Everybody is alarmed... now.

 As the days since the election have gone by and Donald Trump has continued to deny that he lost the election, stories in the news media have taken on an alarmed tone. A good example (and a fine, hard-hitting article) is by CNN's Stephen Collinson. He hits the nail right on the head.

In essence, Trump, his family and his advisers are spending all their energy desperately trying to save a job--the presidency--that he appears to have no intention of doing in any meaningful sense.

The author's complaint, of course, is that there is a pandemic on, that it is worsening, and that Trump, rather than lifting a finger to help, is devoting all his non-golfing time to proving that Joe Biden stole the election.

Now that Trump seems intent on staging a coup, everyone's alarm is palpable. What I mean to point out today is that the time for alarm was November of 2016. I know I was alarmed. I woke up every morning from November 9, 2016, through January 20, 2017, with a fresh feeling of dread. And, of course, nothing Trump has done since 2017 has done anything to allay that dread. I have spent much of the last four years with a knot in my stomach, as have many other people.

I don't want to pick on any particular journalist, and certainly not Mr. Collinson, because I don't know how frightened any of these individuals have been, or how many warnings they have given, up until now. But my overall impression has been that the mainstream media have tried their hardest to fit Donald Trump into the mold of normalcy. He has not, often enough, been portrayed as a danger to democracy or to our nation's well-being.

Back in 2016, it was obvious to me that, in addition to Trump's glaringly bad character, he had no plans to accomplish anything. The Affordable Care Act, as a prime example, was to be replaced with "something terrific." There was no sign that anyone in his administration was actually working on the job of creating a new system.

If the news media were not aghast in 2016 when Trump was dealing insults to all and sundry, being exposed as dispenser of forcible kisses and gropes, making fun of the handicapped, and encouraging violence against people who protested against him, the question is, WHY NOT? Did they just find his antics amusing but harmless? When, after his inauguration, he began to antagonize our longtime democratic allies and cozy up to the world's despots, where was their shock?

The probable arc of the Trump administration should have been obvious and frightening to anyone long before his refusal to concede the 2020 election to its clear winner. 

When Trump became president, we knew his history of failure as a businessman. His appearance of success was propped up by copious amounts of money from his father, and by little more than his own bluster. After all the bankruptcies, when banks began to shy away from lending him money, he was rescued by his stardom on The Apprentice, and by Russians who thought he might be useful to them. As president, he was shielded from removal by a Republican senate that was only motivated by his role in building and securing the party's power.

As his niece, Mary Trump, has observed, Trump has been effectively institutionalized his whole life cushioned against harm by his money. Since his loss of the 2020 election, he has sought to get us to a place where the Supreme Court rescues him from the will of the voters.

When Trump was elected, I realized that he had elevated himself to an international stage where he could fail BIG, and that the whole world would be witness to that failure. Little did I suspect that so very many people would fail to recognize his failure for what it was.

Where is the astonishment at the fact that, after four years of unmitigated disaster, there were still seventy-two million Americans eager to give him a second term. The only way I can explain that is that it's a cult of personality. They like him, the ugly truth be damned. He attracts the low-information voter, the high-misinformation voter, the resentful voter, the voter who is as lazy as he is. He gave up on coronavirus because it was too hard. His voters gave up on gathering reliable information for the same reason.

The decent sorts who still support Trump

If you've ever watched the Golf Channel (I know, I know), you may have seen the occasional interview with Jack Nicklaus. He comes across as the epitome of homespun, genteel, aw-shucks decency. When, in 2016, he said he supported Trump, I started wondering whether Nicklaus could be as decent as he seems. Nicklaus announced today that he voted for Donald Trump once again.

But perhaps decency or its lack is not the point.

Most of us who are anti-trump see his insults, personal morality, lies, and encouragement of violence as such outlying misbehavior that we can't believe that Trump supporters dismiss them. They have told me that they don't see Trump's behavior as out of the ordinary compared to other politicians.

This is an interesting phenomenon. Now, I will admit that anyone from anywhere on the political spectrum will inflate his opponents' shortcomings to a degree, and will similarly inflate his own candidates' good points. Personally, though, I think there is a limit beyond which anyone should go to defend the behavior of someone who shares his ideology.

