Author: BC

As the human wreckage of World War II and the Holocaust was laid bare with the complete surrender of the Axis  powers, there was an innate tendency to centralize blame for the catastrophe. Particularly in Europe, where the perpetrators weren’t part of a notably rigid Far Eastern culture, who demonstrated their fanaticism time and again on the battlefield, the fallback conclusion was to lay blame from the top down, start and mostly stop at the Wolf’s Lair. After all, Hitler was from the beginning the Reich’s international face, and Allied war propaganda campaigns had always signaled his elimination as synonymous with final victory. 

How much easier it was to simply assume a diabolical aberration, now dead by his own hand, bore most all of the responsibility for modern history’s ugliest episode. Bring his inner circle to justice, let the Russians handle their business their way, and turn the page. Streamlining priorities in line with progress, rather than getting bogged down in the how and whys of the past, offered a more direct path forward into a future filled with gargantuan economic, political and military challenges. 

The major problem with that approach lay in the fact that every hour our “ally,” Uncle Joe Stalin, whose army occupied vast tracts of Eastern Europe, was acting increasingly like a principle adversary, and those who paid attention understood his type of leadership was very similar to Hitler’s, which we ignored at our peril. US Diplomat George Kennan’s “long telegram” would soon detail the origins of Soviet authority, and how incompatible its “jealous need for power” was with any Western hopes for post-war cooperation. Moreover, as the previously unimaginable number of Holocaust victims kept climbing, it began to dawn on many that such an event could never be allowed to happen again and that a field of study devoted to all of its ugly aspects might not be a bad idea. 

German historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt moved into this vacuum to become the leader of 20th century totalitarianism scholarship. Her first book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, was published in 1951. It was groundbreaking work that explained in detail the unique characteristics and essential social dynamics behind total centralized control of a modern society exemplified by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. 

But her masterpiece was published in 1963 titled Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Its point of departure was the trial for crimes against humanity of Nazi deportation director Adolf Eichmann in Israel. Eichmann had escaped to Argentina after the war, but was kidnapped by Israeli intelligence operatives and brought to face justice in Jerusalem. 

The clear theme prosecutors pursued during Eichmann’s trial was the incomparable evil of the Final Solution and the necessity that the world must not allow architects like Eichmann to escape accountability. However, Arendt was not at all willing to leave it at that. She proceeded from a thesis that spread responsibility for the historic number of Holocaust dead with a far wider net.  

Arendt’s principle contention was that the level of “success” the Reich achieved in wiping out European Jewry could only be possible if they were granted an extraordinary level of cooperation at every step along the way. Occupied populations and their politicians, local bureaucrats and police, even Jewish Councils (judenrate), all contributed to a symmetry essential to kill so many people so quickly. Hungary, where hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed within months, most while Germany was in full retreat and certain to lose the war, was used by Arendt as the epitome of how atrocity can succeed when nobody resists.

In contrast, occupied Denmark, where King Christian X committed himself to protecting the nation’s Jews, and France, which supported an extensive partisan network, were cited by Arendt to show how ineffective Nazi extermination efforts were when confronted with even modest resistance. Although her contentions were controversial, the tremendous scope of her research, which literally tallied casualty numbers down to the very last victim, proved beyond a doubt that cooperating with totalitarians only produces worst case results. 

Flash forward about 80 years and America now suffers at the nihilist whims of a MAGA GOP,  an unapologetic totalitarian entity that no longer even bothers to deny its disdain for the rule of law, or its preparedness to sanction atrocity. In less than two months this regime has worked overtime to erase any doubts about how nefarious its agenda is. This time around “promises made, promises kept” could not possess darker overtones. Trump brazenly checks off every relevant box to confirm he gratuitously committed perjury when taking the oath of office January 25th on the same Capitol steps his servile minions stormed four years early at the behest of his stochastic terrorism. 

MAGA, like the Third Reich, is the embodiment of the worst collective human impulses that exist, ennobled for 30 years by Fox/AM. It is a nihilist ideology based in large part on the validation of jealousy, greed, petty resentments, self-inadequacy and disunity. It is anathema to everything the American experiment was supposed to embody, and is devoted to reversing the full breadth of our societal progress. The Republican Party now conflates being an insufferable asshole with courageous contrarianism, icky creepiness with out-of-the-box leadership, abject cruelty with long overdue “common sense.” In short, decent individuals with any degree of empathy need not apply. 

MAGA’s principle mission is to destroy victim groups Fox/AM has scapegoated for more than three decades, starting with immigrants and political opponents. On immigration, the regime has wasted no time pursuing atrocity, enthusiastically deporting victims masked ICE thugs grab off the street to Guantanamo and El Salvador’s notorious “terrorist confinement center.” It is clear Trump’s campaign assurances that criminal aliens would be the principle priority was just another lie, horror stories are already the common denominator. America is now unapologetically committing human rights violations as a matter of policy. Trump literally sets quotas he expects ICE to meet. 

As for dissidents Trump is not mincing words, even as he approaches full cognitive failure. His recent speech at the Department of Justice was nothing less than a clampdown manifesto. Speaking to a crowd of people sworn to be apolitical, Trump received rapturous applause when he promised that “we will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred…” by predecessors who “tried to turn America into a corrupt communist and third world country. But in the end the thugs failed.” 

There is no doubt the goal is to create a deportation bureaucracy Eichmann would admire, employed to detain whoever the regime targets. Since incompetence is what Trump does best, it stands to reason that, even more than its Hitlerian forebears, MAGA criminal ambitions will require cooperation and passivity from all involved. Shamefully, thus far he has no reason not to be emboldened on that score. 

Across the board, American institutions are throwing in the towel before the first round even gets started. From the corporate media headed by the big three news networks which, since our election catastrophe has eased into a complicity comfort zone, to universities like Columbia that might as well put up signs saying “extort us for government funding.” From the disgusting spectacle of major law firms such as Skadden, Arps giving Trump a blank check on pro bono work to non-profits, school districts, even Major League Baseball becoming DEI-free Pleasantvilles, going along is now the go-to.

Any hopes a leading light emerges from Democrats we have relied on in the past flickers dimmer each day, as disunity and refusal to even recognize the full severity of our plight continues to characterize the party’s response to a thousand cuts the Project 2025 play book inflicts. Bernie and AOC are not Obama and Harris, whose continued disappearing act becomes more unfathomable by the day. Hakeem Jefferies was born to seize this moment; why he refuses to do so is deeply perplexing. A national general resistance simply can’t thrive without leaders who possess gravitas and are willing to put all of their skin in the game. Trump tells us daily how ugly he is and how repressive he wants his government to be; those at the top he threatens most must look him in the eye and demand he bring it on. 

