Author: BC

George Kennan, perhaps America’s greatest diplomat and Cold War strategist, spent his career moving within the highbrow circles of US State Department postings throughout Europe. Most of his adult life was spent abroad, and any reading of his autobiographical content makes clear that is as he preferred it. When he was “home” in his native land, more often than not he would grow impatient, even exasperated, with the civic and intellectual complacency of his fellow citizens, the lack of interest they exhibited to anything much past daily routines.

What really made Kennan bitter was the belief his countrymen weren’t up to understanding the nuances of the containment strategy he developed to check Soviet aggression. Instead of digesting both the strengths and weaknesses of America’s principal adversary, necessary to support graduated measures to keep communist power at bay, the masses instead gave in to fear and even hysteria. That paved the way to ugly episodes like McCarthyism and failed military adventures like Vietnam, not to mention a suicidal nuclear arms race he abhorred.

As he aged, Kennan’s estrangement with the citizenry of his own country only increased. He lived to be 101, passing away in 2005. Were he still alive in the days of Coronavirus, it’s a sure bet he would be ensconced in his library far away from the infecting throngs, surely frowning on his peers as much in the new millennium as he did in the old. Any thoughtful observer of recent developments would hardly blame him. Whether or not Kennan was an elitist, he certainly was no fool.

By any metric Maine appears to have Covid-19 under control. Whereas Florida now tops 10K new cases per day, Maine reported 13 last Friday for a grand total of about 3500 since the pandemic began; that’s now topped by lunchtime in the Sunshine State. Hospital capacity? Seven Coronavirus patients are currently being treated in critical care units statewide. Only 111 deaths have been attributed to the virus, all people over 60 years old. Yes, as too many other states now seem to be losing control of their pandemic response, Maine has avoided Covid’s worst. However, it’s not for lack of trying by many of its finest, or visitors without concern for what their own footprints leave.  

Maine’s Democratic Governor, Janet Mills, has been as prudent and cautious as any in the the US since March. Throughout the crisis she has not hesitated to take heat for orders business interests, fully goaded by state and national GOP voices, have bristled against. When she re-opened beaches and campgrounds in June, she explicitly included language meant to ensure both distancing and mask wearing. Anyone interested in observing the gap between policy and practice needed only to spend a few hours at Gooch’s Beach in Kennebunk over the weekend.

The difference between low and high tide on coastal Maine beaches is extreme, averaging nine feet. Where low tide permits up to near 100 yards of beach space, high tide reduces it to less than 10. Distancing at low tide isn’t hard, at high tide it isn’t possible. At Gooch’s Beach few cared either way, as most seemed oblivious to any requirement to check their behavior. Wearing masks produced double takes, as circles of families and friends mixed together with zero concern for anything past returning to normal. 

No epidemiologist credentials are required to figure out how fast one Covid-positive husband could start the ball rolling on infecting his immediate group, who likely would not begin to show symptoms until after they returned home from vacation, and spent the week infecting others throughout this postcard vacation spot. Whatever care and good faith Governor Mills has taken to ensure phase 2 proceeds safely, the bipartisan sensibility at Gooch’s Beach wholeheartedly matches the White House’s… what virus? We’ve sacrificed enough.

Corona fatigue was always going to be an issue, regardless who was President. Locking down America for a couple of months required a great marketing job from the start, not to mention obsessive focus on the cause and effect relationship between flattening the curve and successfully reopening the economy. The irony our first salesman President failed so miserably at the job is only exceeded by the outrage he never even tried, and now passive-aggressively agitates for his wretched core to equate the smallest inconvenience with an unacceptable loss of personal liberty. When wearing a mask is too much to ask, it is no mystery how contentious revisiting Phase 1 is going to be.

The parade of civic awfulness being documented on video is prevalent and should make us all lose sleep; it is certainly America at its worst, and it’s occurring from top to bottom. Loathsome Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas wouldn’t wear a mask on a commercial air liner. Think about that. We know he panders as he breathes, and only does what he thinks the prevailing political winds will bless. So a US Senator from a Covid epicenter doesn’t mind sickening others because doing the right thing will hurt polling. Can you say disgusting?

One doesn’t need Kennan’s sensibilities to feel contempt and embarrassment as leaders and fellow citizens act unmoored from decency. Yet and still, it is clear up here in the vacation state a passive delusion exists that is just as dangerous to public health. There is nothing militant or bad hearted about it, but the results will be just as crippling. It is the natural emanation a total lack of leadership produces, and until that void is filled with the constructive messaging this crisis necessitates, it will predominate.

We all generally require context to deal with situations that confront us, a beginning, middle and end. We don’t have that right now; there is no central voice to provide it. Dr. Fauci, who long ago became way too candid for our liar-in-chief to tolerate, was clear this week “we aren’t anywhere near the end of this.”

My son Luke has autism, but his most crippling deficiency is the absence of an innate sense of time. Without it, he lives life suspended in a purgatory of directionless inertia. And that’s exactly our national condition right now. Without leadership we are adrift, each defining this problem in line with the scraps of information they lift from whatever news sources they depend on; that’s a recipe for a health catastrophe. Near four more months of the same is an eternity, with thousands of deaths, and much worse, societal indifference to them a certainty.

At Gooch’s Beach everyone simply wishes things were over, and with nobody in central authority advising them when that may be and what we all need to do to make it happen, too many will just pretend the worst has passed and proceed accordingly. Meanwhile, as Trumpie minions governing Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina etc. pander to the lowest civic common denominator, literally pretending their states aren’t blowing up around them, America hurdles toward 100K infections per day. When you can’t muster the will to order people to wear masks, leadership is the last thing you care to offer. We are on our own, and we’re not up to the task. And thousands are going to die unnecessarily because of that.

