Impeached, Bothered and Bewildered

On Wednesday, exactly a week after the attack on the Capitol and a week before the Inauguration of a new President, the current stain upon the White House named Trump was impeached by a furious U.S. House of Representatives for inciting an insurrection. He is the first President in history to be impeached twice, and as someone also observed, of the grand total of presidential impeachments, he has half.

 The Washington Post finds him “increasingly isolated, sullen and vengeful.” He reportedly made the most Trumpian of all threats against his lawyer Guliani by instructing aides not to pay him.

Only ten Republicans joined all Democrats in voting to impeach.  Still, it was the highest number in history to vote for the impeachment of a President of their own party.  

 Mitch McConnell, also playing his own characteristic political games in probably his last substantive act as Majority Leader, refused to convene the Senate to begin the trial before Trump runs out his term. If the trial is to begin immediately upon the Democrats taking the majority, it will be scheduled for part of the working days, while the Senate gets on with the crucial task of confirming the new Cabinet.

 But with National Guard troops everywhere in the Capitol complex, the House is not done with the immediate response to last week’s attempted coup, including investigating the actions of one or more Republican members the day before, in escorting people around the complex who were among those breaking in and terrorizing Members and congressional staff, on what one military veteran and Democratic Member described as “reconaissance.”

 Preparations to thwart threatened violence this weekend and next week are accelerating. National Guard presence in Washington has already been expanded to 20,000 and may be augmented again to 30,000 troops.  That means, according to a House Member, there are more American troops at the Capitol than in Afghanistan.

  Since it’s just a week until the Inauguration, the Secret Service has now formally taken over leadership. The most concern voiced on Wednesday was for the possibility of bombs and improvised explosive devices.

 Federal alerts have been sent to state capitals as well. But especially since certain Republicans, from Ted Cruz to the crazy QAnon lady in the House, continue to fan the flames, experts don’t think the violence will necessarily end after Inauguration Week. Said one counter-terrorism expert: “People are still looking at this with eyes wide shut. I mean, it is truly stunning. Misinformation and disinformation constitutes nothing less than a major public health crisis. I think this is really the consequence of where we are now after the last four years.”

 Do you have to be as old as me to see this in the light of history? The United States fought the Great War and suffered the flu pandemic. After the tumult of the 1920s there was the Great Depression that shook this nation to its foundations. That was immediately followed by the largest and most destructive global war in history. There were assassinations, turmoil and violence in the 1960s and 1970s over race and Vietnam. But in none of those decades was it necessary for there to be troops guarding inside the U.S. Capitol against a violent invasion. It hasn’t happened since the Civil War. 

 History will perhaps see more clearly how the Covid pandemic is part of this national threat to the government itself.  For more Americans have died (according to official statistics) in this covid crisis than died in combat in World War II. Covid deaths will likely equal the total number of American deaths in that war by this weekend.  And that carnage took some four years to accomplish.  We've seen it in less than one.

 And if you're looking for more Civil War parallels, getting to the number of deaths in that war--which equals or surpasses American deaths in all other wars combined-- is not really out of the question.  (That number is approximately 620,000, though recent scholarship suggests it was more like 750,000.) 

With legal and financial troubles closing in on Trump, his attention is likely to turn to pardons, especially of himself.  Though the constitutionality of a self-pardon is doubtful, he may well see it as what does he have to lose.   A CNN report suggests a batch of pardons could come today, to blow impeachment off the news.  But since Jared and Ivanka--among others-- haven't had a word to say in his defense recently, he may not be in the mood to pardon anyone, except his own impeached, bothered and bewildered self. 

Epiphany in Washington: What's Next?

A week that includes the almost certain Impeachment of a President is not normally described as quiet. But it may turn out to be, in contrast to the coming weekend and next week, including Inauguration Day in Washington.

 The House of Representatives has the votes to impeach Trump on the article charging him with inciting an insurrection on the Capitol. It is likely to be voted on exactly a week after the attempted coup, on Wednesday. Enough Democrats have already signed on as co-sponsors to pass it, while a small but growing number of Republicans let it be known they will consider voting for it. There may be as many as a dozen.  What happens regarding a Senate trial is still being discussed.

 As law enforcement investigations of the Capitol violence continue, and officials quarrel about who failed to do what, attention is also turning towards the plans of white supremacist and related terrorists groups for violence in Washington and all 50 state capitals this weekend and the following week.

 Homeland Security is beginning security arrangements for the Inauguration as early as January 13, as the FBI warns of online organizing for armed mobs.  Washington's Mayor has requested all permits for demonstrations be withdrawn and most of the federal tourist sights not already closed for Covid, will likely be off-limits through Inauguration Day.

 A Huffpost story provided the most graphic account so far of three planned clusters of events, all involving violence. Members of Congress were briefed and:

 “three members said was by far the most concerning plot would involve insurrectionists forming a perimeter around the Capitol, the White House and the Supreme Court, and then blocking Democrats from entering the Capitol ― perhaps even killing them ― so that Republicans could take control of the government. Democrats were told that the Capitol Police and the National Guard were preparing for potentially tens of thousands of armed protesters coming to Washington and were establishing rules of engagement for warfare. In general, the military and police don’t plan to shoot anyone until one of the rioters fires, but there could be exceptions.” 

Other sources indicated there are specific (if not specified) threats to Speaker Pelosi, Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, and President-Elect Biden.

 The White House acquiesced to the Mayor of Washington’s request to declare a state of emergency for the city. Some 10,000 to 15,000 National Guard reportedly are being mobilized for a variety of tasks. It is likely that other measures are being taken that are not being publicized, so potential armed insurrectionists won’t be informed.  But additional Air Marshals are being added to flights in and out of Washington.

 Alot of the chatter may turn out to be bullshit but thanks to last Wednesday’s epiphany, authorities aren’t taking chances. Whether there is enough expertise and intelligence left in the Trumpified government to deal with these threats is another question.

 Meanwhile, two Democratic women Representatives, forced to shelter against the Wednesday attack with Republicans who refused masks offered to them, have tested positive. The first was Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, in her 70s and a recent cancer survivor. She has mild symptoms so far.

 The second is Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington State, who issued this statement: “Too many Republicans have refused to take this pandemic and virus seriously, and in doing so, they endanger everyone around them. Only hours after President Trump incited a deadly assault on our Capitol, our country, and our democracy, many Republicans still refused to take the bare minimum COVID-19 precaution and simply wear a damn mask in a crowded room during a pandemic — creating a superspreader event on top of a domestic terrorist attack."

Epiphany: Second Day

The enormity of what happened at the Capitol on Wednesday became clearer on Thursday, which spread and deepened the epiphany.  Now eyewitness accounts begin to suggest the violence not seen in those absurd images, as the narrative timeline begins to take shape.  Though accounts still conflict, it seems clear that the entire US Congress--and the top three officials in direct line of succession for the presidency--were in danger for hours, while those in the federal government tasked with protecting them dithered and disappeared.

Consequences have begun.  The House and Senate Sergeants-at-Arms were asked to resign and did, and under fire from his own rank and file, the chief of the Capitol Police resigned effective January 16.  Meanwhile the suspicion of collusion with the rioters grew.  More people pointed out the obvious racism that was a factor.  Attention presumably turns to the Defense Department, Homeland Security, FBI and Secret Service.  

