Profile of a patriot

I’ve got to tell you about my friend Dan, an extraordinary human being. To begin with, he smells bad. He can’t recall the last time he bathed. His clothes are old and frayed. They get washed about as often as he bathes. He has a scraggly beard, and his hair is never combed. And last month he was fired. His boss told him he’d become unproductive. Maybe so, but more likely he was just too unpleasant to be around.

Dan wasn’t always unhygienic. In fact, as recently as last fall, anyone would have said he was a well-groomed, attractive person. What happened, you ask. A divorce? A death in the family? News of a terminal illness? No, none of these. Incredibly, it was the trauma of realizing that another Trump-Biden election was inevitable and destined to be a tossup.

I had to get my head around this. I’d known Dan for almost 20 years and was very fond of him. His breakdown was shocking. I was concerned, of course, and mystified. Dan was always full of surprising insights. Perhaps he saw something about the fate of the nation that I’d like to see too.

I decided to invite him over for lunch. When I met him at the door, I was momentarily stunned by his appearance. We embraced, and I led him inside. I took his arm …

Dan, I’m very worried about you. You’re a dear friend, and you’re in a slump I don’t understand. It scares me. If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk about it. I’m not presuming to be your therapist, but there is value in talking, probably for both of us. I think you’ve been struck by a vision of something acutely painful. I hope you’ll share it with me.

Ken … thank you … so much! When you came by last January and I sent you away, I felt miserable. I wasn’t talking to anyone then. I wasn’t sure I could ever turn my depression into words, and I wondered whether you’d ever talk to me again. I think now you may be a way out of this hell. I’m ready to talk.

I’m so glad! Please tell me about your depression.

I’m in mourning, Ken. Last fall, I realized our country was dying with no hope of recovery.

Why would you think that?

It’s a long story of evolution gone awry. When America was founded in the 18th century, it was a historical novelty. There was nothing like it before. Oh, there were the Greeks with their direct democracy and the Romans with their democratic republic, but our democratic republic was an invention, penned by a few men and refined by a convention. Unprecedented! It provided for free speech and a free press, a separation of powers, and mechanisms for amendment.

And the rules for populating the branches of government with representatives and judges, as well as rules for removing them from power.

Yes. It looked like the American Constitution had all that was needed to cope with changing times and a growing nation. As our country lurched forward, it faced a near-fatal question — whether an individual’s freedom extended so far as to permit the ownership of slaves. We fought a civil war, amended the Constitution, and rolled on. The lesson in this episode was that the boundaries of freedom were a disputatious matter that could incite civil disorder, if not war.

I think I see where you’re going with this. There are contentious issues about freedom’s boundaries that we have today. Abortion and gun control, for example.

True, and there’s also the matter of paramilitary groups. Should people have the right to associate in such groups?

I’d say no. They now seem ready to act at a conservative president’s behest.

Good point, and this raises the question of the boundaries of presidential power. For example, the War Powers Resolution of 1973 allows the president, under special conditions, to deploy military force without a Congressional declaration of war. But presidents have dodged these conditions more than once and faced no consequences.

Former President Trump brushed aside a presidential boundary in the last year of his term. He ignored the requirement that the Senate confirm his cabinet nominations by simply saying that his cabinet choices were “acting” officials who therefore needed no confirmation.

He has already promised to go on a firing rampage with civil service employees as his target. Anyone he suspects of not working in his interest will get the boot. These employees have a few legal protections, but they’ll be of little help; the Justice Department will be headed by an “acting” Attorney General.

Then there’s the matter of executive orders. These are presidential fiats that don’t require the approval of Congress. The rationale is that the president is the head of the executive branch, and the Constitution says presidents must ensure that laws are “faithfully executed.” But who is to say an executive order lacks a credible connection to the faithful execution of a law? Only the Supreme Court can do this. If Trump is president, will our irresponsible Supreme Court countermand his executive orders?

That’s a horrible thought, Dan. I can understand why you talk about America’s demise, but it’s certainly not inevitable. It could well be that Biden wins in November.

Sure, Biden might win, which is far better than embarking on a dictatorship. But here’s the bad news: it doesn’t actually matter. America is still doomed. It’s doomed because it’s ungovernable.

Inevitably, political parties arose early in our history. They were foreshadowed as far back as the Continental Congresses. Over the decades, the prevailing parties went through metamorphoses beyond anyone’s control. The allure of human exploitation shaped them, as did our fortunate geography, the possibility of westward expansion, our vast stretches of arable land, the abundance of natural resources, the energy of foreigners who escaped poverty and religious oppression, and a swelling national pride that often expressed itself as jingoism. Most telling, in the 1980s, a fever of greed swept over our politics.

Today, we have two very partisan parties. I’ll call them the Blues and the Reds. They oppose each other on practically every governmental, economic, and social issue that concerns the public. The Blues are preoccupied with the welfare of the entire population, but they avoid confrontation with our ruling oligarchy. The Reds embrace our oligarchy and use the term “socialism” as a bogeyman to frighten voters away from efforts to transfer wealth for the public good. The Blues are horrified by the saturation of firearms in the population and the bloody consequences of unregulated ownership. The Reds see gun ownership as an American birthright and want no regulation, despite the mass shootings in schools, churches, and other public places. The Blues want government to have no role in fundamental private matters, like the decision to have an abortion or to marry someone of the same sex. The Reds want government to intervene if a personal decision is opposed by a Biblical dictate. In fact, the Reds want America to formally become a Christian nation. One more difference, the most important one. The Blues believe a government of laws is a defining attribute of America. The Reds believe a tyranny is palatable if not preferable.

I’ll give you this, Dan. I can’t imagine a credible chain of events that leads to a reconciliation.

Some people think that someday enough Reds will join the Blues to push through several desperately needed Constitutional Amendments, like one discontinuing the Electoral College or giving more Senate seats to populous states or outlawing gerrymandering or regulating firearms.

Well, I know why the first three will never happen. Many states are sparsely populated Red states. There’s no way in hell they’ll say yes to an amendment that would diminish their political power.

Exactly. As for firearms regulation, most Reds believe it’s synonymous with firearms confiscation. And that would lead to a tyrannical government. They fear a tyrannical government! What irony!

We’ve always had a so-called “lunatic fringe” in our country, people who are neurotically superstitious, pathetically uninformed, or bereft of critical thinking. Every country has them. They’re usually fewer than 10% of the voting population. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden got 81.3 million votes, and Trump got 74.2 million. Imagine, 74.2 million after he cozied up to Putin, horribly mismanaged the pandemic, and tried to extort political support from Ukraine! That’s a shocking indictment of his supporters, but nothing compared to their current lunacy. They’ve watched him spread malignant lies about the election; start an insurrection to stop the count of electoral votes; label the jailed insurrectionists “hostages”; receive 88 felony indictments; hawk trading cards, sneakers, and Bibles to pay for legal fees; pose as a Christ figure, battling a corrupt power structure; and beleaguer the entire legal system with petitions for trial delays. You’d think that at least half of his 74.2 million supporters would have deserted him in the ensuing years, but no. He’s tied with Biden in the polls! It shows that the lunatic fringe in our country is massive and durable. One day, Trump will disappear from the national stage, but the insane political bloc he created will still be around to stymie our social progress and world leadership. America will sputter like an old jalopy. We’ll be helpless in the face of the stresses the AI revolution will bring.

