Author: BC

“Elected Republicans who are not bigots are generally cowards in the face of bigotry. And that is a shocking, horrible thing.”

Michael Gerson

In 2012 Barack Obama won re-election with as emphatic a victory as the split US polity could possibly dish out. Obama won 332 electoral votes and garnered 51.7 percent of ballots cast, a more than 5 million vote advantage. Worse for the GOP, most every demographic pegged to become more influential in the coming years – women, young people, minorities, college-educated whites, suburban voters, independents – went for the incumbent in a big way.

In short, the result fully validated what the equally decisive rout of 2008 clearly illustrated: America’s most critical electoral trends were leaving the GOP behind. The party either had to stop treating most of the nation’s voting blocs as adversaries of its flyover white base of support or enter future national campaigns up against it from the start. At the very least, unless a bigger tent was built, the Presidency could become unattainable. At worst, Republicans could become a permanent minority on Capital Hill, doomed to always be outside looking in for the indefinite future. Bleak prospects indeed.

But while the rational actor model may have presented such either/or certainties, Roger Ailes and the Fox/AM juggernaut he guided saw things quite differently. It’s only a numbers game, get out more of ours and keep away more of theirs… simple formula. If the prevailing storyline isn’t helping, create another one. If too many voters are against us, discredit their votes. Why accept the indignity of needing the support of those you despise when you can cancel them out? It’s not voter suppression, it’s preventing fraud. They aren’t growing sectors of the voting public, they are deploying illegals, felons and Black city political machines who are unfairly tilting the playing field.

That the GOP so readily adopted voter suppression and the lies required to justify it established beyond question it had been devoured by Fox/AM. What was a tiger it had been struggling to tame for its own benefit since the Tea Party took shape, now belched out the remnants of any decency Republicans once at least considered. All that remained was angry White vs. everybody else; the only thing open for debate was the proper means to an end, the direction was clear.

Brad Raffensperger, a Georgia millionaire and prominent Republican, was all in with that program. During his 2018 primary race, which led to his election as Georgia’s Secretary of State, Raffensperger enthusiastically pledged to reduce elections bureaucracy and aggressively enforce voter ID laws, well-understood subtext for making it more difficult to vote. In fact, in 2020 voting rights groups sued Raffensperger in federal court after he refused to print paper sources for registration and absentee information to be used to back up “poll pads,” which had failed previously and caused massive lines at inner-city polling places. By word and deed there was never any question but that Raffensperger was a loyal instrument for Trumpie Governor Brian Kemp’s ever more outrageous voter suppression agenda.

Of course, the nation witnessed after November 3rd there was a limit how far Raffensperger would go. Working the refs and employing various schemes to make it harder for minorities to vote was one thing, outright post-election fraud and criminality another. When the unhinged Trump demanded the latter, Raffensperger looked into the abyss and found character. For that he has been rightly praised by most all except the GOP, whose objectives he loyally pursued until continuing to do so became an overt felony. Now the party plans to remedy that heresy, both with legislation fully informed by the lies he resisted, and a primary opponent whose platform is simple: I would have done whatever Trump demanded even before he demanded it.

Jody Hice makes an impressive case for the crown as most loathsome member of Congress. He is the total package. A self-described “constitutional conservative,” Hice makes a habit of falsely citing various founding fathers to legitimate gibberish. Moreover, he is also a self-righteous Christian blowhard, always ready and willing to pass judgement on those living their lives at odds with his bigoted wretchedness. Whether he is condemning pro-choice proponents as “worse than Hitler” or declaring Islam “does not deserve First Amendment protection,” equating gays with pedophiles and gay marriage with bestiality or touting a husband’s “authority” over his wife, Hice is $174,000 a year of taxpayer-sponsored worthlessness. Now he wants to be Georgia’s next Secretary of State. His platform? Trump says votes, I say… how many?

In fact, Hice is about as capable of overseeing a state election apparatus as his biggest fan was to sit behind the resolute desk. It’s a marriage made in hell, which is all this GOP seems interested in consummating. Next to Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, Raffensperger is at the top of Trump’s get-even list. Hice makes no effort to present himself as anything other than the vehicle to indulge that sociopathy. Peach state voters are going to be given the choice of a competent incumbent, fully committed to the GOP’s efforts to discourage and outright purge Democratic votes, or an ignoramus offering nothing more than the promise of whatever lengths of corruption are required to get the job done, on-demand criminality.

Georgia is near identical to what’s on offer within both chambers of the GOP on Capitol Hill. In the House, the battle is all but over, as the Trumpist Borg – dozens of Hice-like mutations – now dominate the caucus, rabid nihilists with no interest in either competent governance or democracy. In the Senate it’s the McConnell camp of craven competence vs. the Cruz-Johnson posse of just much more craven. Both groups are on the same ship, going in the same direction, but the mutineers don’t care much about sailing, only making sure their Bligh is captain because others will do the swabbing if he is.

Who is winning? Well, Missouri Senator Roy Blunt has been as loyal a McConnell lieutenant as any and he’s throwing in the towel. The early GOP primary favorite to replace him? Disgraced former Governor Eric Greitens, who is now intent on reforming his image by living the big lie with monastic devotion. Greitens has been attacking Blunt – who just this week was in a shouting match with Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar defending GOP voter suppression initiatives – on the Fox/AM circuit. Blunt “didn’t defend President Trump enough” says Greitens. Even worse, Blunt was co-chair of the bi-partisan Inaugural Committee, a cardinal sin that just can’t be forgiven.

Meanwhile, the scrum who seek to replace retiring Ohio “moderate” Rob Portman apparently all headed south to kneel before Trump in Florida. Reports have filtered out of an Apprentice-like session of backstabbing and trash-talking, the necessary self-abasement for an endorsement all four are certain is the golden ticket. There are two words to describe such a spectacle… North Korea. Imagine if he had lost by only 5 million votes like Romney!

The Republican Party’s survival and the well being of American democracy has become a zero-sum equation. What unifies the GOP is the seditious proposition that its electoral fortunes depend on the successful suppression of minority voters. What divides it is the purpose of the enterprise. One group ties its ambitions to a bankrupt governing philosophy meant only to serve the upper brackets, the other to the nihilist sociopathy of a Fox/AM Frankenstein. One understands destroying the game ends their relevance. The other is simply rabid and totalitarian, concerned only with the enemy du jour of its Fuhrer. The greatest fear of Trump’s election was that a fluke would become a political class dependent on patronage he would abuse his office to promote. That happened and now it fully infests the GOP. The condition is terminal for either the Republican Party or America. Both can not endure at the same time anymore. BC

Few who knew my mother would take issue with the proposition she was a saint. Her patience level was extraordinary, never more so than each morning during the jr. and high school years of her three boys. And as was the case in many other areas throughout those formative days, her first born tested her near limitless calm the most. I was a daily pain in the ass no parent deserved, least of all a glorified soul like my mom.

My junior year in high school, after we had moved several miles further from the Winston Churchill campus, things got particularly thankless. The bus came by at a God-awful hour, and worse, took a preposterously circuitous route through some of the area’s most bucolic roads, a trip that took almost an hour to complete, and seemed twice that. Since my little brother had to be prepared – with a bit less but still taxing amount of grief – for his departure to elementary school, the possibility my mother could drive me did not exist. Moreover, even when I secured a driver’s license, my father made clear I would not be driving my mother’s car to school… ever. Therefore, in an era just before Ted Bundy began to impinge on our personal safety sensibilities and hitchhiking went the way of the 8-track tape deck, my only available option to avoid the school bus was sticking out the old thumb.