The problem comes when a person is so wedded to a worldview that he or she is impervious to even the most massive evidence against a politician who seems to share their outlook.

In an argument with an acquaintance, when all of my statements about Trump's absolute lack of character were denied, I figured that nobody could argue with a list of Trump's own vile quotes. So I listed some of them. I included his denial of John McCain's heroism, his referring to Megan Kelly's menstrual blood, his many negative comments about various women's personal appearance, his promises to pay the legal fees of anyone at his rally who would rough up a protester, etc.

The person I was arguing with told me it was foolish to quote the candidates, because she could quote other candidates whose statements would refute my argument. Never mind that no other candidate or politician says anything nearly as awful as what Trump says. Trump, to me, is in another universe. 

I started to wonder about my own perceptions at that point! Perhaps the folks she's used to in her own local political experience really do talk like that. So I said, "Well, maybe things are different in Texas."

Well, my acquaintance's reaction to that proved one thing to me: she knew an insult when she saw one. She claimed that such a comment was beneath me... or perhaps not.

So, after all that, I come to my point about decent folks who support this most indecent of candidates: they are apparently immune to any evidence that attacks their hero. I have come to believe that some people feel the need to defend anyone who seems to support their ideology, no matter how odious the person is. The worldview must be defended at all costs. Now, this makes me think, actually, that the person's worldview is fragile, so the walls surrounding it must be impenetrable. Nothing must get in.

I like to think that my tendency to give my liberal compatriots a break has a limit, and that I could not defend a Democrat who behaved like Donald Trump. I do not believe that Trump's lack of character alone is a threat to conservative ideas. They must stand or fall on their own. Politicians' misdeeds say something about the men and women themselves; they do not bring down the entire edifice of the ideology they support.

One doesn't have to support Donald Trump to be true to conservatism. Ask any Never Trumper.

Signs from God

Even in these days of science, there are people who believe that illness and natural disasters are messages from God that somebody (the somebody is chosen by the interpreter of the message) has got to shape up. For the record, such is not my belief.

But among the Trump believers (Trump being God's chosen one), there are many who believe that God works this way. What message do those believers see in their president's having contracted the coronavirus? The event that seems to have spread the virus to Donald and Melania Trump, and to several Republican notables, was the reception announcing Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Along with Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Betsy DeVos, William Barr, and many other current Republicans, Ms. Barrett is a person who sees her work as "the building of God's Kingdom." I would imagine that many of the above mentioned spend some of their time praying and searching for signs. Could any sign be more obvious than the sending of a plague to the Rose Garden? Now, if I were a believer in these signs, I would think that maybe I was being told that Amy Coney Barrett is not God's chosen for the Supreme Court.

I doubt that the Trumpers will agree with this. Somehow, the blame for the COVID-19 attack on prominent Republicans will find its way to the gays.

Donald Trump's latest outrages

I hope the veterans who voted for, and any who have continued to defend Cadet Bonespurs, are happy. He has called those who died in battle "losers." And now he has shut down "Stars and Stripes."

It is one thing to be conservative and vote Republican. It is another thing to vote for any candidate of one's own party without first examining his character. We all knew before the 2016 election, if we were paying attention, that Donald Trump did not consider John McCain a hero for his honorable behavior while suffering torture at the hands of the enemy. "I like people who weren't captured," he famously said.

We now realize that Donald Trump sees any action in terms of what the actor gains by it. Visiting the grave of John Kelly's son in the presence of John Kelly: "I don't get it. What was in it for them?" No doubt he would respect people more who were clever enough to buy their way out of serving by getting a doctor to furnish them with medical excuses.

I don't mean to unload on veterans here. My target is the voter who reflexively votes Republican because of the party's "tough stance" on defense, while ignoring certain Republican life choices. Two of the top defense hawks who got us into the Iraq war, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, never served in the military. Cheney said he "had other priorities than military service." Perhaps he saw himself as a future leader and didn't want to risk that future?

In past years, Republicans and their Fox News mouthpieces have turned every nitpicky transgression of Democratic candidates into major outrages: missing flag lapel pins, tan suits, Nancy Pelosi's haircut. That any of them could still defend our mountain-of-filth chief executive at this point shows an astounding talent for looking the other way. May their sore necks never find relief.

I am sick to death of all of them.

