The Firebreak is Gone

I haven't written for a few weeks out of depression. Immediately after the election, as the “Stop the Steal” movement gained momentum, it became clear that Donald Trump really wouldn't go quietly. Prior to the election there had been articles, and even a book or two by the Trump obsessed press asking “will he go?” It didn't take long to see that he might go, but not without a fight. The Republican Party, as a morally bankrupt entity, would do anything to remain in power. Their loudest acolyte was Mark Levin, a nightly radio voice who finally settled on Article 2 of the Constitution, that gives the State Legislatures the power to set the method by which their states conduct elections. This fellow decided that any change to election method wrought by a state elections board, rather than the legislature, was illegal, hence, if that state's citizens voted for Joe Biden after the election rules had been changed, their votes were illegal, and it was right and proper for Congress to change their electors to Trump. It hasn't occurred to Mr. Levin that a legislature's certification of its electors is approval of its balloting process. Apparently even a change in the glue on the ballot envelopes requires legislative approval. Arguing with Mark Levin is like wrestling with a pig. Finally, I'll leave aside the rest of the conspiracy theories about Venezuelan voting machines and fake ballots from China; it's just too much.

Here we are on 7 January. Yesterday the President incited a mob to ransack the Capitol Building in an apparent effort to stop the joint session of Congress from counting the ballots that would finally certify Joe Biden as President. It had never happened before. But once it has happened, we have passed a fire break, and it will happen again. Thugs, having seen it done, will think nothing of acting it out again when they are “upset”. That's the way of the United States these days. Once any firebreak is gone, an outrage is repeated again and again. Let a man be unhappy at work, he'll shoot up the place. If he doesn't have a gun, he'll start a fire. Women seem particularly fond of fire.

In the days leading up to 6 January the United States has looked as much like the U.S. of 1859 as anything, except we aren't divided geographically. The Trumpkins and normal folks are salted amongst each other. That makes things all the worse. For a taste of the similarity, read the opening segment of McPerson's book. At this point, the Civil War itself has been hashed and rehashed, but the era before the war, when the likes of Calhoun raged against the northerners is of interest. He sounds like those Trump clowns raging about draining the swamp. We live in a binary era; you are either a socialist who believes in abortion or you aren't.

While the police worked to regain control of the Capitol Building, most of those coo-koo Republicans talked about not objecting to the vote count after all. But when the counting started, the core group of nut jobs couldn't help themselves. They so covet the good will of the mob that had just finished sacking their work place.

FaceBook and Twitter have closed Mr. Trump's accounts (at least temporarily). It might be best to keep them open so that citizens can see what our president is made of — truly nutty stuff.

The irony of what goes around comes around:

After both elections of President George W. Bush, certain Democratic Congressmen and Senators put their colleagues through the same drill of objections about an illegitimate election. For some reason, the press, both liberal and conservative, showed no interest, and no one took it seriously.

At least one Democratic Representative has introduced articles of impeachment against every Republican president beginning with Ronald Reagan. Either our presidents have gotten worse over the years, or our habits have. This doesn't get much play in the press either.