Hitchhiking back then was like flying is today, it could be heaven or hell. Things could go just right or very wrong. I could get picked up by the pretty older sister of a friend on her way to school as well, making for a pleasurable, even intoxicating trip with zero delay; or I could shiver in the rain as one heartless ingrate after another passed me by. I could have a stress-free trip with commuters on their way to work, or a nerve wracking affair with a creeper who was certain I “sinned way too much.” But regardless how bad hitching could be, the bus never gained more luster in my eyes. Either way, getting me out of the house was near always more drama than my wonderful mom should of had to endure.

This family history has made for the richest of irony during the last half dozen years, as my son Luke has risen with the sun every week day on the school calendar, year in and year out, selecting his wardrobe and packing his lunch, part of a routine he only wants to repeat without anything other than full enthusiasm. Watching him joyously sprint up to the corner to meet his bus is something his parents never tire of; it always fills our hearts with love… every single time. My mother loved it as well, until she passed suddenly. We laughed together several times about how incongruous my parenting experience was to hers, even factoring in my daughter’s best efforts at making the AM difficult.

Covid did a number on my son’s piece of mind. Worst of all was cancelling in-person school. Autism is very much an anxiety disorder, and reliable routines are essential to providing the balance required for Luke to frame his present experience in a way he can link to future plans. It’s a process most modulate innately; for Luke it is work made tremendously more difficult when sudden variables replace constants he previously relied on. Without school everything else became chaotic. Left to his own devices with no set plans, he worried… and worried some more.

Throughout the last year Luke has looked to a return to school as the gold standard for “the end of stupid Covid.” Virtual classes have only reinforced his dismay, often becoming “trigger” events for meltdowns that take a couple hours to talk him down from. The gap between school’s cancellation and any sense of normalcy his mother could create with an improvised schedule of activities she would heroically put together throughout the week was often simply to vast for him to bridge without dread about whether things would ever make sense again. No matter how often we sought to calm his fears by promising a vaccine was coming and “as soon as everybody gets their shot, things will become normal,” we couldn’t promise what he needed most to hear… when that school bus would return. Now it has.

The American public wasn’t so different from Luke as Covid descended on the country. We are as wedded to routines as he is, and upsetting them is something we’ll go to extremes to avoid. The difference is the consequences created by the tantrums, not the measures necessary to preventing them. More than anything else, what real leadership would have looked like last March was telling us exactly what we didn’t want to hear, but then focusing on the steps necessary to get back what we were losing, one message always in pursuit of one goal: keeping people safe. The idea preventing infection and economic well being were mutually exclusive could only have germinated under the most bankrupt, even nefarious leadership.

That one year later we are now divided exactly along that deceitful notion confirms both how damaging a horrible President can be, and the relative ease in which the worst instincts too many harbor can assert themselves under societal stress. From the start, like Luke, the nation looked for honest assurance and certainty, united in a willingness to “flatten the curve.” But instead of a plan grounded in best practices, we got lies and chaotic recriminations that were only employed for one purpose… to avoid responsibility, the exact antithesis of leadership. Instead of the goal of keeping us safe, we got reducing Donald Trump’s political liability, which Fox/AM translated into mindlessly militant libertarianism, which predictably became 525, 000 dead and counting. The Biden team now simply provides what probably any other Administration save one would have given us. Tragically, the damage has been done… on many levels.

Last week, watching Luke once again run with a care-free gait to meet his early AM bus was bittersweet. His most important routine restored, our burden is now much lighter, even if neither Sue or I has yet to receive a shot. Seems we’ll be rolling the dice a while until our number gets called; I’ll take that chance. Luke has always asked for little and now again has much of what he needs to be happy. That is a blessed relief for me, worth more than most anything else.

Yet and still, how can we celebrate after so much needless carnage, after America failed so badly to address this crisis with our collective humanity in tact? Whatever the worst scenario was last March, more than a half million dead in one year was surely within shouting distance of it. We’ve more than normalized that tragedy; incredibly, the MAGA political class is despicable enough to actually take bows for causing it, conflating their servility to Trump’s manslaughter with courage in the face of political correctness, refusing to acknowledge the hundreds of thousands who perished as even collateral damage. Whatever light we are beginning to see at the end of this tunnel, they do their best to dim.

Tucker Carlson hissing for his zombie faithful to think thrice about getting vaccinated, while all of the usual MAGA suspects are railing for 100% maskless reopening just as Covid case numbers and deaths are finally beginning to dip, is par for the Fox/AM course, as criminally reckless as it is predictable. Recent CPAC absurdities portend a 2022 election cycle filled with revisionist GOP talk tracks at odds with the truth and eager to ignore a death toll created by shameful expediency to the wretched core’s fear and loathing.

Almost exactly one year ago the DR posted that, with a grave crisis upon us, our humanity was everything:

“It’s in us all and will get us through this; we simply need to hold it close…Never forsake it or we are lost.“

Indeed… BC

On November 5, with the Biden campaign team and prominent national Democrats expressing confidence Trump was on his way out, the President began to rail at full volume things were “rigged” against him. With the writing on the wall Trump would surprise nobody and effortlessly morph into the ugliest loser in US history. But Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona had his back, tweeting that Trump was “…the winner of the 2020 election.” Gosar went on and entreated MAGA fellow travelers to “…not let the leftists cheat, lie and steal this from us. We saw the Election Day numbers.“

Of course, it was no shock to get matching rhetoric from Gosar, a frontrunner in any race for the most unhinged member of Congress. But, not even 36 hours after the last polls closed, he was far more rule than outlier, in both tone and substance. In fact, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California was barely an octave or two softer in what he was putting out about the election that very same day. Appearing on Laura Ingraham’s Fox show that evening, McCarthy was in lockstep with the most militant elements of his caucus:

“President Trump won this election so everyone who’s listening, do not be quiet. Do not be silent about this. We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes. We need to unite together. You don’t need to be a Republican. If you believe in every legal vote needs to count, you believe in the American process, join together and let’s stop this.”

So, while the votes were still being counted, there was near zero daylight between the messaging of Gosar, a zealot nutty enough to be disowned by his siblings, and the House Minority Leader. Moreover, near everyone in between echoed the same sentiments. That 140 plus House Republicans would enthusiastically object to certifying the election two months later seemed shocking unless one made the effort to track the public record of each between Election Day and 1/6.

Without exception, from November 4th until January 6th, the vast majority of the House GOP cultivated the brazen lie of a stolen election. Moreover, it was not something that evolved or synthesized as information came to light or accusations were lodged; it was nothing other than the full amplification of what Trump promised he would do if he lost, once that scenario started to become reality. Anyone who doubts that now need only study Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s just-released near 2000-page Social Media Report, which exhaustively chronicles the seditionists’ falsehoods in their own words, their own social media postings.

Central to the entire narrative was playing dumb about the different timetables established by each state for counting mail-in votes. Virtually every House Republican whined from the outset about why various states (read those crucial battlegrounds where Biden was beginning to bite into Trump’s vote lead) took longer than others to tabulate their votes.

There was no mystery to the answer… some states permitted counting of mail-in ballots before November 3, others didn’t. Near zero of the GOP inciters acknowledged this simple fact, instead equating delay with “increasing concerns about the process.” The “red mirage” that had been predicted for weeks played out accordingly. Trump started on top as the votes of his partisans, who he commanded not to vote by mail, were tabulated election night, but gradually gave way when historic numbers of mail-in ballots, as fully expected, favored Biden by lopsided margins.

