Wednesday morning, we woke up without a government.
Cynics might ask, what made that any different from Tuesday? Or, from any of the many other times when our political class has shot the rest of us in our collective fiscal foot?
Now, it is true that, if we define a functioning government as a body of officials who work together to carry out the will of the people, it’s been quite some time since we have had one.
For the sake of argument, let’s call it fifteen years ago, when President Obama, succeeding where ten of his predecessors had failed, created a system of national health care insurance.
This is not the time to hash out the pros and cons of Obamacare. It was not perfect—but it did exist. Suddenly, for the first time in their lives, tens of millions of people could afford to see a doctor.
Naturally, for performing this miracle, Obama was vilified by a chunk of the electorate, to the point of being called a new Hitler.
The rarity of this event, in which the power of the government was put to work for the benefit of the many, can best be appreciated by viewing it against the background of business as usual, which is to say, an unending succession of tax cuts for the few.
In retrospect it’s clear: the Affordable Care Act was a “triggering event.” The lofty few—used to being pampered by the federal government which they so love to hate—suddenly went insane with jealously when it deigned to do something useful for that lowly caste of schlubs with tax deductions on their paystubs.
To remedy this terrible situation, the Haves called on the Tea Party, religious fanatics, and Donald Trump—in addition to their standing army of lobbyists—to jam the shift lever of the nation’s transmission into a brand new gear marked “Bizarro.”
Predictably, on Wednesday morning, the whole apparatus finally shit the bed.*
Top Democrats went to the White House, cables in hand, asking for a jump start. Instead they got a metaphorical finger—the finger—and, in way, a threat: a couple of red “Trump 2028” hats on the Resolute desk—as in, “Constitutional, shmonstitutional. Try and stop me.”
If anyone were to speak up about the conflict between that message and the Constitution, they would be hit instantly with the scornful reply, “lighten up, it’s just a joke.”
You call that a joke? That’s not a joke. This is the real joke: behind that desk sits the world’s oldest adolescent. Too bad it isn’t funny.
Here’s what’s funny: him fuming about the “sinister” threat posed to his personal safety by a UN escalator, and the “sabotage” of his teleprompter—both incidents being traced back to his own staff. That’s not bad, coming from a man with no discernible sense of humor.
If only he would stick to slapstick, a métier to which he is actually well-suited.
Instead, Tuesday found our Snowflake-in-Chief in front of a massive U.S. flag, cosplaying George C. Scott in “Patton.” His captive audience: 800 U.S. generals and admirals, flown from all over the world into Quantico, Virginia at god knows what expense, in complete disregard of a fundamental order drilled into every recruit: “Don’t bunch up!” Slipped in among the usual litany of petty grievances was a blatant threat to “use some of these dangerous [Democratic] cities as training ground for… our military.”
Taken in isolation, that remark could be seen a just another slab of the same old blather. Consider, though, that on August 26th, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, aka Mini-Gobbels, said “[t]he Democrat Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization.”
On September 25th, the White House issued a memo on “Domestic Terrorism.” Jeff Sharlet, a particularly astute writer on these birds, read it very closely, and wrote about it at his Substack, “Scenes From a Slow Civil War.”
“[T]he memo expands the definition of the enemy from ‘antifa,’ which could at least be said to refer to a confrontational protest style, to ‘anti-fascist.’ Are you pro-fascist? You’re not? You may have a case of anti-fascism.” If you’re reading this, you almost surely do.
* We apologize for the coarse language, but it is what it is.
N.H. Gazette Hit by Market Basket Fallout
We were recently informed by some new Market Basket managers that, because it is “too political,” we can no longer distribute our papers at their locations on Woodbury Avenue and Lafayette Road. Early last month, Arthur T. Demoulas, the immensely popular CEO of the Market Basket grocery chain, was fired. We can only assume that this change of policy is due to the new regime.
We apologize to those who can no longer pick up our paper at those Market Basket locations. It is available at the Hannaford, formerly the Pic-’n’-Pay, at 800 Islington Street. A map showing our many distribution locations throughout the Seacoast can be found online at nhgazette.com/where-to-get-the-gazette/.
Would it make any difference if Gazette readers who shop at Market Basket were to ask local managers to let our paper back in? Who knows?