Seventy years ago. once convinced of an emerging preeminent threat, America became affixed to whatever our national leaders required for addressing it, regardless of cost. It led to the early deaths of thousands of American boys. Now a far more direct danger is here, throughout our land and killing us day in and day out, but without leadership millions make believe it is too much ado about not enough of anything. Kennan would have been pissed. BC

”Every time they chose Trump. Learn their names. Remember their actions. And never ever trust them again! “

Lincoln Project Political Ad

National crises provide perhaps the most compelling contrast between democrats and authoritarians. The politician understands and usually embraces the leadership opportunities such situations afford; after all, they present the unique circumstance where calling for constituent sacrifice is far less difficult to justify. The term “never let a good crisis go to waste” means simply that electorates already primed by events to accept more draconian measures in the short term may stay open-minded to sacrifice for longer-term priorities. Ronald Reagan was all out to rally support to attack Grenada, after 9/11 the check for US adventurism was blank; W and Cheney were glad to fill in the zeroes.

Conversely, strongmen, particularly the tinpot variety with little confidence in their connection to those they impose themselves on, are wary of legitimate causes for pushing further the patience of their subjects. Since most everything they do comes at the majority’s expense, a cost often extracted for purely self-serving purposes, the occasion to demand still more is fraught with danger. Any opportunity autocrats find in such situations generally pertains to sowing further divisions between groups among the nation’s general populace, promoting the disunity despotism thrives on, or tapping the xenophobia well of outside threats. In North Korea, Kim already starved his legions as a function of his totalitarian reign; there isn’t much left to take for any purpose. Whatever he does demand will always come accompanied by the threat an outside enemy represents.

It’s hard to imagine anyone better positioned to benefit politically from the coronavirus crisis than Donald Trump and the Republican Party at his beck and call. After more than three years of the anemic approval ratings his brand of polarization guaranteed, rallying the nation around a united effort to stave off a pandemic couldn’t have been more tailor-made to broaden MAGA’s appeal. Essentially, all Trump had to do was get out of the way and help rally the country to follow expert advice and observe best practices to flatten the curve. Even after his Administration had failed miserably at preventing Covid from spreading rapidly within our shores, it was clear the fear it caused rendered most Americans desperate for central leadership and a calm reassuring presence at the bully pulpit. Not rocket science by any stretch.

Scholars often enjoy arguing about how much history’s worst tyrants actually felt they were securing their nation’s national interest versus other corrupt and sociopathic impulses they acted upon. Since victors do indeed write the epilogue of conflagrations they helped create, Stalin emerged from WWII with ugliness such as his nonaggression pact with Hitler, his initial infantile responses to Germany’s invasion, as well as amoral dictates such as for party apparatchiks to murder any Stalingrad fighters they declared in retreat, obscured to an inappropriate degree by the understanding we may all be speaking German but for the Red Army.

Witnessing Trump in real time it’s impossible to deduce he has the least concern for America’s well being as it meets his rabid paranoia and narcissistic predilections. Forget an authoritarian bent, our President is flat out off his rocker, with ample proof provided on the hour via tweet and retweet. In fact, Trump has relinquished most all power and worth of his office, becoming nothing more than a waddling barometer for GOP cowardice and criminality. That he refuses to recognize this, deluding himself with worthless proclamations of imaginary executive authority, only confirms his addled perspective. Only future accounts written by servile propagandists of an unrecognizable totalitarian entity will describe what we now endure as anything other than a nadir of US governance.

Since the Reagan Revolution, the Republican Party has steadily mixed a cocktail of equal parts the worst frailties of democracy and authoritarian sensibilities. A corporatist bitch, it plunders the US Treasury with tax relief theft and subsidies for one percenters whenever its numbers allow. Relentless attacks on consumer and environmental regulations are another requisite for such craven stewardship. Once Roger Ailes set up shop, Republicans embraced Fox/AM culture war resentment, complete with its authoritarian requirement to repel natural demographic forces a melting pot nation is supposed to harness. Tea Party grievance set the stage for racist populism and an unhinged demagogue nobody should be surprised it produced. Make no mistake, each services the other and neither now allows for selective half-hearted support.

In 2016, on the GOP Presidential primary debate stage, the party’s “finest” squared off before a base looking for blood after two Obama terms. Of course all were dedicated to plundering in the name of the upper brackets, but most had trouble sinking their teeth into the other part of the equation. Only one of the contestants was glad to yell white power without hesitation, and he made the rest look like weaklings for their indecision.

Now he leads nobody but our worst, and hisses at the top of his lungs doing it. Worse, after the trauma of two plus months of cabin fever, far too many now hear what they want to hear, the part that absolves them of civic responsibility. The wretched core won’t wear masks or distance because they are awful and ignorant. But many more won’t do it because they are thoughtless and malleable, ever determined for normalcy even if it kills them. They have tuned out MAGA for three years wishing it would just go away. Now, within a complete leadership void, like him, they’re up for ignoring disease, at least until it won’t let them. They may blame Trump then, but for now he hasn’t gotten sick yet, has he?

Thirty years ago Republicans began to double-step down a road hoping for the best of both worlds: receiving the blessings of the White working man to rob him blind for gilded class donors. They got their wish and then some. Now, after following Trump off a Covid cliff, assuring it will bear full blame for unprecedented American death tolls in November, even as it makes not a peep about the pardoning of one of the most despicable creatures any swamp has ever belched, a reckoning is at hand for the GOP.

Yet and still, there was never any chance it would do otherwise because long ago it gave up on democratic inclinations as part of its deal with the devil. Since Trump’s election the paramount question has been would they honorably accept suicide to preserve what they haven’t damaged, or burn it all down and wear jackboots without explanation if they rose from the ashes? We are sick and getting sicker – with millions enraged at the inconvenience of wearing a mask – poor and getting poorer, divided at home and ever more estranged from allies we used to lead; America is faltering as never before. Their answer is clear. The ruin of the Grand Old Party. BC

I am a difficult person to deal with. There is no modifier attached, not “sometimes difficult” or “I can be difficult,” as a rule I am more maintenance-intensive than the average person. Stubborn, strident, sometimes bellicose, often sarcastic and patronizing, a real know-it-all. If I feel particularly adamant about a subject, and believe the opposing view is superlatively inane, sometimes you won’t be able to agree with me enough, a frailty I despise in others and attack when I recognize it. Have I mentioned I can also be a hypocrite. Forget “not perfect,” I can effortlessly tax a Zen master’s patience.