Epiphany reveals the enormity of the sedition by Trump and others in his orbit, as well as the legislators whose seditious lies led to the violence--and then continued after it.  The metaphor of the day at the NY Times was the fever (David Brooks) or the spell (Michelle Goldberg) breaking.  So such previously synchophantic outlets as the Wall Street Journal joined the Times,  Washington Post and today's USA Today in calling for Trump's immediate ouster.  (The Journal begged for resignation, the others for the 25th amendment or impeachment.) Speaker of the House Pelosi and Senate minority Leader Schumer both called for the 25th amendment, but failing that, started the wheels in motion for impeachment.

Out of the long list of congressional co-conspirators, Thursday's fire was focused on the two most prominent: Ted Cruz, the Texas Opportunist, and especially Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, whose announced intention to dispute the integrity of the vote jumpstarted the sedition in Congress.  In one day, Hawley had one of his biggest supporters (former Senator Danforth) say that backing him had been the worst mistake of his long life, and one of his biggest funders call on the Senate to censure him for "provoking yesterday's riot."  His state's two largest and most influential newspapers--the Kansas City Star and St. Louis Post-Dispatch, called for his resignation.  "Trumpism must die before it morphs into Hitlerism," the Post-Dispatch wrote.  Plus Hawley lost his major New York publisher and book contract.  The Missouri newspapers echoed conservative columnist George Will who called for the political obliteration of Cruz and Hawley.  Together with Trump, Will wrote: "Each will wear a scarlet S as a seditionist."

Morning Joe's epic rant also called for the immediate arrest of Trump, Guliani and Trump, Jr. for inciting violence at the rally that directly preceded the terrorist invasion.  Meanwhile, another folk metaphor suggested itself--rats leaving a sinking ship--as two cabinet secretaries resigned in protest, and nobody cared.  Several national security officials who had let it be known they were considering quitting, let it be known that their retired counterparts begged them to stay, lest the national security of the United States fall into the hands of the equivalent of AlwaysTrump cabin boys, like the teenage appointees Trump installed elsewhere in the government as loyalty bots.

The list of formerly complicit Republicans jumping off the bandwagon and calling for accountability also grew--Peggy Noonan (calling for Trump's removal), Nikki Haley, John Kelly, Mike Mulveny, even Lindsey Graham.  

Trump awoke long enough to issue a hostage video in which he acknowledged a new administration (he couldn't say whose) would take office on January 20, and he would work for a peaceful transition.  This attempt to short circuit efforts to oust him didn't work as well as it did in confusing and angering his mob of true believers.

Besides ongoing questions about what really happened on Wednesday, two questions about the immediate future surfaced Thursday: first, will Trump try to pardon himself (probably yes), and will that stick (probably no)? The compelling constitutional argument--and current Justice Department guidance--says that he can't, because no one can be a judge in their own case.  A more thorough and practical analysis in the Atlantic is pretty persuasive that if Trump tries to use it to evade giving prosecutors information or to quash an indictment, it will be challenged and ultimately lose in the Supreme Court.  Yes, betrayed again!

The second question is can either the 25th amendment or, more likely now, impeachment be accomplished in time to matter?  That's what will be the topic of the day behind the scenes on Friday, with the core question: will impeachment and conviction at least legally prevent Trump from running again?

Meanwhile, more than 3800 Americans died as a result of the covid crisis on Wednesday, setting yet another new one day record.  And it was broken on Thursday, when officially more than 4,000 died. Vaccine supplies continue to be hung up by the federal government.  Here in Humboldt, our public health officer said that the county has the capacity to vaccinate many more people in a short time if more vaccine made its way here.  Getting through the next two weeks until the new administration takes dramatic action--and however long it takes for that action to result in more vaccine--is the task and the challenge we all face. 

 All of this will put to the test what Rep. Conor Lamb of Allegheny County PA said in his fiery speech on the House floor Wednesday night (in which he called out Republican lies, which so enraged one of the Republican liars that he was escorted off the floor): "We want this government to work more than they want it to fail."

Epiphany and Sedition at the Capitol

 Of the many cliches regularly abused in media reports, probably the worst is "wake-up call."  At once inappropriate and most often inaccurate, it supposes that the reason that something--or the importance of something--has not been acknowledged is that everyone has been asleep.  There have been so many wake-up calls about Trump and his Republican enablers over the years that it's a wonder anybody got even a catnap.

And yet here we are, deep in the same nightmare.  The storming of the Capitol, mobs roaming through the House and Senate chambers and offices, while forcing elected officials and their staffs to seek safety, with damage and death in their wake, is supposed to be the latest wake-up call from any illusion that the individual in the White House is not our Homegrown Hitler, who in that tradition, today publicly fomented violence and sent a violent mob to attack the elected legislature.

Another, better word for what "wake-up call" really means in this context is epiphany--the truth made manifest in a sudden blinding realization.  And as Speaker Pelosi noted when the Congress defied the violent mob and returned to their business, January 6 is the Feast of the Epiphany in the Christian calendar.

Unfortunately for some elected officials, that business was to continue an act of sedition, of attempting to nullify the votes of Americans in a legal election.  The day's violence deterred some, but not the many House Members who insisted on their pious windbag five minutes in the middle of the night.   Nevertheless, at around 3:30 a. Eastern, the Congress fulfilled its necessary but basically ceremonial duty to affirm finally that in two weeks Joseph R. Biden will be inaugurated President, and Kamala Harris Vice-President.

In the wake of this I scan the headlines with charges of sedition and "President Trump has committed treason" and many calls by current and former high officials and major organizations for Trump's immediate removal from office, either by invoking the 25th amendment (which is reportedly under discussion by at least aides to the Cabinet officials who must make that determination) or Impeachment and Conviction.

Will those voices grow louder, or will they fade tomorrow?  Was this an epiphany, or another wake-up call ignored?  Can a wake-up call break through social media hypnotism, or the functional hypnotism of craven political ambition?  Can an epiphany move to action?

Another epiphany of the day is how broken the Trump administration is.  On a day that the Capitol building was assaulted, overwhelming the unprepared Capitol Police (with some indication that some were even complicit), there was not an official word from the federal government: not from Justice, not from Homeland Security, the FBI, anyone.  Certainly not from the White House, where someone sought fit to leak their impression that Trump was pleased by the attack.

Instead there were a few almost comic resignations--the First Lady's chief of staff, the WH social secretary--and rumors of other more senior resignations to come--which will add to the chaos that has become the Trump administration.  

Otherwise, the media is full of opinion, which is perhaps all it can be filled with since so many reporters are working from home during the covid crisis, while we are very much short of facts.  Thursday may turn out to be even more dramatic,  stoked by whatever is happening behind the scenes.  Because in terms of public information we are in a dark void.   

If You Can Keep It

I am writing on Monday night, the eve of the (latest) three days that will shake America. When they are over, things will be different. How different and in what direction is at issue. 

 First, it is election day in Georgia—the special election of two U.S. Senators, which will decide the Senate majority and greatly (though not wholly) determine the ability of the Biden administration to get legislation passed. The Republicans have the advantage of incumbency in a perennially red state in the deep South, where they have spent their campaign and media appealing to the state’s racist past.