What shows me the steadfastness of Trump’s supporters is their reaction to his claim of absolute presidential immunity. He’s confessing, “Yes, I’m guilty. I’m guilty of everything. But … haha … I have immunity from prosecution!” And that’s good enough for them.

Remember when he said he could shoot someone in broad daylight and be absolved by his followers? He had sized them up perfectly. He couldn’t help but gloat about it.

That sickens me, Dan…. Yes, I see now why your pessimism is so deep. I see why America will probably be a hospital case for a very long time. But some day, well after you and I are gone, might there not be a gradual reconciliation and reawakening of America’s founding principles?

Of course, Ken. But the people of that time would be fooling themselves if they thought the original America had revived. It would be like Charlemagne believing he had reestablished the Roman Empire in Europe. There can’t be a once and future America. The original America, that bold, brilliant experiment, has evolved into a schizophrenic beast without a future. And that’s sad, Ken. Terribly, terribly sad.

Shades of immorality

     

I regard both Donald Trump and Joe Biden as immoral men. As such, I visualize them in shades of green, the color I associate with corruption. Trump’s immorality is of necessity a dark, saturated green because of its depth, intensity, and variety. The color represents needless death (from Covid), sexual intimidation (pussy grabbing) , monstrous lies (election theft), incessant threats (do X for me or suffer), xenophobia (immigrants are poisoning American blood) , and a host of narcissistic cruelties. It’s the color of moral depravity.

    

Biden’s immorality is a lighter, brighter, and much less saturated green. It has nothing to do with bogus charges made by impeachment-crazed Republicans. Rather, it’s an evil that exists side by side with virtue, and in fact, often passes for a virtue. I’ll examine it presently, but first it’s necessary to introduce the idea of the duality of virtue and evil. Take, for example, the presumed evil of “just following orders,” a rationale for the heinous acts committed by Hitler’s lieutenants. We might call it “loyalty” or “teamwork” instead. These are noble qualities until, to our horror, they go disastrously wrong. That can happen when they’re deployed in the context of a superseding evil.

In Biden’s case, the moral duality is “serving my constituents,” which is presumably what every politician does. It’s laudable, is it not? — the very engine of participatory democracy at work. Fine, but what of the Nietzschean concept of the will to power, the basic need of the psyche to control one’s life and the environment that encloses it. Which side of this duality is driving Biden’s reelection bid?¹ Let’s examine the facts as they currently present themselves.

All the respectable polls show Biden in trouble in these so-called “swing states”: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He won all of them in 2020. He is now behind in all of them, and in Michigan and Georgia, substantially behind. Worse, he’s demographically lagging in his popularity among Blacks, Latinos, and young voters. He’s judged to be too supportive of Israel. He’s unaccountably found worrisome on national security and economic policy. Visually, he comes across as doddering and confused.

The optics may be unjustifiable, but they are facts nevertheless. Biden knows this. His private pollsters and trusted advisors know this. It would be no great matter if a Republican of yesteryear, say, Mitt Romney, were to win the election. The Union would survive. The Great Democratic Experiment would persist. But we can’t say the same with Trump as president. The ways in which he’d doom America (and with it the West?) have been laid out in detail.²

The 2024 Presidential Election poses an existential risk just as frightful as the Civil War. Biden has the power to make that risk evaporate. All he has to do is drop out of the race and give the younger and more vigorous a chance. So far, he’s given no sign whatsoever that he understands the risk. I therefore conclude that he is not running as a public servant. On the contrary, his candidacy is a public menace! He is driven only by his will to power.

As 2024 opens, we enter a dark cave. Time dilates and and the ties that bind events become more tenuous. How long will the Washington D.C. Appeals Court take to decide on Trump’s claim of presidential immunity? How long will the Supreme Court take to hear a subsequent appeal? Will the case against Trump for alleged 2020 election crimes ever be heard and, if so, when? Will a delay cause his other felony trials to cascade down the calendar and overlap the Republican Nominating Convention? Will any verdict be rendered before election day, and if so, what effect will a conviction have on voter perceptions? Will the courts actually allow a convicted criminal to take office? Now consider that these convoluted matters exist on a separate legal track from the one that asks whether the 14th Amendment bars Trump’s name from appearing on a presidential ballot!

Of course, all the presidential primary elections will occur concurrently with the court fiascos. Because of a peevish grudge, Biden isn’t on the New Hampshire primary ballot, so he won’t be tested until South Carolina’s Democratic Primary on February 3. This is the same primary that launched a string of primary successes in 2020 and led to his nomination. No doubt he’ll win again, but that’s not where the media will be focused. They’ll be interested only in turnout, as a measure of voter enthusiasm. And the turnout will be dismal.

Biden’s reelection team will then assess. They may declare, “My God, the polls were right all along!” But probably not. More likely they’ll shrug and say, “He was practically unopposed. You were really surprised?” And so a door will close. The Democratic brass will write off the balance of the primary season, and Biden will deliver the fate of the Republic into the hands of the courts and the morally blind electorate.

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¹The idea of moral dualities fascinates me. How many might we identify, and what transient social factors cause one side of a duality to predominate? I couldn’t avoid drawing an analogy to the concept of superposition in quantum physics, the idea that a system is simultaneously in all possible states until it is measured. Perhaps a society is in moral flux until a discrete event sets its moral direction.

²Get hold of the January/February 2024 issue of The Atlantic and read the lead article, “If Trump Wins.” Whatever level of shock you expect, it will be exceeded.

A needed sacrifice

I like Joe Biden. He’s cordial, good-humored, and genuine in his concern for the common good. He reminds me of Robert Young in the old TV show “Father Knows Best.” That was the personality of Ronald Reagan too, but his concern for the common good was a fraud. Biden is authentic.

He’s in the early stages of senility. It’s obvious. Sometimes he’s spatially disoriented. He’ll finish a speech or a handshake and not know where to turn next. Sometimes he’s syntactically disoriented. He’ll get to the end of a phrase and not know what’s on the other side of the comma. Should early senility disqualify someone from running for president? No, not if that person sees the president as the leader of a collaborative group known as an administration.

The Biden Administration has run the executive branch for almost three years. In that time, it’s done a great deal of good, from Covid control to recharging the economy to rebuilding our infrastructure to making prescription medicine more affordable. Despite the strain of a pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the U.S. has the most vigorous economy in the industrialized world, and the NATO alliance has never been more united. What’s more, the U.S. is now serious about its leadership role in the struggle to stabilize the climate. If Joe Biden is on the ballot 13 months from now, I’ll vote for him without hesitation, regardless of who opposes him.

His opponent will likely be Donald Trump, unless the courts decide the 14th Amendment disqualifies him. A Trump victory would be the death knell of American democracy. If any other MAGA candidate were elected, the result would be essentially the same. That’s how thoroughly Trump has reamed out the Republican Party. To quote Mitt Romney, “A very large portion of my party really doesn’t believe in the Constitution. “¹

But back to Trump. Unlike Biden, he collaborates on nothing. He’s an autocrat. Like Biden, he’s senile, but when he loses track of what he’s saying, he simply changes the subject. He’s a master of the malicious non sequitur. The members of his cult are, for the most part, uninformed, paranoid, and frustrated. Malice energizes them. They’re insensible to his senility because their anger blinds them to it, and to much else. So Trump fares better in a senility comparison.²

We’re roughly 13 months away from the next presidential election. The national polls say Biden and Trump are virtually tied. Let’s pause and ponder that astonishing claim. A twice-impeached, four-times-indicted scoundrel is just as appealing (or unappealing) as a man whose record of public service has scarcely a blemish?! Let’s all say “WTF!” in unison. Then let’s take a breath and acknowledge that the polls are probably accurate. They show us what we’ve become. Breathing into a paper bag won’t help.