Finally, there is us, everyday people on the ground. We who are fully cognizant of the disaster at hand. What can we do? What must we do? What should grass roots resistance look like? Incredibly, most Americans remain inattentive, wedded to routines that can still be carried out until MAGA nihilism renders them the nostalgia of a time before calamity. Protest, great. Call feckless lawmakers en masse, ok. But the ruinous catastrophe of last November was a collective failure. 

More than 75 million voted for a convicted felon who spent four years promising to be a fascist pestilence. Those who don’t understand that, don’t really care, or worst of all, embraced the results, must come to understand the price they will pay. They must hear the truth before we all suffer its consequences. They must understand the choice is now clear… good or evil, madness or sanity. However unpleasant things get telling them, they must be told, again and again, by all of us, whether it ruins the picnic or not. Resistance equals clarifying the options and refusing to be ignored. That is now the price of freedom; anything less is cooperation. BC. 

On December 21, 2022 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed a joint session of the US Congress. Ten months into his nation’s stand against naked Russian aggression, Zelensky was humble but passionate, exceedingly grateful but determined. His words were those of a statesman wishing to reassure a principle ally that victory was not only possible but probable if it kept the faith with him, while still making sure to remind of the horrific price all the free world would pay if his nation’s heroic stand was not supported. 

Zelensky cast Ukraine’s struggle against the continuum of history, asserting it “will define in what world our children and grandchildren will live, and then their children and grandchildren.” To any isolationists who might question America’s stake in the conflict, Zelensky was clear… “the world is too interconnected and interdependent to allow someone to stay aside and at the same time to feel safe when such a battle continues.” 

Over and over the full chamber interrupted Zelensky with standing ovations. It got to the point where Zelensky was a bit frustrated by the constant interruptions. After all, he was focused on making sure the lawmakers understood the terrible price Ukraine was paying every hour.

“Last year — last year, 70,000 people lived here in Bakhmut, in this city, and now only few civilians stay. Every inch of that land is soaked in blood; roaring guns sound every hour. Trenches in the Donbas change hands several times a day in fierce combat, and even hand fighting. But the Ukrainian Donbas stands.”

While Ukraine’s fight carries global implications to be sure, its President was clear about the price his country was paying for “the restoration of the international legal order.”  Ukrainians would do the fighting and the dying, and that was ok, so long as “America’s leadership remains solid, bicameral and bipartisan.” Again the full chamber rose, with the petty exception of a few of MAGA’s worst at the time, and delivered yet another ovation. 

Just a bit more than two years later Zelensky’s speech might as well have been in a parallel universe. Were one to have been castaway on a Pacific Island the week after his address, and returned to civilization just in time for yesterday’s wretched White House spectacle, they surely would think they had entered the twilight zone. 

There Zelensky sat in the White House, alone, proud, steady as an oak while a pack of hyenas taunted him with nothing but the continuous lies that are the foundation of their rise to power. Trump is far too weak and insecure to do man-to-man with a global hero, so he had in tow his new toady, JD Vance, who replaced the old model, last seen running for his life from the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.  Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has his own sorry history of being the target of Trump’s bullying, slouched next to Vance, staring straight ahead as he steadily sunk further into the soft sofa, trying hard to disappear.

It was as if the Ukrainian President had been rounded up in one of ICE’s immigration raids and brought in for questioning. Trump was the bad cop, but Vance wanted to prove he was worse. Cruelly patronizing and inanely paternal, the despicable duo rained ignorance on Zelensky, who calmly refused to accept their premises, giving back as good as he received. Of course, this did not sit well with fascism’s most fragile snowflake. 

After less than six weeks in office, we have already reached the point in our second MAGA Presidency where repeating verbatim the vomit Trump constantly expectorates somehow only further normalizes the corrosion he personifies. Yet and still, one exchange captured everything ruinous about the whole affair. 

Zelensky opened the session by providing the history, dating back to 2014, of the Russian campaign to annex Ukraine. Vance, who couldn’t wait to jump in and make clear the real purpose of the whole ugly charade, began to admonish Zelensky with the lie “…you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict.” The Fox/AM narrative has long rested on the notion Zelensky has become just another ungrateful welfare queen, and that tripe would begin and end virtually every paragraph the American leadership whined for the remainder of the abasement. 

Over and over Trump, then Vance, then Trump again, accused Zelensky of refusing to offer enough “words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who’s trying to save your country.” A MAGA jackal from the assembled press corps, now overloaded with Fox/AM stenographers, couldn’t resist jumping in on the action and berated a wartime leader for not wearing a suit. Beginning to end, the theme was the same, Trump wanted Zelensky to bend both knees and beg for unworthy indulgence, just like a refugee heading to Guantanamo or a government worker fired for no more cause than this lawless regime’s disdain for basic decency. 

And that “solid bicameral and bipartisan” US leadership? Trump poodle Sen. Lindsey Graham provided an appropriately servile epitaph to those hopes after Zelensky was literally ordered to leave the White House. Obediently repeating the Trump Doctrine – that is, every ally must be as much of a eunuch as any Republican when it comes to public interactions with the Godfather – Graham threw Zelensky under a tank and gushed how “proud I am of President Trump.” That is now the GOP position A-Z. 

The multitude of gashes MAGA fascism is inflicting on America will surely continue unabated, but no episode should better galvanize the resolve of those who refuse to accept this fate for our beloved country. Like Zelensky, we now know beyond doubt where this regime intends to go, and how enthusiastically the Republican Party, whose members now conflate nihilist servility with principle, will follow. 

In February of 2020, this platform expressed certainty that, allowed another term to  fully consolidate power, MAGA Trumpism would “leave us reviled by the world, a pariah instead of a beacon, a crisis instead of a solution…. a soulless wretch among countries of this Earth.” I hate being right. We are all Zelensky now. BC

Attn: Barack Obama

Dear Mr. President,

You have achieved so much in your life. Nobody can doubt you have taken the gifts God bequeathed and maximized them in service to your country. You never hesitated, were never paralyzed by self-doubts, never wavered in your pilgrimage to serve America at the highest level, to lead its forward progress and do everything you could to help us reach our full potential as a united country. 

Your Presidency was a clinic in executive leadership. The Obama Administration inherited an economy in crisis, rocked by the worst collapse since the Great Depression. Eight years later you left us once again prosperous, back to near full employment with inflation under control, the stock market fully rebounded, and a host of industries, imperiled when you took office, back on their feet and moving forward with relative confidence. 