Rep. Robert Aderholdt, a Trumpie from Alabama, was typical of GOP House members from coast to coast, complaining on Facebook November 5 about the “slowness” of the count, which “seems centered in Democratic leaning counties” and “leads to questions in people’s minds that undermines our democratic process.” While Republican Senators merely extolled Trump’s “right” to challenge anything and everything he could think of in court, most of the GOP House Caucus declared things rotten from the start, following Trump and McCarthy’s fact-free pronouncements.

The messaging was the same up and down the line, from rank and file to top leadership, from back benchers like Louie Goumert of Texas, who on November 6th was declaring “the election is in the process of being stolen,” to Republican Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana’s disengenuous 11/6 Tweet that “every American should demand” the election security he was falsely implying they weren’t getting if Trump lost. Lofgren’s stunning report catalogs a detailed chronology of uniform sedition undertaken by near every member of the House GOP. The tone and content dutifully mirror Trump’s incitement right up to 1/6. In retrospect the only term that fits is organized conspiracy.

As 1/6 approached, urgency morphed into a sense of reckless desperation that it was “now or never.” Combative imagery began to thread through posts, with 1/6 characterized as a reckoning for the nation’s survival. Throughout America Trump supporters were being beseeched by their Congressmen and women to resist, as Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania put it on January 5th, the “unconstitutional no excuse mail-in ballot scheme.” Most striking is the uniformity of the language leading up to what House GOP baiters warned was a showdown to rescue all America holds dear. To be clear, this was not abiding sedition, it was collectively demanding it.

With all legitimate challenges exhausted and dispatched with prejudice by one court after another, the common word became “instinctively.” Jim Jordan of Ohio was one of many declaring his objections to certification were justified on the basis “Americans instinctively know that there was something wrong with this election.” Two months of frivolous claims ended exactly where it all began, nothing other than Trump’s campaign guff that defeat was only possible if “they” cheated. Hardly anything more was cited by most of the House GOP to justify thwarting certification. Some used saucier adjectives than others, but all feverishly pursued the same common goal from the moment it became clear Trump’s re-election prospects were in trouble: destroy the faith of their constituents in the electoral process, convince them without evidence things were “rigged” against them.

That the mob they incited for two months actually followed through and rioted as directed seems almost inevitable when one grasps just how cohesive the effort was. Even less surprising is the same degree of homogeneity in the post-insurrectionist talk track, first seeking to absolve Trump of responsibility and then relentlessly creating false equivalence with the unrest following George Floyd’s murder.

The newest phase is to sweep entirely what motivated insurrection under the rug, instead focusing solely on the logistical and operational breakdowns that enabled the security breach, all the while tossing out fictions about Antifa et al highjacking the otherwise patriotic MAGA bystanders on 1/6 to see what sticks. Fox/AM will surely do its part to buttress such falsehoods. At the end of the day the cabal’s members will return to their districts and condemn “all violence” with a wink and nudge. Then each will brag about how they “stood with President Trump” start to finish, and that “election integrity” will always be at the top of their priority list. Few will ever recognize in public Joe Biden as a legitimately elected POTUS.

Just before the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln’s old political rival Stephan Douglas asserted that all citizens “must be for the United States or against it. There can be no neutrals in this war, only patriots — or traitors.” Our electoral system and the peaceful transfer of political power it facilitates is synonymous with who we are as a nation. Faith in its fairness and legitimacy is the aorta of our civic lifeblood. If creating and relentlessly selling a lie that US elections are corrupt (except for the part that elected you) for no other purpose than to stymie defeat isn’t traitorous sedition, the concept itself is worthless and void of meaning. Lofgren’s report supports only one conclusion: the House GOP is a caucus of traitors. Chew on that next time Chuck Todd or Amy Walter cheerily discuss the prospects of a 2022 Republican majority.

“Cheating is not the American way. It is small, while we are large. It is cheap, while we are richly endowed. It is destructive, while we are creative. It is doomed to fail, while our gifts and responsibilities call us to achieve. It sabotages trust and weakens the bonds of spirit and humanity, without which we perish.“

Terrance McNally

It is clear now 1/6 will be no 9/11 within America’s collective consciousness. On the surface of it that shouldn’t surprise. Although many used to the Capitol’s open campus find fencing and barbed wire shocking, it is not stories-high smoldering Trade Tower rubble. Lily white nihilists roaming hallowed halls of democracy, as hideous as it was, could simply not pack the same punch as two of the world’s largest buildings being razed on the fly by Arab fanatics, killing thousands in the process. For enduring shock value that is a very high bar to meet… (setting aside the irony that the mayor who galvanized the response to 9/11 would devolve 20 years later into the lying huckster who helped incite 1/6!)

Yet and still, while 9/11 laid bare vulnerability to foreign zealots favorable geography could no longer protect us from, 1/6 provided a front row seat to how vulnerable the very basis of our democratic governance now finds itself at the hands of unhinged domestic cultists. To be clear, on that particular day, while whipped into a frenzy by a rancid demagogue, whose rabid conspiracy pronouncements they equate with the survival of their personal liberty, a mob of Americans had no trouble feverishly pursuing Al Qaudian benchmarks for rage and destruction of a go-to symbol for our way of life.

The difference in the ingestion of 9/11 and 1/6 clearly lies less in the acts themselves than in the variance of how large swaths of the citizenry believe what was allowed to happen affects them and theirs. We had near complete consensus on that question 20 years ago, enough to unleash two wars that we have yet to end; today we are fully divided. Of course that doesn’t make the assault on the Capitol any less awful; it simply clarifies a majority of Republicans don’t really have a problem with what went down, and certainly are not prepared to take part in a national reckoning if that means holding Trump accountable for the lie he was always prepared to foist if he lost. In other words, the degree to which 1/6 is diminished as a day of historic infamy mirrors MAGA’s consumption of the GOP going forward. That means it’s not if but when we face comparable peril.

Democracy is based on competition, and competition is impossible without rules that participants agree on and apply equally to all. That’s always been a sticking point with Trump. Pressed to use one sentence to describe his conduct throughout adult life, most who have paid attention would assert he lives as if established laws and sanctions don’t apply to him. Of course, his MAGA minions would rephrase it and gush “he makes his own rules.”

Either way, after his 90-minute borefest at CPAC yesterday, there can be no doubt the GOP will continue to embrace the notion a fair playing field is whatever works best for its prospects at any given moment. The cheating and rank hypocrisy are givens, the only open question is what will primarily motivate the party’s craven pursuits: fealty to its survival as a viable governing entity, or wanton servility to Trump as he faces a legal and financial reckoning he will make obstruction to a litmus test for his approval.

The two are mutually exclusive; any even cursory survey of CPAC sensibilities and the roster of “talent” it aims to rabidly promote at the expense of Trump’s long list of “RINO” heretics he wants purged yesterday supports no other conclusion. MAGA is giving McConnell et al a fait accompli, there will be no compromises. McConnell can be an empty figurehead of a MAGA monster or he can go to war… it’s Munich time!

Obviously, moving quickly past 1/6 fits the CPAC agenda to a tee. The degree to which House and Senate Republicans seek to recast events away from a singular national calamity and toward merely a breakdown in security procedures is an accurate barometer for how the party is falling in line as Trump’s personal appendage. Of course, the House leaves little to hope for in that regard, most of the GOP caucus still refusing to allow that Joe Biden is a legitimate POTUS. Now, recent signals from the Senate side also suggest rough waters for any standing against Trump or demanding a full accounting of the day US democracy was forced to the brink.