How is it I’m not generally reviled and disdained by most, including a family intimately acquainted with my plethora of shortcomings? The answer to that question is the reason our species is capable of living together and organizing ourselves to survive, even prosper, despite competing viewpoints and even adversarial sensibilities.

It may actually be the best definition of sanity that someone is capable of both appreciating the pluses that outweigh the negatives of others, or that the others can innately exhibit those characteristics. Anybody fully deficient in getting past the frailties of peers, or offer intimates anything but their worst, and constantly carp there is nothing wrong with such malfeasance, or more unhinged, it actually should be commended, is in la la land, 20 cards short of a full deck. Which brings us to the Trump/MAGA phenomenon and the national ruin it foists.

The most recent outrage from the White House is as shocking as it is utterly predictable. According to several corroborated sources, it’s official: the Trump team is banking on THEIR BASE growing fully inured to 50K-100K cases of Covid per day and whatever death and health care chaos it creates. How most of the country digests such atrocity is not a concern, only that their messaging – read Fox/AM – convinces the wretched core to avert their eyes and focus on what’s really important, like the war on heritage. It’s a sure bet such indifference will soon be cited as a pre-requisite to proper patriotism. Covid p***ies can leave, real Americans don’t distance! Live maskless or die!!

There is zero doubt we are about to witness death on a breathtaking scale. It’s a mathematical certainty. The most optimistic figure relating to Covid-19 cases and deaths it causes is one percent. It’s been far more than that in America, but we discount the higher number with both fact – many more actually have the virus or have recovered than has been documented – and denial. Now that testing is ramping up – or as Trump often lies, “the best testing in the world and it’s not even close” – the denial component is going to be far harder to maintain.

It’s now clear 100K new cases a day is going to be the norm for the foreseeable future. Actually, incredible Fourth of July scenes of beaches with literally no place to lay a towel make it likely the 100K milestone may soon be wishful thinking. Regardless, thirty days of 100K cases equals 30,000 dead, ten 9/11s, at the very least. That’s not hyperbole…. it’s math most all will understand. Whether millions will care is another matter. We now know this White House will do whatever it can to make sure they don’t.

In Texas, Florida, Arizona and California – where a good portion of the carnage is going to take place – ICU capacity is strained to the breaking point, with videos of desperate ER personnel describing hell on Earth proliferating; and the surge really hasn’t even begun. It took from March to July for the US to reach 125,000 fatalities. What the toll would have been had we not locked the nation down for two months is anybody’s guess. That total stands to increase by near a third within six weeks but nobody is even considering a second shelter-in-place, least of all Trump or any of his GOP eunuchs at either the state or national level.

Should that pace continue through the election, Trump will have near half a million total dead to answer for. He not only plans to ignore that, but will also surely attack the veracity of those reporting the crisis. Of course, were he to act with even a sliver more of empathy, or offer a fractionally more constructive response THAT would be news, a hideous irony we can mark the depths of our descent by.

All of which circles back to mental health, or more appropriately collective insanity. About eight decades ago Germans and East Europeans, in what Hannah Arendt profoundly labeled the banality of evil, convinced themselves mass killing was but an unfortunate offshoot of war, an inevitable plight Jews were fated to suffer, something beyond their control and morally permissible to ignore.

Today we are at the precipice of a similar monstrous rationalization, and the exact same societal psychosis drives the thinking. This moment we suffer a shared acceptance by millions that the worst of people is not only tolerable, but admirable, courageously contrarian. What most others view as our better nature is now derided by this bloc as part and parcel of a “leftist agenda,” the trappings of progressive conspiracies. MAGA is a mob’s disdain for societal decency, a mass refutation of the bare minimum of citizenship necessary for a democracy to survive…. or at least deserve to. BC

Everybody should be lucky enough to have a best friend, somebody the rest of the world ties you to, a person who helps hone your persona toward life. Without one it strikes me existence is just that little bit lonelier regardless how many other equals we embrace as compensation. Of course, if one is blessed enough, their significant other can fill such a role nicely. However, it’s been my experience, as a fairly keen observer of human interaction, that’s a true rarity, at least until advanced age when increased isolation and the mortality of others necessitates it.

My best buddy – who I am certain would prefer to remain nameless throughout this narrative – and I go back all the way to tenth grade, almost 45 years as comrades. Through young adulthood and as single men we had enough adventures to fill a book, although it never seems as significant in real time. We both loved women and pursued their attentions and affections relentlessly. Such escapades now aren’t really appropriate to share with others, which only strengthens our bond. Once we got married and had families our lives followed parallel courses and provided for experiencing the most important milestones together. I was the best man at both of his weddings and the “witness” at his one divorce. The ties we have are special, even if dwelling on them is at odds with the irreverence and stoicism they were forged by. At the risk of stereotyping, men don’t generally ponder their friendships enough to fully appreciate them until they are threatened… or lost.

When he told me he had tested positive for Covid-19, I’m ashamed to say my first reaction centered on me and mine. My son Luke and I had visited not three days before, albeit observing stringent social distancing protocols outside on his carport, never coming near each other’s space. Even so, I strained to remember if I had to scold Luke for trying to hug as he still sometimes does. Suddenly, the tickle in my throat was ominous. As usual, he modified disturbing news by declaring “isn’t that crazy?” This is his go-to coping mechanism for processing bad tidings, render it more absurd than awful and move on to dealing with it. I generally start and finish at the awful part.

Turns out his oldest son had been working out with friends raised within the ignorant confines of MAGA sensibilities. Apparently, the family had recently been down to Florida with little to no intention of modifying their lifestyles. Moreover, my friend had been moronic enough to attend a senior graduation party for his other boy, inside, with a buffet and no masks in sight. Upon receiving this news we fell into a decades-old routine of me incredulously lecturing him about his stupidity: “why the f*** would you hole up for three months and then do that. Idiotic!” He provided no good answers; yet and still, I would regret the admonishment later.

