Martial Law

No matter how cynical I get, I can’t keep up with these assholes.

That’s a quote I swiped from Lily Tomlin, modified to match our current situation. By current situation I specifically refer to the cesspool that is the Oval Office. You may notice I’m not saying “swamp.” That’s because I like swamps. Swamps are wetlands. Swamps are teeming with wildlife and full of wonder for nature lovers of every kind. How dare anyone compare the foul, reeking habitat of the Trump family with the pristine wonder of a natural swamp.

 

In fact, Trump would drain all of America’s swamps if he thought he could make a dime in doing it. And he would cap Old Faithful. And grind the majestic edifices of Yosemite and the Grand Canyon into dust in search of fossil fuel – for money. He would, in fact, destroy any natural wonder to make a buck because he’s Donald Trump. He respects nothing worthwhile, he honors no moral principle, and loves nobody but himself. He doesn’t even seem to love his children or other intimates; he just keeps them close and constantly tests them to make sure they are ready to do his bidding.

 

You may have gathered by now that I am not a fan of Donald Trump. But wait - I digress. Back to this issue of my ever-deepening cynicism.

 

What shocks me this week (different, as they say, from all other weeks) is the talk of martial law that took place in the Oval Office.

 

Martial law.

 

Martial law!

 

Good God.

 

The martial law proposal was apparently broached by well-known nut case and disgraced general, Michael Flynn. In a public speech last week he aired the idea that Trump could send in troops to Michigan, Georgia, and other swing states, redo the election, and see that Trump wins them this time. You know, just like Saddam Hussein used to do in his “elections.”

 

Flynn was in the Oval Friday along with fellow wacko Sidney Powell and one of them apparently introduced the martial law virus into Trumps’ all-too-vulnerable brain cells. This reportedly provoked a shouting match. Those advisors who are not completely lacking in common sense or traces of decency pushed back vigorously against Flynn and his fellow fascists, ultimately squashing (one hopes) this latest fever dream of Trump’s.

 

Can you picture martial law? Tanks and troop carriers roll into Detroit, Phoenix, and Atlanta, armed men fan out into every precinct’s voting stations and citizens are instructed – by crackling loudspeakers, maybe? – to report to their voting stations and prepare to vote by order of the Great and Ever-Winning Fuhrer.

 

W  T  F?

 

How could there be a shouting match over this prospect? The first person who brought this up (Flynn, no doubt) should have been mocked into silence and asked to leave the Oval Office permanently. But no. This is the Trump administration - America’s cesspool. I expected horrible things in the Trump White House, but I did not foresee this.

 

So, you see? I swear I am doing my best to keep up with these assholes, but wow.

 

Equally distressing is the fact that millions of my fellow citizens apparently think martial law would be a peachy idea. I will conclude with Exhibit A: some pictures of a neighbor’s house. I wonder if these folks are as shocked as I am about this high-level talk of martial law. I’m guessing no.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quisling and Trump

 

My parents were born in the 1910s and 20s. They were among those Americans who experienced the Great Depression in their youth and then helped crush the fascist powers in World War II. You might say they are the original “antifas.”

I have great admiration for my parents and their contemporaries, though I’m reluctant to call them “the greatest generation” because, well, look at what a questionable job they did in raising us boomers.

But anyway, the World War II era was unmistakably a crucial turning point in history. It looms large for us today because it so profoundly shaped the world we live in. In some ways that era resonates with the fall of the Titans in Greek mythology whose rule ended when the Olympian gods revolted against them, took over the world and transformed it for generations to come. The World War II generation, by demolishing Hitler, Mussolini, and the other fascists, made our world one of ever-expanding peace, prosperity and fair play: the opposite of a fascist domain.

I’m guessing most people have forgotten the Norwegian fascist and traitor Vidkun Quisling, who was executed by his fellow citizens at the end of the war. When Hitler invaded Norway in 1940, Quisling threw in his lot with the Nazis who then allowed him to oversee his country as a puppet. His treason and other crimes were so abhorrent to the international community that the word “quisling” became a label of deep contempt not only in English, but in several other languages.