I try to derive some consolation from recalling that Trump will be on trial for much of those 13 months, with a bright light on his autocratic ambitions. But I’m not consoled. I’ve already seen the preview of coming attractions wherein Trump becomes Christ. “I am suffering for your sake. I’ll take their punishment because I’m your shield.” We’ll see many performances of Trump the Martyr. It’s a strategy that could well give staying power to his poll numbers.

The most powerful weapon in Biden’s arsenal is the warning that Trump’s success will doom democracy in America. But does Biden really believe it? Does the hierarchy in the Democratic Party really believe it? There’s a simple way to tell. In the shadow of this doomsday prophecy, Biden and the Democratic leadership would take, and should take, any extreme measure within the law to reduce Trump’s chances of winning. They do not want to experience the morning-after horror that struck Hillary Clinton and the Democrats in November of 2016. And a morning-after horror in November of 2024 would be even more horrific!

If Chuck Schumer were reading this, he’d be chuckling. “Ken, what ‘extreme measure’ do you have in mind?” he’d ask. “He’s already walking the picket line in the UAW strike.” Well, Chuck, I’ll give you a hint. In a poll of Democratic voters taken last July by The New York Times and Siena College, only 26% said they want to see Biden on the ballot again. Will that percentage rise when the primaries are underway? All I know for sure is the sentiment of the other 74% will turn into resignation. Is that what we want — 74% of Democrats voting for Biden in resignation when the fate of the nation is at stake?

Biden should drop out. He’s on the same shameful path that Dianne Feinstein and Mitch McConnell have been on. They’ve put his will to run into an unflattering context. It’s a “power before service” context, and the electorate rightly despises it. He should exit soon, while there’s still time to launch a spirited campaign for a younger, more energetic candidate. Think how that would light up the coming year!

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¹Romney has the right idea about his party, but he misstates its apostasy. His party actually believes in much of the Constitution, particularly the Second Amendment, the Tenth Amendment, the Electoral College, and the allotment of senators. What they don’t believe in is democracy.

²It’s a national disgrace that two geezers are vying for the top office in the land while the Senate turns into an old age home. We must impose age caps on all federal offices!

Epithets

Most people defy labeling because their lives are unremarkable. Search your history books and you’ll fail to find a Melvin “The Mundane” Moskowitz or a Conny “The Cipher” Simpson. Epithets are reserved for people famous for some vice or virtue, or occasionally, for a physical oddity. As it happens, recent history has blessed us with a crop of remarkable people who deserved to be remembered with befitting epithets — and I want to be the first to propose them.

These extraordinary people are of three kinds …

Heroes

Jack “The Saint” Smith, the Special Counsel of the U.S. Justice Department who is prosecuting Donald Trump for myriad felonies, especially his efforts to subvert the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Fani “The Fumigator” Willis, the District Attorney of Fulton County, Georgia. She’s celebrated for her skills in vermin removal and her ingenious use of Georgia’s RICO¹ Act. Her work to jail Trump and his cronies perfectly complements The Saint’s.

Tanya “No Crap” Chutkan, the U.S. District Court judge who will hear the January 6 case. She’s already shown an intolerance for Trump’s habitual dilatory tactics and intimidation of judges, prosecutors, jurors, and witnesses.

Alvin “Brass Cajones” Bragg, the Manhattan DA who indicted Trump for falsifying business records to conceal adultery in the run up to the 2016 election. This concealment likely enabled Trump to win the election and begin his reign of misrule.

Nancy “Pit Bull” Pelosi, who opened Pandora’s box in her closing days as House Majority Leader. Despite the opposition of the House Minority Leader, she established the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. As a consequence, Merrick Garland finally got off his pusillanimous butt.

Weaklings

Kevin “The Pussy” McCarthy, the most woeful hypocrite in a high office in American history and a frequent volunteer for the self-mortification needed to reach that office. Because of his malfeasance, the Republican party may well be on its way to oblivion.

Mitch “Lost in Space” McConnell, a sometimes critic of Trump who carefully avoided confrontations. He orchestrated both of Trump’s disgraceful impeachment trials, yet he said this² after Trump’ second acquittal. Thanks for nothing, Mitch.

Mike “The Shlemiel” Pence, Trump’s weak-willed and weak-minded VP. Never mind that he allowed the 2020 electoral votes to be counted.³ He defended every one of Trump’s vile policies. He even shrugged off Trump’s remark that he deserved to be hanged!

Merrick “The Mouse” Garland, our Attorney General. Afraid of his own shadow, he temporized for nearly 2 years before calling on The Saint! He did so only after the January 6 Special Committee formally petitioned him to act.

Mark “Yes Man” Meadows, the doting chief of staff during the disputed 2020 election. He facilitated communications for the conspiracy. He sat in on the call that solicited 11,780 illegal votes from Georgia. His defense: “I was just following orders.”

Vermin

Donald “The Lyin’ King” Trump, who’s qualified for every circle of Dante’s hell and the only U.S. President to have dictatorial aspirations. There is no lie too monstrous for him to tell, continually and emphatically. There is no person he wouldn’t abuse nor any mask he wouldn’t wear for personal gain.²

Rudy “The Drip” Giuliani, once known as “America’s Mayor.” He has cascaded into an abyss of deceit and become the living equivalent of Dorian Gray’s picture. His efforts to sell the Big Lie are visibly corrosive.

Ron “Dishwater” DeSantis, who dreams of leading the MAGA maggots in a post-Trump America. He panders to them by censoring school books, banning abortion, and busing immigrants out of Florida. If only he weren’t dull as dishwater. Whatever the opposite of charisma is, he’s got it in abundance.

John “The Shyster” Eastman, the villain behind the plan to use The Shlemiel to block the count of electoral votes. Early on January 6, he aroused the rioters with an account of how election workers had concealed ballots marked for Biden and fed them into voting machines after the polls had closed.

Sidney “Myth Maker” Powell, an unhinged lawyer who threw herself into the battle to discredit the 2020 presidential election. With no evidence, she claimed the suppliers of voting machines had rigged the election and accused Venezuela, Cuba, and China of election interference. She threatened to reveal all and “release the Kraken.”

Ted “The Misanthrope” Cruz, a cynical Texas Senator who has opposed every enlightened social idea in the last 25 years. He’s against gun control, abortion, legalized marijuana, same-sex marriage, immigration reform, and government-run health insurance. He denies climate change, favors the death penalty, and supports Trump unconditionally, even though Trump maligned his wife and linked his father to JFK’s assassination!

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¹Refuse Infected by Corrupt Offal

²Be prepared for 15-seconds of commercials in front of McConnell’s speech.

³Remember that Pence asked Dan Quayle whether a VP could block the vote count. Imagine the result if Quayle had said, “Hell yes! Go for it!”

⁴Robert Reich accurately said of Trump, “He exists as a symbol for the anger, discontent, bigotry, and vindictiveness he has unleashed in America. He is as close to America has come to a fascist leader who doesn’t want his followers to think or analyze. He wants them only to feel.”

