop the balloon of kneejerk normalizers but, depending on which historian you ask, 1919 alone saw 25-40 major race-fueled American riots. Other than the Civil War, ours has been a history [till lately] not of violent sedition, but of manifold violence per se.)
Be it resolved: the smoking guns (or Howitzers) that the J6 tapes comprise show all too clearly that we’re down to ONE non-despotic major party. (Period.)
Be it resolved: Big News has failed and/or refused to inform voters that we’ve reached such a critical mass. As if to suit our self-serving, misinfo-spewing navel gazers themselves, a ratings friendly photo finish looms just days from now; imagine that.
Just one problem. As even the Trumpy, Trump-touting then-CBS chief Les Moonves warned in 2016, a Trump win may not be “good for America.” (But oh, well! Trump tyranny was, as he all-too-tellingly crowed, “damn good for CBS!”)
Never mind the body politic-threatening danger that was, by early ‘21, remarkably well telegraphed. On J5, especially in light of Trump consigliere Lincoln* Wood’s overt recruitment (online) of putsch-pushers (to join the militants whom Trump, on live national broadcast, had told to “stand by” him), “Gaslit Nation” podcasters Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa matter-of-factly debuted their “Capitol Attack Preview Special.”
As Kendzior stresses, more than a few who’d failed to read the writing on the wall opted for ‘naivete loves company’ by falsely claiming ‘NOBODY COULD HAVE FORESEEN THIS!’ (Never mind Kendzior, Chalupa, this writer, and many others did so. Oh, well.)
Be it resolved: within days (or at most weeks) of evincing shock, shock, on we went. (Yippee! Business-as-usual! Trump-and-cult are fine and swell! What on Earth could go wrong?)
Let it be stressed. Kendzior’s prescience did not end with said “Preview.” From her 2022 beans spiller THEY KNEW, two timely (if not timeless) quotes.
One, throughout our country’s history, “tradition and expectation, not knowledge of civics [or of laws] prompted Americans to accept the loss of their candidate or changes in policy. Democracy is a force of habit, and habits can be broken” by force.
Two, “In 2021 the United States of America became the first country in world history to… face a physical attack organized by wealthy seditionists and foreign operatives intended to nullify a legitimate election and then decide to do nothing to prevent it from happening again.”
That is, to fail to lift a finger to try to keep history from repeating. (Sad.)
One might have hoped for better- that is, for concerted blowback against the perps. J6 footage released this past summer shows Speaker/target Nancy Pelosi all-too-aptly decrying the “domestic enemy” (her term) who, on the Ellipse, had sent his troop “to the Capitol…. to fight like hell” (his words). That is (his goons plainly believed, and not at all gratuitously), to kill her. Along with our vote-legitimized governance. And so, our country. (Oh, well.)
Two personal notes. One, as a fellow Baltimore native, I’ve always thought highly of her; some of my late father’s work likely involved telephone contact with her.
Two, as if to echo her in real time, on J6 I immediately pegged her assailants (AND their cult leader) “enemies… domestic.”
Roger this. Our Constitution flat-out damns ALL who aid or comfort such foes (for instance, by voting not to certify said electoral votes, a la scores of Republican “lawmakers”) as TRAITORS to the nation. (To waft into the ether on that key point is to turn blind eyes to the 80-ton Godzilla in the Rotunda- and to demur in the face of overt, still undead destruction.)
In light of that grim prospect (with apologies to Dylan Thomas), we can ill afford to go gently into some dark polling place that may as well be bedizened “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
Or, God help us, into the GOP conjured hell on Earth that a Trump win (or coup) so boldly augurs.
Have a nice day!
*What’s in a name? As two-time Pulitzer winner Barbara Tuchman reminds us, “The ironies of history are endless.”