In committee last week for the purpose of investigating the various security breakdowns that enabled the Trump mob to breach the Capitol on 1/6, GOP Senators were glad to stray off toward whatever details reinforced the riot as more the result of logistic and personnel failures than the singular civic catastrophe it was. Rob Portman from Ohio, who went weeks without so much as mumbling that Joe Biden in fact won the election, was most concerned with why all security personnel were not adequately equipped. Roy Blount from Missouri, who even as he chaired the Inaugural Committee went well into January refusing to declare who would be sworn in, was all about finding out why the lowly DC Police had to step in and save the day.

Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, decertification ringleaders who each seem to have no other strategy for gaining the 2024 Republican nomination than inheriting Trump’s wretched core, were only interested in equating 1/6 with any violence anywhere, but most particularly DC, that followed George Floyd’s murder last summer. The entire line of questioning both pursued gnawed around those edges; 1/6 as just a run-of-the-mill riot – seen one, you’ve seen them all. Hawley and Cruz pandered accordingly at CPAC over the weekend, the former receiving an extended ovation after boasting of his decertification valor.

However, Trump-eunuch Ron Johnson from Wisconsin was most egregious, declaring it an open question as to what sensibilities motivated the mayhem. Johnson cited one “eyewitness account” to explain things. “Agent-provocateurs” of mysterious political inclination and at odds with the “festive” MAGA faithful present on the scene, were the primary villains. Incredibly, Johnson’s preferred depiction blamed Capitol cops themselves for inciting the crowd with tear gas, thus playing into the violent outliers’ hands. Johnson implied most on the grounds were victims rather than insurrectionists, their good clean fun hijacked by a cabal of instigators his “witness” doubted were MAGA-affiliated.

As the Biden Administration deals with the public health disaster it inherited, while moving apace to reset policy and operational parameters Trump demolished, the cloud of 1/6 continues to hover, as ominous as ever. As lazy as Trump is, the Fox/AM cesspool has no intention of allowing MAGA to wither on a Doral fairway, it will do whatever is necessary to facilitate his continued relevance. It’s a bit comical to believe Trump would opt for all the effort and uncertainty of spinning off a new party when the GOP platform offers a turn-key grift infrastructure requiring only his continued guff to power.

The CPAC proceedings served notice four years of a Hannity Presidency was more than enough to create a thriving nihilist political class, a band of craven neophytes that more than makes up for what it fully lacks in competence or legislative skill with levels of shamelessness and dishonor necessary to trounce those beholden to any limits propriety may demand. Overt lying and cheating is now the price of admission to the Republican table; it is now a caucus mostly comprised of bottom feeders with little to lose and even less concern for democracy’s well being. The GOP is now a state of nature. The rest of us would do well to understand it no longer just works the refs or cheats as it breathes; it now refuses to recognize the rules apply at all, other than as a vehicle to destroy the opposition… both within the party and without! BC

In 1992, teaming up with who he dubbed his ”soulmate,” Roger Ailes, Rush Limbaugh was ready to become the next Johnny Carson… or at least the next Phil Donahue. Flush with the hubris a now national radio following provided, El Rushbo was ready to conquer late night television with a mixture of comedy, current events and live audience participation. America was about to get a taste of dittomania; the sky was the limit. At least that’s what Limbaugh thought.

To get a clearer image of what he had in mind, think Steve Colbert’s approach, topicality mixed with a talented comedian’s ability to mine absurdity out of otherwise serious issues, along with the added dimension of direct audience participation. Problem was Limbaugh was no talented comedian. More significantly, Rush would soon find out many in his audience detested him and were unwilling to interact in any civil manner, instead much preferring to convey personal animosity at the top of their lungs.

A classic episode that characterized the show’s hot mess atmosphere began with the host amused, and assuming most others would be as well, by a Mrs. Potato Head he labeled as feminist Molly Yard, a repeated target of misogynist rants on Limbaugh’s radio show. There was a particularly extreme abortion bill that some flyover legislature had passed, but was just that day vetoed by the state’s governor. Rush waded into his studio audience expecting a Phil Donahue type of opinion forum that he would inject his own outspokenness into; what he got was a mob ready to tar and feather him. Most were far more interested in getting into the moderator’s face than simply expressing their thinking on the issue. The audience was packed with the enemy his radio format created, and there was no producer to screen them out. It would be the longest hour of Limbaugh’s life, the whole enterprise destined to wind up a miserable failure.

The fiasco taught both Limbaugh and Ailes the same lesson: control is everything. Moving forward Rush would never again place himself in any situation with unknown variables capable of creating spontaneous circumstances he didn’t have ready talking points available to beat back. Ailes created standard operating procedures for all of his Fox on-air talent that steadily eroded any guise of actually “debating” issues, gradually creating the nihilist echo chamber it is today. Indeed, it is hard to overstate the impact Limbaugh’s late-night humiliations have exerted on the direction of the Fox/AM universe. What started as at least a facade of debating ideas, is now unprecedentedly effective propaganda, primarily responsible for the systemic crisis American governance currently withers under.

When Limbaugh passed last week, a victim of the lung cancer he swore to listeners his cigar consumption couldn’t possibly cause, both sides proceeded on the assumption he welcomed the rancor his often shocking viewpoints created. That’s only half true. For while he surely loved being a polarizing figure, ever promoting extremism wholly at odds with any degree of compromise, always demanding Republicans simply gum up the works for no better reason than to punctuate his grievance and resentments, Limbaugh never really had the stomach for directly debating his cause. Indeed, the blueprint he religiously employed, and all of his imitators adopted fully reflected such cowardice.

The most important people in their studios became the call screeners, and technicians who equipped them to quickly cut the mics of opposing opinions that happened to get through the initial line of defense, daring to confront the host about their repetitious guff. For decades now the Fox/AM universe has been anything but the “competition of ideas” Limbaugh forever claimed to tower over, instead merely cult-of-personality fiefdoms for hucksters peddling niche products to end-of-days survivalists 24 minutes per hour of air time, while accepting homage and servile agreement on whatever parcel of the circular shit river narrative being covered that particular segment. Same thing, day after day, year after year… North Korea on the AM or Fox prime time, nothing new other than perhaps a controversial slur or particularly detestable personal attack.

This is what Limbaugh can take credit for pioneering, a repressive system for the distribution of misinformation packaged as validation for those at odds with their own accountability. A constant distortion of problems without easy solutions to fit a mindset only interested in finding scapegoats to vilify and bully. The Limbaugh legacy has zero to do with any semblance of debate past rigorously creating a daily scrum of those fighting tooth and nail to repeat what the previous caller said after an obligatory ode to Rush’s greatness.

The menu of propositions put forth never served any other purpose than to dredge up the same resentments, the same regurgitated ugly bromides about dystopia “they” are subjecting “us” to at the expense of some nostalgic eden America once thrived in. The media, minorities, gays, liberals, RINOs, academia, Hollywood, “Covid hoax” doctors, maskers, high-tech, etc. etc., virtually anyone not within the thrall of his daily dose of civic pestilence became a target for dittodom’s stochastic terrorism, its seditious virulence toward whoever didn’t agree enough. Hannity, Levin, Beck, O’Reilly, Ingraham, Plante, Savage, the list is now endless. All follow exactly the same process… to the letter. It’s a Big Mac for the American Taliban, every episode served up exactly the same, deja vu over and over again. And they can indeed thank Limbaugh for that.