⁵Cruz is the high priest of the Republican misanthropy that flourishes in the Senate and House. In his congregation are the likes of Rand Paul, Joni Ernst, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, Ron Johnson, John Kennedy, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, Tommy Tuberville, Devin Nunes, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Green, Jim Jordan, Mike Johnson, Steve Scalise, Elise Stefanik, Louie Gohmert, and Lauren Boebert.

Attention entrepreneurs!

Remember the collectible Trump Cards, the ultimate case of hucksterism and self-aggrandizement? Each of them sold for $99, and you didn’t even get a physical card. Only a certifiable fool would buy one, yet to no one’s surprise, they sold out! Go ahead and click here. Laugh again.

I’m reminding you of his cards as a point of reference, so you can contrast them to another set of cards that doesn’t yet exist but should before the year’s out. I think of them as the “Trump Disgrace Cards.” I see them as scenes from Trump’s fall from glory, ranging from his soon-to-come perp walk in Manhattan to a picture of a hulking brute molesting him in prison. Of course, the collection would not be complete without mugshots and pictures of his face at each of his sentencing hearings. If a photo of him in an orange jumpsuit holding a mop is obtainable, it would be the prize of the collection. (Although some might favor the one of Trump getting buggered.)

As a bonus, the Disgrace Cards could include the faces of his many toadies and suck-ups when they get the news of a fresh conviction. And by all means Melania and his children should be included in this group.

These should be linen cards, like the best poker cards but somewhat larger. The price of a card should be the production and distribution cost plus a profit of no more than 20%. Every effort should be made to ensure that something so desirable is affordable.

So step up, those of you with some risk capital. It’s your chance to clean up!

Out of the mouths of idiots …

Back in early 2020, I wrote a piece titled “Thinking the unthinkable,” arguing why a divorce between the Red and Blue States was thinkable, if not desirable. I followed that with a companion piece, “The necessity of divorce,” offering a plan for getting through the messy separation process. Not surprisingly, the feedback was sparse. Few people are willing to come to grips with the unthinkable.

So I decided to bark up other trees … until now. A month ago, the frumious Marjorie Taylor Greene called for the same separation in a couple of tweets. My reaction was mixed. I was happy to see that a public figure had put the idea into mass circulation, but I cringed to see that the advocate was MTG. In today’s politics, her face is to buffoonery what Washington’s face is to patriotism. Why couldn’t a Republican intellectual — pardon the oxymoron — like Thomas Sowell have been the spearhead? As time passes, it seems that neither he nor any other Republican is willing to take up the banner. I’d be discouraged but for a recent survey of 1,000 likely voters. It found that 34% of them agreed with the idea, and nearly as many Republicans favored it as didn’t.

The silence of Republican politicians is easy to explain. They gave up on thinking at least two decades ago. (Truth be told, they never liked it much after Reconstruction.) Then came the ultimate retreat — the refusal to speak their minds for fear of alienating crackpots in their leadership and base. They’ve given leadership a bad name.

Mitt Romney, a Republican of a different stripe, scoffed that we’d disposed of MTG’s idea in the Civil War. Steve Schmidt, a former Republican and “never Trump” activist, also chimed in. He claimed MTG had “called for a second American Civil War.” Both men ignored a key sentence in one of her tweets: “National divorce is not civil war.” Maybe they would counter with, “Yes, but the very attempt to enact a divorce would lead to civil war.” That’s quite a leap. The attempt might also lead to a deeper examination of grievances and eventually to a reconciliation. Or it might lead to the creation of two new nations with two different constitutions. Is the danger so great that separation must not even be discussed?

Comments from Democrats have been nothing but knee jerks. They haven’t stopped to think, “We could enact laws that end hunger, license and fully regulate firearms, do away with gerrymandering, elect senators in proportion to population, create a unicameral Congress if we like, elect presidents by popular vote, reconstitute the Supreme Court, mandate term limits for Supreme Court justices and federal politicians, make Medicare for All the law of the land, guarantee the legality of abortions, rewrite and strengthen voting rights laws, adopt Elizabeth Warren’s Ultra-Millionaire Tax proposal, and incorporate the Equal Rights Amendment into our new Constitution.” Nor have they asked, “How many generations can we wait for the political establishment to make these badly needed changes?” Nor have they considered what new harm MAGA Republicans might do to cripple American democracy. For instance, will they try to make court decisions subject to the review of legislatures, as Netanyahu is doing in Israel? That could nullify any state court judgment that Trump is guilty of a crime.

We’re now in what I’ve called the “Gestation Stage.” Enough people are talking about a divorce to cause a third of all voters to warm up to it. That won’t rise unless progressive Democrats begin to recognize that the benefits might outweigh the risks. “Might” is the word on which everything hangs, and there is only one way to become more or less confident: constitutions have to be written and vetted by both constituencies. Until we have detailed proposals in writing, nothing can be ratified. This is a worthy exercise, even if it ultimately fails.

I envision two constitutional conventions, working concurrently, whose missions are to write the documents. Hammering out the articles and amendments should be a relatively easy task. Both conventions would know what their respective states want, and they’d have the present U. S. Constitution to use as a framework. What is harder is foreseeing the disruptions a divorce could bring and spelling out the strategies to mitigate them. Three possible disruptions come to mind: the protests of people who feel politically abandoned, failures in government services caused by carelessly re-creating Cabinet-level departments, and hysteria that national and world security will be compromised by dividing the U. S. military establishment between the Red and Blue states.

Mitigating political abandonment. In every state there are counties where the political ideology is sharply different from that of the state as a whole. The citizens of these counties take comfort that most of their neighbors’ politics are similar to their own, but a sense of unease likely remains. Imagine their shock when they realize the political framework they exist in has become much more hostile to their friends and families. What to do? Some will say they’ve accommodated before and can do it again; others will despair. Something must be done for the latter. Both constitutions need a provision for a Bureau of Resettlement. Each bureau would receive petitions for resettlement from its citizens and work with its sister bureau to find new homes and jobs for its petitioners. The need for resettlement will no doubt be strong enough to warrant offices in every state. In no case, though, should an office be allowed to corrupt its mission by resettling people within the Red States or within the Blue States.

Avoiding gaps in essential services. We often fume about the inefficiency of bureaucracies, but imagine how much worse they would be if the Red or Blue States were careless in duplicating a Cabinet-level department! The banking system might malfunction, air and highway safety might be neglected, buildups of dangerous pollutants might go undetected, cybercrimes might not be noticed. In a previous post, I called for a 9-month hiatus between ratification of the new constitutions and the actual division of the U. S. During this time, elections will have occurred. Both administrations should allow months to run through test scenarios to verify that all essential services are in place.

Ensuring national and international security. A country that’s dividing is at a time of maximum vulnerability, inviting the crackpot leaders of the world to consider how to exploit it. Therefore, during the ratification-division interval, the U. S. military must show the world what it’s doing prepare for the changeover. It should immediately confirm that domestic military bases will become the property of the nation that is home to its state. It should then make a plan for dividing the control of foreign military bases between the Red and Blue States and implement that plan. It should offer to reassign any personnel, at home or abroad, with a moral objection to serving the nation that will take ownership of the base.

Within months of the division, the U. S. military should announce a series of joint maneuvers to test how coherently the reassigned bases and redeployed personnel work together. It would nominally be in control of the exercises, but in fact the militaries of the Red and Blue States would be in charge.