Of course, as you never tired of saying, the work was far from done, but the American economy was restored on your watch. Moreover, your signature achievement, Obamacare, has stood the test of time, surviving the most extreme GOP efforts to kill it while providing millions with health services they otherwise would not have received.

But now the US calls on you once again for the full measure of your leadership. I wish to the almighty it wasn’t necessary to demand this, but becoming POTUS is like being made by the Mafia… it is for life. Your predecessor, whose own failed Presidency created most of the crises you had to confront, has completely abdicated his responsibilities. His contemptible silence has been a shocking desertion of his civic duties and permitted Trump and his MAGA minions a fully open playing field to consume the GOP he once led. His silence has been deafening. History will scowl at his refusal to engage. 

Mr. President, you on the other hand have maintained a vibrant public presence, and rolled up your sleeves in two elections to help get Democrat  candidates elected. The first campaign succeeded and likely saved the country. The second just failed and, sadly, tragically, the US has never been in more danger. Full fascism has arrived in America. Trump’s “inaugural address” confirmed what anyone already paying any attention knew, he is an enemy of constructive governance, an existential threat to national and global stability. 

To wit, within hours of refusing to place his hand on a Bible and lying he would protect the Constitution, Trump: threatened Panama with military force if it didn’t agree to let the US gratuitously abrogate a treaty that’s been in place and unquestioned for almost 50 years; usurped the 14th Amendment to deny birthright citizenship, while pledging to mobilize the military to round up millions for expedited deportation; promised to impose reckless tariffs for no other reason than his certainty the world takes advantage of us and the falsehood they will balance our books; pardoned virtually every convicted J6 insurrectionist with a sweeping edict that lays waste to the rule of law; renaming the Gulf of Mexico, scapegoating transgender rights, again exiting from the critical Paris Climate Accords, the list goes on and on, each proclamation seemingly more inane and destructive than the last. 

Mr. President, we are all in this together. Whatever you envisioned for your golden years is just as much at risk as what millions of us imagined for ourselves. No amount of wealth or privilege is going to provide a golden ticket to fully evade the cataclysm a second Trump Administration guarantees. Just like with the rest of us, there are three options for ingesting MAGA fascism: servile glee, denial and apathy, or sad but determined recognition and resistance. I’m sure you agree that routines won’t mean much when carried out under the cloud of nihilist totalitarianism. So how can you opt for anything but active opposition? Certainly your wife is more than up to that task, and provides exactly the right partner to help lead us out of this wilderness. 

The forces at your disposal are many and elite, literally the best and brightest America offers. After all, ability and expertise don’t last long within MAGA, almost immediately garnering both envy and disdain from a membership fixated on servility instead of competence. Military, medical, law, finance, technology, media and the arts, the numbers available to draft into service of this cause are as limitless as they are diverse. 

Generals Mark Milley and former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly; Never Trump Republicans like Steve Schmidt and Rick Wilson, Liz Cheney and Adam Kitzinger; financial heavy hitters like Warren Buffet, Mark Cuban and Bill Gates; former NASA astronauts and Conservative judges like Michael Luttig; former GOP cabinet members like William Cohen and Christine Whitman; virtually every entertainment legend not fully self-absorbed; the pool of talent and prestige is enormous. We. Just. Need. A. Leader! 

Mr. President, glory comes in all shapes and sizes. It can come from peaceful governance, it can come from a bloody battlefield. Events dictate where it is available to be achieved. And it is only available for those prepared to seize a moment in time before it spirals off to become just another lost opportunity. Perhaps better than anyone alive you understand this truism. 

History has provided just such an instance. The stunning willingness yesterday of our full media landscape to pretend America was handing over the reins to someone with an agenda guided by the national interest, or any scintilla of commitment to embody the oath of office he was promising to abide, clarifies little time is left to protect and expand the space between truth and the horrific Fox/AM narrative most commentators accepted, even as Trump enthusiastically spewed his sedition. The situation is dire. 

I understand your reticence. No doubt there are a plethora of pro and con arguments you have considered with regard to stepping forward. But if not you… then who? No matter how many times one considers our options it always circles back your way. Millions like me felt a sense of hopelessness yesterday, not so much because of the forces of ugliness we face, but because we have nobody who appears willing to face them. 

The Presidency of the United States has always been as much about symbols as policy. We’ve always taken for granted White House good faith to unite us toward higher purpose. Now we have a felon intent on dividing us in line with overt efforts to destroy this democracy.  So our hopes and expectations must turn elsewhere for guidance. We need you right now, Mr. President… all of your best, until this crisis has passed. The stakes could not be higher. Without your full participation government “of the people, by the people, for the people” may very well perish from this Earth. It’s an offer you can’t refuse. BC

A week before the 2024 US Presidential election, perhaps the most critical time ever for American governance, the Washington Post abdicated its responsibility to endorse Kamala Harris for POTUS. It was a stunning refusal to uphold one of its primary duties as a beacon of the nation’s free press. 

An “endorsement” of Harris really only necessitated a recitation of why her opponent’s campaign to install nihilist fascism was inimical to American democracy, not to mention the stability of the world it still purported to lead. So when the paper’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, launched into Monday morning kabuki after the decision was announced, whining about returning to the purity of WaPo’s roots by no longer contributing to “a perception of bias,” he only laid bare to all that duty and civic obligation had been exorcised from its mission statement.

WaPo policy was now beholden to the fickle opportunism of the guy who paid its bills. A mighty institution of US journalism, that had once forced a corrupt President to resign, now bent the knee to the worst American politics could conjure. Not eight years after declaring “Democracy dies in the darkness” to reassure its readers after Donald Trump’s first victory, Bezos shrugged and turned out the light on any future commitments to keeping the faith and fighting the good fight.

That craven surrender turned out to be a depressing harbinger of things to come, as the full landscape of corporate media anchors and analysts treated America blowing its brains out on election night as if just any other Republican had prevailed. Turns out the Post had merely reflected the nation’s refusal to let anything subsume its pathological determination to create normalcy, its freakish adherence to the debilitating distractions of routine, even in the wake of a major party candidate primarily driven to make certain everybody knew he was, not only a fascist, but a demented sociopath as well.

On January 1, 2025, three weeks before the unapologetic seditionist will lie and swear to defend the Constitution, the same editorial board rang in the New Year by musing about the “fascinating interplay between alarmism and complacency, between catastrophizing about the future and idealizing the past.” While acknowledging the country is “entering a stretch that we assume will be chaotic and tumultuous,” the Bezos braintrust pointed to the “possibility that the next phase of history will surprise in that respect, too.” In other words, who knows; it’s likely a dark age that awaits in three weeks, a specter Winston Churchill dubbed at an analogous juncture in world history “The Gathering Storm,” but why sweat it, surprises happen… If only. 