 However, the Biden-Harris presidential ticket did win the state just months ago, and early voting numbers were very high and seem likely to be favorable to the Democratic candidates. Reporters for Slate and others suggest that Sunday’s revelation of Trump’s functionally treasonous phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State, strong-arming him to change votes, has been the overwhelmingly top news story in Georgia since, with unknown repercussions. If disenchantment with Trump suppresses Republican votes today, the Democrats have a chance, these reporters feel.

 What I haven’t seen anyone mention yet is how long it may be before Georgia has definitive results, if the elections are close, nor in what order the votes will be counted. In November, the Trump votes came in early, and Biden only gradually took the lead towards the end, several days later. How long will it be before we know the outcome, and what kind of uproar will there be depending on results? 

 Wherever the vote count is on Wednesday, attention will turn to the formerly ceremonial counting of the states’ electoral college votes in Congress. Thirteen Senators and more than a hundred House Members are likely to object to the results in one or more of the 6 “swing” states, forcing debates and votes. 

 These results were never going to be overturned in the House—so Republicans who care more about their privileged life in Washington than they do about American democracy can play to their AlwaysTrump base at home, without actually endangering the outcome. 

 But even a few weeks ago it was clear that the objections would also fail in the Senate. There were just enough Republican Senators on the record to deny a majority. But then one ambitious GOP Senator, eyeing a 2024 presidential run, announced he would object anyway. Then, probably alarmed by this appeal to AlwaysTrump voters, presidential hopeful Ted Cruz announced he would object, and went one better by organizing 11 others to join him.

 However by Monday there were many more than the original handful of Republican Senators who announced they would support the electoral results, including some Trump supporters up for reelection next time. Reporters (and perhaps Democratic Senators) expect the mandatory debate to at times pit Republican against Republican.

 My favorite response however was from an unlikely source in the House: a conservative Texas Rep named Chip Roy. In what is also usually a ceremonial vote, current Members vote to accept newly elected Members. But Roy objected to the seating of 67 Members elected in November, both Republicans and Democrats, from the swing states at issue in the AlwaysTrump attempt to overturn the election’s results. He did so using the same logic that I have on this blog: that if you object to the election for President in those states, then you object to the election of everybody in those states. They were all elected by the same rules and on the same ballot.

 His objections forced the 100 plus Republican Members who were going to object to the presidential election to nevertheless vote to seat Members from those disputed states elected at the same time, thus exposing one of the many elements of their hypocrisy.

 Like the ballot-counting in Georgia, the debates in Congress may continue for more than one day, though the outcome in Congress is assured. But meanwhile, our apprentice dictator has invited his most violent followers to Washington during these debates, and is allowing the idea that he might attend himself to be publicized in the news. The National Guard has already been called up, and the DC Police will be looking for guns. All guns in a DC demonstration, and in the federal area of Washington, are unlawful. 

 Meanwhile, political leaders and media writers were asserting in stark terms what is at stake this week, including the conservative columnist George Will, and even some at Fox. None said it more firmly than Tom Nichols in his Atlantic piece titled Worse Than Treason:

 "No amount of rationalizing can change the fact that the majority of the Republican Party is advocating for the overthrow of an American election. “Forget all the whispered denials and the off-the-record expressions of concern in private; ignore the knowing smirks on camera from GOP officials who are desperately trying to indicate that they’re in on the joke... This is sedition, plain and simple. No amount of playacting and rationalizing can change the fact that the majority of the Republican Party and its apologists are advocating for the overthrow of an American election and the continued rule of a sociopathic autocrat.”

 He concludes: 

 “The sedition caucus is worse than a treasonous conspiracy. At least real traitors believe in something. These people instead believe only in their own fortunes and thus will change flags and loyalties as circumstances require. They will always become what they pretend to be, and so they cannot—and must not—be trusted ever again with political power.”

 Other writers, including Jonathan Chiat, reiterate that Trump and his minions have been undemocratically inclined from the beginning. In other words: Homegrown Hitler, as I’ve been saying since 2016. 

 In fact, some former Washington officials are so worried that, if all else fails, Trump will attempt to use the military to retain power, that they engaged in a pre-emptive strike. Fred Kaplan’s report in Slate begins: 

" In an unprecedented critique of a sitting president, all of the 10 living former secretaries of defense—from five administrations, Democratic and Republican—have warned that the time for challenging the 2020 election results has passed, that ordering the U.S. armed forces to resolve disputes would be “dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional,” and that those who issue or execute such orders “would be accountable” and possibly face “criminal penalties” for “the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.” 

 Though Kaplan reports that none of the signatories (from the administrations of both Bushes, Clinton, Obama-- and Trump) believe a coup would succeed—military chiefs would refuse it an an unlawful order. This statement, published as a Washington Post oped, is to support them. Kaplan notes that according to an historian, that so many former Pentagon chiefs have never signed their names to anything. In yet another massive irony, it is said that the person who organized the oped is none other than the last proto-fascist in the White House, Dick Cheney.

 But Eliot Cohen (also in the Atlantic) suggests that while these are dark days, the future may be brighter, in his piece titled: Don’t Despair: Americans are equal to this moment. He also has been warning about Trumpism since the beginning, but sees resilience coming to the rescue.

 But he begins his piece with the best description of the habits we’ve been forced into since 2016, fully enabled by the Internet: 

" The most apt coinage of recent years is doomscrolling. Early in the morning or late at night, you can scan through an app on your handheld device for infection numbers, test-positivity rates, and news of vaccine shortages. If your interests range more widely, you can monitor domestic-abuse and murder rates, cases of depression and anxiety, crumbling small businesses, and the lonely snuffings-out of the flickering light of life for hundreds of thousands of the aged and the vulnerable. Or you can scrutinize the latest deranged claims and incitements of a mad and evil president; statements of support made by politicians faithless to the Constitution, intellectuals unimpeded by truth, lawless lawyers, and godless pastors; and the fears of the residents of one city or another swallowing hard at warnings of riots and wild-eyed Proud Boy desperadoes toting long guns. These are cruel facts, not exaggerated one whit.”

 But he is optimistic, though he takes a very long view. And we must allow for the possibilities of better news even this week: the Georgia Democrats win, maybe even handily with results just hours after the polls close. The presidential phone call to Georgia has also stymied the AlwaysTrumpers in Congress so perhaps their objections will turn out to be brief and pro forma, and quickly dealt with. And the demonstrations in Washington are relatively small (so Trump won’t show up), and relatively brief and devoid of serious violence.

 Which only frees us to monitor hugely ballooning Covid statistics and vaccine chaos, but at least gets us a little closer to January 20, and what must happen to end the mortal threat of this pandemic before even more sicken and die, and the rest of us get even crazier.

 Cohen also quotes Benjamin Franklin’s famous one-liner, which for the next three days is less a witticism than a warning. When asked what kind of government the Founders had finally come up with, Franklin is said to have responded: “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

This Land Is Her Land

 On another day of accelerating carnage, consternation and confusion, a brilliant moment of light, of more than historic impact.  I can't begin to explore the possible dimensions of it, which in any case will become clearer in time, for I can't remember when I've been so emotional about a cabinet appointment.  Probably never.  So I cede the floor to the admirable compression of the New York Times lead to begin the explanation, and the celebration.

