Such a day or two or three or four, days stretched to breaking point! The agonizingly protracted election of Biden to the presidency of the United States, and the ecstatic booting out of Donald Trump, is going to take all of 73 days (maybe 74, to pick up his hairpiece and his MAGA hat, which hit the fan as he’s being dragged out?), but the process has been set in motion. A moment to celebrate above all because our national nightmare and most of the world’s nightmare for the last four years may have a little less grip on our consciousness. He still has his 70 million strong army of believers, but come January 21, he cannot demand that the White House press corps listen to every word he says, that Air Force One jets him to his golf courses and hotels across the country whenever he desires, that European prime ministers meekly suffer his rudely pushing them around and to the side so he can get to the front row and have the cameras focused on him; and instead, they can laugh at him openly, and into live microphones too. Radio and television shows can refuse to take his calls or to quote every word he says, news organizations can stop analyzing and commenting on and fact-checking every tweet or stray word… instead, sending him a blue ribbon or a pink sticker each time he (accidentally) tells the truth? And maybe 10 or 20 million or so of his 70 million cult followers will wake up to the Mephistophelian insanity that has been awakened in them or infected them (Make America Great Again was always a dog whistle signaling, “Make America White Again,” which allowed their Inner Racist to emerge and bloom in full view), to the fact that the U.S. should be ashamed to have as its president a name-calling schoolboy who snatches children from their parents and puts them in cages and shows no remorse about it, who lies so often and so profoundly that his followers, and he himself possibly, have lost the ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood. Maybe their children or husbands or wives or mothers will wake up to the shabby fake dream of wild, unbearable success that they were sold, and that they were only being used, like the suckers who paid large sums for worthless Trump University degrees, to buttress the Trump family’s power and fortune.
And those of us who prefer to pretend and even convince ourselves that the entire Trump era was a bad dream but only a dream, and to return to our real loves—literature, music, philosophy, the enjoyment and cultivation of nature, the helping of less fortunate souls, crosswords, chess, George Carlin, whatever—will find it a bit easier.
However [the following description does not apply to outstanding exceptions like my Libertarian friend, who supported Trump because he is against government intervention, and is anti-war, a Trump legacy I give credit for], the continued existence of 50 million Trump fanatics or cultists, unmoved by Joe Biden’s rather quixotic call to shake hands and be buddies in their joint and patriotic pursuit of the American Dream, is not to be wished away merely by mouthing patriotic exhortations (or boomer porn platitudes, as one observer characterized them) and claims of a united, indivisible America. The almost certain return of a Republican Senate led by a devilishly cunning and diabolic Mitch, and the Democrats’ loss of six or more House seats (possibly to punish multi-refregeratored millionaire Nancy Pelosi, who couldn’t understand that millions had no money for food), is not a harbinger of a Utopia to come. Joe Biden’s centrist (which in European vocabulary translates as rightist) leanings and rejection of Medicare for All and such policies that Bernie Sanders had mesmerized millions of enthusiastic followers with—they might lead to disenchantment and disenfranchisement of a few million more people than have already been disenfranchised—and all for the hope that Joe Biden harbors, with such nobility, to be the President of all Americans—a phrase aimed mainly at Republicans, and that likely is water off a rubber duck’s back … Okay, let me stop worrying about the future for a minute and celebrate the first step in a necessary process.
And let me forget too, for a moment, that Racist-in-Chief Drumpf will be with us for 73 days longer, capable of much mischief and destruction if he so chooses, because the people around him have rubber spines and can’t stop a president even if unhinged (which he has been almost since the moment he entered the White House). Let’s hope we’re lucky, and not too much damage is done, and many, many lawsuits and prosecutions await him and keep him busy the moment he leaves office—or is dragged out of it, the Emperor of Fraud kicking and screaming, “Election Fraud!”
Or can we perhaps imagine a more hopeful future? One in which, say, one of his evangelical followers introduces him to the real Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount, resulting in Donald Trump devoting to the rest of his life to supporting and becoming a humble worker in Mother Teresa’s organization, and saving countless lives in shithole countries by making appeals to his well-heeld friends the Koch Brothers. After first having sung “Kumbaya!” holding hands in a circle with Jill and Joe Biden, Ivanka and Jared and Prince Salman, and then handed over the keys of the White House to Joe?
Postscript: One of the many teary-eyed talking heads on CNN commented on Biden’s victory speech (speaking roughly): “He didn’t demonize anyone, no talk about the 1 percent.” Was that a hint of CNN’s anti-Bernie bias, the dog-whistling equivalent of: “At least Biden is no Bernie Sanders,” and that we should be grateful for this? Are most of his viewers—the majority of the American population–worried and sitting up nights mourning the demonization of the 1 percent, who only own 75 percent of America’s wealth, the poor things, so why not let them enjoy their well-earned loot in peace? Another said, “At least now I can tell my son that ‘Truth matters!’”
Such a low bar for the American presidency? Is that all it took for America to have an acceptable candidate for President? One who is not only “decent” (well, all of us are, being Americans, aren’t we, even the ones who beat up black people for being black?), but who does not demonize anyone (not even real demons), one who doesn’t lie all the time, at least on big issues (inconsequential, feelgood fibs don’t matter), and one who isn’t Bernie Sanders, that dreaded, untouchable Commie from whom Biden had to run the moment he got the nomination? Well, that’s what you would say, wouldn’t you, if you were one of the fat cat servants of the one percent, employees whose job it is to see that their masters keep on accumulating wealth beyond reason and without serious threat to their estates and private islands
Sadly, as the coronavirus rages on, some of these souls may not even be alive to watch the inauguration. Could Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates get together, perhaps, and donate $20 billion to send masks and stimulus checks to those who needs them, PPE and equipment to hospitals (including additional capacity), and infrastructure to pay for the transition? This is no time to be petty, especially as President Petty can be depended on for nothing at all.