Trump/MAGA have spent nine years making sure absolutely nobody should be surprised at the depths its nihilism can descend to. “Promises made, promises kept” is just another way of saying constructive approaches to governance only scare and confuse its servile adherents; they demand the primal simplicity of bullying and scapegoating, empty assurances that Fox/AM’s incessant revisionism validates the vile impulses that now define their world view. Progress only benefits others they detest and creates new challenges they have no interest in addressing, even less in resolving. 

Four years ago to the day our incoming President committed treason for all the world to see. Nobody who watched events unfold on January 6th can plausibly dispute that. But to make sure history would be just as certain, Congress created a committee, co-chaired by a ranking Republican, that could not have more exhaustively examined and chronicled the day’s mayhem. It’s report was as clear cut as it was thorough, placing full blame precisely where it belonged. Today Congress certified that perpetrator’s return to the White House without fanfare. 

So nothing should surprise from the moment MAGA’s anti-leader steps to the microphone on the 20th and ad-libs his way through just another of his diatribes. There is nothing too petty, or too cruel, or too hateful, or too lazy, or too corrupt, or too incompetent, or too pandering, or too inane, or perhaps most ironic to Inauguration Day, too seditious for this cabal to inflict on those they will put their hands on a Bible and lie about serving. That’s a certainty. 

On January 21st the ever-dwindling number of Washington Post subscribers will peruse a front page that will likely cover the dawn of American fascism no differently than it reported on any other Presidential inauguration. Whatever our Buzz Windrip spews after we hand him the nuclear codes, you can bet it will be disinfected and rendered simpatico with the coming year’s events calendar. The Super Bowl, the Oscars, March Madness, 4th of July celebrations, graduations, weddings, your kid’s soccer game, etc etc etc; they will all be etched in stone, sacrosanct signposts that define American life. And democracy, or even a functional government apparatus? It will die in broad daylight. Most won’t give it a second thought. After all, America hates surprises. BC

“In the shuffling madness
Of the locomotive breath
Runs the all-time loser
Headlong to his death”

Jethro Tull

During the winter of 1982 I was home on Christmas break from my studies at University of New Hampshire, where I majored in political science and journalism. At some point my report card from the fall term arrived in the mail. Anxious to show my father his investment in my future was paying dividends, I presented him with an honor roll caliber masterpiece.

My dad was a miser with compliments, particularly ones tossed my way, so I wasn’t expecting effusive praise. Yet and still, I hoped he would at least show some satisfaction that his first born, who escaped high school with a 1.77 GPA was now making tangible progress on his journey to responsible adulthood.

He took off his glasses to study the data for a few moments and kind of muttered a “not bad” loud enough and with the necessary emphasis to impart he was pleased with my marks. But, as was his way, the gaze turned a bit quizzical… “What’s this class, 20th Century Dictatorship and Totalitarianism,” he asked with the wry smirk he reserved for anything he deemed less than serious. I explained how interesting the class was, and how George Romoser, the Professor who taught it, was renowned in the field and had studied with the famous political scientist, Hans Morganthau. “Billy, you live in the one country where that crap is the very least of your concerns,” he chuckled. “I’d get a bit more practical if I were you.”

I go through this life confirming time and again how wise and prescient my father was, but he sure stunk up the joint on that one. Nihilist fascism’s diapered rear end is perched at our doorstep and everything about our shameful national journey to this point was foretold to me 42 years ago in Thompson Hall classrooms. It is textbook.

History’s presentation of totalitarianism is largely an abstraction that’s hard for any who have not experienced the phenomenon to fully grasp. When studying Germany’s descent into Nazi hell the usual reaction within a vibrant democracy is incredulous puzzlement at how millions could become so uniformly servile to such despicableness.

The best observers could do was to document the characteristics and organize chronologies. That way, like a disease, its symptoms can be recognized when they present themselves in other situations. You can’t simulate history; whatever catastrophes it creates must be lived through to be adequately understood. Our journey through one continues.

America is perched upon a runaway train propelled by the chaos our all-time loser must constantly create to maintain his relevance and assuage his constant insecurity. His supporters no longer try to make sense of what has steadily devolved into a constant stream of personal grievance gibberish. They will follow him anywhere he goes.

It’s exhausting and futile at this point to dwell on Trump’s vileness. Of course, he isn’t just “unfit” for office, he is an unhinged criminal who if empowered will endanger everybody. Those who surround him these days are as replete of talent or any basic duty to the country or its constructive governance as the fascist braintrusts of history past; and they are as enthusiastic as any to delve into atrocity’s dark potential.

Trump has told us clearly and often about his nefarious intentions. His Capitol Hill toadies have promised their unquestioned servility. No lie will be challenged, no outrage will be resisted. Whether the trains run on time is of no concern, only the pursuit of a narrative with no rhyme or reason past the aggrandizement of dear leader, and the legitimacy of his hatred for most of our nation. Those are the promises made that his wretched core will expect to be kept.

Nothing makes sense when the country tasked with leading the free world seriously considers for POTUS a rabid fascist whose “closing argument” in Georgia this week included performing mock fellatio on a microphone he spent the previous fifteen minutes cursing, before promising that CTE-addled former football star Herschel Walker will head up US efforts to build a missile defense shield. How will future generations studying our descent possibly be able to empathize with that?

Some time back I began texting a Republican friend who has maintained my respect since 2016. He is a pastor from Pennsylvania and a thinker, but also partisan and unquestioningly supportive of GOP candidates. Trump lost him long ago, but “Jim” has stubbornly continued to wall him off from the party he now fully controls. Throughout our correspondence this election I have argued that merely refusing to vote for him is not enough. To adequately confront him one must make a clear choice and support democracy. I convinced myself that Jim was a true bellweather; if he could vote for Harris, the “Never Trumper” bloc could prove to be determinative and the rout necessary to diminish MAGA was possible, polls be damned.

This morning Jim told me he was writing in former GOP Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse’s name for President, and would vote straight Republican down ballot. Given his tone, I sensed the only thing about the Presidential race he is certain about is refusing to vote for Harris. Whether he will, within the privacy of a voting booth, decide to forgive and forget Trump seems possible.