The first couple days after diagnosis, when I would call him first thing in the morning for a report on whether symptoms had started yet, he would chuckle and wonder aloud whether the test was accurate. “Nothing,” he reported, “I feel like having a beer.” Several more days in the conversations were less jovial, but he continued to maintain, with a touch of annoyance, “I’m feeling fine.” I decided I didn’t quite believe him and texted his wonderful wife, who had tested negative and set up shop on the other side of their spacious house. Turns out my instincts were correct; he was “exhausted” and feeling “pretty bad.” And thus began my best friend’s Corona siege, two plus weeks of stress and misery, punctuated by frightening symptoms a guy who previously bragged about seldom getting sick won’t soon forget.

Once the full on symptoms began, communication between us grew spotty, even as I railed at him for being too lame to even send a one sentence text that he was, in fact, still above dirt. I turned to his increasingly worried spouse, who had precious little positive news to report. When she texted me one evening they were heading to the ICU because he had become very anxious and breathing was a bit labored, I was badly shaken. Honestly, I had always assumed there was little doubt about which of us would go first. The idea he might not get through this suddenly became fathomable and frightening to me. Fortunately, his chest X-ray was unexceptional; he had a fever and his blood pressure was elevated, but he was sent home with a reassuring prognosis.

In fact, the next couple of days were very positive and his appetite began to revive. He speculated to me the worst was over. “I may have a beer,” he joked. I cautioned the Covid ride was a rollercoaster and plenty had been lured into a false optimism only to crash again. I hate being right. The next day his fever was spiking and he was so fatigued climbing the steps from his basement where he was exiled provided too much of a challenge. When he texted me “I’m really not feeling well. Let’s talk tomorrow…” I was crestfallen. Later that day he was back at the hospital after experiencing numbness throughout his right side. Stroke has been reported as a fatal offshoot of this virus, suddenly things appeared dire.

In the tale of Lonesome Dove, perhaps America’s greatest novel, legendary Texas Ranger, Gus McCray, is attacked by a band of warriors up in Montana. He fights them off, but suffers a couple of arrows to his right leg. By the time he reaches Miles City, the nearest town, blood poisoning has ruined both of his wheels. The town doctor, a drunk, amputates one of them, but passes out before getting to the other. Gus comes to first and brandishes his shooter, warning “old saw bones” attempts to “have a go” at his other leg will prove hazardous. By the time his best friend, Woodrow Call, who had been tending their herd of cattle, reaches Gus, it’s too late. Nonetheless, Call is having none of it and demands Gus permit amputation. “What do you need legs for anyway? All you ever do is sit around drinking…,” Woodrow declares. “Yea, but I like to kick a pig every once in a while….” is the dying man’s response.

My best buddy and I are no Texas Rangers, and very few if any would deem us legends, but I God we have been a pair! Friends who know us best appreciate our brotherly rancor, the comical familiarity we exhibit during our constant bickering. The frailties of one compliment the strengths of the other. The best of neither, the worst of either…. that’s what a very wise man once said about best friends. And that is us! As I pondered that night a scenario in which he failed to survive Covid, the possible loss felt overwhelming. The idea of him not being around had honestly never occurred to me. Now it did, and it loomed large.

Thankfully, we seem to both have been spared such misfortune as he now appears to have rallied decisively, although his wife and I remain cautious. He is again jonesing for a cold one and, with the exception of some lingering fatigue, is clearly on the mend. After near 20 days and 15 pounds of hell, he knows what being deathly ill feels like and won’t be taking good health for granted any time soon. As for me? I suppose I’ll now move on to worrying about other things…. like making sure to avoid anything similar, or worse. Keep your distance and wear a damn mask!! BC

It can be credibly argued that a US President’s most important and consequential function is communicating directly with other heads of state. Certainly since America shed its isolationist bent with its participation in World War I, Woodrow Wilson spending months in Europe on an ill-fated quest to sell his internationalist vision of future nation-state relations, the importance of personal White House diplomacy has only increased.

FDR’s meetings with Stalin and Churchill secured an existentially critical alliance and then created the post-war order, laying seed to the Cold War and dooming colonialism. Harry Truman went to Potsdam a Missouri hayseed and returned, if not a statesman, definitely where the buck stopped regarding US national interests.

JFK got schooled by the cagey and more seasoned Nikita Khrushchev at their first meeting in Vienna, Austria. Those who worried Kennedy’s youth was a concern had their doubts reinforced as the Soviet leader seemed to push an under prepared JFK around. Kennedy swore afterwards that sort of thing would never happen again; it didn’t, at least during the short time he had left, which happened to include a missile crisis that could have resulted in isotopic mist had he not matured accordingly.

Say what you will about Richard Nixon, his visits to China and the Soviet Union broke new ground and got things done. The Trickster may have left much to be desired in the honorable national leader department, but he could hold his own with totalitarians. Both the opening of China and Detente were genuine policy accomplishments, historic in scope. As my father liked to say: “only a Nixon could have pulled them off.”

Nonetheless, for all the pomp and photo ops of summits and formal diplomacy, in the modern Presidency business with other nations – friend or foe – has been largely handled over the phone. It has been part and parcel of the US leadership brand that a phone call with the POTUS is a big deal. Talking to an American President is not something any foreign leader has ever viewed as less than an honor of their job, necessitating they be at the very top of their game and choose their words with care and respect…. until now.

Those of us masochistic enough to monitor Donald Trump’s Twitter feed long ago understood him incapable of rising to any challange other than possibly from an East Wing couch to retrieve the remote; his is a guttural existence no matter the occasion. Yet and still, what has emerged from Carl Bernstein’s recent reporting about Trump’s loathsome telephone conduct toward allies, and servile ineptitude toward adversaries, confirms his wretchedness can still shock anew and leave the thoughtful amazed we remain a going concern. It’s something we expected, but the details are stunning anyway.