President* Donald Trump is insane and doesn't care if we die

Donald Trump doesn't care how many Americans die of coronavirus, as long as the numbers don't make him look bad. Several times now, he has said that we need to cut back on testing so that the number of cases goes down. Any sane person knows that the more accurate the numbers are, the better handle we get on what's working and what isn't. But Donald Trump is merely interested in making the numbers go down, by lying about them if necessary.

Now, according to the Washington Post, Trump wants to have hospitals send their case counts and death counts not to the Centers for Disease Control, but to a company called TeleTracking Technologies. Trump has also signaled his desire to have The National Guard(!) "help" the hospitals count and deliver the numbers.

The White House claims that these changes remedy what they characterize as data flow problems, but I think that we know how Trump's mind works: he is embarrassed by the numbers being reported, and he wants them changed.

Among those paying attention, I think there is general agreement that Donald Trump is harming the United States in many ways. The Republicans in the Senate, however, protected him from removal by impeachment. I find myself afraid of the further damage Donald Trump will cause between now and next January, but there are really only two Constitutional remedies, neither of which will work without Republican cooperation.

Getting rid of a president is difficult, by design. Impeachment and the 25th Amendment of the Constitution set a high bar for removal. I would argue that there is ample reason to oust the president in either of these ways, but he has too many protectors in his party. I would love to see some third way to remove the president in the case of this sort of emergency, but we would have to exercise care. If it were easy to remove a president, the Republicans, as they are now, would be removing Democratic presidents the day after inauguration.

The mess we're in

I haven't blogged in a while because there's too much to blog about. Instead of rambling endlessly, one wants to narrow one's topic to keep things manageable. There are too many things happening, some hopeful, most just bad. One imagines that in the future anything could happen.

The problem with all this is coronavirus. Now that Donald Trump has let that genie out of the bottle (and shows no interest in putting it back in), it looks like we're in for a historic calamity that we can barely imagine. There will be reams of history written on this era.

Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans seem always prepared to implement whatever policy is the most cruel. Open up the economy. Get rid of Obamacare just as the millions of newly unemployed are losing the insurance administered by their former employers. Open the schools, which will become petri dishes for new infections.

The unemployment benefits that are covering the newly unemployed now are running out, and the Republicans are afraid that continuing them at the current level will make people less likely to want to work. Earth to Republicans: the job market has already shrunk so much because of the virus that there are no jobs to go back to. It's far from being a matter of laziness. I firmly believe that people are happiest when they're working and feeling useful. And yes, Republicans, that applies to groups that you think of as those people. And besides, even the people who will have jobs to go back to during the pandemic are rightfully afraid to return to their workplaces.

If unemployment benefits are not renewed, and the moratorium on evictions is also not renewed, families will become homeless and need to shelter (if they're lucky) in the homes of extended family, or (if they're unlucky) in homeless shelters. In either case, overcrowding will cause more illness.

Now, no matter who is in charge on January 20, 2021, we will be in a calamity. There is, perhaps (or perhaps not) a trade-off between a medical emergency and an economic emergency. At least, hypothetically, there was. Trump has shown that the attempt to save the economy by reopening too quickly has made the trade-off disappear. We will have both a medical disaster and an economic crash.

What were the other things that we might have talked about, had Trump not bungled coronavirus so badly?

Well, the other big news of late has been what appears to be a sea change in public opinion on the Black Lives Matter movement. The public has finally seen graphic evidence of the problems blacks have with the police. This could turn into an awakening like the sudden shift in attitudes on gay marriage. In other circumstances, when we're not all worried to death over whether we'll be able to stay well, stay employed, stay in our homes, there might be an opportunity for people to learn the trajectory of our history in relation to blacks that has continued, uninterrupted, since 1619. Will this opportunity for education be swept away by the disaster we're in?

The Republican Party's evolution into a kakistocracy (noun: rule by the worst and the stupidest) has led us to Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Betsy DeVos, et. al. There is evidence now in the polls that maybe the public has detected, to some degree, the problems with conservatism. The party that wants to shrink government to a size where it can be drowned in the bathtub (and isn't that a pretty image from a party claiming to be pro-life?) is so far gone down this road that they cannot see that a big federal response to coronavirus is the proper solution, the proper role of government.