Whatever happens today, those of us stunned and bewildered about how we could possibly be back in the exact same nightmare we lived four years ago, should take heed of my response to Jim, and perhaps let it guide their interactions with those we know who won’t oppose the nihilist fascism Trump embodies…

“What Would Jesus Do, Jim? Witnessing Trump’s vile descent into madness this campaign, I simply can’t fathom how anybody would not run to vote against him. Why you can’t do a Liz Cheney is something I don’t know that I’ll ever get my head around. But I am certain that in the aftermath of the worst that could happen, the burning ashes of a dystopian landscape his Presidency pledges to produce, you will never be able to say you did everything to stop it… at least not to me.”

Pray for your country… And for God’s sake vote Harris. BC

Nothing about the Orwellian normalization of Trump/MAGA fascism is more perplexing than the willingness of the Biden Administration and Democrats to accept the blame and full electoral liability for inflation. When MAGA eunuchs like Byron Donald or Marco Rubio aren’t reframing the most recent example of Trump’s cognitive decline, they are surely railing about $10 cartons of eggs the “Biden economy’s record inflation” now foists on cash strapped families. 

But regardless of how often the GOP presents the premise as a given, or even how reconciled Democrats seem to be to allowing them to get away with it, just a cursory examination of the facts tells a different story. The truth is the inflation pain suffered by American families since 2020 is a direct result of the Trump Administration’s toxic mix of abject incompetence and an economic agenda devoted only to short-term political gains, pursued with no concern about the certain long-term damage they would cost. 

Trump came into office in 2017 with nothing more than a messianic claim that only he could transform the American apocalypse he sold on the stump. It was clear neither Trump nor his campaign apparatus expected to actually win, so with a shocking victory came a haphazard governing plan. As the Republican nominee, whenever  Trump did stray from culture war nihilism and warnings about a rigged election at his increasingly unhinged campaign rallies, he promised tax cuts and deregulation, the twin pillars of GOP Reaganomics obsession. 

Fox/AM and MAGA fictions aside, Barack Obama had left Trump a robust economy. Perhaps the first and most reliable measure of this was an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent, virtually full participation. Any economist worth their calculator will tell you that initiating a massive tax cut when it is wholly unnecessary not only blows up the deficit, but creates inflationary pressure as ginned up demand exceeds supply. 

Nevertheless, Trump and Republicans, fully absorbed in their own falsehoods that they needed to “rescue” America from the “epic disaster of the Obama years,” moved in tandem to pass as large a tax cut package as they could. By the time it took effect in January of 2018, the monstrosity was near $2 trillion.

Forget that it catered exclusively to corporations and the wealthy, with average Americans saving less than $400 per year. Forget that it blew a massive hole in the efforts to cut the national debt, which the Obama Administration had made a priority after the Great Recession it inherited required sizable government outlays. And forget that the GOP refused to accept the fact that tax cuts actually add to a deficit if they are not offset by spending reductions, fully beholden to the myth of increased tax revenue as a budget balancing panacea. The entire exercise was unnecessary and undertaken for no other reason than Trump wanted to crow about the “economic miracle” he magically created after only one year in office. Voters were less impressed and provided Democrats a solid House majority in the 2018 election, refusing to reward Trump and Republicans for their economic malpractice. 

Trump loves tariffs mainly because of the arbitrary and near total control they provide him with. He loves to shake nations down, close allies in particular. With unhinged protectionist czar Peter Navarro – who viewed trade deficits as synonymous with foreign intrigue- chirping in his ear about who was playing the US for a fool that particular day, the President could pick a country, pick a domestic industry, and then Tweet out how US coffers would now be filled with tariff receipts and such-and-such sector could now thank him for rescuing them from ruin. Whatever collateral damage resulted was never a concern. If the carnage became too extensive, as with Midwest dairy farmers demolished by European reciprocity that wrecked their export opportunities, emergency subsidies were deployed. MAGA socialism to the rescue. 

In 2016 Republicans still fronted themselves as “the party of Reagan.” Of course, the Gipper’s brand was wedded to free trade and “letting the markets decide.” However, Mitch McConnell and his House leadership counterpart, Paul Ryan, felt little discomfort tossing aside decades of principle to bend over for Trump’s impulse tariff regime. 

As a direct tax on consumers there is no doubt tariffs spur inflation. But Trump tariffs were far worse because their arbitrary nature caused chaos throughout the supply chain, severing longstanding relationships at his whim, clouding the international marketplace with unpredictability. Covid would bring those chickens home to roost. 

Even if the Trump Administration had employed a thoughtful strategy to weather the pandemic, a sudden plummet in global production and demand were certain to set the stage for significant inflation once consumers began buying again; that’s just basic economics. As it was, Trump responded by mixing surreal incompetence with divisive incitement of his followers to, not just ignore prudent public health guidance, but violently oppose it. In addition to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, the debacle greatly intensified the price shocks supply/demand imbalances created. In fact, one could effectively argue that, even if the pandemic never occurred, Trump’s tariff recklessness generated a wave of inflation that would have come ashore sooner or later. The Covid folly jacked up its size… instead of Florida surf, Biden inherited the Hawaiian North Shore. 

Why the Biden Administration and Democrats in both chambers of Congress have from the start allowed the GOP to make inflation their exclusive domain is a great mystery. Perhaps the spinners decided there was no way the falsehood could be confronted without it being perceived by voters as sour grapes. Indeed, there is a long tradition of owning the numbers that “happen on your watch,” even though Trump and Republicans certainly refused to abide by it. 

It is also true that Biden was never in a hurry to dismantle many of the tariffs Trump imposed, so blaming them for inflation would surely invite scrutiny and charges of hypocrisy. Again, something the shameless Trump has never worried about. Yet and still, rolling over and allowing both Fox/AM and corporate media to define the issue as a given, thus enshrining it as the beginning, middle and end of MAGA attacks on the Biden economy, makes no sense at all, and in the end could doom us to a dark age of another Trump election victory. 

It’s not too late for the Harris campaign to mitigate some of the harm inflicted by this false narrative. On October 1st there will be a Vice-Presidential debate. In between doubling down on lies about immigrants terrorizing the homeland, and exploring new depths of servility to Trump, JD Vance will surely fixate on inflation. Tim Walz should be prepared to set the record straight. Our future as a going democratic concern may very well depend on him effectively doing so. BC

Recently, I was out to dinner with a close friend. We go back to the care-free days of bachelorhood, when worrying about only ourselves was all we cared to contemplate. Thirty years later, he has three kids now out of the house in various states of college or post-college doings. Since his wife was occupied with her buddies, he was freed up for sushi. 

I never lead with the challenges my son  Luke now faces as Autism sabotages his young-adult well being. However, if asked, particularly by a close friend, I will provide a complete picture. Lately, aside from debilitating attacks of anxiety about lost routines he can’t get back, our most frustrating reality is that nobody we can count on is available to stay with Luke should we want to go out together without him. 