One of the great pictures capturing Barrack Obama’s grace is a shot of him walking and chatting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He is making a point to her as they amble side-by-side while she is both enrapt and amused at what he is saying. Her look toward him exhibits both respect and genuine affection, presumably just what we want allies to feel for our leader. But that was then, this is now, seemingly another world away.

That a powerful woman of Merkel’s stature and authority would unnerve Trump is hardly surprising. Nor are reports his depraved insults – actually calling her “stupid” and in the pocket of Russia – left her unfazed, “like water off a duck’s back” – as she generally retorted with a recitation of facts our bully-in-chief is never interested in hearing. However, the fact German officials were so alarmed by the “abusive” tone Trump constantly employed toward Merkel that they felt impelled to keep the exchanges secret, clarifies Trump’s behavior was not just disgraceful and embarrassing, but dangerous as well. But for the patience and good faith of Merkel, who knows what could have resulted.

Britain’s Theresa May, also being a woman and therefore fit to be bullied as well in the eyes of our national lowlife. was rattled by Trump’s nastiness. No doubt calling our closest ally “a fool” for exhibiting insufficient recklessness in the disposition of Brexit would play well at a superspreader rally, but the precious few who could qualify as adults left in the White House at the time, like National Security Advisor John Bolton were aghast, literally viewing the President as an imminent danger to the country.

But while Trump’s abuse toward allies merely harmed relations and abdicated leadership, his communications with dictators like Putin, Turkey’s Recep Erdogan and MBS in Saudi Arabia cost America plenty more than goodwill. How much more isn’t as clear as it should be because many of the calls are classified, but there is unanimous consensus by a plethora of former White House officials that the national interest was always in dire jeopardy whenever Mr. Art-of-the-Deal was on the line and over his head.

Which was often, as foreign strongmen, particularly Erdogan, understood the easy pickings available “negotiating” with Trump. Apparently, Erdogan had a direct line to the President and used it frequently. Many Kurds would die as a result of Trump’s abrupt edict to withdraw US special forces, who were aided immeasurably by fighters Erdogan only wants to destroy. Meanwhile, we now know Trump was briefed long ago on the bounties Russia placed on US troops in Afghanistan. There is infuriatingly little doubt whose word our civic catastrophe would be taking on that matter. By all accounts Putin-Trump phone calls were one-sided affairs, with plenty of deference from the Bunker Boy.

The outrages keep coming with this President. Every day it’s a list of calamities, each more than enough to have paralyzed any previous administration. This one was never going anywhere but backwards to begin with, so what we have has become just more of the same, which is what it always was… ruinous to the nation. We impeached Trump for his criminal recklessness on the phone with a foreign leader. Calling what is emerging now a pattern is absurd; it is a norm no less disqualifying. Instead, GOP leaders are complaining about why we have been allowed to know these repeated disgraces occurred. Think about that one… and then get very upset. BC

Nobody grows a more hideous beard than I do. It’s genetic; the men throughout my lineage were baby faces! I can go a week without shaving and do business without worry. Nonetheless, and ironically, once alopecia had done its worst, I decided to grow a goatee, which most encouraged, with the notable exception of my wife. Once I did that, shaving became even more of a chore and I decided to simply go to a barber every couple of weeks for “the treatment.” This entailed number zero blade mowing of my scalp and and a trim and shave of my face. For twenty bucks and tip the treatment couldn’t be beat, providing serenity along with grooming.

Like everything else, Coronavirus obstructed this routine. Early on in the lockdown I picked up a deluxe Atra razor and blades, determined to shave at least once a week. Never happened. Near three months later I looked nefarious. Forget social distancing, my unkempt head and face warranted nothing less than exile. There is no doubt about it… adhoc hair and beard growth add age, something I need like a trip to Golden Corral.

And so about Memorial Day I faced the reckoning I began in early March. Of course, I had not the slightest clue how to go about it, but I understood scissors would be required before the razor. However, even after a solid twenty minutes with the shears, the landscape was still daunting. Nevertheless, with a hand full of Edge gel and Gillette’s “science-based precision system” I went to work. It was a calamity, like an old rusty Toro trying to cut a farmer’s field after a rain storm. I’m here to say one of the vaunted Atra blades is no match for dense facial growth. Had I not had a full pack to deploy, the result would have been ghoulish. At several points in the ordeal things seemed futile as I swore never to be so lazy again. But relentless determination finally paid off, and by the fourth blade I was clean shaven, albeit with gravely aggravated skin and a drain in danger of clogging. Lesson learned.

Since January of 2017 the face of America has grown unkempt and overgrown from negligence toward our most basic principles and the social progress they inform. And nowhere is this unattended tangle more unsightly than MAGA’s relentless efforts to split hairs in service to redefining what were accepted definitions of racist mentalities, constantly attempting to turn back the clock on what constitutes unacceptable conduct. As bad as Trump’s formal messaging has been – literally written by servile bigot Stephan Miller – his wayward off-the-cuff remarks have been much worse. Think about that one for a moment.

Both sides in Charlottesville have great people was eclipsed by “shithole countries,” which was consumed by overtly racist insults of elected minority lawmakers like “The Squad” and Maxine Waters, providing more than enough stochastic terrorist incitement to endanger their safety. The recent Tulsa outrage laid bare who Trump now considers his only means for political and personal salvation, his only reliable constituency to remain relevant and perhaps out of jail.

This hasn’t been a Presidency from nearly the start; now it’s become an effort by a white supremacist minority – along with fellow travelers consumed enough by Fox/AM nihilism to imbibe racist ugliness – to strong arm a passive majority, many of whom just want it all to go away. The murder of George Floyd provided a tipping point for anger focused less at Trump and MAGA than the pervasive bigotry it has unearthed and too many assumed was dead and buried long ago.

