Parsing Out Dystopia: Trump Incites a Riot, Georgia Turns Bluer, Over 3,800 Dead

Voters went to the polls near the end of 2020 to elect a new president.  But voting took place under stressed conditions.  The incumbent president was defeated in the popular vote.  Certain groups immediately denounced the election results.  Later, when the vote was certified, violence broke out at the instigation of the former president.  Today that country is in turmoil wondering what comes next after the violent election.

That country is the Central African Republic.

Meanwhile, in America, former-President Donald J. Trump, proved for the world to see, that he was no better than "professional coup plotter" former-President Francois Bozize.  Having organized a rally of Trumpists from all over the country at the National Mall (promising the event "will be wild!"), Trump was going to counter the certification of the 2020 Electoral College by Congress with impassioned speeches by himself and other delusional speakers before a huge crowd of protestors.  

As a warm-up act, Don Jr. threatened to personally ensure every Republican who did not vote to disqualify the Electoral College and give Trump the election would be defeated when they come up for re-election.  He bragged that he was "going to have fun doing it."

The president spoke about an hour, forcefully repeating his claim that the election was "rigged" by "radical Democrats" and "the fake news media," Trump thundered:

"And after this, we're going to walk down there, and I'll be there with you, we're going to walk down ... to the Capitol and we are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women ... And we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong."

Almost immediately, many if not most of the protestors marched across the National Mall to the Capitol building where Congress was debating the certification of the election and very quickly became rioters.  They broke through four separate barricades, injuring several of the vastly outnumbered Capitol police and stormed into the Capitol building itself, leading to the hastened clearing of the respective floors by our elected officials, before the building was ransacked for about two hours.

This is why I can not read or watch fantasy or science fiction these days.  The truth is far stranger than fiction.  In the middle of a pandemic on a day when thousands died without comment from him, Trump whipped the flames of anger and fear into a frenzy.  The effect was that the US Congress had to be securely escorted out their respective houses as they were assaulted by a mob marching directly from his rally.  No one can write stuff to beat this for a dystopian view of the future.  

Dystopia is now and fiction no longer does it justice.

While Vice-President Mike Pence attempted to call off the rioting mob and requested reinforcements from the National Guard, Trump did and said nothing at all.  Much later, after the TV News had plenty of time to capture the surreal sights of the Capitol being engulfed by the rioters, Trump finally Tweeted a pre-recorded video, possibly recorded before he ever gave the inciteful speech to the mob.

It was even more surreal to the unfolding events.  As I watched all this happen on my TV yesterday, I laughed at the sheer political genius of it.  It was a benediction reaffirming ill-placed faith and concluding a ritual.  Hitler never topped stuff like this.

"I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace.

"We have to have law and order. We have to have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a period of time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us: from me, from you, from our country.

"This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel, but go home and go home in peace."

Peace be with you fellow mobsters!  (As Trump takes a page from the Central African Republic playbook.)

Four people died in the tragic event.  Hours later Joe Biden was officially certified as the 46th President of the United States. 

Time and time again, I read and heard people in authority make the statement "this is not how we do things in America.  This is not who we are."  Really?  After all the riots of the summer and all the violence through the years and America's clear preference for fighting wars and murdering each other.

Of course, such behavior is against the workings of the American Constitution.  Of course, it is unpatriotic and criminal.  But make no mistake about it, this violence at the Capitol is a huge part of who we are as Americans.  Americans are perhaps the most violent people in the world.  I don't expect this to be the end of anything.  I don't expect the rage Trump tapped in to to dissipate under Joe Biden.  Over 74 million Americans voted for Donald Trump, the most votes ever received by any sitting president.  Some voted for him simply because he was Republican and would "stop socialism."  Most voted for him because they wanted a "show of strength" for regressive (formerly conservative) culture and "strong leadership" against "the radical left agenda."

This is America.  It will always be America.  America is a country defined by war and civilian violence.  People shocked by what happened yesterday need to realize that what they thought America was never existed.  The facade of peace and compromise works pretty effectively during ordinary times.  But during times and places when that facade is truly tested (1968 and 2014, as examples), it crumples and all hell breaks loose.

People won't play nice if they have nothing to lose.