 

          Vidkun Quisling 1887-1945

 

I think we should revive the word “quisling” because -- you know -- Donald Trump. Technically a quisling betrays his or her country while it is being occupied by foreign forces. America hasn’t been literally invaded and occupied, but our enemies have certainly made inroads into the current administration. For Exhibit A we have Trump rejecting the CIA’s analysis about Russian interference in our elections and accepting instead the word of the dictator Putin. Exhibit B: Trump entertaining Russians in the White House and discussing American government secrets with them. Exhibit C: Trump’s call to Ukrainian President Zelensky in which he tried to extort Zelensky, hoping to force him to claim he had evidence that would damage Joe Biden. Trump’s leverage was American military aid that Ukraine desperately needed to defend itself against Russian invaders and Trump’s aim was to hold off the aid until Zelensky did his unsavory bidding. That to me says “quisling.”

Can you imagine that in 1940, when Churchill pleaded with Roosevelt for help in defending his country against the Nazis, Roosevelt might respond by saying, “We’ll see, Winston. But first, tell me what kind of dirt you can offer that would smear my political rivals?”

Of course not, because Roosevelt, unlike Trump, was loyal to America’s allies and neither a quisling nor a traitor of any kind.

Now we are faced with Trump’s final act of treason. As every reasonable person who has been paying attention to reliable news sources* knows, Biden won the presidency decisively. Trump, with the help of Bill Barr and other henchmen, is broadcasting the lie that election fraud puts the outcome in doubt. This is obviously false, but, when you have a cult-like following that will stick with you even if you “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody,” and you have the assistance of a pack of quislings at a major news network** promoting your lies, you can do a lot of damage. And Trump is doing a lot of damage.

I say damage because that’s what our country is enduring. Trump’s re-election bid is doomed -- done for, kaput, cooked like a Christmas goose, burned out, and belly-up. We can celebrate that.

But he seems unwilling to yield the spotlight. And now, by spewing out lies about the fraud that never was, Trump is trashing the image of American democracy for all the world to see. Not only will his Fifth Avenue kool-aid drinkers stumble through life believing the election was illegitimate, but millions of citizens in nations around the world who have long looked to the United States as a great bastion of democracy will start to wonder if their admiration has been misplaced.

That’s what makes Trump dangerous to the country now as he thrashes about in his inimitably garish way, hoping, it seems, to be remembered as the world’s greatest sore loser. What a chump. I believe his portrait is destined for the Vidkun Quisling Hall of Infamy and I fervently hope that his name, like that of Quisling, may become a noxious byword to the people of every nation for decades to come.

 

Footnotes

* i.e, not Fox

** i.e, Fox

 

Things I Thought I'd Never See

 Is this the year when everything finally comes into focus? Is that why 2020 seems so unusual? I say this because of the god-awful load of caca that has gone down this year and which I thought I’d never have to experience.

Just for the record, here are a few things I thought I’d never see in my lifetime:

       Wildfires burning up 4% of California’s land 

       area, killing 31 people.

 

       Two hurricanes at once in the Gulf of Mexico.

 

The heart-breaking and untimely death of  a judicial icon whose courage and brilliance could have done us a world of good in the coming months. May flights of angels sing you to your rest, Justice Ginsburg.

 

A viral pandemic killing far more people within a year than were killed in the first year of any war in our nation’s history.

 

A president who admits out loud that he downplayed the danger of this virus while hundreds of people were dying from it every day.