That perhaps a majority of protesters on the ground genuinely believe Biden and the establishment Democratic approach he offers doesn’t contrast enough with today’s MAGA GOP to be considered much more than a “lesser evil” speaks to the shameful tepidness of the party’s support for the Black Lives Matter and Colin Kapernicks of this world. I may have missed it, but I recall no white Democrat anywhere taking a knee when it counted, when it would have qualified as a profile in courage. Now it’s too late to obtain that sort of credibility.

Yet and still, the existential threat Trumpism poses demands a general resistance movement, and our politics still offers only a binary choice. Nothing could be worse than what now governs us, and he at least provides the service of going lower each day, making any sort of claim of equivalence with Democrats an utterly foolish proposition and reinforcing a now growing polling trend he should be gone yesterday. Latest surveys have Biden up by 12-16 points, that’s dead man walking territory.

But it’s not near enough for Biden and Democrats to merely offer sane decency regarding our race problem. That’s a one blade strategy. Transforming how police interact with communities is critically important, but it’s a half measure unless it reflects a broader understanding of why exactly it has to change. Until white America can sincerely demand police afford the same protection of basic civil rights to black America it expects for itself, we’re stuck in neutral. That so many whites seem utterly clueless as to how traumatic actually being arrested is betrays a cocoon of privilege that can’t even imagine being on the wrong side of an exchange with the law. That’s unacceptable.

Communities are defined by shared experiences. Right now in America that is not happening near enough between its white and minority citizens. Spending time together at work is insufficient. A couple hours at kids’ sporting events doesn’t cut it. A national campaign, relentlessly promoted by the Presidency’s bully pulpit, and embraced as an essential civic priority to learn and appreciate our commonality as well where we differ and why has to happen. White business interests must reach out to the black community in search of partners, not simply customers. The goal has to be more than what a balance sheet transcribes. This nation’s future survival depends on embracing the diversity that’s already a fact. We have to become friends, not just acquaintances; it’s as simple as that.

Obviously, MAGA sensibilities fit nowhere in that agenda. A November landslide could go far in punctuating the country’s determination to put regressive populism squarely in the rear view. Sadly, it’s a near certainty that won’t be enough and more than several blades will be required to hack away the beard we’ve ignored for far too long. The salvation of demanding more and refusing to accept less! BC

In the golden age of television drama, Mad Men may be the best of them all, Donald Draper the greatest anti-hero ever created. One of the series’ best scenes is Don’s demonstration of why he is Madison Avenue’s most sought after advertising talent during a pitch for Kodak’s business.

The company’s marketing department is stuck on how to sell its new invention, a wheel that shows slides of their film’s pictures. Introducing the new technology to the market place in a fresh and inviting way could carve out a niche they will enjoy a monopoly over. Whatever ad agency can convince them their campaign will achieve that objective gets their business, a four star account to be sure. Enter Don Draper.

New is good, Don concedes as he begins his presentation. Generate an “itch” that something’s new and “you can simply slide your product underneath.” But there is a more powerful force to garner, Draper continues…. nostalgia. Take people back to a time and place they wish never passed and you can have your way with them. The slide projector Kodak invented isn’t a wheel, it’s a carousel, capable of going back to when all was right with a world that eventually went wrong. Throughout his oratory Don is clicking the projector forward, its slides showcasing his beautiful family – which happens to be in full descent at that very moment – putting on a storybook face. As the lights come back on the Kodak people are speechless, their search for an agency over. Another Draper triumph.

Countless political campaigns have at least intuitively understood the power of nostalgia’s siren song to the masses. Reagan/Bush ‘84 was masterful blending such sensibilities into its “morning in America” tag line. The result was the most lopsided victory in US history. Walter Mondale won his home state and DC; Reagan was projected the winner before polls closed out West. All that said, nobody has ridden the coattails of a voting bloc’s desire to live in the past like Donald Trump. Anyone who doubts the titanic potential our memories possess to eclipse our present deliberations and future planning need only consider MAGA’s incessant vitality; its constant demand to be deluded by “back when” at the expense of its essential interests now.

Our current situation reflects in direct proportion the answer to one question: what degree of national carnage is worth the euphoria of nostalgia Trumpism affords its wretched core? What consequence will be bad enough to slap them from their mirage? Or has that ship left the harbor for good? We’re running out of options, even as they only get worse. Separating families at our southern border was not even a gnat on their skin; abasement on the international stage was celebrated; impeachment was reconstituted as deep state injustice, party-line acquittal blessed vindication and an indictment of Trump’s entire enemies list; a pandemic and its accompanying economic calamity is fully ignored; and civil unrest caused by documentation impossible to spin and repackage merely enhances calls for order. Nothing has been enough. We can all now reasonably doubt it will ever be.

History makes clear the level of atrocity and national harm a nation beguiled by demagoguery will accept is a sliding scale with no real bottom. Before the Holocaust, had somebody promised one million European Jews would perish, most all would have gasped at the unfathomable horror of it; now, we look back and wish if only the total had been so relatively modest. Decades later, even after extensive confirmation, many still can’t process how many human beings Pol Pot’s maniacs destroyed in Cambodia. Had you worried in 1975 a few hundred thousand were at risk, most would have pegged you an alarmist. Two million was simply not considerable.

As outraged as many may want to become at the comparison of Trump’s reign during the crisis his seditious incompetence facilitated and the world’s worst pogroms, it doesn’t render the similarities less compelling. Most notable is the willingness of his backers, like those who zealously enabled history’s nadirs, to trade in their own basic interests, even lives, for the deliverance of nostalgia, the stupor of yesterday’s return, a time and place before their futures were stolen by the usual suspects.

In the Coronavirus age the term “superspreader event” speaks for itself; and that’s what hundreds of Oklahoma doctors and nurses are calling the Trump rally scheduled to take place in Tulsa Saturday evening. GT Bynum, the city’s Mayor, could use emergency powers to stop what every medical professional understands will create a health crisis that will kill plenty. But he doesn’t quite have the stomach to become enemy du jour on Trump’s Twitter feed or face the onslaught of MAGA locals, who he knows don’t forgive apostasy. Even so, Bynum did have the good sense to bow out of attending with the claim he wants to be at the police command center in case there is trouble. After all, why can’t political cowardice and self-preservation go hand-in-hand? Stay spineless and safe, why should he be different from every other GOP pol in America?