"In a historic decision, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has chosen Deb Haaland, a congressional representative from New Mexico and a Native American, to lead the Interior Department, an agency that for much of the nation’s history played a central role in the dislocation and abuse of Indigenous communities from coast to coast.

 Mr. Biden’s transition team announced the decision Thursday. If confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Haaland would be the first Native American to lead a cabinet-level agency. She would oversee a sprawling department responsible for some 500 million acres of public lands, including national parks, oil and gas drilling sites and endangered species habitat.

 

Ms. Haaland would play a major role in implementing Mr. Biden’s promised climate change agenda. She would further be responsible for working to strengthen federal protections for vast swaths of territory that the Trump administration has opened up to drilling, mining, logging and construction. Historians and tribal leaders said that her selection represented a watershed moment in the United States’ scarred history with its Native people.

 “It’s momentous to see an Indian promoted out of the shadows of American history to a seat at the table in the White House,” said Elizabeth Kronk Warner, dean and professor of law at the University of Utah, and a citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie tribe of Chippewa Indians. “Tribes and the federal government have a relationship that goes back to the 18th century — but despite that relationship, we have never had an American Indian at this level of government.”

Ms. Haaland, a citizen of Laguna Pueblo, one of the country’s 574 federally recognized tribes, would helm the federal agency most responsible for the well-being of the nation’s 1.9 million Indigenous people."

The Times story also noted that her nomination was supported by more than 120 tribal leaders.  Rep. Haaland is politically skilled as past leader of the New Mexico Democratic Party, where she helped turn the state blue.  She was elected to the House in 2018, one of the first two American Indian women in Congress.  She became a forceful opponent of Trump policies to open public land to destructive fossil fuel exploitation.

  With a compelling personal story, she describes herself as a 35th generation American.  Now she will be the cabinet officer overseeing American lands and waters, and their public voice.

Sedition

This is how it starts.

The attorney general of Texas sued four other states in the Supreme Court, demanding their 2020 election results be overturned, which in addition to sowing chaos within those states and in Congress (because, let us not forget, those ballots were for more offices than one), would deny Joe Biden enough electoral votes to be inaugurated.  What seemed at first a public relations gambit and a nuisance suit by a politician looking for a preemptive pardon while being seriously investigated for federal crimes when all of his deputies accused him of corruption, quickly became a Trump loyalty test and a litmus test for a statistical majority of AlwaysTrumpers.  Seventeen other Republican attorneys-general signed on, supported by 126 US House Republicans.  (Trump requested the congressional signatures, and he made it clear he was checking the list to see who was naughty and who was nice.) 

This inspired the first use of the S word when the four states being attacked issued their withering responses, with the attorney general of Pennsylvania calling the suit a "seditious abuse of the judicial process."  

 Eventually 20 states, mostly but not all with Democratic governors and administrations, joined to oppose the case.  They and many commentators expressed shock that so many Republicans would join in denying the basis for elected representative government, otherwise known as democracy.  But sedition? 

Following the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court denying the suit brought by the attorney general of Texas that demanded essentially that the 2020 election be overturned. the chairman of the Texas Republican Party issued a statement suggesting that in response: "Perhaps law abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the Constitution."

Okay.  Now that's sedition.  

Even before this, Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) requested that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuse to seat any members of the newly elected Congress in January who signed on to this suit.  He specifically cited Section 3 of the 14th Amendment "written after the Civil War to bar from government any traitors who would seek to destroy the Union." 

 He said this applies to 126 Republicans who signed as supporters of the Texas suit.  They included the Member who would likely become the Speaker if Republicans regain the majority.   "Stated simply, the men and women who would act to tear the United States government apart cannot serve as Members of Congress."  He called them " Members trying to overturn the election and make Donald Trump an unelected dictator."  

So this is what I meant about the Civil War.  Sedition is a loaded word and dodgy legal concept in a democracy, but when it involves issues that hark back to the War Between the States, it's clear, and it's a fighting word.

 Do Republican party leaders seriously want to start a civil war?  Probably not, at least not directly.  They support Trump's dictatorship perpetuation effort because 1) it's a spectacular money-raiser, 2) they all want the fealty of the AlwaysTrumpers once Trump is off center stage, and 3) solidifying the idea that Joe Biden is not a legitimate President will make it much easier for Mitch McConnell etc. to undermine and paralyze the incoming administration, setting Republican up for congressional victories in 2022 which could easily win them both Houses.

 But it's a dangerous game.  History tells us that Hitler was first elected because of a lot of factions out for themselves, trying to knock each other off.  They didn't started out enthralled with the Furher.  But that's where they soon found themselves.

If they don't necessarily want two sets of states at war with each other, they are fine with two utterly different realities at war with each other, creating an ungovernable country is a time of obvious crisis, apart from the underlying meta-crisis which threatens civilization and life as we know it on the planet.

This particular circus could have been much worse. Resisting it took heroic election officials in the states, the state and federal courts on every level that have turned back some 60 cynical suits so far, the media that won't swallow this.  Notably no Senators actually signed on, and several Republican Senators spoke against the suit (including one from Texas.)  

But it's still pretty bad.  Three-quarters of the Republicans in the US House, who were fine with the elections that elected them, joined the chief law enforcement officers of 18 states in demanding that the results of lawful elections be overturned, with no evidence behind their assertions, in a document that would get a high school sophomore flunked in Civics (if they still taught that),  Composition, arithmetic (a mad assertion that Biden's victory was mathematically impossible) and even spelling.  There must be law professors up on ledges all over academia.

 There will likely be more cynical court cases filed and thrown out, and there may be a play to try to get Congress to challenge electors in early January.  It takes only one Rep. and one Senator to start the process, which involves each house debating the challenges for two hours and then voting.  It takes both Houses to support the challenge, and the Trumpeteers are unlikely to get even the Senate. (I count at least 4 Republican votes against.)  

But that word is out there, and the idea is bigger than it's been, maybe since the Civil War.  (The S word being Sedition or Secession, depending on which side are you on.)  There may yet be violence around this.  But even if this particular typhoon blows itself out, the damage is probably deeper and longer. 

Defining the Precipice

 Let us recognize the historical moment, for what it is and what it may become. For what it is, because we are befogged by denial that is natural self-protection, helpful if we successfully whistle past the dark, but it can also make us more vulnerable and less capable. For what it may become, because if the worst happens there will be voices loudly crying out, who could have foreseen this? 

 First: We are in the teeth of an extraordinary infectious disease pandemic, ignored and brutally denied by the Executive branch and effectively--and just as brutally-- ignored by Congress. This pandemic is accompanied by a growing economic crisis, with millions unemployed, losing unemployment insurance lifelines, facing evictions, hunger and collapse.

 At the same time we are on the edge of an extraordinary political and perhaps societal crisis of potentially disturbing proportion. While the current Administration blunders around the margins of the Covid crisis, it is consumed by what is variously described as an attempted coup or official insurrection, trying to scuttle election results and retain the dictator apprentice by any means.