We might also be talking about proper punishments for the most corrupt administration in American history. But, mainly, we just hope to still be alive come election day.

When we said that Barack Obama had a big job ahead of him clearing up George W. Bush's mess, we did not foresee that a mess could be made in just four years that is so big that a good many of us won't live to see it cleaned up. Whether we will still have a Republic next year is touch and go.

Joe Biden is a brave man. His job will be a thankless one. Because it will be a nearly impossible one.

Know your tyrants

The "very fine people" who make up Donald Trump's base are fond of one Thomas Jefferson quote.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

They strut around with their military-style weapons and intimidate the populace under the guise of protecting their Second Amendment rights.

The problem with these people is that they wouldn't recognize a tyrant if they saw one.

In 2016, Donald Trump suggested that he might not accept the election results if Hillary Clinton won. He also warned that she would be a threat to the Second Amendment. In fact, playing to his basket of deplorables, he made this statement:

If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people--maybe there is, I don't know.

Yes, he suggested that an assassination might be the way to go should Hillary become president and start picking judges.

The tyrant labels his opponent a tyrant and calls for her assassination.

I don't need to point out all of the tyrannical things Donald Trump has done, or attempted to do, since 2017. There are lists being kept by major news organizations and websites. But what has he done, just in the past few days?

First, he called for his gun-toting fans to "liberate" their states from the "tyranny" of measures that would control the spread of the deadly coronavirus. And, indeed, his devotees brought their guns to some state capitals and bullied governors and legislators. They faced no repercussions for their actions.

Second, when blacks protested the murder of George Floyd by police officers, and when some looting took place, he threatened to send in federal troops if state governors reacted with what he termed a "weak" response.

When the looting starts, the shooting starts.

Then the most lawless president in our history declared himself to be a "law and order" president. He made it plain (as if it needed to be more plain) that the words "law and order" apply only to enforcement efforts aimed at the control of blacks.

Then our tyrant did a curious thing. He turned off the outside lights of the White House and retired to a bunker. The public reaction to that, many people calling out his cowardice, apparently caused his next action.

He sent out police in riot gear, and they teargassed a group of peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park. After that, our hero bravely strode out of his bunker, and walked to St. John's Episcopal Church, and held up a Bible.

Well, I have said that the "Don't tread on me" gang wouldn't know a tyrant if they saw one. But I may have spoken in error. They know this tyrant, and they love him.

Donald Trump is testing the limits of what he can get away with, and trying to push the boundaries of what he can get law enforcement and the military to do. A lot of law enforcement, I'm afraid, is with him. But I wonder about the military. At what point will they consider an order of his illegal and refuse to carry it out?

Dicoveries

With apologies to Harper's "Findings" feature.

The extra speed afforded by magnetic catapults over steam catapults on aircraft carriers is not necessary. New aircraft are being made so complex you can't fly them. You literally can't see an F-35. Asbestos would have saved the World Trade Center.

Injections of bleach or other disinfectants are recommended to battle coronavirus. The ultraviolet light from the sun cures coronavirus miraculously. The answer to coronavirus is to put everybody in a space outfit.

Raking the forest floor will prevent wildfires. Setting off a nuclear explosive next to a hurricane will blow it out. California wildfires are made worse by the bad environmental laws that oversee the firefighters' water being pumped into the ocean.

Smoking doesn't kill. Environment friendly light bulbs can cause cancer, as can the sound wind turbines make. Piles of dead bald eagles are commonly found at the bases of wind turbines. Carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas; it is a harmless gas. Carbon dioxide is a trace gas in the atmosphere, and the man-made part of that trace gas is also a trace gas. Nuclear warming is our biggest problem by a factor of about five million. Something's changing, and it'll change back again. The earth gets warmer, and the earth also gets cooler. The earth as it continues to warm is returning to its normal temperature. Every time you have that soil or rock, whatever it is, that is deposited into the seas, that forces sea levels to rise because you've now got less space in those oceans because the bottom is moving up.

Evolution is a theory that is out there, and it's got some gaps in it.

The Internet is a series of tubes.