The Washington Cathedral bell tolled 500 times today, once for every thousand Americans who have perished due to Covid-19. Along with Fox/AM’s first President, an avid listener, Limbaugh bears as much responsibility as anyone for that carnage. It’s not hyperbole to contend that, had he used his platform to vigilantly warn about Covid’s danger and consistently urge best practices, tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved. Of course what he did, until literally his dying breath, is what he’s always done… pander to our worst inclinations, provide permission to be Karens, know-it-all jerks conflating incredible selfishness with contrarian principle because, hey, megadittos.

Now that he’s joined those he couldn’t have cared less about, his listener base is taking great umbrage many are treating Limbaugh with the same disdain and cruel callousness he laid on any he wasn’t confident received his daily bile with reverent enthusiasm. Fact is, the division on display with his death isn’t any different than the chasm he created for thirty years. It’s his followers celebrating the rancid ugliness he pawned off as keen political insight, lionizing bigoted megalomania, and then whining he’s a victim of the politically correct persecution he constantly harangued about.

What they’ve never understood is why Limbaugh thrived with such a detestable product to sell: hate can only be normalized to haters; the rest will never accept it as anything else. Only bigots can find redeemable ideas in the guff of other bigots; the rest of us perceive only stench. And guess what? Even a Medal of Freedom can’t make it smell any better. BC

During Trump’s Presidency the US abdicated its world leadership role. America First was nothing more than a tag line for the international version of MAGA’s ugly grievance and resentment. US national interest was subordinated to what Trump could whine about, which with traditional allies like NATO’s membership translated to protecting America from ingrates who have spent decades benefitting from our military protection while scamming us blind as trading partners.

There were of course countless examples of disgraceful conduct by our grievance empath on the world stage. Picking just one or even a top five is no easy task. Yet and still, who can forget the 2018 Brussels disgrace when, surrounded by his stoically horrified babysitters – stricken chief of staff John Kelly, feckless NATO Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchinson and the Von Ribbentropesque Mike Pompeo – Trump refused to accept NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg’s breathless assurances that members were now, thanks only to the Donald’s righteous demands, paying their fair share for US protection. Instead, Trump launched into a mostly fact-free rant accusing Germany of “being controlled by Russia” and still lagging behind with its defense budget compared to the US. “You tell me how that’s fair,” the terrible infant demanded of the ashen Secretary General.

Stoltenberg learned a harsh fact of life that day: Trump never takes yes for an answer when cameras are rolling and more self-aggrandizement time is available.
More than just an international incident, it was such a petty yet momentous outrage one could feel 70 years of good faith being sucked out of the room. The alliance’s annual defense ministers meeting this week begins the hard work of diminishing the last four years to a mulligan, merely a populist aberration even the most stable democracy can inflict on itself… and others. One redeemable quality of Fox/AM’s nihilist foreign policy is, theoretically at least, since it was only about breaking things – like treaties, agreements, precedent and tradition, our good word, etc. – restoration becomes a function of the restorers drive and determination. Resolute policy, punctuated by decisive action, can result in reasonably rapid timetables to renew constructive relationships and the initiatives they create.

It is pleasantly counterintuitive that US military leaders are often accomplished writers, capable of crafting oratory that provides vivid description of their strategic and operational ambitions. After all, General US Grant restored his family fortune with a memoir he feverishly scribed within the throes of terminal throat cancer, his death quite literally following its final paragraph. It was General George Marshall, who authored the guidance of Europe’s post-war economic restoration, not to mention the preface of Western collective security. Eisenhower was no slouch when it came to describing the contours of his concerns about the limits of US power and the inherent dangers that accompany blank-check military development.

Even Trump’s first Defense Secretary, General James Mattis, a formidable intellect, provided thoughtful written statements underpinning his testimony before Congress. Such verbiage was in stark contrast to the always uninformed utterances of his White House patron. Trump eventually lost patience with answers more substantial than “yes sir” and forced the general’s resignation with his breathtaking betrayal of Kurdish allies responsible for most of the dirtiest work against ISIS in Iraq. With Mattis departed, the steady erosion of the military’s autonomy vis-a-vis civilian political intrigue shifted into high gear, culminating in the chain-of-command chaos that delayed efforts to adequately confront Trump’s insurrectionists on 1/6.

Add to this group, President Biden’s Secretary of Defense, General Lloyd Austin, whose confirmation hearing testimony was impressive in lucidly outlining the scope of best practices he plans to bring back to the Pentagon. Austin has made clear his intention to move quickly and reassert America’s leadership role abroad, fully cognizant time is of the essence. Nowhere is that sensibility more applicable than restoring NATO’s confidence in the US as a leader rather than haranguer. Even so, bringing allied faith in US leadership back to pre-MAGA levels is a very tough ask, likely not even possible.

Austin is starting at the beginning, assuring alliance members it’s all about working “to secure our common interests and promote our shared values abroad.” If that seems inanely obvious right now, consider that just several months ago there was no Defense Department official who could speak credibly about US security policy, and our President was celebrating spikes in European Covid rates to vindicate his own pandemic malpractice. With friends like that, who needs enemies.

In fact, from start to finish during Trump’s term it was like pulling teeth to simply get him to reaffirm Article 5, NATO’s foundational member pledge that an attack on one is an attack on all. Austin’s remedial approach can be seen as the Biden team’s acknowledgement of how ruinous Trump’s transactional sensibilities were, and the importance of making sure nothing during this rapprochement is taken for granted. The primary lesson Trump’s shocking disavowal of NATO basics imparted, which none of the alliance’s principals will ever forget, is the American electorate can no longer be trusted. US foreign policy continuity, a decades-long rock all could rely on, fractured as the moron it elected favored Limbaugh rants to daily intelligence briefings, muscular authoritarians to plain-Jane democrats.

Perhaps most critical to Austin’s game plan is his determination that building “a ready and capable force is inextricably linked to our work with our allies and partners.” Coming on the heels of Trump’s constant bellowing about unprecedented US defense expenditures in one breath and derisive complaints about any and all alliance obligations not duly compensated for in the next, Austin’s commingling of purpose and resources is essential grounding to grateful if not warier partners.

The “global posture review” Austin announced the US is undertaking will bear in mind that “each nation faces myriad pressures when it comes to spending on security.” In other words, the US is back to leading and doing rather than whining about being taken advantage of. The immediate halt to Trump’s troop drawdown in Germany, while no surprise, still reinforces that Biden is acting first, and intent on giving very short shrift to holdover MAGA sensibilities in both the House and Senate. Like the deficit, the GOP now only exhibits interest in checking executive power over foreign policy when a Democrat is calling the shots. They will doubtlessly glom on to America First bromides as a basis for obstructing most all of the reset agenda, revising history to claim Trump’s NATO idiocy was merely long overdue tough love only he had the will to demand. Whatever. It’s in the rear view now.

Indeed, as Austin more than implies in his NATO primer, the sooner MAGA dark ages are forgotten, the better. No doubt his peers this week probably feel the same way. However, like so many things we once took for granted pre-MAGA, normalcy feels plenty good, but it’s not going to erase the memory of how quickly it was lost, how uncertain its return seemed, and how much more tenuous it now feels after just four years of America First. BC

Few public servants in the post-WWII era carried the gravitas of George Shultz. A marine who fought in the Pacific, an economist, academic, business titan, one of only two people to hold four separate Cabinet positions in the US government, and most notably Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State for 6 1/2 years, present at the creation of the post-Soviet world order, Shultz lived and served plenty in his 100 years above ground. His passing several days ago was predictably met with universal sadness, his many accomplishments lauded in fully bipartisan fashion across the political spectrum.