My wife, Sue loves nothing more than to attend the weddings of her friends’ offspring. For several years now such invitations have flowed in regularly, and most always Sue goes solo while I stay home with Luke. The daughter of one particular friend is marrying an exceptional young man in August. We have both gotten to know the couple, so it was a wedding I was keen on attending. What to do about Luke? 

The mother of the bride made clear it would be fine for him to attend. I was not enthused. Luke is audible and unconcerned with public strictures on his impulsive commentary. Moreover, he is always the center of attention, exactly wrong for a celebration rightly focused on the newlyweds. Finally, there is little doubt who would be responsible for keeping up with his mania during the reception. No thanks. 

Relating this predicament to Bob, he floored me with one simple sentence. “Why don’t Kim and/or I just come over and hang out with Luke? What’s the date?” It was flabbergasting as it was direct, banal as it was extraordinary. Taken aback, I protested that I wasn’t fishing around for help.  Bob shrugged that he knew that, but nonetheless it seemed like no big deal and he wanted to do it. Bob has always been one of Luke’s favorites; the whole thing couldn’t have made more sense. I accepted his offer and we moved on to the soft shell crab tempura rolls. 

Reflecting on his offer later, I remembered back to a church support group Sue and I attended nearly 20 years ago, when the wound of Luke’s diagnosis was still fresh. This was a mega church, with a head pastor who started an entire ministry for intellectually disabled kids because his daughter is one of them. So the support group was popular, with more than ten couples ruminating weekly about our common trials and tribulations. Most all had children with Autism, some far more affected than others. Even so, there was one sad refrain everyone shared: family and friends were underwhelming in their offers to help. 

“Why can’t my sister understand the crisis I face and offer to come over and help more often? … My best friend has two healthy kids; why won’t she plan more play dates with my son?” … And so forth. Of course, as years passed most of us matured out of the narcissistic notion that our particular challenges dictated that everyone else close to us stop what they were doing and plunge headlong into our circumstances. Those who didn’t develop this understanding often ruined the relationships they needed most, and dealt with even more isolation, more heartbreak. 

Sue and I long ago put to bed most all resentment of family and friends for not stepping up as much as we’d hope. You live long enough, you understand that everybody has full plates and are dancing as fast as they can. Expecting that your hardship should distract them from the hand they’ve been dealt makes helping you more burden than fulfillment. Possessing this understanding makes my buddy Bob’s offer special, and it’s why I am confident that when we return from that wedding, Bob will leave heartened that he was able to provide a genuinely appreciated solid for his friends. Who knows? He may even offer again. 

There is a useful place for this same reasoning in our national confrontation with MAGA nihilism. That embracing Trumpism reveals biases and character flaws seems obvious to those cognizant of its pervasive malevolence. It’s why so many family ties and friendships have frayed badly since 2016. Sadly, even tragically, it’s equally clear that generalized apathy has permitted Fox/AM an open playing field to radicalize millions because they have not faced sufficient blowback that voicing lies and relentless propaganda warrants 

The first of these facts offers few options. Abiding enthusiasm for MAGA does nobody any favors, least of all the enthusiast. But the second situation requires attention, with a premium on patience and empathy; estrangement from those we value most because they don’t agree with us enough is as wrong as it is unnecessary. Moreover, there is little doubt that convincing, rather than alienating those who still have their wits about them, but are to varying degrees more resistant to allowing MAGA’s assault on our governance to distract them from routine, is perhaps the only chance America has to avoid the cataclysm of Trumpist rule. 

All of which circles back to my buddy Bob. Born and raised in Kentucky, he is highly educated, an engineer as mechanically adept as anyone I have known. That said, Bob keeps his politics close to the vest, and his view on things, particularly the federal government’s proper role in our lives, has certainly been influenced by his lineage. Also, he categorizes such civic obligations downward on his list of life’s priorities. 

Several years ago, right about when the Democratic Presidential primary was heating up, we hosted Bob and his wife, Kim, for dinner. Perhaps too much alcohol had been poured, but after a great evening, the discussion turned to politics and things went south. Bernie Sanders appeared to be surging and Bob said matter-of-factly he would have problems voting for a socialist. I sought clarity that, of course, he meant when voting in the primary…he would surely support any Democrat vs. Trump, right? He replied that, no, he wasn’t fully certain of that; he would have to weigh the issues during the general campaign.  His irresolution on the matter stunned me, and I wasn’t having it. Issues?! Really?! Trump is the issue! When the dust had settled, angry words had been exchanged and a fun night was ruined. A very old friendship was in jeopardy. 

Sue was so furious with me she demanded I drive over to their place that night if necessary to make amends. At that moment, after five years of allowing a plethora of friends, acquaintances and even a couple of family members to take a hike out of my life, I understood clearly where the line was and why it must be respected always, without exception. Luckily, Bob answered his phone that evening. I fell completely on my sword and our friendship endured. I’ll be able to fully focus my attention on quality reception finger food come August. 

Our nation’s house is on fire, MAGA arsonists the cause. Whether we can douse the flames will depend on how many can be recruited to man a hose. A sweet spot exists somewhere between condemning their seeming nonchalance and figuring that general apathy is an intractable fact of life. Our democracy’s survival depends on us finding it. One Bob at a time. BC

In his official proclamation of Thanksgiving, 1936, President Roosevelt held forth on American strength and resolve through hard times. Expressing gratitude that “Devine Providence has vouchsafed us wisdom and courage to overcome adversity…,” FDR gave thanks for “free institutions” that held strong through the worst of the Depression “with no abatement of our faith in them.”

Seventy-nine years to the day later, a Washington Post editorial cited FDR’s words to commemorate Thanksgiving, 2015. However, the Post juxtaposed Roosevelt’s observations with a novel that was published just before he offered them, Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 classic It Can’t Happen Here, dystopian fiction about America’s embrace of a fascist demagogue and the destruction of its democracy. One year out from the 2016 Presidential election, alarmed by the success of Donald Trump’s primary campaign, the Post sensed civic peril on the horizon and used our national day of thanks to remind its readers not to take for granted that which is most precious to us… free governance. 

Above all else, fascism relies on two things… fear and loathing. The amount of each required to deduce political salvation from Trump’s unhinged monologues is more than enough to, not simply abide, but actually demand atrocities America has been fortunate enough to avoid. 