The incoming presidents also have a role to play in sustaining security. They should announce that on Day 1 their countries will uphold the treaty commitments made by the U. S. and immediately apply to become signatories to those treaties in their own right.

A final thought. Consider the grievances of the American colonists listed in the Declaration of Independence. They are directed against King George III. He is accused of “repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” Whereas the “British brethren” of the colonists are accused only of having been “deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.” If such a document were written today against the Red States, it would not accuse Donald Trump but an entire culture, whose system of values is stubbornly rooted in the past. It will not give way with the death of a few individuals but will persist, possibly for centuries. During that time, the political and and social progress of generations of Americans will have been arrested. This catastrophe is preventable, and without ruin or bloodshed.

Death spirals

Each year, I try to pick the most important story of that year, the one most likely to affect our immediate future. This year, however, I’ve picked two stories. They seem to have little in common but are strangely inseparable, at least to me. Perhaps it’s because they share the same theme — the death spiral of a monster.

The first story involves the war in Ukraine, which started late last February. It was supposed to be a quick mauling of any Ukrainian forces that resisted the Russian invasion. It was anything but. To understand why, we have to imagine a dictator who is among the greatest fuckups in history, and also one of the cruelest, most impulsive, and most vengeful — Vladimir Putin. If you’re wondering what he could have done to earn these distinctions, here’s a record of ineptitude that may challenge your credulity:

• Putin’s first responsibility was to gather intelligence, and in this he failed utterly. The estimate of Ukraine’s readiness and will to resist missed the mark completely. The estimate of the West’s commitment to Ukraine also erred badly. The West quickly agreed on crushing sanctions that all but crippled Russia’s economy. Then it followed through by providing Ukraine with advanced weapon systems, technical assistance, military intelligence, food, clothing, medical supplies, and infrastructure support. Putin failed to realize there was no way to intercept supply lines without invading NATO nations and triggering a doomsday scenario. In effect, Putin found himself fighting against the entire industrialized world, minus China, India, and Iran.
  
  
• He never bothered to understand the logistics of fighting a war. He had no access to Ukraine’s rail system, so he sent countless military and supply vehicles down Ukraine’s roads, where they stalled and became targets. The glut of traffic was so immense that fuel, munitions, spare parts, and other materiel couldn’t be efficiently moved to troops in forward positions.
  
  
• He put quickly trained — and therefore poorly trained — soldiers in the field. Moreover, he sent far too few of them. Approximately 150,000 to 190,000 Russian soldiers, regulars and irregulars, were in the initial invasion force, facing a country of 44 million people. That’s a ratio of 4 Russian soldiers for every 1,000 Ukrainian inhabitants. Data from modern warfare shows that roughly 20 soldiers for every 1,000 inhabitants are needed to conquer and pacify a hostile population. This explains why Putin has been desperate to find more soldiers. He has hired mercenaries and offered convicts freedom if they agree to fight. He has gone so far as to institute a draft, but this caused such an uproar that he had to give it up.
  
  
• Last April, Russian troops halted their advance on Kyiv. It was the perfect moment for Putin to cut his losses and pretend he had delivered a harsh warning to Ukrainians who dared to collude with NATO. Sadly, he was too proud to accept the rebuke he was dealt. He redeployed Russian forces to the East and South, where many Ukrainians identify with Russian culture. The Russians were brutal in asserting their claims to these regions. Rockets destroyed urban centers and residences. People on the street were indiscriminately executed and consigned to mass graves. Many of the survivors were tortured; women were raped. The new strategy was to demoralize Ukrainians by subjecting them to a barrage of war crimes. The memory of this savagery will evoke Ukrainian hatred for centuries. Even if Russian reverses its record of screwups and losses, it will never pacify a single acre of Ukrainian territory. Russia hoped to avoid sharing a border with a NATO country. Now they will share a border with something far worse, a blood enemy. And if Ukraine is ever in a position to dictate the terms that will end the war, Putin and his surviving generals will certainly face war crimes trials, imprisonment, and execution.
  
  
• He is oblivious to the enormity of his crimes. This winter he has doubled down. He’s sent missile barrages against Ukraine’s infrastructure, depriving Ukrainians of light, warmth, water, and food supplies. He has actually weaponized winter. This strategy will never drive his foe toward capitulation; it will have exactly the opposite effect.
  
  
• He has never had a contingency plan for a long war. After 10 months of fighting, he’s using charity drives to supply soldiers with medicine, sleeping bags, felt boots, woolen socks, mittens, scarves, and body armor. One charity event raised the equivalent of $45 thousand. Contrast this with the $45 billion that Congress recently passed for emergency assistance to Ukraine and NATO allies. The appropriation includes a critical infusion of Patriot anti-ballistic missiles.
  
  

The war will end in either of two ways. One, Russia loses in the traditional way — they capitulate and Ukraine dictates terms, which will undoubtedly include Putin’s removal (if he isn’t already dead), loss of the Crimea, and war reparations. Two, Russia loses in the pyrrhic way; that is, they win but pay a staggering price in lives, leadership, prosperity, and reputation. If it’s the second way, it won’t be called “pyrrhic,” because no winning military in world history will have paid such a disastrous price. It will be called a “putinic” (poo-TIN-ic, with two short i’s) victory. It’s amazing to think that the likelihood of a no-win scenario has probably never occurred to Putin.

The second story begins with a mass poisoning, an occurrence that is almost always accidental. A case in point is the poisoning of the Flint River some years ago when lead leached into the Flint, Michigan, water supply. It wasn’t a malicious crime but an instance of greed, arrogance, and gross incompetence, as we so often see in human dealings. Contrast this case with the poisonous lies and misinformation the Republican party and Trump Administration have for years spewed into the American body politic via mass media outlets — newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and an array of Internet social platforms. The climax, of course, was the Big Lie, the outrageous claim that the 2020 Presidential Election was stolen by the Democrats. That lie has been served up daily at every level of government. Invariably, it is garnished with supporting lies. Election observers were let go! Election workers stuffed ballot boxes! Voting machines were reprogrammed! Venezualan software was used to flip Trump votes! Fake ballots were flown in from China! Record numbers of dead people voted! The sum of the votes exceeded the number of voters!

Have no doubt that a repeated cocktail of lies can be just as destructive to a body politic as chemical poisons are to flesh and blood. Add to this another fact, that most Americans glory in jingoistic horseshit: America is exceptional, a shining city on a hill, God’s chosen nation, the savior of democracies, the last best hope of earth. We are disposed to love anyone who tells us repeatedly how special we are, which leaves us open to the manipulations of political flimflam artists. How hurtful it was to be told our star had dimmed. How restorative to hear our greatness could be made complete again. How thrilling to know a person is among us who could accomplish this mission. How infuriating to learn he had been cheated out of that opportunity! Thus the vile poison saturated our discourse.

All through 2021, the Trump-induced delirium rolled on. Denial of Biden’s election swept the South and Midwest, while the swing states were incubating sworn enemies of free and fair elections. Hundreds of candidates were ready to file for the 2022 midterms and usher in one-party rule. Meanwhile, the Democrats wallowed in helplessness. Because two of their number were closet Republicans, Democratic control of the Senate was an illusion. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act was on the Senate floor in January, 2022. If it had become federal law, it would have superseded any state law that sought to thwart minority access to the ballot. Sadly, it lacked Republican support. The Democrats didn’t even have enough votes to block a Republican filibuster.