Anyone who lives for a full century is going to possess some wisdom; Shultz had more than his fair share. Perhaps his most sage and prescient observation was the lesson he “learned over and over” that “trust is the coin of the realm.” When “trust was in the room,” maintained Shultz, “good things happened.” When it was missing “good things did not happen. Everything else is details.” As common sense as it is insightful; who could argue otherwise?

Sadly, by this barometer America is going nowhere fast. Trust is exactly the commodity we lack most at the moment, primarily because it has to be earned and one half of the body politic feels a far greater obligation to abetting criminality than any moral capital it might accrue. For four years our highest office shamelessly trafficked in more than 30,000 publicly uttered falsehoods. That 74 million were ready to validate such shockingly unprecedented dishonesty with another term speaks as much to a disdain for truth as a trust in lies, or even worse, that neither really matters in our governance. Voting with a belief that everyone lies so the liar you know is better than the one you haven’t yet experienced abdicates all civic responsibility. It’s also an essential element of MAGA election strategy, the false equivalence ascendant fascism requires. The current class of Trump toadies certainly didn’t rise based on their bold vision.

In fact, Trump most often labeled any effort to reach consensus not fully toeing the line of his own personal benefit – near always aligned with one deceit or another – a betrayal, more than enough reason for public repudiation. As Donald Jr. made clear just before the wretched core attacked the Capitol, “Trump’s Republican Party” will “come to get” those insufficiently dedicated to the war effort the big boss demanded they fight in pursuit of criminal aims encompassed by the bald-faced lie he conjured. Now, from his Mar-A-Lago exile, he continues to call for nothing less, plotting revenge on any who “let him down.” Incredibly, most of the GOP Senate Caucus still feels obligated to deliver for their Scut Farkas, unwilling to stand up for either themselves or the country that so foolishly entrusted them to protect its national interest.

Like almost exactly one year ago, House floor managers have an easy job: to prove Donald Trump is guilty of impeachable conduct. And just like one year ago, they have a better chance scaling Mount Everest in bathing suits and flip flops than securing a conviction. Faced again with half a jury who view facts as little more than inconvenient clarification of their collective disdain for the oath of office most all are intent to disregard, Trump’s prosecutors will have to settle once more for the pyrrhic victory of shaming the shameless, disgracing the disgraced, laying bare who this nation can no longer afford to trust in any measure.

Anybody who wasn’t riveted and revolted by the Raskin team’s airtight presentation of how bad things could have gotten on 1/6 lacks concern for country. Not surprisingly, the usual suspects were unimpressed. “I think the trial is a waste of time,” hissed Ted Cruz, who urged on the seditionists from the start, giving Trump’s lie credibility at every opportunity. Rand Paul apparently was more interested in what he was doodling than what was on the screen. Lindsey Graham sniveled to Sean Hannity that the presentation was “offensive.” No doubt the GOP Presidential primary class of 2024, when not kissing Trump’s ring and unctuously urging him to run again, will define this impeachment exactly as they did the last, as Cruz called it Wednesday, “the result of seething partisan anger on the part of congressional Democrats.” Some juror.

Yet and still, it’s hard to believe hour upon hour of the clearest and most damning timeline imaginable won’t force most to at least consider where a vote to acquit places them within US history’s calculus. They have to know how posterity will frown on their abject servility to a loathsome figure time will only render more depraved with every now unreported detail it uncovers. That Marco Rubio will again be voting to absolve the tormenter who mockingly dubbed him “liddle Marco” and whose daughter now plans to primary him herself in 2022 can only make one wonder if blackmail is involved. Honestly, no human can be that self-abasing, can they?

Fact is, House Democrats did the Senate GOP a huge favor teeing up Trump for a lifetime ban from office and the ticket to palookaville it would punch. All they have to do is summon up the will to send him packing, and only a handful of them have to do it. Seventeen is all they need, less if some don’t show up for the vote (the Constitution only requires 2/3 of “those present”.) The rest can enjoy the cowardice that comes so naturally to them. Draw straws, compare polls, rock, scissors and paper… whatever works. Just get it done. In any fight for a viable GOP future, this has to be the first volley, right?

Holding Trump to account for sedition he forced on those who spent four years eating every shit sandwich he served would not only provide the just desserts he has earned in spades, it would serve notice to future imitators that dead-ender populism will ultimately not be kind to them either. He’s there for the dispatching; all they need to do is grow a pair. Yea, sure! Might as well expect me to sprout a mane of lush handfuls of hair.

It did happen here. Giving the stochastic terrorist Trump a pass for the 1/6 mayhem he is solely responsible for inspiring, inciting and inflicting means it’s still happening here. The idea Americans committed to our democratic system could possibly ever trust a party depraved enough to pursue such injustice a mere month after they themselves were hightailing it through obscure Capitol passages and stairwells in search of sanctuary from murderous hordes their cowardice abetted is a laughable proposition.

For weeks after Joe Biden was projected the winner of Decision/2020 virtually every GOP Senator muttered not a word as Trump incessantly spewed his big lie. Many still have yet to actually say Biden won fair and square! Now, despite a flawless prosecution case that connects every dot, they will again shrug and acquit. It’s a party that deserves to die, maybe must die if we are to continue as a going concern. George Shultz is already turning in his casket.

“There are no consequences in the Republican caucus for violence. No consequences for racism. No consequences for misogyny. No consequences for insurrection. And no consequences means that they condone it. It means that that silence is acceptance,” – AOC

It’s game time again in the nation’s capital. Not a full month out from one of the worst days America will ever remember, it’s clear many in the GOP are finding 1/6 plenty easy to forget. Whatever epiphany may have been experienced by some in the party leadership as a result of insurrection – notably Mitch McConnell, who seemed, at least from certification through inauguration, to understand the difference between corrupt partisanship and murderous treason – most of the GOP, and near the entire Republican House Caucus, are now making clear where their disloyalties lie.

These are not lawmakers, they are oath breakers, rotten to the core and proud of it. How else do you stand and clap for the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene? As with their champion, they care nothing about leaving anything to the imagination. This is what the avant-garde of the wretched core looks and sounds like. With the exception of near half a million Covid dead, they are Trump’s ugliest legacy, a radicalized nihilist political class dedicated only to gnawing away at our political, economic and societal foundations, a daily erosion of anything constructive. There is nothing of worth they won’t congeal to devalue, no national interest they won’t compromise if it plays well with Jesse Waters.

Radicalization occurs either as a result of circumstances that impel people to believe systemic change is the only means to their survival, or through subordination of rationality to calculated and sustained propaganda. The first reflects reality, the second facilitates its contrived distortions. There is little doubt which scenario now pervades the base this Republican Party is devoted to serve, or where the blame lies. We may have gotten rid of Fox/AM’s President, but its customer base, the central rot of our politics, is going nowhere. The only open question remains whether American democracy will live to tell the tale of the lessons it learned enduring its harrowing encounter with totalitarianIsm.

Regardless, not 30 days after the Capitol fell to the walking dead, we are back in game mode. House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy isn’t sanctioning sedition or bending the knee to its ringleader, let alone handing out plum committee assignments to bat-shit crazy QAnon freaks, who make Alex Jones seem thoughtful; instead he’s “moving to unite the party,” at least that’s how Washington Post coverage terms it. In this GOP, one hand soils the other. That is, if Liz Cheney is to survive her obstinacy in voting to impeach Trump, then the nihilists need to feel heard. How do you call play-by-play when you’re witnessing a national tragedy? That this caucus “has a 2022 majority well within its grasp” is no less a specter than a second Trump term in the White House.

