March 4, 2021

From the March 4, 2021, Issue of the Washington Post 

On the day when former president Donald Trump’s most delusional supporters swore he would return to power — and the House suspended its business because of... threats to the U.S. Capitol... National Guard members armed with M4 rifles braced for rebellion that never came. Razor wire lined miles of steel fencing that went un-breached. Trump remained in Florida, where it was 70 degrees and sunny. The angst stemmed from another misguided belief within QAnon, the extremist ideology that claims Trump has been working in secret to overthrow a cabal of blood-drinking, Satan-worshiping Democratic pedophiles. After repeated unfulfilled prophecies, the group’s supporters declared in recent weeks that Trump would retake office March 4... By Katie Mettler, Emily Davies, Meagan Flynn, Marissa J. Lang & John Woodrow Cox

Reflections on March 4th, by Jon Phillips

Remember the good ol’ days when politicians mostly just sniped at each other and occasionally came up on ethics charges in their internal tribunals for this or that — like violating campaign finance laws? Now we wonder: what happened to campaign finance laws?

The only pedophile I’m aware of was Denny Hastert, perhaps the longest serving GOP House Speaker? He went to prison. Of course others were caught in sex scandals and some of them resigned. One State Governor tried to sell a Senate seat. He was convicted for corruption and went to prison. They were busy trying to get their pork attached to the end of every bill at the behest of monied constituents.

Now the greatest crime a GOP politician can commit is to vote against the Donald or to publicly criticize him. They will be censured by the Party, picketed and openly receive death threats from the Donald’s cult followers. Incitement to violence and hate speech is what passes for “free speech” these days.

Personally, I dislike political correctness, but if incitement and hate speech are the alternatives, I’d prefer hypocritical politeness. But nothing else a GOP politician does really matters. They don’t even have a Party Platform anymore — just do what the Dear Leader demands moment to moment via tweets or whatever other megaphone he uses. They can pretty much do whatever else... just like their Dear Leader.
Guilty of sexual assault or just serial philandering? No problem! Used campaign funds to buy silence of porn stars that you dated while your wife was pregnant? No problem! God knows what other scams — though we may yet find out now that Trump’s millions of pages of financial documents are finally released to a Grand Jury that is pursuing criminal charges. Even Scotland considered investigating Trump.

Carry on. So much for “family values” and “values voters”. That turned out to be crass hypocrisy, who knew? This was the Presidency of right wing Evangelical voters. This is their legacy. The degradation of the whole Nation, mired in a fever swamp of dangerously deluded right wing wackos and armed terrorists. Apparently, this is what Jesus would do? It makes me nauseous.

How times have changed. That old continuous soap opera, that was our government, turns out to be when America was great — for the most part. It was always slightly soiled because lots of people were involved and that’s the way that lots of people are. We agreed to manage down the level of corruption over time and to attempt to be, or least pretend to be, civil. It actually worked reasonably well on the whole in hind sight. Now we have a taste of “American carnage” thanks to the Mango Mussolini and his bizarre cult followers. 

I never thought I would read such freaky things about my own government in my lifetime. A major political Party of the US Government has become an openly seditious, conspiracy mongering morass. A cult of personality. Orwellian. The dangerous things that you find when you start prying up rocks.