Meanwhile, most of those who will spend the day in lines, sans masks, to assure prime seating for the return of Bunker Boy unleashed and unhinged, believe Covid-19 is, if not a hoax, at least overblown by fake news to damage their champion. That’s not acceptable because he provides the nostalgia fix their veins require to carry on. Without him, life foists accountability on the wrong people… them.

Yet and still, some percentage of attendees have to appreciate how off-kilter the whole thing is, the recklessness of it, the gratuitous indifference to civic decency it reflects. Which brings us back to the principle question: what will they sanction for the piece of mind MAGA’s retro reality provides? What will they sacrifice to bask in the springs of past entitlement? The answer is everything, and that’s bad enough. Worse is we’re letting them, fooling ourselves they’ll produce their own comeuppance. That’s a lie; they are going to victimize our best…. EMTs, nurses, doctors and everybody else who will have to treat those suffering the worst of the infections caused for nothing more than a couple hours of their grievance empath’s sewage. Our slide continues apace. The civic wreckage of ruin. BC

w/Lisa Harrison

As political catchphrases go, “drain the swamp” is better than most. It creates an image most all can effortlessly conjure, while providing a succinct objective with punch that few will dispute is worth pursuing. Of course, the devil is in the details, and satan has never been more prevalent than within MAGA’s incessant distortions of the slogan it near fully co-opted. And nowhere is the space between word and deed more yawning than in Georgia

Brian Kemp is the embodiment of mediocrity. From assembly-line good looks – think a Ken doll that breathes and talks – to his career arc, which no stereotype of Dixie white privilege could top, Kemp reached the Governor’s mansion with as little blood and sweat as seems possible. That he beat one of the more gifted, forget black politicians, but all US politicians, with such a vapid resume and oratorical skill speaks tomes about enduring southern racism cum political polarization.

How Kemp got himself elected governor was only about three-quarters as ugly as his stewardship of the state during Covid-19. During the 2018 campaign Georgia’s most famous citizen, former President Carter, implored Kemp to resign from the position of Secretary of State as others had faithfully done in the past. In response, Kemp gave his signature shoulder-shrug and ignored the guidance, shamelessly continuing as both a contestant and overseer of election procedures he helped customize to suppress the vote of thousands of peach state citizens through wholesale purges of registration rolls.

At the end of an election day filled with voter complaints about long lines and numerous irregularities Kemp held a slim lead. His opponent, Stacey Abrams, refused to concede and challenged the process, but Kemp rushed to declare victory. As protesters descended on the state capitol, strident but peaceful in demanding more than 30,000 uncounted provisional votes be tallied, police quickly moved in to make arrests; and they were not particular about who got rousted.

Georgia State Senator Nikema Williams, who merely came down from her office to speak with constituents among the protesters, was arrested, cuffed and herded into a police van. A white colleague and fellow senator, literally doing the exact same thing as Williams, sans darker skin, tried to intervene. “She is a Senator,” he repeatedly implored. To no avail. Williams spent five hours in the Fulton County jail before being released without charge. An apt beginning to MAGA stewardship.

Two years of Kemp’s Trumpist servility later, amid the tumult George Floyd’s murder created, the predictable results were on display last week. As lines to vote in urban neighborhoods snaked off into the visible horizon, Senator Williams received a call from some members of the advocacy group Black Votes Matter, who were monitoring the chaos. Several BVM members were outside a local voting precinct and being told they needed to leave the public area. Williams responded to her constituents plea for assistance and after calls to both the mayor and police chief’s offices, six police officers were directed to leave the activists alone. They remained until sometime after midnight when the last in a criminally interminable line were allowed to cast votes.

Lisa Harrison, a Georgia resident and military veteran, wrote how current national events rendered last week’s trip to her polling station different than past visits:

“It was the first time I’ve seen patrol cars at the polling station. They were prominently displayed flanking the entrance leading into the larger parking area. The officers casually grouped together and chatting. Tuesday was extremely hot and humid, and their decision to station themselves in the hot sun at the entrance and not the shaded areas got my attention. I’d prefer they had chosen otherwise. I’m concerned about the presence of law enforcement at the polling location and how it calls to mind historical voter suppression tactics and the ongoing legacy of Jim Crow and MAGA. My inner dialogue continues and I’m willing to consider my concern may not be warranted…… Later in the evening, a friend mentioned she thought it was odd that the Sheriff’s department was at the polling station when she went to vote earlier in the day. Me too.“

Eminently reasonable, Harrison wasn’t looking for trouble, but took notice of her surroundings. She wasn’t forced to wait hours at her polling place. No doubt such delays would have gravely intensified her reservations. At the long end of middle age, Harrison and her husband need Covid-19 like a tornado, but were more than willing to don masks and intermingle in a state hastily reopened to assure their voices were heard. Would she have waited seven hours to vote? That’s not a scenario anyone within an actual going democratic concern should ever have to ponder. Fact is, any election monitor worth his salt would condemn such a situation as a broken electoral system, part and parcel of a democracy on its deathbed. Brian Kemp can live with that. BC and LH

“Countries are not machines; they can’t be “fixed.” They are more like bodies and can only be healed. Our body politic has been deeply wounded at the point of race; the signs of infection are clear – inequality, mass incarceration, police brutality.”

Samuel Kimbriel

My father was one hundred percent bad ass. Equal parts the discipline cradle-to-law school Jesuit instruction ensures, and a trip-wire temper his Scottish bloodline provided, my dad walked this earth with an iron set of cajones. Growing up I learned to dread when he felt himself pushed to take a stand. Whether it was telling the waiter to get him a new steak because rare was how he ordered it, or telling a line cutter at the movies he had better think twice about whether his improved position was worth the wrath he was going to face to earn it, my dad did not play!