The outlook for the 2022 midterms was further dimmed by a disengaged Department of Justice. By the first anniversary of the January 6ᵗʰ riot, the department had arrested 700 rioters and was pursuing hundreds more, but it had done virtually no investigating of the role Trump and his colleagues played in organizing or inciting the riot. If DoJ priorities had been prudent, if the big fish had been its primary target, it would have known in just months that Trump had been assured the election was fair; it would have had all the information needed to lay bare the conspiracy of liars and cynical cowards at the heart of America’s poisoning.

In the face of DoJ inaction, Nancy Pelosi called for a national commission to investigate the origins of the January 6ᵗʰ riot. The idea passed the House but failed in the Senate, where the Republicans threatened to filibuster. Pelosi, undaunted, proposed that a House Select Committee, a so-called “January 6ᵗʰ Committee,” do the investigation. Kevin McCarthy, her counterpart, insisted that five representatives of his choosing be seated on the committee. Three of these were laughably biased, so Pelosi picked two even-handed Republicans to replaced them. The committee was approved by all the House Democrats and 38 Republicans. It held its first meeting on July 27, 2021, with the testimony of four Capitol police officers. By the end of the year, it had interviewed more than 300 witnesses, obtained more than 35,000 documents, and gone far toward exposing the subversion that lay behind the riot. Unfortunately, their findings hadn’t been woven into a coherent narrative and presented in full public view.

When 2022 began, Democrats were in white-knuckled dread of the changes the year would bring. They wondered, is this the year the Trumpists strangle democracy? In their despair, they failed to notice a sea change. Immediately after Russia invaded Ukraine, Trump labeled Putin a genius, adding, “He’s taking over a country for $2 worth [!] of sanctions. I’d say that’s pretty smart.” In referring to the loss of life, he couldn’t avoid trotting out his Big Lie. “If our election wasn’t rigged, you would’ve had nobody dead.” Stunning. He delivered a trifecta of stupidity, mendacity, and conceit in just a few sentences, showing the world once again how loathsome he was.

Then came May, a month of reckoning for Trump. The preceding December, he had phoned Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, who was busy looking into charges of voter fraud. Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” the 11,780 votes he needed to top Biden’s Georgia vote count, plainly an attempt to tamper with the election. As May arrived, Fani Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney, struck back at Trump. She requested that the county’s chief judge create a grand jury to determine if Trump’s behavior was criminal. The grand jury’s findings will be reported soon.

Later in the month, the first critical Republican primaries of 2022 were held. In Idaho, the governor beat a Trump-favored challenger. In North Carolina, Trump tried to save a congressman hip-deep in scandals but to no avail. In Pennsylvania, Trump went all out for Mehmet Oz, the charlatan doctor. Oz survived but with a dubious road ahead. The Georgia primary was the most bitter pill of all. Trump had a score to settle with Brian Kemp, the governor, who was up for reelection. Months before, Kemp had ignored Trump’s plea to replace Biden’s slate of electors with his own. Even more galling, Brad Raffensperger was trying to be reelected as Secretary of State. To Trump’s great chagrin, both men won easily.

In June, the January 6ᵗʰ Committee began broadcasting its hearings on live television. For the first time, the post-election misdeeds of ex-President Trump sank deeply into the public consciousness. Here is what the committee revealed about him over the course of ten televised sessions:

• Despite the loss of dozens of election-related lawsuits and the assurance of government officials that the election was fair, he refused to concede. He thus failed his Constitutional obligation to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
  
  
• He asked DoJ officials to tell lies that would help his attempt to overturn the election.
  
  
• He pressured state officials and legislators to change the results of their state elections.
  
  
• He oversaw a plan to obtain false electoral certificates and send them to Congress and the National Archives.
  
  
• He asked members of Congress to object to valid slates of electors from several states.
  
  
• In federal court, he stated that false information was valid.
  
  
• He brought supporters to Washington, DC on January 6ᵗʰ, instructing them to “take back” their country. In speaking to them at the Ellipse, he further provoked them, knowing that some of them were armed.
  
  
• He sent a tweet that publicly condemned Vice President Pence while the rioting was underway.
  
  
• While watching the rioting on television over a period of hours, he refused repeated requests to tell the rioters to disperse and leave the Capitol.
  
  
• He had the authority and responsibility to call the National Guard into the District of Columbia but failed to do so.

As Trump was marinating in the televised testimony, August rolled around. On the 8ᵗʰ, a team of FBI agents entered Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home, with a search warrant. They were looking for documents, many of them classified, that Trump had taken when he left the presidency and not turned over to the National Archives, as required by the Presidential Records Act. The FBI came away with over 100 classified documents, some of which reportedly contained secrets about nuclear weapons. This disclosure raised the question of whether Trump had violated the Espionage Act.

Later that month, Letitia James, the New York District Attorney, filed a civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and his three oldest children. In a news conference, she accused them of an “astounding” pattern of financial fraud. She claimed Trump had egregiously inflated his worth on financial statements to deceive lenders and insurers into offering beneficial terms. She wants the Trump Organization to give back $250 million of the benefits and be banned from buying commercial real estate in the state for 5 years.

On November 8ᵗʰ, Election Day, three questions hung in the air: how much would high inflation hurt Democrats? how much would the end of the Roe v. Wade era hurt Republicans? how much value would a Trump endorsement carry? Exit polls showed that worries about inflation hurt Democrats somewhat more than pro-abortion sentiment helped them. One issue pretty much offset the other. What gave Democrats the edge was concern about Trump’s political clout, especially among independent voters. They favored Democrats by a small margin, a considerable departure from their voting in the last four midterms. Generally, they favor the party not in power by double digits.

In mid-November, Attorney General Merrick Garland made a long overdue announcement, the appointment of a Justice Department prosecutor, Jack Smith, to oversee two criminal investigations. The first was to determine whether “any person or entity unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote held on or about January 6, 2021.” The second was to continue the investigation of the documents found at Mar-a-Lago and “the possible obstruction of that investigation.” Garland’s announcement led me to a couple of conclusions. The work of the January 6ᵗʰ Committee had embarrassed Garland and forced his hand. I have no idea where we’d be today if the committee had never been created. What’s more significant, Smith’s work will inevitably end in criminal indictments. Anything less, and the uproar will be volcanic.

Recently, the January 6ᵗʰ Committee issued its final report. It asks the DoJ to look into at least four of its charges against Trump and to bar him from holding office again. The committee is in the process of turning all its evidence over to Jack Smith.

I expect Trump’s fortunes to decline even more rapidly in 2023. I see no path for him to win the presidential nomination in 2024, nor do I see him as a third party candidate. Either prison or political banishment will bar the way.

My Bizarro Barometer

For the most part, life is boring. It’s much like a seismograph. It generally shows a flat line, but every so often, a blip appears. Rarely, there are a few small spikes. We experience this as unpleasantness, something between mild depression and vague discomfort. The medicine for this “illness” — yes, we’re all slightly ill — is distraction. We must heap it on our malady to make life manageable.

Many a fortune has been built on this phenomenon. The entire fashion industry depends on it, as does the music industry. It explains why car makers offer so many models and design changes every year. It explains why Baskin-Robbins has 31 ice cream flavors. (Actually, it’s 1,300 since they opened their doors.) It explains why Chanel offers 127 perfumes. These are manufactured distractions. They work because they directly stimulate our senses. They take their cue from nature, which offers peacocks and roses and honey and salt licks and pheromones.