Now that the alternative Right is the primary instigator of the violence and rioting should not cause us to separate them from their fellow leftist rioters in, say, Philadelphia this past summer.  Of course, a major American city does not have the same symbolism as a riot upon the Capitol.  Still, the alt-Right are now brethren with Antifa where American violence is concerned.  Ain't no problem a good ass-kicking won't solve, right? 

It is inexcusable even within the general context of America's love of violence.  The violators must be tried and imprisoned, including Donald Trump for inciting the violence to begin with.  But I expect more of this not less in the months ahead.  People are mad on both extremes of the political spectrum.  We are a nation of Klingons and Neathderthals.  This is who we really are.

But some of us are still trying to do better.  Before Trump unleashed his mob upon Mike Pence and Congress, I was planning to write an upbeat political piece about the Democrats winning two senate seats in my home state of Georgia.  I was going to blog about how Georgia's newly-elected Senators might have a positive impact for the Biden Administration, giving the Dems control of the US Senate.  I was going to blog about how I felt, once more, that my vote really counted for a change and how proud I was that Trumpism was rejected by the majority of the Georgia voters.

With these seats Biden can now do almost anything he wants, but hopefully he will be true to himself and try to be moderate in his power - a radical change from Trump's authoritarian approach.  Biden could try to stack the Supreme Court or abolish the Electoral College or push through Medicare-for-all.  But I hope he will choose not to do any of those things.  They are all bad ideas and they will only serve to embolden the violent dissent of the Trump mobster base.

I figure that millions of those who voted for Trump would not actually object to an armed insurrection in this country.  They have no problem with using their "god-given right" to "bear arms" to "protect freedom" and to "stop illegal (i.e. minority) voting."  They would disembowel the Voting Rights Act and everything else the "godless secular humanists" have passed in the last six decades.  They would dim the enlightenment and sent us back to "a god-fearing time."  

Millions of Americans want this.  Millions of Americans live in a bygone era.  They are basically citizens of the time of the Roman Empire only now equipped with phones that are smarter than they are.  This is where we are and it causes me to wonder what the hell is going to happen to the Republican Party?

The Trumpists will continue to try to control the party.  Hopefully, enough true Eisenhower Republicans will stand up to prevent that from happening between now and 2024.  If not, I fear Trump will simply get himself renominated as the gutless Republicans stand aside, hands in their pockets, feigning disgust.  "We need to look at what he accomplishes, not how he behaves," is the pathological refrain I've heard over the last four years.  Hell no!  You idiots!  With a narcissist like Trump you cannot separate what he does from what he says.  Saying is what he does.  What he does is enable fear and anger and incite violence in our streets.  Yesterday was proof of that. 

Donald Trump is a traitor for all the violence he has enabled and incited.  And he must specifically be prosecuted for the treasonous act of inciting a riot against the federal Capitol building.  That is crystal clear.  Unless Trump faces legal action, is convicted and sent to prison, he will be free to create ever more chaos in our increasingly fragile democracy.

The fate of the Republican Party is an open question.  The Republicans got themselves into quite a mess making a pact with the devil in the name of anger at the reign of the Obama Administration.  Similarly, the fate of the Democratic Party is also problematic.  I am hopeful that my vote for Jon Ossoff and Rafael Warnock will help America turn back this regressive drive against democracy.  But the liberal elements of the party are also fraught with danger.  They risk fanning the flames of discontent at a time when moderation and compromise, the very forces that built this American republic, are what we need most.  

Can the Bernie Sanders crowd moderate itself?  Or will both parties be torn apart by the extremes?  Will rioting by these extremes become the most effective form of governing?  We stand on the edge of anarchy, but not for the reasons Trump might suggest.  He and his ilk are the biggest contributors to this unruly mess.

In this moment of shock and despair at the genuine revelation of how violent we are as a people, I find reason for hope.  Hope that a Democratic-controlled government will be inclusive, even of its conservative Republican compatriots.  Hope that the guidance of a stable, normal personality in the Oval Office will help this nation heal in its own eyes and in the eyes of the world.  Hope that the national reaction to Trump's incited riot will at last break his spell upon American culture.  Hope that the millions of regressive citizens will be marginalized for being completely out of step with the very clear direction of the Arrow of Time.  The future is about doing more, not undoing anything.

