Wednesday December 16, 2020 (9 days til Christmas)
Election Day -43
36 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
Last night Rachel outlined the many things the new guy who is taking over from Barr has done as Barr’s assistant. He has been behind most, if not all of the most egregious things that Barr has done. I’d call him the Riff-Raff of the Justice Department. One thing Satan and Barr have done is expose how fragile our democracy and our institutions are. Similarly, McConnell has demonstrated the same thing but in the congressional branch. Taken together they (Satan, Barr, McConnell) have carried out an all out assault on our institutions and our way of life as it regards our beliefs in what this nation is all about.
Although this is nothing new for the Republicans the alarming brazenness leaves nothing to the imagination. There is little or no room to suggest that they are doing anything but what they are doing. One thing about Satan is that he commits crimes out in the open. There is no subtlety to it*, other than he is committing other crimes in the background.
I forget which commentator said this but one thing Trump can do and has done is to suck the soul right out of people. How he is able to do this will be studied, I am sure, for many years.
For those of us who cherish our democracy, our institutions, and our way of life, it makes us very aware that we need to do something to shore up those things we hold dear. Part of this effort, no doubt, will have to be to teach civics again in a very real way. No more namby-pamby BS courses. There was a guy who taught a course on constitutional law up in Boston who got to be quite famous for it. Celebrity news crews would come and do stories on his course and the questions he would ask.
One time Dan Rather was in the class and the professor asked the question of whether a policeman seeing a crime being committed through an open door could cross the threshold to stop the crime. What if he or she only suspected? Etc. There were questions about the press and reporting. The prof would wrap up the question by explaining what the Constitution said about such things. We need more of that kind of thing.
If nothing else these last four years have been a laboratory in learning about the Constitution, the law, and checks and balances. What I think has become apparent is that are systems are fragile and depend on people understanding the limits and “playing by the rules” and “not pushing the limits.”
However, the limits have been pushed so new rules need to be put in place to safeguard what we have.
Or we might lose it all.
In other stuff, a few Republicans are reluctantly hinting that Biden may have won. This is both at the national level with politicians and some of my facebook loving Trump supporting friends. Albeit in a kind of nasty backhanded way. I’m trying not to ask if they think that it was “a free and fair election,” and that there was no voter fraud, and that Biden won – to use the words of Satan and Kelley-Ann Conway – “in a landslide” because Joe won by the same electoral college margin as Satan did in 2016? I’m trying to restrain myself. And if there’s one thing most of you know about me it’s restraint. (Nod, nod, wink, wink)
Oh, guess what? The criminal complaint filed by the FBI in regards to Trump’s Ukraine call has come to light. Redacted of course. The FBI turned it over to main Justice, ie Bill Barr. Justice “took care of it.” I guess when you have a crime outlined chapter and verse (or should I say sited chapter and subchapter of the legal code?) The Attorney General of the U.S. can conclude “there’s nothing there”? Right? Hum. maybe the next AG can take a look at that? I’m guessing Riff-Raff will be busy trying to make sure that can’t happen. Stay tuned.
*I remember my 11th grade history teacher talking about The Charge of The Light Brigade. These men had orders and they knew it was crazy and must be a mistake, but they charged anyway. They got slaughtered. A few made it through. Why? The enemy couldn’t believe what they were seeing and thinking it some kind of trick held their fire for awhile. The first few into the gap weren’t fired upon because the enemy was on either side and didn’t want to shoot their own. Why am I reminded of this with Satan?
PS “The Bubbles” as viewed from the lawn of The Jordan Pond House, Acadia National Park, Mt. Desert Island, Maine.
Difficult days lay ahead.
Read Jon Meacham’s The Soul of America. It put things in perspective and gave me hope.