Note: Yesterday (I wrote this on 30 December, 2020) I did the attached piece. In it, I worried in print about the fact that some of the more idiotic Republican senators might contest the election results, and thus condemn the nation to yet more agonizing foolishness.
Well, today, I learned that one of those idiots, Josh Hawley of Missouri, has announced that he intends to do just exactly that.
He is clearly a danger to America as a whole, and his act convinces me that the GOP can no longer be saved. It may only be endured.
But, anyway…
I will reproduce the piece I wrote anyway. It is below. Maybe, even though it is obsolete, it still has some value in what says about what could happen next.
~mjt
Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri,
as he really is...
In just a few days, on 6 January, 2021, Congress will meet to confirm the election results. I am afraid that won’t go well. In normal times, with normal candidates, it would be a pro forma exercise, reflecting the legitimate will of the people.
But, of course, these are not normal times. And we do not have a normal human being in the White House. We have an orange-stained egomaniac who is supported by an army of fanatics, most of them armed, and many of them all too eager to engage in a bit of the Old Ultra-Violence, to quote Alex and his Droogs (that’s from Clockwork Orange, of course. Just in case you haven’t read it or seen the movie).
I’m afraid that we will have a bit of Droog-like behavior in Congress this time around. All Trump needs is one Senator to voice an objection, and that will put things into Congress for a painful and chaotic vote. I’m told that such a move would not put Trump back into the White House…but it would make things a mess, and maybe hamstring the American government for days or even weeks.
I’m also told that Mitch McConnell has strong armed Republican senators to play by the rules and not make trouble. And let’s pray that he succeeded in that. But, well, I’m not optimistic. Mitch…a.k.a. #MoscowMitch…isn’t what he once was. Some GOP Senators are beginning to defy him, for good or ill, and now, mostly for ill. And there are some GOP Senators who could easily choose to support Trump in his insane challenge to American democracy—either because of opportunism (Lindsey Graham, for example, who would so love to inherit Trump’s base) or out of sincere, albeit lunatic belief (Senator Tommy Tuberville, the former football coach and current freshman Senator who was a bit unclear on the three branches of government, and for whom the Constitution seems something of a mystery).
So, I’m bracing myself for what may be a very unpleasant few weeks…a little holdover, as it were, from 2020, just to prove to us that we can’t escape its tentacles that easily.
Still…let’s hope that I’m wrong. Let’s hope that something like sanity prevails, and that Graham, Tubby The Tuba, and all the rest of them stay in line. Let’s hope that we begin this year with a wee bit of sanity in Washington.
But…but…even if we do, I think we be must aware of something. To wit, this fight is only beginning. It was wonderful that Biden-Harris won, and by so many votes. It will be a relief to know that our nation is under the care of a pair of dedicated, reasonable, rational people…and that they have the assistance of a team of competent professionals.
Still, there were a lot of people who voted for Trump. They are lot of those same people believe the lie that somehow the Democrats cheated their way to the White House. Many of them, too, believe in the QAnon fantasy, and have somehow convinced themselves that Covid was a hoax, even as over 300,000 Americans died from it.
My point is this: we will not be safe until the underlying issues which allowed those people to embrace a kind of political mental illness are addressed. That means, I think…at the very least…working to ease our vast disparity in wealth that deforms our body politic; re-establishing public education with a focus on basic civics, the sciences, history, and liberal arts; and addressing, firmly, the dangers of hate speech, disinformation, and out right lies in the public and private media.
Until we do at least these things, and probably many more…
We will only be waiting until the next, and maybe the far worse…
Trump appears.
*
Until next time…
Onward and upward.
~mjt
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