 This is a seriously dangerous combination. The Covid infections, hospitalizations and deaths are just going to get higher for at least the next six weeks. Collapse of the health care system in some places is threatening or underway, and that is almost certainly going to spread. When hospitals are overwhelmed and deaths are doubling in a month’s time, other aspects of society are also threatened, beginning with grocery stores and the food chain. Covid alone—and the failure to confront it as an urgent national crisis—could seriously compromise American society as we know it. But instead of addressing this utterly obvious prospect, the current Chief Executive is denying it in favor of causing a political crisis which looks increasingly like it will threaten the social order for some considerable time to come, all on its own.

 But especially in combination with the Covid crisis in its upcoming darkest days, this political crisis could lead to serious societal breakdowns in the near future. So far the strength of democratic traditions and institutions, and in particular the election officials and the jurists who are doing their jobs (many in both categories are Republicans), are holding things together.  Others with power are responsibly supporting order by their restraint.

 Absent a sudden shocking decision from the US Supreme Court, it appears that the 2020 election results will hold. So apart from a long-term political struggle with potentially devastating effects, the near future threat then becomes the eruption of violence. 

 That it hasn’t happened yet seems to indicate that the residual stability in our society is holding. But the ground for violence is certainly being overtly prepared. That the Michigan Secretary of State, who oversees elections, should face 16 or so armed men outside her home cursing and threatening her in the presence of her four year old son as they decorate the house for Christmas is but the latest incident.

 Behind these threats is the contention made by Republican leaders on every level, as well as the vast majority of Republican voters, completely without credible proof, that the 2020 election results are illegitimate. This has led Heather Cox Richardson to cite the election of 1888 as an historical precedent, when Republicans subverted that election, and in 1892, when they subverted the American economy in order to defeat the Democratic President. It was a series of crises that caused devastating pain, just so that wealthy Republican backers could keep and expand their power.

 But others see an earlier precedent for not only an undemocratic and anti-Constitutional political crisis, but a societal one as well. Rep. James Clyburn calls it insurrection, and so does William Saletan in his Slate piece, “Republicans are the party of Civil War”: 

" The insurrection has been boiling at pro-Trump rallies in the past few weeks. In Georgia, amid chants of “victory or death,” speakers have vowed to “remove” a new Democratic administration, arguing that it “doesn’t have the military on their side.” At a rally led by Donald Trump Jr., a speaker warned, “We’re getting ready to start shooting.” Last weekend in Michigan, a crowd cheered as a member of the Proud Boys declared, “We don’t want a civil war, but we’re already in one. And we’re in it to win it.” In Florida, rally leaders called the election result a “war on our homeland” and pledged, “We will not allow them to fire a man for doing his job perfect.”

 In Arizona, a speaker demanded the imprisonment of President-elect Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. “We have to protect [Trump] at any cost,” he said. Another speaker denounced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, calling for “rebellion” and adding, “I’d love to see half of these people hung by the neck.” The crowd shouted its approval."

 Fueling this mob violence fervor are Trump’s fascistic tactics in a multiple of impeachable offences were he not voted out in a month, from firing or threatening to fire members of his own administration who don’t support his blatant coup attempt, and demanding “the names” of the pitiful two dozen Republican lawmakers the Washington Post found would admit he lost the election, to directly pressuring governors and other officials in battleground states to reverse their state’s voting results, a criminal act.

 The next step is actual violence, and whether it sparks widespread violence. It is not inevitable but the table is set for it. Then in the teeth of pandemic we are in brand new territory, at least since the Civil War. What would be the state and federal response? If a Trump “enemy” is murdered, will he pardon the murderers?

 More Saletan: "Some zealots are already taking action. They’ve targeted election supervisors in several states, issuing death threats against officials in Vermont, calling for violence against the family of Arizona’s secretary of state, and orchestrating a hunt for a voting machine contractor who is now in hiding. On Monday, Gabriel Sterling, the Republican manager of Georgia’s elections, reported a death threat against an election worker, harassment of the worker’s family, and sexual threats against Raffensperger’s wife. “Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence,” Sterling pleaded, addressing Trump at a televised briefing. “Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed.”

 That night, on Twitter, Trump posted a video of Sterling’s plea. He dismissed it. He accused Raffensperger and Kemp of knowing about, and refusing to uncover, “massive voter fraud.” The next day, in a speech recorded at the White House, he denounced both men again. And at Wednesday’s rally in Georgia, Wood and Powell, accompanied by Flynn, joined the attack. Wood accused Sterling of conspiring with China to manipulate the election. He demanded that Kemp and Raffensperger be thrown in jail. “We’re going to slay Goliath, the communists, the liberals,” he vowed. “Joe Biden will never set foot in the Oval Office.”

 So far it’s limited to incendiary talk, and not a lot of people.  But the matches—and the guns—are real.

Transition

Jeremy Stahl’s headline in Monday’s Slate said it best: It Was a Good Day for Democracy. Pennsylvania judges not only threw the latest Trump case out of court but told them not to bother coming back. Then the minor functionary Republican holdout in Michigan was satisfied with his fifteen minutes and joined two Democrats to certify Michigan’s election. (One of the Rs wondered if they could just adjourn without deciding and learned this wasn’t an option.  Someone has to win, someone has to lose, not everybody gets a trophy, they were told.) 

Update: On Friday and Saturday, Trumpists lost two more baseless cases in PA, one in federal appeals court, the other in PA Supreme Court.  The PA Supreme Court decision was "with prejudice," which means the Trump strategy of getting it to the US Supreme Court probably won't work. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign paid (or promised to pay) Wisconsin $3 million for a partial recount, which result in a net gain of 132 votes--for Biden.

 Then the chief Trump operative of the GSA finally “ascertained” that Joe Biden had won the presidential election, officially beginning the transition. Apart from the certainty of state certifications, a rolling catastrophe of lost court cases, and a rising tide of demands to get on with it, she might have noticed that Biden currently leads by more than 6 million votes, a total of more than 80 million, even before New York state has fully reported. The current percentage is 51% to 47%, and will likely grow. His electoral vote lead hasn’t changed, remaining exactly the number Trump got in 2016. 

 Biden now gets funds and access to vital national security and covid crisis information, and the country and the world knows we indeed have a President-Elect. He’d been selecting and naming Cabinet and other high officials anyway—now he gets to do it using a website with .gov behind it. As for these first moves--mostly Obama-Biden veterans moving up a notch-- the professionals in the relevant departments are overjoyed at his choices, because they will be taken seriously again, as will actually governing. Apart from Barack, John Kerry is the perfect appointment for a Cabinet-level officer on the climate crisis. This as well as other appointments made or reported are playing well internationally also.

 To say the writing was on the wall doesn’t mean much when it’s Trump, who can’t read very well. But the wall was crumbling and starting to tumble down: when Republican Senators actually tell you it’s time to start the Transition, the situation is politically done.  Trump will commit more outrages to keep his picture in the paper for as long as he can, and there will probably be a few more bumps in the process, but maybe we can begin our mental and emotional transitions, too. 

 It’s a victory for democracy also because this caps an election that thousands of public servants worked hard to bring off better than anyone had the right to expect in the year of Covid and Trump, our twin plagues. Too bad there’s vaccines for only one of them, but getting the other out of the White House is worth celebrating, again. With several more opportunities ahead.