Much has been made of his recent use of the word “vermin” during rally ramblings. Indeed, the context in which he employs it, as an adjective to describe the endless list of enemies – which the progressive FDR would surely get top billing on –  he plans to persecute given the chance, differs little from Hitler’s application. Fascism is, after all, substantially about dehumanization of those the state consumes.

Yet and still, one needs no Hitlerian catch phrases to recognize Trumpism has grown ever more virulent as the institutions he now pledges to destroy attempt to hold him to account for his crimes. MAGA has morphed into his vehicle for vengeance, an instrument for settling all of the scores his psychopathy can conjure. The message has morphed from grievance to hysteria; everything is existential, the ends justify any means necessary. For his cultists it is now a totalitarian preoccupation; they won’t be satisfied with half measures. Promises made, promises kept. 

As we feast this Thanksgiving, Trump is poised to sew up the GOP Presidential nomination before the primaries even begin, despite refusing to debate his primary opponents. While Nikki Haley and company jostle about Fox/AM talking points, Trump is now devoid of discipline and offers nothing but stream-of-consciousness more apt for pacing an asylum floor than a candidate’s podium. His platform is malice.  Most Republican primary voters seem fine with that. Constructive governance no longer interests them. 

Hannah Arendt, perhaps history’s most insightful authority on the critical elements of totalitarianism, wrote of the necessity to dumb everything down for the mob, literally persecuting “every higher form of intellectual activity.” Trump enjoys few things more. From Anthony Fauci to Joe Biden, “leftist” history professors to climate scientists, stupidity is “common sense.” While few believe Trump actually “follows a playbook” to invigorate his cultists and infuse the totalitarian mob they have become, a natural symmetry between his impulsive sociopathy and the fundamentals fascism requires clearly exists. His vengeance is their guiding light.

Worse, The Heritage Foundation – the same group who sponsored a series of lectures in early 2017 by none other than Newt Gingrich “to fully explain Trumpism” – is sparing no expense to make certain a new Administration will hit the ground running with an “army” of MAGA zealots. Apparently, the far-right non-profit is ready to supply up to “54,000 pre-vetted loyalists” to consolidate Trumpism’s grasp on US Government infrastructure. What will their mandate be? Exactly what Trump is telling us over and over… installing his version of apocalypse now. 

That pin you hear dropping is the entirety of the GOP resistance to Trump’s new level of absurdist malevolence. Abject cowardice does not come anywhere close to describing Susan Collins or John Thune. Nor does soulless self-seeker get close to the mark on Marco Rubio or Glenn Youngkin. Heading into next November, to be a Republican pol means you are either an exuberant fascist, an amoral opportunist or a pathetic yellow belly; nothing else fits.

Thanksgiving is about expressing gratitude for our past so we can be hopeful for our future. That millions believe that is somehow possible if we elevate an openly unhinged fascist demagogue, whose primary agenda includes nothing more than persecuting his enemies, clarifies the crisis we face. Enjoy another serving of stuffing, and some more vino, a year from now it might not taste as good. BC

The gig is officially up, not that anyone paying even cursory attention to the matter didn’t fully conclude as much from the start. But for those distracted or slow on the uptake, Matt Gaetz and the House nihilist caucus were never actually THAT opposed to short-term Continuing Resolutions (CRs) as a means to keep the government open. It was not about shutting the door, merely who possessed the keys to lock it down that ever really mattered.

The issue all along was what Kevin McCarthy surely understood it to be, when he accepted the Speaker’s gavel after a 15-round kabuki siege; it was always only a question of when and under what pretext the “motion to vacate” would arise. Turns out, branding desperate bipartisan efforts to keep the government open as a betrayal of “conservative principles” was as good a reason as any, and ended up working out just fine. Now MAGA owns the House Speakership.

Any doubts about the real Trumpist endgame evaporated last week when Gaetz himself told the posse of media constantly at his beck and call he was “open” to whatever “bridge” new MAGA hero Speaker Mike Johnson thinks may be appropriate. Suddenly, continuing resolutions are no longer apostasy, worth stopping America’s entire legislative process in its tracks.

Of course, Gaetz took pains to make clear “I don’t like governing by continuing resolution.” Apparently, the difference between Johnson, who had possessed the gavel less than 48 hours before floating a CR, and his predecessor is that “Kevin McCarthy wanted to govern by continuing resolution to get us to the next continuing resolution.”

Like W Bush gushed after meeting Putin, Gaetz has looked into the new Speaker’s heart and concluded Johnson “has a lot more credibility” that his CRs are in genuine service to the greater good of Freedom Caucus nihilism. Moving forward, expect the Florida “firebrand” to be more of a team player, and to support whatever means Johnson feels are necessary to achieve results sure to satisfy even the most stringent regressive orthodoxy.

Which is all just another way of saying they get no Trumpier than Mike Johnson… and that was the point all along. The entire stable of MAGA show horses – from Gaetz and Jordon, to MTG and Boebert, right on through to the Normans and Goodes etc. – have finally gotten what they were throwing one tantrum after another to achieve, a seditious extremist they can trust.

Make no mistake, in that regard Speaker Johnson checks off every box and then some. Creepy obsession with anything to do about sexuality? Check. Tax cuts as economic panacea? You bet. Not just climate change denial, but conflation of environmental science with dangerous “leftism?” Of course. Anti-abortion fanatic, Covid denier, pro anything with a trigger; it’s not hyperbole to argue Johnson is the most reactionary person in Congress. His scant resume tells the tale.

Worst of all, nobody on Capitol Hill embraced the Big Lie quicker and devoted more energy and resources his office afforded to legitimating its civic poison. If McCarthy was carrying Trump’s water, Johnson was pumping it from the well. Trump had barely spit out his post-election diatribe when Johnson cooed in his ear to “exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans’ trust in the fairness of our election system.”

Not two weeks after Election Day, Johnson was out front of cameras, and all in with Sidney Powell’s rigged Hugo Chavez election machine grift. “You know,” intoned Johnson, “the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by Dominion, there’s a lot of merit to that. And when the president says the election was rigged, that’s what he’s talking about.” Johnson would eventually lead the run of 126 House Republicans to sign on to Texas vs. Pennsylvania, the nonsensical case the Supreme Court couldn’t reject fast enough.

So what made Johnson so appealing that he was able to unite a hopelessly divided conference? His one asset? Acting like a jerk is not one of his defining traits, which makes him an outlier within the MAGA caucus. He’s actually capable of collegiality. Speak softly, but carry a big bogus amicus brief. Sometimes not being much is enough, so long as you don’t threaten opponents. Johnson was Jim Jordan in every way except for the latter’s ugly demeanor. The 20 “principled” Republicans who opposed Gym and his pressure tactics could live with that.