There are also distractions that stimulate our minds rather than our senses. For example, if I told you a fatal disease had broken out in China, I’d probably get your attention. Or if I reported that astronomers have found evidence of a giant asteroid heading right at us, that would work too. But what if I were lying about the asteroid? If you thought I was a credible person, the result would be the same. You’d be uneasy. Maybe you’d say, “C’mon, really? I’ve got to check this out.” Either way, I put a blip on your seismograph.

Before I go on in this vein, I have to reveal something about myself. Like you, there is a range of distractions that jostles my mind. One that often rattles me is the occurrence of bizarre behavior by members of my species. Sometimes I think I must possess a special organ that pulsates like a pinball machine whenever something crazy makes headlines. I call this organ my Bizarro Barometer. Where does it reside? I like to think it lingers near the islets of Langerhans.

I even have a fairly good idea what it looks like. It’s graduated like a thermometer. Its apex represents unblemished thought; its nadir, pure madness. At any point in time, the level of the liquid inside — fortified grape juice? — indicates the level of sanity in the world. As you see, humanity is currently well below the midline, labeled Putatively Sane. Alarmingly, through the first half of this year, the level has moved lower and now rests at Spacey.

To whom or what can we attribute this drop? To that trio of sneaky devils, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un? Giving free rein to cyber criminals is indeed a crazy thing to do. It’s a case of the neurotically mischievous coddling the neurotically mischievous, despite the high risk of retaliation. These goodfellas explain the drop in part, but only a small part.

The largest part belongs to America. It wears the mantle of Chief Purveyor of Madness in the world. If you doubt my judgment, review how our nation has lowered the barometer in recent months:

• Americans have made the struggle against the Covid pandemic political. That’s astonishing. It’s crazier than making chicken soup political. 47% of Republicans say they aren’t likely to get vaccinated. Only 6% of Democrats say that. Where do these death-wish Republicans live? Largely in the same states Trump carried in last year’s presidential election. And they’re paying for it. The Delta variant of the disease, the most contagious and lethal to date, is surging among them. When in history have whole populations taken a stand against science they were willing to die for?
  
  
• Trump’s Big Lie refuses to die. In fact, quite the opposite has happened. Conservatives across the country have erected adamantine fantasies with walls that deflect truth. Last April in Arizona, the Republican-led senate authorized the third recount of the ballots cast in Maricopa County, the most populous in the state. The work, done by a dubious firm called Cyber Ninja, is still unfinished. Counting is easy, but fabricating credible results is next to impossible.
  
  In Oklahoma, where Trump won 65.4% of the vote last November, Republicans in the state legislature want a “forensic” audit because nevertheless they distrust the outcome. Similarly, Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania and North Carolina are calling for investigations of November’s voting. Even though there’s no evidence of election irregularities, they have a gnawing feeling that something was amiss. Better extra extra safe than sorry, I guess.
  
  
• Demonstrations against teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) have been going on since last October. Most of them occurred just last month. CRT, simply put, is the idea that racial discrimination has always been embedded in American life, that it has manifested itself in our legal system, housing practices, medical care, education, employment, voting rights, criminal justice, and police brutality. In fact, this is no “theory” but simple truth.
  
  These days, high schools in blue states teach a large part of this truth. Most Conservatives became aware of CRT only after Trump labeled it as “the left’s vile new theory.” He accused its teachers of propagating the idea that the U.S. is “systemically evil,” instead of “helping young people discover that America is the greatest, most tolerant, and most generous nation in history.” He and his millions want American history to be a course of happy lies. This is completely consistent with his conduct as a public figure.
  
  
• Earlier this month, CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, disseminated a plan for returning Trump to the presidency. It begins with a dramatic loss of confidence in Pelosi. Who knows why, but it causes her to lose her speakership to a Republican. The new speaker reveals evidence of all the election racketeering that went on last November. Naturally, the Dems are crushed in the 2022 midterms. Next, the House drafts articles of impeachment against Biden and Harris and elects Trump to be its speaker. (Supposedly you don’t have to be an actual member of the House to be speaker!) This piece of legerdemain puts Trump in the line of presidential succession. Finally, Biden and Harris are impeached and convicted and Trump’s second coming is complete. Anyone who put their signature to this plan should have to tell a judge why they should not be summarily committed to an asylum.
  
  
• The traveling public’s need to bear or be near weapons now amounts to a mania. At airports, passengers by law must declare their unloaded firearms when they check in. However, in the first six months of this year, TSA officers found almost 3,000 undeclared firearms at boarding checkpoints. In the last non-Covid year, 2019, they found 4,432 undeclared guns over the entire year. Over just the past July Fourth weekend, they discovered 70 guns at checkpoints, and 62 were loaded! They also turned up brass knuckles, a hatchet, and a loaded gun among passengers’ carry-on items.
  
  
• On the same weekend, 150 to 200 members of “Patriot Front,” a white nationalist hate group, arrived in Philadelphia in rented trucks and began a march during the night. They were masked and carried flags, shields, and banners. The banners proclaimed THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN and RECLAIM AMERICA. According to the police, onlookers “engaged members of the group verbally.” Eventually, the marchers reached their targets, Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were debated and adopted, and City Hall. They left after making a promotional video and taking pictures at a rallying point.
  
  
• Again on the July Fourth weekend — Holy Focal Point, Batman — 11 heavily armed members of the “Rise of the Moors” militia were arrested near Boston after an overnight standoff that shut down a major U.S. Interstate. The group doesn’t recognize American laws, but claims to be peaceful, their numerous weapons notwithstanding. Their leader told police that the men were traveling from Rhode Island to Maine for some “training.”
  
  
• The post-Trump Republican Senate hasn’t relented a bit in its opposition to affordable health care, voting rights, or infrastructure renewal. Every Republican senator voted against the COVID-19 Stimulus Package, a bill that sustained the fight against Covid by distributing $1.9 trillion among public health agencies, schools, states, cities, tribes, families with children, people with modest incomes, and the jobless. Every Republican senator voted against the For the People Act; 60 votes were needed for passage. The act would have established a myriad of federal protections against the hardships on minority voters that racist state legislatures are enacting. Every Republican senator voted against moving Biden’s infrastructure plan toward a final vote. The plan called for the first phase of an eventual $4 trillion-plus package for roads, bridges, child care, family tax breaks, education, and an expansion of Medicare for seniors.
  
  Biden, in the angriest speech of his presidency, called Republicans selfish. That’s the wrong word, a weak label for their behavior. The correct word is sociopathic. Their leader’s narcissistic personality disorder has rubbed off on them. They’ve become cruel and callous. They’ve turned inward to focus exclusively on continued power, no matter what harm befalls their constituents.

Let’s return now to the subject of distractions … Say I developed a powerful interest in collecting stamps. I’d have a great many people to keep me company in this distraction. No doubt that would add to my delight. However, I have no interest whatever in philately. Instead, I’m watchful for upticks and downticks in the world’s sanity — mainly American sanity because it is hugely consequential for the future. I’m afraid I have little company in this distraction. From what I can tell, most people think the events of the past five years are mere undulations in the flow of history. Nothing to worry about — stay calm and watch the ocean swells with equanimity. But I view these events grimly, as harbingers of a disjuncture in history. If only more people had the same premonitions.