Now we just have to get through these horrific weeks of both plagues, especially Covid, as the economy falls apart and the suffering spreads.  This administration is making sure their evil lives after them as they subvert the economy, further confuse covid crisis response and prevent government from helping by starving the states and zoning out on the federal level.   It's like watching a badly written tragedy of the real.

Post-Election Post 2: Outcomes

Bye, Don: it is a major outcome. It is not easy to defeat an incumbent POTUS, especially one who leaves ethics and legalities behind to misuse the office for his own personal and political purposes.

 Joe Biden’s victory is impressive by many measures. His popular vote totals and margin (currently crossing 5 million votes and 50.8%) are historic. According to Ben Mathis-Lilley in Slate: “ Per current estimates, he will receive something like 51.3 percent of the national popular vote, 3 percentage points more than Hillary Clinton and a higher total than any candidate challenging an incumbent president since FDR got 57 percent against Herbert Hoover in 1932. That’s more than Ronald Reagan got (50.7 percent) in his 1980 win over Jimmy Carter, which is still (accurately!) heralded as a paradigm shift in American politics.. When you factor in how high turnout was, Biden will likely end up getting a higher share of all the votes that were theoretically available than Reagan did in his 1984 reelection landslide or Barack Obama did in 2008.” 

 Biden will be President partly because Kamela Harris will be Vice President, and that’s damn good history as well. And they did it in concert with voters who overcame Republican voter suppression, and if you’ve forgotten, some of it is detailed here.

Then there are all the other insidious creeps Trump takes with him. Slate ran a series of short essay goodbyes to his family members. Soon to be gone (at least for awhile) are the family androids: Jared, Ivanka and Melania. In addition, it’s goodbye to the Nazi lawyer Bill Barr and the fundie Nazi android White House flack Kaleigh whatshername.

 Farewell, Betsy De Vos!  Bye Bye Rudy ("a noun and a verb and 9-11") G!  Sayonara, Mike Pomepo—and if Dickens were here to turn this pompous hypocrite into a character, he wouldn’t need to change his name. And what joy to tell Louis De Joy his last federal paycheck is in the mail, after he used the US Postal Service to slow everyone's elses, delay and suppress votes while enriching his own company.

 Oil lobbyist in charge of the Interior David Bernhardt and coal industry minion Andrew Wheeler running EPA, Baby Scalia at Labor, the illegally serving heads of National Intelligence and Homeland Security, John Radcliffe and Chad Wolf, the White House idiots including Chief of Racism Stephen Miller and Chief Virus Enhancer Scott Atlas—don’t let the door smack you in the ass as you leave, no doubt after defecating on your desks. And others too numerous to mention—I can’t wait to forget their names forever.

 (As for exits, I’m still giving good odds that Trump will resign so Pence can pardon him, and he can avoid being around for Biden’s Inaugural. In any case, he’ll be out of the White House long before 1/20.)

 So all that is significant and to the good. President Biden will bring sanity, decorum, ethics and empathy to the White House, as well as non-blonde women and people of color. We’ll get photos of children hugging the President and some good White House concerts again.  And all that will be very welcome.

 But the Blue Tsunami, let alone a blue mini-wave, did not happen, and the consequences are profound. Democrats did not win the Senate majority, and though they could get crucial committee control by winning two run-off elections in Georgia, it’s a longshot.

 I don’t want to prejudge the Biden presidency, and I hope the more optimistic analysts like Politico’s John R. Harris are right.  But without the Senate it seems the Biden presidency can do little but undo some of the administrative damage and otherwise inch forward by executive order and diplomacy (which, given Biden’s knowledge of the federal government and the considerable expertise at his disposal, is not nothing.)

 But he is highly unlikely to get much legislation passed, especially because voters returned prime obstructionist Republican assholes to Congress like Lindsay Graham and Devin Nunes, and most especially because Kentucky voters returned Mitch McConnell to the Senate and therefore Senate leadership. For there is absolutely nothing the amoral McConnell will ever do that isn’t completely to the partisan political benefit of Republicans, especially in the Senate. He did his best to destroy the Obama presidency regardless of consequences to the country and its people, and he will do the same to Biden. His sententious hypocrisy is only a stylistic difference--he's a deadlier Trump. He probably has an even better chance of success against Biden, because Obama had his first two years with congressional majorities.  

While the Trump administration will do as much damage to the federal government as they can on their way out, McConnell will do what he considerably can to sink the economy further, sow chaos in the states and country, and prevent a contrasting single federal response to the covid crisis, regardless of the damage to American lives and civic structures, just so Joe Biden and the Democrats will look bad.

 Democrats theoretically could take the Senate in two years, though the results of this election don’t bode well for that. What they cannot do is undo the damage of failing to take back majorities in state legislatures this year, which is the year that they redistrict. That alone means 10 more long years with Republicans retaining their gerrymandered advantages and perhaps expanding them, to ensure that they hold more power than the raw number of votes they receive would justify, by a lot.

 Further, it is in state legislatures and in state governments that most of the targeted voter suppression efforts begin and take hold. So those structural barriers will also remain, and voting will not be fair, let alone easy, for the foreseeable future.

 Until Election Day, it was possible to see the 2016 Trump victory as a fluke, which voters would repudiate. But now it’s even worse. Because in the past four years, Trump remade the Republican party in his image, and that transformed R party did quite well across the country. So now the Rs have no reason other than their vaporized consciences to repudiate Trumpism, and plenty of reasons to embrace it because it worked for them.

Among its darker features is the liberation of racial and other prejudices, especially very old ones.  Right now Republicans pin their Georgia hopes on the resonance of the name Chuck Schumer in winning those Senate seats and preventing the New York Jew from becoming Majority Leader.  As well as the Blacks taking over Georgia.

 Political pros and media continue to wag their fingers at current fascistic tendencies to deny that votes for Democratic candidates could possibly be legitimate, warning that it will “damage the Republican brand” or do “ serious long-term harm” to the party. Nonsense. This election proved it will not. The R enablers of our relentless baby psychopath chief executive, our apprentice dictator, our Homegrown Hitler, didn’t pay a price for enabling him. They were rewarded. We can fully expect this to continue, as Republicans do everything in their considerable power to thwart Biden on every issue, no matter how many people suffer as a consequence.

 Trump leaves him with a government depleted of talent, experience and confidence, infiltrated by devious zealots with a taste for anarchy. He leaves behind a raging pandemic and deeply wounded economy because of his inaction, and by February 1 Republicans will be castigating Biden for ineffective leadership, for pandemic deaths and for a by then more obviously weak economy. And they will do everything that can to make sure there is no recovery from either, so they can keep the Senate and retake the House in two years, and retake the White House in four. And right now, I would not bet against them. Especially since Democrats are already at war with each other, engaged in ideological recriminations as a result of electoral failures.

 But even if the Biden administration works some minor miracles, as we devoutly wish that it will, the prospects of a longer term future were significantly dimmed by this election and what it revealed. What America needed was a new coalition sweeping into power, ushering in an administration as transformational as FDR’s New Deal. We needed it for the next four years and even more for the future ahead.