 

And, worst of all, a hefty chunk of my fellow citizens continuing to support this president despite his criminal mishandling of the pandemic…

 

…and his failure to pay his fair share of taxes

 

…and his expressions of contempt for John McCain and other fallen veterans

 

…and his boasting about sexual assaults on women

 

…and his bigoted support of white supremacists

 

…and his idiotic dismissing of climate change as a “Chinese hoax”

 

…and his blatant contempt for American institutions of democracy including the free press, an independent judiciary, and constitutional provisions for impeachment

 

…and his illegal use of Congressionally mandated funds to extort an ally into spreading baseless smears against a political rival

 

…and his admiration for tyrannical thugs like Putin, Kim Jong-un, and Recep Erdogan

 

…and his long history of crooked business schemes including a fraudulent “university” and a “charity” that he used illegally for his own benefit

 

...and his mysterious indebtedness of 421 million dollars to...well, to whom? Is it to Putin or Erdogan or one of the other thuggish types that Trump likes to do favors for?

 

And…well, I won’t go on (though I could). You get what I’m saying. Five years ago I would have said, “No public figure as crooked, dishonest, and utterly self-serving as Trump could get even 20 percent of the voters to support him.” Yes, I thought I knew my fellow Americans, but I was deceived and deluded. Now I see that his cult-like following still comes to about 40 percent of the voting public. 

 

Really, my fellow Americans? Really?

 

Trump caught many of us by surprise, but it isn’t entirely our fault. Most of us never imagined that a well-funded news organization would partner up with him to promote his insidious cons just to boost their own revenue. I never really admired Fox, but I didn’t think they would debase themselves by turning into Trump’s own personal “Pravda.”

 

And we could hardly have been expected to foresee hard-core Republican cold warriors like Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham simply falling into line with Trump when he cozied up to Putin and dismissed his own CIA’s warnings about Russian malevolence. Trump is a crook who seeks long-term benefit from his partnership with Putin – that’s one thing. But most of us certainly didn’t expect the entire GOP leadership to say, “Do what you like with America’s sworn enemy, Donald, just don’t hurt our re-election chances.” Lindsey? Marco? Do you guys need some help finding your missing backbones? Or do you plan to stay with the Putin-Trump team indefinitely?

 

Where are the Republicans of character, the ones like Elliot Richardson and Howard Baker who told Richard Nixon he had crossed the uncrossable line? Sadly, they are few, far between, and not in office.

 

So – 2020, the year of things that just won’t stop sucking.

 

But I believe we’re going to get out of this year with bright prospects in the months to come.

 

It was a promising sign last spring when a kinky Korean comedy won the Oscar. And now an African-Indian-American woman of obvious talent and strong character stands ready to be our next vice president. Finally, there’s Joe, who is outperforming most of our expectations, certainly mine.

 

These seemingly unrelated developments speak to a fundamental recognition that we are, after all, part of One World. I know there are truckloads of Americans who bristle at the idea of One World, but those folks seem to be pretty bad at counting. We’ve only got one world by my count, and the sooner we make it as seamless as is feasible, the better off we’ll be.

 

So even in the face of the endless horrors of this year, it looks like the arc of justice is beginning to bend our way. And that’s good news for those of us who want things to start making sense. All we need to do now is vote next month, and next year get to work repairing the damage of 2020. 

 

 

 

And, from the New Yorker, a fitting lagniappe:

 

 

 

So, Just Another "Low Information Voter," Are We?

You call yourself a responsible, well-informed citizen, do you? Well, well, well. I just wonder.

 Have you really done all you can to stay informed? Have you, may I ask, read all the recent books that have come out describing the incompetence and malfeasance of the Trump administration? Have you, for example, read Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough, John Bolton’s The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig’s A Very Stable Genius, Norman Eisen’s A Case for the American People: The United States v. Donald J. Trump, Brian Stelter’s Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth,  Jeffrey Toobin’s True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigations of Donald Trump, Jim Sciutto’s The Madman Theory: Trump Takes on the World, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff’s Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady, Michael Cohen’s Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump, Michael Schmidt's Donald Trump vs. the United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President, Peter Strzok's Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump? And finally, have you pre-ordered Bob Woodward’s Rage which is scheduled for release next Tuesday?