Right-wing evangelicals on the origins of coronavirus

Matthew Rozsa writes this morning in Salon that Franklin Graham said that the reason for the coronavirus pandemic is that the world "has turned its back on God." When asked the obvious question as to why God would allow such a calamity, Graham emphasized that he didn't think that coronavirus is part of God's Plan, but that sinful humanity is to blame. Once again, all-knowing, all-powerful, loving God is let off the hook.

In the real world we inhabit, of course, coronavirus cannot be blamed on humans, sinful or otherwise. But some people are behaving in ways that help spread the virus more quickly than our medical system will be able to handle. The "some people" I am referring to are the followers of people like Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell, Jr., who continue to work against government attempts to prevent large gatherings of people. Churches stay open. Religious universities hold classes.

False beliefs lead to bad decisions. The scientists and medical professionals know how the virus works, and what we have to do to mitigate its effects. Right-wing evangelical leaders absolutely do not. In many cases, religious explanations of disasters are merely irrelevant, but in cases like this one, they are causing harm.

Donald Trump's godlike qualities

We live in a world that, from all appearances, has nobody in charge; that is, conditions strongly suggest that there is no God. Nature, although bountiful, is cruel. Predatory animals are constantly on the lookout for prey, and in many cases, keep an anxious eye out for the next predator up the food chain. Humans, although we have eliminated from our lives most animals that once preyed on us, are still in danger of tiny creatures that often kill us. Meanwhile, humans do unspeakable things to other humans.

The wonder is that, in spite of all of this, humans have spent thousands of years trying to reconcile this state of affairs with a loving and all powerful God. Theologians are engaged in this impossible task, and cannot be talked out of it. They have faith that, farther along, we'll know all about it.

Faith is that thing that convinces a person that a dip in the Ganges, one of the filthiest rivers on earth, has healing properties; that the latest prediction of the end of the world will come true, when none of the previous ones have; that Jesus will return in our lifetime, although he actually predicted his return in some of his disciples' lifetimes; that, when the doctors cure you of some horrible disease, makes you praise God; that, when the tornado destroys your neighborhood, causes you do declare, "God is merciful!"

We are taught this kind of thinking from an early age.

Is it any wonder, then, that so many people who think of themselves as Christians are followers of Donald Trump? Donald Trump is the perfect object of adoration for the faithful. He is a cruel bully. He has no regard for the people who voted for him, has fulfilled none of his promises to them; indeed, he manages often to do the opposite of what he promises. He is the most amoral, sinful president we have ever had; he surpasses even Warren Harding in his pursuit of women who are not his wife; he brags about assaulting women; he lusts after his daughter. He lies incessantly.

He does all of these things, and his supporters use their Christian faith to make them believe that Trump was ordained by God. Listen to the faithful when they declare that God, in his many mysterious ways, has often used "flawed" men to help him work his wonders. Look at King David! Horrible man! But he was God's man. Trump is a King David for our time.

It baffles many people, many Christians among them, that any Christian could admire Donald Trump. Why should anyone be baffled? I think it was inevitable.

Feeling despair about the Senate trial

I have been pessimistic about our Republic since November 8, 2016, but there has always seemed to be some glimmer of hope I could hang onto. Now that the Senate is poised to acquit Donald Trump without calling witnesses, it's hard not to despair.

Indeed, the Senate, even when acknowledging Trump's guilt, have made it clear that they will acquit him because they can.

My only hope now is that enough of the electorate is as tired as I am of a government that does all its business in secret, and enacts policies against the expressed will of the people.

In addition to Mitch McConnell's desperate efforts to hide the evidence against the president, he has also done other underhanded things. You'll recall that the Republicans managed to pass a tax bill without any debate, and without revealing, even to their own party members, what was in it. And, of course, you'll recall McConnell's shameful denial of a hearing for Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland.

It is going to be very difficult to elect a Democratic president, and to get a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, because of Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression. And Citizens United. And Russian election meddling. It has been pointed out by Ian Millhiser that the fifty-one senators who just voted against hearing witnesses in Trump's impeachment trial represent fewer constituents than the forty-nine senators who voted for witnesses. And we already know that the Electoral College doesn't work.

There is a trove of evidence that the Republicans are refusing to consider, some of which will be revealed in John Bolton's upcoming book, and much more of which Lev Parnas is willing to deliver.

Even with all that evidence, faced with a Republican Party that values power above democracy, keeping our democratic institutions intact will be an uphill battle.