 It may be that the climate crisis is so far advanced that nothing will prevent the collapse of civilizations and the end of the web of life as we know it on this planet in the next century or two. But with an organized, concerted effort, and a galvanized country concentrating on solving common problems rather than fighting for stupid partisan advantage (though with plenty of room for dissent and alternatives), perhaps we had a chance. We need that kind of cohesion just to face the effects of the climate crisis we are feeling now and will feel more and more in greater scope and extremes. But it is clear we don’t have that now. 

 This election once again proves the enduring power of denial. Although exit polls may be as bullshit as polling in general was this year, they did indicate that presidential voters more often voted on economic issues than the pandemic. So Trump may have succeeded in talking down the pandemic, because that’s what people want to hear: it’s overblown, it’s a hoax, get back to normal.

 For the animal reaction to even a visible danger like the covid crisis is not only fight or flight. There is also the deer in the headlights. Humans consciously experience this sometimes as they witness something awful and feel, “this isn’t happening.” That might well be the animal seed of human denial.  The rest is a complex interaction of individual psychologies with reinforcement from culture and social groups to which humans desperately cling.

 If nothing else, the silence of the polls suggests that more and more, when a lot of people stare at a secret ballot, they go into a dark place. And we’re not even at the end of this logical chain of consequences. 

 The twisted and heavily leveraged interpretation of the Second Amendment that quickly resulted in AK-47s at political demonstrations (not to mention bars) has already blinded half the country to the tragedies as well as the implications of the massacres of children, Blacks and Jews. Now a prominent R politician in Florida advocates citizens be legally permitted to shoot to kill demonstrators and trespassers.

 How long will it be before the impulse of ordinary Americans to come to the aid of disaster victims begins to falter based on whether the disaster happens in a blue or red state? (Ask poor people and/or people of color about that.) 

 In any case, a little less than half of the country thinks the rest of it is evil, if not willing participants in kidnapping and eating children. And a little more than half thinks the rest of it is, one way or another, crazy. They share increasingly fewer facts, evaluations, assumptions, world views and even values. It’s a lot more than red or blue.

 So we can rejoice at the election of Biden-Harris and the changes that it brings. But we can also note, along with Tom Nichols in the Atlantic that “a large portion of the electorate chose the sociopath.”

 So we had a barely literate, incompetent sociopath on display for four years, completely without ethics or empathy, and transparently concerned only with himself. He presided over a non-response to a pandemic that has killed more Americans than any recent war plus acts of terrorism that so inflamed the country that it gave away some of its freedoms, and still stands in airport lines with belts and shoes in hand, or it would if flying didn't infect you.  He allowed the economy to sink into untold depths, persecuted brown immigrants and children, all of which is still causing immense suffering and will have lasting effects for at least a generation. He lacerated civic norms, robbed the federal treasury and his own followers, made a mockery of the law, and severely wounded the institutions of governance. He is an obvious con man and grifter, a convicted thief (if only in civil cases so far), a serial liar who makes absurd claims without even bothering to organize credible evidence, and a loudmouth lout.  He made the White House the tragic laughingstock of the world for four years.   He was the 21st century Richard III.  And he got 70 million votes. The party that supported him remains a powerful and destructive force.

 So what would it take? We had the most powerful and widespread wild fires in history, more hurricanes than the alphabet has letters,  and oppressive and killing weather caused by the climate crisis, plus a global pandemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of Americans and disrupting the economy and society for most people. This wasn’t enough? 

 We had a coalition of races, of the youngest and oldest voters, of women generally, with the unprecedented support of prominent Republicans of the recent past. This wasn’t enough? 

 We had a cartoon psychopath as president, who brought ruin, incompetence and corruption so obvious,  racist hate so stark and simplistic, and this wasn’t enough? To repudiate him completely, as well as all those moral cowards who followed and enabled him?

 Then what would be enough? 

 Maybe there’s time. Time for some other catastrophe to force recognition of the need to foresee before disaster, or even see a disaster for what it is. Time for demography to reshape the political landscape. Time for a new America. But maybe it’s not just my time to see it that’s running out.

Day of Joy

I expected relief, but Saturday turned out to be a day of joy. 

 When in late morning Eastern time, the networks and AP finally called Pennsylvania (throwing in Nevada shortly afterwards) and therefore affirming the presidency for Joe Biden, cheers rippled through the nation and spontaneous demonstrations began.

 Someone said she was approaching the Saturday farmer’s market when she heard cheers erupt ahead of her, and she knew exactly what they had to mean. And pretty soon there was dancing in the streets of Philadelphia. 

 Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, which had been the scene of police violence and angry demonstrations, became a happy party, all the way down to the gates of the White House. 

 And it happened all around the country, in cities and suburbs and towns. The cheering from individual buildings could be heard wafting into the air in New York City. (This Guardian video captured some of these moments.)

 “I had to explain to my kids just now that this is not the normal level of celebration after an election in America,” tweeted Preet Bharara. “It feels like Joe Biden also won the World Cup.”

 The joy extended beyond the shores. “In countries across the globe, people reported fireworks, cheering and the sound of church bells ringing after President-elect Joe Biden was named the winner of the 2020 presidential election,” wrote The Hill.

 There were also tears—of joy and something more. Here for example are the eloquent tears of Van Jones on CNN. 

The joy came from the people who made it happen. “Robert Mueller didn’t save us,” tweeted Jennifer Taub. “Impeachment didn’t save us. We saved ourselves. We voted. The people have spoken. Donald, you’re fired.”

" I am listening to honking horns, clattering pots, cheers, and joyful shouts," wrote journalist Eric Levitz. “My neighborhood – circumscribed along race and/or class lines in normal times, atomized into a collection of masked individuals in the COVD era – is sharing a collective experience of joy. Beneath the mutual suspicions, poisonous power imbalances, bigotries and species of self-absorption that color social life in this place, there is a low hum of shared values and solidarity, and today, Trump’s defeat made it loud enough to hear.”

" From the moment CNN made the official call onward, we finally got the catharsis that had been so sorely lacking on Tuesday night, and I think it felt just as good as it would have on November 3," concluded New York Magazine associate editor Benjamin Hart. “The celebrations in the streets of Brooklyn, where I live, and in cities across the country were reminders that unalloyed political joy is still possible.” 

 

Later in the evening darkness of Wilmington, celebration met drama when the Vice-President Elect strode onto the stage, in a symbolic white suit—the color of the Sufragettes. From that moment Kamala Harris and then President-Elect Joe Biden grew into their roles before our eyes, with confidence and clarity.

 “And when our very democracy was on the ballot in this election with the very soul of America at stake and the world watching, you ushered in a new day for America,” Kamala Harris said.” And you delivered a clear message. You chose hope and unity, decency, science, and yes, truth!”

 As the first woman and first woman of color to be elected Vice-President, she spoke to the girls watching, too young to remember President Obama. “Because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities and to the children of our country regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear message: dream with ambition, lead with conviction and see yourselves in a way that others may not simply because they've never seen it before.”

Of her own role she pledged: “I will strive to be a vice president like Joe was to President Obama, loyal, honest, and prepared, waking up every day thinking of you and your family, because now is when the real work begins, the hard work, the necessary work, the good work, the essential work...” 