As I said, dystopia has settled across America.  Every day the news seems more incredible, our lives more disorienting.  We have not been able to celebrate, say, the election of the first woman tot he Office of the Vice-President because we have been consumed with Trump's delusional self-absorption.  That is sad in itself.  What a great moment in American history, almost overwhelmed by Klingons and Neanderthals.

But, even more tragic, is that all this happened on a historic day of death in our country.  Two Democratic Senators were elected in the State of Georgia, Biden's victory was certified, the Capitol was assaulted by rioters, all on the same day that 3,865 Americans died from COVID-19.  Considered collectively, can anything be more dystopian? 

Instead of commenting on the real problem, that the pandemic is now out of control in many parts of the United States, for many weeks Trump has abdicated his responsibilities of leadership, letting the wicked winds of wrath pervade our nation.  Rather than address the urgent needs of our citizenry, Trump chose to selfishly "trump-up" a fake crisis, that massive fraud stole the election.  This is a lie.  A lie fabricated in the face of a truth that he no longer acknowledges, as Americans everywhere are infected, deal with illness, and die in ever-growing numbers.  

There is nothing more fake than these allegations of fraud.  Trump's neurotic projection personality meant that he would accuse his opponents of "fake news" as he himself became the faker-in-chief.  The fraud allegations were so fake that no federal judge, whether appointed by Democrat or Republican, gave them any credence.  The Supreme Court refused to consider them.  They were without merit.

But notice that Senator Ted "Kiss Trump's Ass" Cruz and all those other Republican Senators and Representatives who voted against certifying the Electoral College results never suggested fraud in their complaint against certification.  They did not mention fraud because there was none and to allege any during a legal session of Congress would risk criminal prosecution, as false testimony would in a court of law.

Instead, the contention was that in States like Arizona and Pennsylvania, State legislatures were bypassed when rules pertaining to how ballots would be issued and collected were changed due to the extraordinary conditions of the pandemic.  Technically, this was true.  What Arizona and Pennsylvania and other States did was unconstitutional.  Only the State legislatures themselves could make such changes.

But that is an issue for the States themselves.  It is not within the constitutional power of the federal Congress to address these issues.  It is Congress's job to simply certify that each State elector voted and that their votes are correctly tabulated.  How the States went about submitting the votes of their electors is not a federal matter.  Therefore, the debate Cruz and the other Trumpists in Congress attempted to have was without weight within the governing body where it took place.

That was the foundation for why, at the beginning of the proceeding, before the rioters stormed the Capitol, Senator Mitch McConnell chastised those who rose in opposition to certification.  If what Cruz and the others were suggested actually happened, McConnell properly stated, it would be a "death spiral" for our election process and "we'd never see the whole nation accept an election again."

Indeed, what Cruz and the others were suggesting was that the process of voting be thrown out at the whim of Congress and the States as represented in the House would pick the president.  In effect, the voters' vote would no longer matter.  What was being argued (you can't call it a "debate" as there was nothing really to debate) was to strike down the very heart of our democracy.  

The bizarre juxtaposition of the certification sessions, the Trump-incited riot and the continued COVID rampage across this nation made January 6, 2021 one of the strangest days in my life.  Senator Chuck Schumer compared the riot with Pearl Harbor in an overblown attempt to give the moment a greater perspective.  But this was an assault was of a different sort.  It was an assault on the American process of power.  This dystopian reality is devouring the very meaning of our institutions as it claims more American lives.  And, as it starts to devour the process of power itself, I fear how power might be made manifest within these States and this Union.

And what do we do about Trump?  That is always the question.  He deserves to be tried for inciting a riot against the United States Capitol.  That is undeniably what happened.  Yet, putting him on trial also sets up his potential martyrdom, his self-defense in a televised court of law.  Shit.  I don't want to see that happen.  It is a quandary.  But the truth is, the less seen and heard Trump is the better from now on.  Twitter should ban Trump permanently.  He will have to find another platform that will take him, like Parler.  Maybe leaving him isolated with his pitiful thick-knuckled base is the wisest course out of this American travesty.