Understand that most of them still won’t publicly declare Biden won the election. The majority would have high-fived had Mike Pence pulled out alternative state certifications and declared Trump the winner! And now they’ve added fresh fascist faces, like Greene and Glock-packing Lauren Boebert, who has just enough respect for the Capitol Police that she curses them out for being uppity and seeking to check her bag when she sets off the metal detector her admirers made necessary. News flash, Amy Walters…this is no game, it’s part of the same crisis that gave us 1/6!

Like many others, the DR fervently hoped getting Joe Biden’s hand on the Bible would close out a horrific chapter encompassing the consequences total civic collapse produced. Indeed, the Biden Presidency has already ushered in welcome rejuvenation of viable governance and restoration of critical institutions that survived four years of MAGA’s sustained assaults. One could listen to Press Secretary Jen Psaki all day long and not tire of her dogged determination to answer each question with thoughtful commitment to accuracy and substance, free of inane recrimination. It is the soothing balm of good faith completely absent since Sean Spicer’s first sentence, and first lie, four years ago. Moreover, it’s clear the Administration isn’t having any of Trump’s odious attempts to burrow loyalists within departments they only seek to harm; purges are in full swing across the board.

Yet and still, it’s clear any optimism post-eviction Trump would fade into irrelevance was misplaced. To be certain, it wasn’t simply wishful thinking, but a sober assessment that, Trump being Trump, at heart lazy and inert within the cocoon of routines private citizenship render functionally benign, would simply wither on the vine, inundated by the onslaught of inevitable financial and legal ruin. The Donald never has been able to fail and chew gum at the same time, so the smart money play was he’d lack the initiative or focus to do much more than his least. Silly me!

Who knew, still awash in the disgrace of a maniacal campaign to overthrow American democracy, a deposed national embarrassment with an approval rating charitably pegged in the low 30s would be canonized by the party he just single-handedly led into the wilderness. Forget that he is without a social media platform, and impeached for a second time, this guy’s got that certain something you just can’t put your finger on. Ask McCarthy, who made a special trip down to the tacky, gold-plated confines of Mar-A-Lago to peck that little hand and swear allegiance for the most worthless thing this planet harbors… a Donald Trump promise. And on the Senate side, the likes of Rand Paul and the ever despicable Lindsey Graham aren’t just carrying Trump’s impeachment water, they’re cleansing his legacy and making clear to the wretched core, which they want more than anything to inherit, that a floor is only as low as you allow it to be; they are prepared to do bottomless.

The Biden Administration is fulfilling its mandate: clean up Trump’s mess. In the meantime, a recent video of a grocery store in Naples, Florida speaks volumes as to how gross a historically terrible President can leave things. The video appears to be from a pre-pandemic archive, with people cheerily within each other’s space and not a mask to be seen. Except it was from this week! And this is Naples, Florida – retirement haven USA – average age 113! The store owner is asked what he’s thinking and replies with exactly the lies you know to expect… masks don’t work and 400,000 people certainly haven’t died. No executive order Biden can sign is going to cover that.

Mitt Romney recently declared the GOP tent isn’t “large enough to accommodate both conservatives and kooks.” A reasonable reply to the Mittster would be simply to ask where the hell are the “conservatives” he’s referring to? The fire department may be on the scene, but the house is still on fire. BC

In mid-June of 1970 I received one of the most pleasant surprises of my young life, a financial windfall I never saw coming. The previous October, my 4th grade class at Miller Elementary School in Evanston, Ill. had been informed we would participate throughout the coming year in a “banking” exercise, designed to teach us both the benefits of thrift and the procedures it entailed. Ms. Omaye, our teacher, would once a week become a bank teller and register whatever deposit our parents deemed appropriate to bring from home. When I indifferently told my mother about the program, she was enthusiastic and quickly deemed fifty cents the right amount for me to bring each week.

Being a child, with a child’s very limited attention span, the entire practice simply became part of a routine I gave little thought to. Each week we would line up and present Ms. Omaye with our deposit, for which she would issue us a “receipt” we would keep in an envelope, while adding to our cumulative total in each of our “savings” books. And so it went throughout the year, a seemingly meaningless task I digested as nothing more than yet another laborious obligation of my formal education.

Well, imagine my shock and glee when, on the last day of school, an event already worth celebrating, Ms. Omaye had us line up and present her with our final savings data, to which she rewarded us with more money than most had ever held as our own. Lesson learned! I was speechless gaping at the near $20 already burning a hole in my palm. My friends and I giggled fiendishly, each of us with his own plan on how to spend this gift from heaven. There was not the slightest doubt in my mind where the cash was going; it certainly was never going to make it home in one piece, and what my mom didn’t know would not hurt her.

The dismissal bell was still ringing as I darted out the double doors at full speed, sprinting the two blocks necessary to reach my destination…Whitman’s Drug Store. I burst inside, a boy on a mission, heading directly to the Topp’s baseball card display. It was a quarter a pack, each with five cards and a dry stick of bubble gum. I meant to buy as many as necessary to achieve the goal that had eluded me for months, the one card I would trade most others to have, the holy grail my collection still did not include – Ernie Banks!

Roughly fifteen minutes later, I stood disheartened, barely able to chew a mouthful of bubble gum. I had bought out the store’s supply of cards with nary an Ernie to be found. The crisp sawbuck I had come in with was history, all that remained of my windfall was a scattering of ones. For my fortune I now owned mostly worthless crap, guys I had, not just doubles of, but even triples and quadruples. For example, there was this bothersome rookie from the Mets I kept finding, some bum named Nolan Ryan! As I dejectedly cleaned up the wrappers before heading home, I took stock in my folly, desperately looking for something to rebrand the event as more than the abject fiasco it seemed. Leafing through the near 200 new cards I stopped on one that I could take heart in, a genuine jewel to add to my collection. He wasn’t Ernie, but to my eyes was the best of all the league’s others… Hank Aaron.

In professional sports true greatness is, above all, a transcendent quality. When a good player or coach passes on, they are mourned as individuals, who impacted their teams, teammates and communities to varying degrees. However, when a “great one” leaves the scene, their obituary employs far loftier modifiers that measure, not just teams and cities, seasons and championships, but how they affected an entire enterprise, perhaps even the nation.

But then, even above that, there are the one-of-a-kinds, the GOATs, those who so embody everything their sport is supposed to instill, so meticulously and without ulterior purpose, that when they die, it’s hard to imagine the game, or everyday life for that matter, without them. Such a ranking is earned on and off the field, unable to withstand even a single blemish. In fact, the criteria for this recognition is so rigorous that many sports simply don’t have a representative to offer. Luckily, Baseball, America’s game, has been blessed with, not just one, but two such extraordinary individuals. One was tragically taken before his time, leaving the scene well before the other arrived. Now both are gone.

Lou Gehrig and Henry Aaron were similar in their stoic professionalism. Neither was much interested in talking, preferring to simply play ball and leave it there. Both men played in the shadow of larger-than-life superstars they couldn’t escape being compared to. Gehrig as a teammate of Babe Ruth, Aaron as a contemporary of Willie Mays and Micky Mantle. Each would end up providing the most inspiring example of humanity by simply responding to circumstances beyond their control with only splendid character.

Gehrig embodied pure heroism and became a legend accepting the devastating hand life dealt him, a terrible illness that now carries his name. Aaron shouldered a torrent of incomprehensible hate that flowed his way for no other reason than his steadfast excellence, as unfair as what Gehrig endured. Aaron handled the hate his successful chase of Ruth’s home run record brought out of the woodwork with such calm, courage and dignity, few even realized the trial he went through until long after it was over. Two of the greatest America ever produced… who happened to play ball.