 

Then Joe Biden bounded onto the stage, jogging to the podium, and gave the most energetic, concentrated, powerful speech I’ve seen him make since the 2008 or 2012 Democratic Convention. Even with a few specific echoes of President Obama, it was all Biden.

 He remarked on this day of joy.  “And what I must admit has surprised me, tonight we're seeing all over this nation, all cities in all parts of the country, indeed across the world, an outpouring of joy, of hope of renewed faith in tomorrow, bring a better day. And I'm humbled by the trust and confidence you've placed in me.”

" The Bible tells us, “to everything there is a season: a time to build, a time to reap, and a time to sow and a time to heal.” This is the time to heal in America. “ A time to heal became the universal headline. 

Then Biden forecast his priorities. "Now this campaign is over, what is the will of the people? What is our mandate? I believe it's this: Americans have called upon us to marshal the forces of decency, the forces of fairness, to marshal the forces of science and the forces of hope in the great battles of our time. The battle to control the virus. The battle to build prosperity. The battle to secure your family's health care. The battle to achieve racial justice and root out systemic racism in this country. And the battle to save our planet by getting climate under control. The battle to restore decency, defend democracy, and give everybody in this country a fair shot. “

 And then, the fireworks over the parking lot.

 “Protecting our democracy takes struggle,” Kamala Harris had concluded. “It takes sacrifice. But there is joy in it.” There was on Saturday.

      Pittsburgh South Side.  That white building was my bank when I lived on the South Side.

                                               Georgia

                                                            Miami

                                             Grand Lake, California

Post Election Post 1: Voting Heroes

                                                Counting votes in Georgia

So it’s taking a little longer, mostly because of the gun-shy network decision desks, but okay, instead of discussing the outcome, let’s consider the process.  

The process should be celebrated--though not the entire process. The most obviously broken part of how America does elections is polling. I’m sure the polling geeks will point out how they didn’t actually mess up big time, not really. But really, they did.

 Polling organizations, and media organizations that sponsor and prominently report polls, constitute one industry feeding off the election process. Another is the marketing and advertising industry that spends the money the campaigns raise from contributors. Those contributors got pretty much nothing for their money this year. The millions of dollars that the Democrats spent did nothing, and may have been counterproductive. It was excessive, especially during a pandemic when that money could have been contributed to organizations supporting public health. 

 Will campaign pros look at all this honestly? Can they afford to? Without the information from polls, without the go-to option of buying TV ad time etc., how are all these folks going to stay in business?

 Those are the broken parts of the process. The parts that came out of this shining, that minted heroes, were the people in Pennsylvania and Georgia, in North Carolina, Florida and Texas and across the country who worked themselves into a frazzle to get out the vote, to walk voters through the minefields that politicians created to keep them from voting.

 Vote suppression is not new to Georgia, but it was relentless, and they overcame it. Those people are heroes. And it looks like they’ll have to try to do it again but even bigger in the January run-offs, for the D’s to get the Senate. 

 In Florida and Texas and elsewhere, vote and voter suppression  were fought against but were factors again, though in the post-election period of recrimination and analysis, this will probably be forgotten. Except by the people who live there, who will fight back against it again next time.

 And then there are the people who counted the votes, especially in the most contested states where they were under enormous pressure. The election officials by and large kept their nerve, and the poll workers kept their heads in working long and exacting hours to mollify a restless electorate while making sure that ever vote was accurately counted. 

 And the voters, celebrated here in earlier posts, who came out in record numbers, masked up in long lines, to partake of this sacred American process. There was little violence or disruption, and voters often thwarted suppression efforts, though those efforts succeeded enough to affect the elections. 

 I heard that word “sacred” spoken about this election, not only by Joe Biden but notably by others, including network reporters, in connection with Homegrown Hitler’s White House whine that he really won except for everybody who voted against him, by definition fraudulently. He violated this sacred process of elections, the television reporters said.

 From the nuns in Catholic school I learned about two systems of the sacred: the Church and American democracy. Both had clear principles, moral foundations, systems of authority, checks and balances. By the middle of high school my misgivings about the Church were becoming a little less than silently ascendant, but my faith in American democracy grew stronger. The reason was simple: there were lines of authority and rules for all, including the basic rule that everyone could debate and dissent, and in the end, a lot was decided by votes.

 

By college my faith in the Church slipped away entirely, and though my faith in American democracy was taken beyond the breaking point in the Vietnam 1960s, and I endured more heartbreaking and mind-wrenching election nights (Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Bush) than nights that confirmed my confidence (Clinton, Obama), I never completely lost my faith in the process of debate and my awe for the process of voting. Yes, it was sacred. And human. And a prime definition of American.

 I also enjoyed the act of voting, the rituals of it, the secret ballot, inking in my choices and only my choices, seeing the ballot join the stream, while old ladies at tables smiled at me.   

In my hometown of Greensburg where I voted (and worked the polls for candidates) among people I sort of knew, and in Pittsburgh, where I saw familiar politicians canvassing from the required distance, and where I could buy a paper cup of coffee and a sweet roll from the bake sale after I voted. Things were more antiseptic in California, but still.. I was ecstatic to vote for Barack Obama four times (including two primaries) in a huge veteran’s hall that has to be one of the older buildings in Arcata. In a few elections before that I liked the idea of voting in a nearby public school. When we moved, we could vote there just by walking to the end of our street.

 Things were different this year of course. We all voted by mail, which works fine, here. Except for certain new wrinkles in voter suppression, the voting process was the most normal part of this election and these last four political years. 

 There are probably a dozen reasons why American democracy is so broken right now. But the signs are everywhere. In just the past week a federal judge ordered the head of the US Postal Service to take extraordinary measures to deliver completed ballots in time. He not only failed to do so. He out and out refused to comply. And upwards of 150,000 ballots didn’t make it. Even a few years ago, and certainly in my youth, that casual defiance would be unimaginable.

 It’s not a direct analogue but it is something else that has seemingly become normal but which is unprecedented in my lifetime: not just that the President of the United States makes dangerous and scurrilous charges from the White House podium, but that the major American networks immediately cut away from the scene, and prominent television reporters expressed in their words and manner utter contempt for him. This is also what we’ve come to. What much of this year’s voting expressed turned out to be doleful. And yet, even now, when the voting process is so wounded and defiled, I can’t help still seeing its beauty.

BYE DON

 

Biden-Harris have just taken the lead in Georgia, and will shortly go ahead in Pennsylvania.  While the Georgia lead is not definitive, once Biden takes the lead in PA, it is very unlikely he will relinquish it.  He is hours away from being President-Elect.  Though no doubt the drama will continue.

Poetry Monday (and Tuesday) Over the Carnage Rose...

OVER the carnage rose prophetic a voice,

 Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of freedom

 yet, 

Those who love each other shall become invincible,

 They shall yet make Columbia victorious. 

 Sons of the Mother of All, you shall yet be victorious,

 You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the earth.

 No danger shall balk Columbia's lovers,

 If need be a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one.

 One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian's comrade,

 From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another an Oregonese,

 shall be friends triune,

 More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth. 

 To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come,

 Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.

 It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly affection, 

The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly,

 The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers, 

The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.

 These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron,

 I, ecstatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you.

 (Were you looking to be held together by lawyers?

 Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?

 Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.) 

-- Walt Whitman