The day started off so well. I had stayed up late the night before to follow the election returns from Georgia and woke up early Wednesday to find out the results. Good news, Democrats won both seats and will control the Senate for the next two years.
That was the end of the good news. At 1:00 P.M., Congress met to count the electoral votes of the states and to certify Joe Biden's win. We knew that at least two Republican senators were going to join several dozen House Republicans to object to the results in six swing states, and true to form, Ted Cruz did not disappoint. The most despised member of the United States Senate lived up to his reputation as the brown-noser he is. How this asshole managed to win a second term in office is beyond me.
Meanwhile at the other end of the Mall, the little dictator had just finished riling up his storm troopers and gave them their marching orders. So tens of thousands of crazed lunatics descended upon the Capitol building, and in less than two hours breached the permitter and gained access to the rotunda. They even made it into the House and Senate chambers. The Vice President, the Speaker of the House and both party's majority and minority leaders were taken to secured locations while the rest of the 535 members of Congress along with their staff hunkered down and barricaded themselves in their offices. It would be several hours before Capitol police were able to retake the building.
Surreal does not even begin to describe what happened. This was a siege, nothing more, nothing less. Do not refer to these people as protesters; they were not there to protest. Do not call them rioters; they were not there to riot or even loot. Do not call them patriots; they were anything but patriotic. These people were insurrectionists, period, intent on staging a coup. And they were egged on by their fascist leader, who, by the way, didn't even have the guts to walk with them. He scampered back to the White House like the little pussy he is.
That's what all dictators do. They never do any of the heavy lifting; they simply stir the pot and watch it come to a boil. Well, America is at the boiling point. The longest-lasting example of representative democracy looked like a banana republic yesterday to all the world and one man was responsible.
But let's not give him all the credit. He had plenty of accomplices. For the last four years he has been enabled by the bulk of his own party that failed to check him when he crossed the line, a 24/7 cable news industry that gave him hundreds of millions of dollars in free advertising, and social media platforms that allowed him to reach millions of gullible followers. This sociopathic carpet bagger would never have gotten to first base politically without all three. To quote a former sales manager of mine, "Nobody sells something that someone isn't willing to buy."
The lies, the scandals, the dog whistles which became bull horns, the corruption, it was all there in full view for everyone to see. This was the most transparent president in American history. As obvious as a wooden nickel in a penny arcade. An emperor with no clothes, only no one dared say he was naked.
Well, maybe not no one. That's a little harsh. Jeff Flake, the former senator from Arizona, decided not to run for reelection because he couldn't co-exist with him. While that's certainly laudable, it would've meant more had Flake not voted almost lock step with him. The same goes for Mitt Romney. Yes, he was the only Republican senator brave enough to vote to convict him during his impeachment trial, and kudos to him, but like so many in his party, he naively believed that he could somehow work with him. Susan Collins thought the experience of being impeached would "chasten" him. How'd that work out, Susan?
The adults in the room? Give me a fucking break. They all fled or were fired. Yeah, they wrote their books and made a bunch of money telling us what we already knew. Here's a question. If they felt he was that unstable why didn't they invoke the 25th Amendment years ago when it might've made a difference? Did we really need to live through yesterday's events to know how deranged this man was and is? I'm not a clinical psychologist but even I can tell he's whacked.
I've written at great length about my contempt for the main-stream media in this country, and, no, I'm not talking about Fox News or Newsmax. I don't expect anything out of that cesspool. But I do expect those at CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and, yes, even MSNBC to have higher standards. As early as 2015, former CNN anchor Campbell Brown begged her former colleagues to give this man a time out. But like the good addicts that they were, they couldn't put down their drug. Former CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves made his intentions abundantly clear. The bottom line was all he and his cohorts cared about. The country be damned.
Well the country is damned alright; in fact it's fractured. More than a third of the population believes that the election was stolen. And that lie was perpetrated by this president and allowed to spread like wildfire over Twitter and Facebook. Yes, it's nice that Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg finally suspended his accounts. Too little too late. That should've happened years ago. Now the damage has been done. Just try and put this Genie back in the bottle. Go ahead, I dare you to try.
The biggest surprise yesterday wasn't that this man and the criminal enterprise he calls a family - a family, by the way, that would make the Sopranos look like the Von Trapps - would incite people to violently overthrow the United States government. No, the biggest surprise is that people are still shocked by all this. How is that possible? At what point does two plus two equal four? I stopped being shocked the moment he called Mexicans rapists and didn't pay a political price for it. Indeed, the more egregious the trespass, the more popular he became. I knew something was wrong years ago, and I feared this day was inevitable.
Even after order was restored and Congress resumed the counting, there were those in the GOP that still refused to give up the ghost. Josh Hawley, who while the siege was underway, shamelessly took to Twitter to fundraise, had the audacity to object to Pennsylvania's slate of electors. Over in the House, more than 120 Republicans still voted to sustain the objections of both contested slates. Here they were, lucky to be alive, still carrying water for a man who could've given two shits about them. Calling them gullible would be a compliment. At least the rubes storming the building had some principles, even if those principles were abhorrent and fraudulent.