Yet and still, regardless of all else, first and foremost a baseball player’s legacy is measured by the numbers he generated. Stats are the keepsake values above all else. Anybody who wishes to argue this point merely has to google Billy Hamilton or Wee Willie Keeler, legends who played before the automobile but whose every strikeout and stolen base are fully accounted for. Winning may be everything, but in baseball career stats determine who goes to Cooperstown. In the Major Leagues a World Series is such an elusive grail – and even the greatest player is only one of nine on a team, easily diluted if his teammates don’t stack up – that using pennants or even winning seasons as a primary metric for accomplishment doesn’t work. Ernie Banks, my undisputed childhood hero, spent his entire career with the hapless Chicago Cubs, only once even sniffing the post-season, yet is considered an all-time great. More than 500 dingers will do that.

In fact, the beloved Banks provides the perfect foil for confirming Aaron’s preeminence. A two-time MVP and perennial all-star, Banks hit more home runs than any shortstop before him. He sailed into the Hall of Fame first asking without a problem. But as good as he was, the chasm between his stats and Aaron’s reflect clearly the distinction between great and the greatest.

Consider that Banks, who ended his career with 512 home runs, hit at least 25 in ten different seasons; Aaron did it an incredible 18 times. Mr. Cub was a prolific run generator, and drove in at least 90 runs ten separate seasons; Aaron did it 16. Lou Brock of the St. Louis Cardinals was another Hall-of-Fame contemporary of Aaron’s. Brock is considered perhaps the best lead off man ever, noted for scoring runs he manufactured with his speed on the base paths. Brock scored at least 100 runs ten different times in his career; Aaron did it 15 times. Al Kaline was another all-star peer, who retired with 3000 hits, a Hall-of-Fame no brainer. Kaline had an impressive eight 150-hit seasons; Aaron doubled that with 16.

Many believe had Gehrig not been cut down at 35 he would have broken the Babe’s record. Maybe so, but he would have had to average 30 homers a year for another seven seasons to do it. Gehrig was “the Iron Horse,” but Aaron suited up 3298 times. Even if Gehrig had played every single game for another seven full seasons, he wouldn’t have reached that number! As Aaron was fond of saying: “you can’t help your club in the tub.”

Last year was a devastating year of loss for America, and baseball in particular. Whitey Ford, Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, Juan Marichal, Lou Brock, Joe Morgan, Al Kaline, and too many others passed on, making those of us who adored them as kids and revered them as adults feel older and emptier. But losing Henry Aaron last week topped them all. We have become an argument culture with many many questions unsettled, many grey areas we can’t seem to figure out, but the greatest baseball player of the modern era died last week… by any measure. BC

Even worse than a President who publicly lies tens of thousands of times during his term is a polity that, first tolerates, and then normalizes the practice. Where we are now is so far removed from the least of the standards we demanded our leaders obey before November of 2016 that it’s hard to know really where to begin redressing the awful slide we facilitated.

Before Trump, getting caught in an outright publicly uttered lie was a scandal that endangered political careers. By the time he was done truthful statements were the exception in all of White House messaging. That incredible devolution occurred for only one reason… it was permitted. “Trump being Trump” will live in infamy as the lexicon for an American civic catastrophe, its delve into totalitarianism, where apathy and distraction abetted the assault on truth every bit as much as willful quest for “power and profit.”

In the end Trump would push the envelope far enough to incite his cultish horde to go too far, creating a nationally televised epiphany that would snap us out of our inert tolerance with the suddenness of the near-death experience our democracy faced. Moscow Mitch, horrific for near two months in his stoic obsession to ignore Trump’s baseless “rigged election” claims, cowered under a table just like everybody else, fully cognizant that procedural sleight-of-hand spared him nothing with a frenzied mob on a violent nihilist rampage. It’s clear by the double-step he subsequently welcomed the Biden Presidency with that McConnell won’t soon forget being slammed by the sick realization his abidance of Trumpism was about to destroy the game he thought he mastered, rendering him nothing more than both victim and accomplice of his own destruction

The inauguration of Joe Biden is as consequential as any event in American history. The multiple crises he has pledged to confront, taken together, are as challenging a set of circumstances as any US President has faced since Abraham Lincoln. The dire straits we now find ourself in is the inevitable result of Fox/AM’s first Presidency, really the only outcome governance obligated from the outset to a false narrative is capable of producing.

Mercifully, we’ve been afforded a chance for a do-over, an opportunity to reset back to a moment before MAGA when churning lies from a public servant’s pulpit was not acceptable; indeed, it was disqualifying. With Biden’s oath of office we can return to a system that demands the narrative be informed by a sensibility the incomparable young poet Amanda Gorman cited: “in truth… in this faith we trust.”

Spinning facts is one thing, manufacturing them quite another. Political competition is what we require to govern ourselves. Weaponizing lies to incite slavish cults will simply kill us… sooner rather than later. Trumpisms like “people are saying” and “everybody tells me” belong on the ash heap of history never to be resurrected, the guff of a Buzz Windrip wannabe. Hopefully, fifty years from now our grandchildren will scratch their heads and wonder how it was possible we could have abided such a wretch.

Yet and still, while moving forward with this redemptive Presidency, it’s imperative to rebuff the false equivalence ready to be dished up by those comfortable within MAGA’s confines, the political class Trump has reared like his other children, conduits to serve his purposes and abase themselves as he sees fit. The hogwash Trump was set upon from the start by hostile partisan forces intent on making him fail instead of dutifully confronting his torrent of outrages is one of thousands of lies, but among the most consequential. Of course, it will form the basis of his defense in a second impeachment trial, a process that will provide a clear direction of where Republicans intend to go from the nadir fidelity to a sociopath led to. Past that, however, it will be leaned on to justify obstructing Biden’s agenda in pursuit of mid-term election gains, continuation of the game they recently almost ended for good.

There is no lie more foundational to Fox/AM’s existence than Roger Ailes’ original projection that everything Democrats and the otherwise “lib” universe does is done for power. From immigration reform to civil rights, entitlements to unions, nothing “the left” pursues is anything but a means to one end. Accepting that premise has for decades liberated ditto heads, et al to do their worst with the clear conscience false equivalence provides. It’s the yellow brick road that ended up at the Capitol a couple of weeks ago, and it’s what will continue to addle this nation as long as we allow it to.

Wednesday’s celebration was long in coming and embraced by millions who can now see and feel better days ahead. However, it was tempered by needless carnage this nation’s worst civic failure is responsible for. More than half a million will die because of Trump’s criminal refusal to lead, his willful pandering to our worst traits in a crisis. Even so, the election was gallingly competitive, with the GOP who enabled it all actually gaining seats in the House and only losing the Senate after Trump sunk to sabotaging his own party’s incumbents in the Georgia runoff.

Sure, we can sleep soundly for now, but we are forced to contemplate what can’t be ignored… all others Biden faced for the nomination probably would have lost. That’s a specter capable of muting most any cheer, and moving forward much thought needs to go into figuring out what to do about it. In the meantime, the repair of our democracy requires no quarter be given to any part of the lies we’ve permitted. The Trump era was among the ugliest span of years in US history, a Presidency never to be repeated, with a set of circumstances unfit to compare to any others. Whatever the GOP ends up doing to itself, whatever iteration it becomes, that’s a message they need to hear very clearly, as often as needed. The promise of truth and the ruin of lies. An apt epitaph for Trump’s tombstone. BC