Prelude to a disaster

This year has been a tale of two climaxes: one in the virulence of the Covid virus, the other in the seditious antics of Donald J. Trump. Both have been ruinous — Covid to physical wellbeing, Trump to national wellbeing. The two are, of course, intertwined. Trump’s blustery and idiotic style of governing is music to the ears of his minions, who are charmed by bluster and idiocy. Their gullibility gave the virus its greatest impetus as they became its most pitiful victims.

As we know, Trump’s catalog is long, through every trespass ranging. Mishandling the pandemic came as an encore to the his impeachment trial in early 2020, which sadly offered no more than a highlight reel of his misdeeds. When he was renominated last summer, many, including me, felt sure he was going to top himself in the fall. He has not disappointed.

He spoke against voting by mail, damning it as a vehicle of voter fraud. He denigrated the Postal Service, while his Postmaster General took steps to hamstring mail processing. His campaign went to court to challenge the right of states to mail ballots to their registered voters. His Senate lackeys blocked a Covid relief bill that would have given the Postal Service cash support to properly handle the influx of mail.

As Election Day came and went, millions of mailed votes had not yet been counted. As expected, Trump was ahead in most of the battleground states, but it was clear the tide would turn the next day. Yet Trump didn’t wait for the swing to play out. He announced that he had won because his lead was plainly insurmountable. In effect, he set the predicate that only massive acts of voter fraud could stand between him and victory.

Between that day and the present, Trump’s legal team has filed more than 50 cases that alleged voter fraud. All were denied, dismissed, settled, or withdrawn, without any evidence of fraud. The U.S. Supreme Court twice rejected petitions about the voting in Pennsylvania. One sought to throw out 2.6 million mailed ballots on procedural grounds; the other, to allow the state’s General Assembly to pick new electors. Again, neither petition was accompanied by credible evidence of fraud.

In our nation’s history, has litigation ever been so prolonged and frivolous? Have plaintiffs ever pursued a more humiliating path? No and no. We are left to ask, what could possibly have prompted such a deranged abuse of our legal system? Perhaps it all has to do with an epic case of presidential petulance, but I’m inclined to think otherwise. I believe the thinking in the White House went something like this…. Let’s object to the election results on all the grounds we can imagine and do so in dozens of venues. We might lose every case but in the final analysis, we win. Each court loss will reveal anew the depth of the conspiracy against the president’s re-election and amplify the resentment of our base. Relentless tweeting and some well-timed rallies will ensure it. Our folks will be on the edge of insurrection by the time we get to January. Protesting in the streets against “a radical takeover of America” is a given. Next, there is confrontation and, inevitably, a spark of violence. The confrontation and violence spread. People are frightened. The president then has a plausible pretext for declaring martial law.

I’m certain this scenario has been put before Trump. I’m certain it appeals to him. What’s unclear is whether he can imagine the catastrophe he would bring down upon himself. Surely a different counselor has mentioned that the rage in Red America can also be used to perpetuate his glory and enhance his wealth. That too would appeal to him. We’ll know his decision in January.

We’re #1!

I’m not ready to predict a defeat for Trump this fall. True, the polls are looking grim for him, but the horror of the 2016 election is still pinballing around in my head and stoking my distrust of the electorate. So I’ll offer something cautious: Trump’s bottom number will be 40%. He will win at least 40% of the popular vote and 40% of the states. But he may do better — possibly much better.

If you think my assessment is reasonably accurate, the last thing you want to do is throw a party. 40% of the popular vote is what respectable losers get. Adlai Stevenson, a man of many virtues, got 42% in his 1956 rematch with Eisenhower. George McGovern, one of the most honorable men to run, got 37.5% against Nixon. Jimmy Carter, a saint among men, got 41% in 1980, the year he ran against Reagan. Now I ask, what losing percentage should a certifiable scoundrel get?

I won’t beleaguer you by making the full case that Trump is certifiable. If you need to recall his iniquities, you can look at this post, where I summarized them just before the House Democrats started their impeachment hearings. Or you can consider this graphic:

Or, if you want to confine your attention to his 2020 crimes, this list will do:

• He abandoned his responsibility to mount a national response to the COVID-19 virus, making the U.S. the epicenter of the virus, contributing to 176,000 deaths (so far), and bringing economic misery to all but the rich. To compound his ineptitude, he gave ignorant medical advice at public briefings and made light of wearing face masks in gatherings.
  
  
• Last June, he used an ad hoc collection of military and quasi-military muscle to disperse peaceful protesters in Washington, D.C., just to make a show of entering the streets and posing at a church with a Bible in hand. In Portland, OR, he used unidentified members of U.S. Customs and Border Protection to manhandle protesters and whisk them away in unmarked cars. In effect, Trump deployed an extra-legal goon squad to do his bidding, a tactic reminiscent of NAZI Germany.
  
  
• When it became clear that the pandemic would threaten a large turnout in November, universal mail-in balloting became an attractive idea. Trump recognized that his chances for survival would improve if mailings were suppressed, so he invented the lie that a mail-in election would be the most fraudulent in history. His Postmaster General got the message and shut down sorting machines, eliminated overtime, removed drop boxes, and claimed that severe cost-cutting measures were necessary. The Postal Service asked for more money to handle the anticipated deluge of mailed ballots, but Trump rebuffed them. “If we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting; they just can’t have it.”
  
  
• In an interview with Sean Hannity, Trump said he’s considering sending law enforcement officers to polling places to monitor voters and prevent fraud. “We’re going to have sheriffs, and we’re going to have law enforcement, and we’re going to have, hopefully, U.S. attorneys, and we’re going to have everybody and attorney generals (sic).” Such action is expressly forbidden in Section 592 of Title 18 of the US Code, but a cringing Republican Senate has put him above the law.
  
  
• Trump commuted Roger Stone’s sentence, and his Attorney General (not our Attorney General) maneuvered to abrogated Michael Flynn’s conviction. We can expect all of Trump’s convicted cronies to be let off by one means or another. Rather than “drain the swamp,” Trump has conjured up a criminal syndicate that will likely evade justice.

I think I’ve made the case that Trump is indeed a certifiable scoundrel. So how have such people fared in past presidential elections? That’s hard to answer because there has never been a person like Trump in American politics. Let’s nevertheless look at a few people of poor character and see how they fared on the presidential ballot. In 1948, for example, Strom Thurmond, a Dixiecrat candidate and supporter of racial segregation, got 2.4% of the vote. In 1968, George Wallace, another staunch segregationist, got less than 14% of the vote. In 1976, Gus Hall, the general secretary of the American Communist Party and advocate of the violent overthrow of the government, took in less than 1% of the vote. Of these villains, Wallace scored best, and I submit that he was a far better man than Trump. Though openly a racist, he had some scruples. Trump is a closet racist with no scruples.

All the foregoing examples not only led splinter parties, they were morally among the dregs of American splinter candidates. In 2016, something unprecedented happened. A major political party actually nominated a dreg! And he won! What can explain such an anomaly? The answer is hard to cop to. A large minority of Americans are bone stupid. Moreover, no other industrialized nation is more stupid. We’re #1! That conclusion is consistent with other things we know about ourselves. We lead the world in COVID-19 cases and deaths. We lead the world in gun ownership and mass murders. We lead the world in concocting conspiratorial nonsense. We are infested with dumbasses!

If Biden wins in November, the dumbass infestation will not suddenly disappear. We are stuck with it for unknowable decades. It’s no different than having a chronic illness. And it’s a wasting illness. We may find a vaccine that cures us of COVID-19, but what can we do to cure ourselves of stupidity?