Thirty some-odd years ago we lamented in these pages that surveying the political landscape was like being strapped in the cheap seats, being forced to watch the glacier races.
Congress conducted its business through a process known as “regular order”—committees and subcomittees held hearings, budgets were debated and passed, and so forth.
A democratic president played to a broad swath of voters, largely by promoting policies associated with republicans: cracking down on crime, lightening up on regulation, balancing the budget, and making trade deals. Few were paying attention to an obscure Georgia congressman with the name of a small reptile.
A certain Australian newspaper heir’s television network had only recently begun to draw attention for its provocative entertainment programming. Another heir, this one in real estate, was making a name for himself as a serial bankrupt and lurker at wrestling matches and beauty pageants.
From our present vantage point, we repent our premature lamentations. The faces of the world’s remaining glaciers did indeed race back uphill, nearly to the vanishing point. Would that those noxious heirs had followed. Regrettable as they surely were, these past few decades pale in comparison to what we suspect is about to befall us.
“Regular order?” Fuhgeddaboudit. Our democratic republic is about to try something completely different. We should even expect inquisitions.
In just ten days the 17th Chief Justice of the United States will, once again, administer the Presidential Oath of Office to the man who violated his previous oath by sending a violent mob to the Capitol in an illegal attempt to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. This strange conjunction of true facts inspired @Markfry809 to succinctly ask—on the social media platform owned by the co-chair of the fake Department of Government Efficiency—the most salient question of our time: “A domestic terrorist is poised to occupy The Oval Office. How the fuck did we get here?”
We can only assume that this time around the honoree will take the oath by placing his little hand on a genuine, Inauguration Day Edition of his best-selling “God Bless the U.S.A. Bible,” the custom embossed faux-leather cover of which gives top billing, not to God, or Yahweh, or Jesus, but to “Donald J. Trump, 47th President of the United States of America.” Available for a limited time only, the price is just $69.99. If it were up to us we’d have pegged it at $66.66.
A tacky Bible will be the least of it. The major innovation of the coming inauguration will be the 34-felony rap sheet, attached to our new Chief Executive like a length of bathroom tissue adhering to the heel of his escalator shoe. This is assuming, perhaps optimistically, that the Democrat*-run Department of Justice will, in the interim, refrain from finding some way to reverse, expunge, overrule, or Memory Hole the verdicts of a New York jury.
With appropriate temporal distance—say, a lifetime or two—it may be possible to savor the inherent irony of this moment. A nation purporting to abide by the rule of law is about to place a known, convicted criminal into its highest office because, at this point in the process, to do otherwise would be contrary to the law. Not for the first time, we find ourselves pondering Anton Chigurh’s question: “If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?”
The new boss is not just the same as the old boss, he is the old boss. What do you know—George W. Bush was wrong. You can get fooled again; some of us, anyway.
Since he was mentored by a mob lawyer, it is no surprise he’s bringing a gang with him, some of whom may be even nuttier. Elon Musk—who reportedly over-stayed a student visa and worked in the U.S. illegally for years, going on to suck up huge federal subsidies—famously wants to go to Mars. Other members of the PayPal broligarchy, doing business as Praxis, have their eyes on a big, icy playground, on which to build a “network state”—whatever that is. According to the usually reliable @jennycohn1, “In Nov, Praxis founder Dryden Brown wrote about wanting Greenland for Praxis. In Dec, Trump named Thiel partner Ken Howery as Denmark ambassador & said the U.S. shld buy Greenland. Praxis & Dryden are thrilled…”
And why would they not be, here in this best of all possible worlds?
Under such dire circumstances—and we have barely scratched the surface—it seems almost impossible to imagine any outcome but disaster. Yet we have, if not exactly hope, then a deep respect for the unexpected power of unlikely possibilities.
Thirty years ago this newspaper barely existed. Today these pages represent a whole community. Dozens of volunteers collaborate to bring it to thousands of readers. Who knows what the shock of Trump 2.0 might spark into existence?
* No, this is not a typographical error.