 

You haven’t? Then shame on you.

 

OK, I’m kidding. Go ahead and breathe a sigh of relief. Because, let’s be realistic, there are just too many of these tomes for any of us to read. This is surely the first time in American publishing history that the number of books flying off the publishing house presses with tales of White House criminality and stupidity is so daunting that no normal reader could possibly get through them all. There are literally more accounts of sleazy administration schemes and indecent enterprises than there are masks at a Trump political rally. Even the best-informed citizen does not have the time to absorb them all. And note that I only listed the books published this summer.

 

Frankly, I don’t take the time to read all these accounts partly because life is too short and partly because they all tell the same basic story, a story that those of us who are paying attention and who are not mesmerized by Fox News’s bubble of unreality know all too well: Donald Trump is a pathological liar, a bigot, a misogynist, and a malignant narcissist who cares only about himself and considers the people who support him a bunch of pathetic dupes.

 

It’s also worth remembering that in addition to being a grossly unethical individual, he is also an incompetent ignoramus. During a tour of the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, where the remains of over 1.000 sailors lie entombed, Trump turned to his chief of staff and asked, “Hey John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?”*

 

Yes, that is our man in the Oval Office: one of the few American adults who doesn’t understand the significance of Pearl Harbor. But why should he know about Pearl Harbor, given his reported characterization of fallen servicemen and women as “losers” and “suckers?” If you fight and die for your country, or for democracy itself, you’re just another pathetic dupe in Trump’s world.

 

Now, just after The Atlantic magazine reported on Trump heaping contempt on fallen servicemen and women, along comes another shocking indictment: Bob Woodward’s description of Trump concealing the seriousness of the coronavirus from the public as far back as last February. Trump claims that he concealed what he knew about the virus because he didn’t want to “create panic.” Obviously he is lying yet again, since creating panic – about the Mexican border, about minorities moving into the suburbs, about Black Lives Matter demonstrations, and so forth – is one of his favorite things.

 

In fact, he really hid the seriousness of the virus because he wanted to nurse the economy along in the hope that an ongoing strong economy would help him get re-elected. For further confirmation of this, see all the accounts (or at least some of them) in the books listed above: story after story of Trump’s pathological lying, malignant narcissism, and utter selfishness.

 

But his narcissism may be his Achilles Heel. It was his craving to be in the glow of the spotlight that induced him to let Bob Woodward record hours and hours of his ramblings. He clearly thought he was such an impressive guy that only good would come from such an exercise. He was mistaken.

 

Let me wrap up by mentioning the one book from my list that I actually did take the time to read: Brian Stelter’s Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth.

 

I was particularly interested in Stelter’s work because media analysis is his thing and it’s one of my things too. In fact, I make it a point to watch his Sunday show on CNN, Reliable Sources.

 

As the book’s subtitle suggests, Hoax highlights the enduring (and un-American) mutual support that Fox and Trump have provided for each other. I say un-American because the way Fox serves Trump is similar to the way The People’s Daily and other government media in China serve the Communist Party leaders. Like Trump, many Fox shows (not all of them) are shamelessly dishonest in their Trump-promoting fanaticism. Two of the worst offenders are Fox and Friends in the morning and Hannity at night. Stelter not only describes the shameful dishonesty of Hannity and Trump’s other Fox friends, but he lays out in detail the way this relationship evolved, starting some 20 years ago. It’s a fascinating tale and a very troubling one.

 

I believe, that when we think of the damage that Trump has done to this country as a whole, and specifically to the families whose lives were shattered by the coronavirus, we should not forget that he couldn’t have done it alone. He needed, of course, a gaggle of corrupt and cowardly Republican senators, but even more than them, he needed Hannity and company.

 

                                              30

 

P.S. BTW, I talked about Fox’s pernicious influence in an earlier post, Stupidity Loves Company.

 

*As reported in Rucker and Leonnig’s A Very Stable Genius.