Today, another batch of weirdly unrelated and fairly bizarre thoughts on sundry topics. Just my little gift to you. No need to thank me.
1.
I don’t envy Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. right now. He’s investigating Donald Trump’s financial dealings. Closely examining 45’s activities can’t be fun. I mean, sort of like being a veterinary proctologist doing a colon cleanse on a dyspeptic elephant, but without as many giggles.
In the room?
2.
George Conway, the conservative lawyer and Donald Trump’s decidedly un-BFF, has pinned a blistering editorial in The Washington Post in which he asks what should happen to Trump after the election. His conclusion? That the man’s name should “live in infamy,” sort of like the attack on Pearl Harbor.
I agree. And I suspect that’s the best we can hope for. And that’s probably what’s called for. And all that.
Still…
Is a fire ant enema really too much to ask?
Too much?
3.
I have been accused of being too critical of Mr. Trump’s supporters, a.k.a. Deplorables.
I reject this allegation. I have high regard for my opposite numbers on the other team. And, if I occasionally refer to them as knuckle-dragging, mouth breathing, nose picking, neofascist troglodytes…
Well…
It’s meant with nothing but the greatest affection and earthy good humor.
You know I love you.
4.
So I’m reading a story out of Colorado. It seems police stopped a Black family, handcuffed them, and pushed them face down on the street. That included four children.
Why? Because the police mistook the family’s SUV for a stolen motorcycle.
No kidding. It seems the SUV had the same license plate number as the bike. Only, the bike was from Montana. Somehow the fact that the stolen vehicle had two wheels, not four, and was from another state entirely hadn’t gotten communicated.
The police department has admitted the error and expressed regret. Though, the police spokesperson insists that race wasn’t an issue.
Oh. Right. Of course. Not an issue at all.
But… do you suppose that if it had been a white mother and four blonde children, would they have been handcuffed face down on the hot asphalt? Somehow I sort of doubt it.
And worse…far worse…I wonder if those children, after they were finally allowed to get up off the tar and the gravel, will ever be quite the same. And whether they will ever…ever!…trust a white man or woman again.
Just something to keep in mind while we consider Black Lives Matter.
BLM
5.
Which reminds me of Portland…
I have been following the news out of that city with real fear, and I was delighted to learn that the state had finally managed to get Trump’s Federales off the streets. (And wasn’t it amusing that once the paramilitary troops were removed, peace descended upon the city like the proverbial dove from on high.)
Of course, I don’t support street violence, but what Trump’s government did and is doing is terrifying. According to news reports, an army of unidentified individuals, recruited from any number of Federal agencies, were sent out against mostly peaceful protestors. Worse, they were using what can only be called Gestapo-tactics. People have been taken off the streets—kidnapped—by uniformed men in unmarked cars and taken God only knows where.
This is, of course, truly horrible. It is a real threat to American liberty and must be stopped — though if Trump is (God forbid!) returned to the White House then we can expect a great deal more of it, and not just in Portland.
But, even if Trump is not re-elected (for which, let us all work and pray), then we still have a serious problem. He may be gone, but the people he and William Barr recruited into their private army will still be there. Figuring out what to do with them, and how to prevent them coming back, may be the first and most difficult task to be undertaken by a Biden administration.
What do we do with him?
6.
And finally…
The other day I saw an article in which an accomplished writer and intellectual attempted to forecast what historians will say about Trump. As part of the experiment, he wrote a text about our current benighted period, as the author of a textbook might write. His piece was thus controlled and restrained, attempting to catalog Trump’s transgressions without undue emotion, which is how historians write, of course.
Yet, I was left wondering. Is calm and dispassionate reflection really what’s called for at the moment? Or, given the dangers represented by Trump, should we not rage against his madness and cruelty?
For Trump is not yet history. We are still in the present. And the time now is not for scholarship…
But for action.
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Which is another way of saying…Vote in November.
Vote as if your life depends on it.
Because it does.
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Until next time….
Onward and upward.
Vote as if you life depends on it...because it may.