Johnson has right off the bat moved to confirm nihilist faith. Decoupling a bipartisan military aid package to Israel and Ukraine was unhelpful, but not fully unexpected; Johnson could argue with at least several shards of credibility that it is necessary in order to expedite backing to both nations. However, making aid to our closest allies under siege contingent on MAGA domestic priorities, such as paring IRS funding as a “budget offset,” is the sort of unprecedented outrage that only an OG Trumpist would pursue.

Moreover, with the Congressional Budget Office documenting such cuts will actually INCREASE the federal deficit, nothing is left to the imagination as to motivation. National interest is no match for Hannity talking points and Trump rally items. Determining the chicken or the egg with Johnson is an impossible task. He IS who he claims he must satisfy… a Freedom Caucus freak. Allies losing faith in American leadership doesn’t mean much to one who believes they should be on their own to begin with. Forget Russian aggression, we’ve got a southern border to lock down!

From the start Trumpism has been consumed with one primary task: making its malignancy more palatable. MAGA’s mission has always been about getting American culture and the politics it influences to once again tolerate intolerance, to abide attitudes and behavior that once was deemed disqualifying. Not too long ago, Mike Johnson would have been a nut, too whack for any public office, even in Louisiana. Now he’s a savior, elevated because those whose worldview and political positions he fully shares were permitted to bring the institution of Congress to rock bottom, where anything other than suicide gets embraced as salvation. Another metastasis of the cancer that plagues us. BC

It’s very hard to overstate the ignominy of Kevin McCarthy’s overthrow. Nine months of pointless intrigue and legislative futility came to its inevitable conclusion, sooner rather than later. It now seems fair to conclude McCarthy never had a plan heading into his doomed speakership. From the start he acted as though obtaining the gavel was the end itself, like finally winning the Masters after years of grinding on the PGA tour, a crowning achievement to a career ambition, a purely personal odyssey divorced from any larger calling. When he avoided round 16 it was a conclusion, not a start. Self service instead of public service. 

When McCarthy finally did emerge victorious from last January’s chaos and accepted the gavel, he observed that US governance is “built on checks and balances” and that it was “time to be the check and provide some balance.” In retrospect, that admonition leaves no doubt he fully understood that the nihilists intended only to obstruct and were never going to take yes for an answer. When he accepted their condition that only one of them would be required to call a vote for vacating the chair, anything bipartisan became an existential threat to his job security.

Thus, there were only two roads available to travel. One was the MAGA mire of demonizing Democrats, proceeding on the delusion he enjoyed a 35-seat vote cushion the “Red Wave” never delivered last November instead of the 5-seat micro-majority Republicans actually eked out. The other was Reality Avenue, selling to the GOP rank and file the common sense conclusion his 15-round ordeal confirmed. Reaching across the aisle would be necessary to, not only govern, but develop some minimum level of trust to fall back on when zombie provocateurs like Gaetz inevitably decided to preen for Steve Bannon and call to dismiss him. Otherwise, a tiny subset of malcontents could end things in one vote. The numbers offered no other option. 

It’s now clear the House Speaker followed the first playbook until its certain failure promised either global economic catastrophe (failing to raise the debt ceiling) or domestic political self-emulation (shutting down the government.) He would tell Gaetz, Norman, Luna, Roy, Perry, et al that he was all in with their intransigence and seek to toss them raw meat whenever possible, even if it required mind-boggling hypocrisy and abject  humiliation. Sham impeachment inquiries without a vote and once near-unanimous defense appropriations measures he couldn’t even pass an open debate on, that is McCarthy’s legacy. 

Dan Balz, the elder statesman of Washington political reporters, today wrote in his infuriatingly understated manner that Matt Gaetz embodies “the worst of performative politics, which have come to typify this era.” That’s way too banal an assessment, and only half true… McCarthy is cut from the same cloth as Gaetz; they are two of a kind. As Maryland’s Jaime Raskin, a Democratic leader who has been on the front lines challenging MAGA sedition while undergoing chemotherapy, put it yesterday when asked why Democrats didn’t prop up McCarthy during his hour of need, “I don’t distinguish that sharply between Kevin McCarthy and Matt Gaetz.”

This weekend’s political talk shows will feature every take under the sun to explain how we got to this new nadir in our national story. But as with most all tragic sagas, to adequately appreciate the latest development, you have to revisit the beginning. That means recalling one of America’s darkest days, the first Tuesday of November, 2016. 

That trauma will remain a vivid memory until I go into the dirt, that moment I realized Trump would win the Presidency. It was 10:00 PM, well into election night, and Hillary Clinton was struggling in Virginia, a state she was supposed to have clinched before supper was served. Suddenly all of the unsettling signs of the last days leading up to the election coalesced into a shocking realization; if Clinton couldn’t win Virginia, none of the pre-vote metrics had been close to accurate. All bets were off. It was Xanax time.

In the weeks leading up to Trump’s Inauguration Day, the media embraced normalization. Those of us who had paid close attention to his campaign hatefests, not to mention his decades-long history of utter shamelessness and dishonor, found it difficult to buy into narratives about the weight of the office and institutional pressure obviating Trump’s ugliness. 

The worst-case scenario, albeit easy to dismiss as a dystopian fever dream, had Trump as both grievous cause and symptom. America would have to survive ceding him the awesome power of the American Presidency, but even if we emerged intact, the forces that impelled his rise could succeed in perpetuating MAGA’s relevance past his time in office. What if a whole new political ecosystem of nihilist bottom feeders emerged to pursue nothing but divisive chaos in the name of whatever narrative Fox/AM was serving up? Worst of all, what if such a sect consumed the GOP with nothing but servitude to Trump as its main priority? How could America possibly survive that? Fever dream indeed. 

Witnessing House Republicans in full self-destruct mode mirrors Trump’s own rabid meltdown these days as he’s slowly but surely held to account for crimes his mutineers fully abetted. Make no mistake, while both cases may offer a certain degree of immediate karmic satisfaction, the danger to America only intensifies when seditionists have their backs to the wall.   House Republicans were fond of saying how their circus to pick a Speaker last January was merely part and parcel of the “messy” process robust democracy sometimes necessitates. Nobody is saying that now. 

The corpse of the McCarthy months now rots on the US Capitol steps. It lays where an insurrection occurred, a national tragedy he spared no effort to whitewash, at the behest of those who ultimately toppled him.

Meanwhile, the country is now left to absorb another unprecedented desecration to its national brand of governance. A brand that once was the envy of the world, but now appears mortally wounded, just another chapter in a cautionary tale of how democracies can perish. BC