So what happens now? Well for starters, I'd like to know how the fuck these domestic terrorists managed to get inside the Capitol building? How is it that both the D.C. and Capitol police were unprepared for this attack? It's not like there wasn't any advanced warning. This president told the entire Milky Way galaxy what was coming and when. What part of "wild" didn't they get?
And what's with the selfies? Every single cop who was stupid enough to pose with one of these thugs needs to be fired immediately. There is no place for that kind of behavior in law enforcement. None! My God, these were insurrectionists, not pop stars.
There's also no place for double standards. Face it, had this been a Black Lives Matter march, you could bet the ranch that there would've been a far greater police presence, not only at the Capitol but the whole damn city. To paraphrase NBA coach Doc Rivers, had the people who stormed that building been black, the response would've vastly different. Instead of the reach-around that was given, there'd have been blood on the steps of the Capitol. Indeed, the crowd would've been dispersed way before it ever reached its destination. You know it and I know it.
So what are we going to do over the next 13 days? Yes, his Twitter account has been disabled, but he's still president and there's a lot more damage he can inflict on his way out the door. Remember, he still has the nuclear launch codes and he has already floated the idea of Martial Law. The closer we get to January 20, the more unhinged he will become. Just hoping we can ride this storm out till Inauguration Day is wishful thinking.
Impeachment is useless at this stage. It would take over a week just to get the House managers to pass the articles. And even if the Senate agrees to a trial, by the time a vote is taken, his term will practically be over anyway. The 25th Amendment may seem tempting, but it's not exactly a slam dunk. He could still object and it would take two-thirds of both houses of Congress to remove him. That process alone could take ten days. The only option that could pass in time to matter is censure, but the move would be a symbolic gesture at best. I confess, I'm at a loss with what to do here.
But there are some things that can and must be done. First off, it's imperative that the thugs who assaulted the Capitol building be brought to justice. Thankfully, many of these clowns took the time to pose without masks for the cameras. Good, that will make it easier for the authorities to identify and arrest them. The highest charges possible must be brought against every single one of them. A message must be sent loud and clear to would-be insurrections that if you break the law you will be held accountable.
Second, the 60 plus lawsuits that have been filed in various state and federal courts in an attempt to overturn this election cannot go unchallenged. Sanctions must be handed down to law firms that participated in this scheme, and lawyers who argued these cases in front of judges, knowing they were perpetrating a fraud upon the court, must be disbarred. You can start with Rudy "trial by combat" Giuliani. He's been, by far, the biggest offender over the last two months, but he's hardly alone. Sidney Powell and Lin Wood must be dealt with. Failure to address this affront to the judicial system will all but guarantee that the practice will continue unabated, jeopardizing future elections.
Third, so long as this country insists on keeping the Electoral College - and at present Democrats don't have the means to eliminate it - reforms must be enacted to avoid the spectacle we just witnessed. The best way to do that is to simplify the process by which the electors are awarded. Instead of having three steps, just have one. Whoever wins the popular vote of a state gets that state's electoral votes. The legislatures can't intervene and appoint alternate electors. Think about it: no safe harbor date to worry about, no meeting of electors to vote, no counting in Congress to certify the vote. If candidate A wins Pennsylvania, candidate A gets all 20 electoral votes. No fuss, no muss. If candidate B believes he or she was the victim of fraud he or she must bring a case in court within four weeks of the election. If the court rejects the claim, we're done, end of story. No countless, frivolous appeals in court after court.
Fourth, the media needs to be more discerning when it comes to what it reports as news. After Biden takes office on January 20, the temptation will be great to follow his predecessor. This temptation must be resisted at all costs. The best way to put out a fire is to deprive it of oxygen. This goes double for all social media platforms. Twitter and Facebook must permanently ban this man and his entire family. For the sake of the country, he must be denied the attention he craves. His followers will scream. Fuck 'em. First Amendment advocates will object. Let them. Since when did the Constitution give people the right to shout fire in a crowded movie theater when there's no fire?
And lastly, while Biden pledged not to use the Justice Department as a weapon to go after his political opponents, he shouldn't prevent it from doing its job either. The new attorney general, Merrick Garland, should be given the latitude he needs to prosecute crimes as he sees fit, even if those crimes were committed by the previous administration.
The worst mistake Gerald Ford ever made was to assume that pardoning Richard Nixon would end America's nightmare. The fact is it only prolonged it. Assuming he doesn't pardon himself and his family, there is more than ample evidence that this president is guilty of committing several crimes, including inciting the mob that assaulted the Capitol yesterday. A convicted ex-president can never be a future president and that is something all of us can look forward to.
This can never be allowed to happen again. This country cannot survive another presidency like the one that is days away from ending. Too many norms were shattered, too many laws were violated. It is time for the nation to heal, time for it to exhale, time for it to get a good night's sleep.
Comments