No less than several times I bore witness to his brinksmanship with another man’s behavior he couldn’t abide. You always knew defcon 5 was at hand when he took off his glasses; it was no different than Josey Wales spitting his chewing tobacco – trouble was coming.

I will never forget, circa 1968 or ‘69, when my dad and his friend, Dave, agreed to take me along for a Saturday afternoon lunch/6 dry Manhattan-on-the-rocks venture to his favorite tavern, Hackneys. Mickey Mantle’s retirement ceremony was on the television above the bar as I was digging in to my favorite ham sandwich with fries and their trademark slaw, when my father and a stranger began exchanging words.

My father never seemed more relaxed than when he was ready to go, and as he calmly handed his glasses to Dave, who sought to diffuse the situation, my previously ravenous appetite was gone. Dad was old school and would never engage in a going establishment. Instead, he called the guy outside where privacy was assured and the issue would be allowed to run its full course, nobody stepping in to break things up. The man refused the invitation. They all did.

My mother’s father was much the same as his son-in-law. It’s safe to say Grandpop liked dad, who afforded him the respect your beloved’s father warrants without any hint of insincere sycophancy. To my eyes, they were very much cut from the same cloth, neither the indulgent type. In fact, I received about the same amount of affection from each; my Grandpop was far more tolerator than coddler of his grandchildren. Exactly like my father, I had no ambitions to challenge the limits of his forbearance.

Working class whites, who moved out of northeast DC to McLean, VA as part of the first waves of late 50’s flight to the suburbs, my grandparents’ sensibilities on race were no better or worse than the Joneses of their time. Which is to say they were part of a herd MLK sought to move against their natural inclinations, with limited success. The riots after his murder reinforced those inbred sensibilities. My grandfather was not in an empathetic mood as he brought a gun with him to protect properties he supervised while the nation’s capitol burned. 

In 1972 Richard Nixon tapped my father to be the General Counsel of the newly created Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and my family migrated east from Chicago to the Maryland suburbs. As we settled in, our transition included plenty of visits to my grandparents’ McLean home not 15 minutes away. This meant a decent dose of bonding time between my father and grandfather, as my brothers and I hung out with neighborhood kids we had become acquainted with during past visits.

A decent chunk of those new friends were part of a very large family of at least ten, their house just down a small hill in my grandparent’s back yard. I enjoyed playing basketball with John and Pat on another neighbor’s court. They were good and we challenged each other in round robin one-on-one marathons during sultry summer days. Their father, John Sr., ran a heating and air conditioning company out of the residence. Ruddy and mean, his disposition was betrayed by the fear his children exhibited toward him.

One ritual my father and his father-in-law enjoyed sharing was shucking and devouring a bushel of oysters with my dad’s special cocktail sauce. Of course, no oyster feast would be complete without a few and a few more cold ones. Once, John Sr. invited them to bring everything down to his place, where the three of them shucked and guzzled into the evening.

At some point my mother decided it was time to head home and dispatched me to go get my father. Heading down the hill I could hear John Sr. stridently slur a point within the spacious but dark front porch. Something along the lines of “Bill, a n****r is a n*****r. I’ll call them any damn thing I want.” I froze and listened near the screen. My father never raised his voice, and spoke even lower during confrontations, so I couldn’t hear what he said. However, when my grandfather implored him to “put your glasses back on, Bill,” I knew things were intense. Suddenly the idea of my dad fighting John Sr. terrified me. What if Grandpop got hurt?! I decided to interrupt and yelled into the dark that “Mom said it’s time to go.” When my dad calmly replied he’d be right up, I breathed easier and headed back. I mentioned nothing of the incident to my mom or grandmother, but when we got home I asked my dad what happened. “Billy, some folks aren’t very nice” was all he said. And that was that.

Three plus years ago the US slid backwards and allowed the horrible flailing backlash against eight years of honorable service by its first black president to empower the worst strain of regressive populism. What we thought was dead and buried merely lay dormant prepared to metastasize if permitted. Despite Trump’s vile rantings fully promising what we could expect, somehow enough of us equated the frailties of Hillary Clinton with the disgusting depths of his divisive gibberish.

At no time did Trump ever beguile anyone with anything but his ignorant bigotry; yet white America simply shrugged what the hell. After eight years of Jackie Robinson in the White House, a stint with Ben Chapman won’t kill us; after all, remember that e-mail server?! Now we all pay a very steep price for our reckless apathy, but none more than the black community.

From dog whistles to Karens, documented brutality to literal executions, tase first/worry later to SWAT team horrors, MAGA embodies the very essence of John Sr.’s raw hatred, his one-size-fits-all bigotry. Something had to give. Now it has. November will be nothing but us vs. them – exactly what the Bunker Boy has been hissing for from day one – and nobody with eyes and ears mistakes the make up of each side.

The “deplorable” moniker HRC coined for the wretched core who carried Trump to the White House is still relentlessly cited by Fox/AM minions as a turning point for MAGA unity, fighting words that galvanized their shared grievance. The other day Joe Biden was less ambitious than HRC, merely noting 10-15% of US voters were “not very good people.” He’ll get no argument from me…. except about the numbers. And were my dad still with us, and Biden shared that observation with him, his glasses would surely have stayed put. BC

“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people – does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort.”

James Mattis

The Insurrection Act of 1807 is a United States federal law that grants the President power to deploy U.S. military and federalized National Guard troops within our borders for the purposes of suppressing civil disorder, insurrection and rebellion. The fact it has sat on the books unchallenged since the turn of the 19th century owes either to its fundamental utility or its archaic obsolescence. Certainly, judging from how rarely it was dusted off and summoned for use in the last hundred years, the answer to that question is the latter. Herbert Hoover, perhaps the last President as anti-social as our current troll – although he happened to be America’s greatest humanitarian at the time, which is at 180 degree variance from Trump – actually called in the military to rout WWI veterans seeking benefits by marching in DC.

Other examples of its employment were to enforce what everybody but society’s skels agreed were necessary mandates, like not looting in the wake of a hurricane, or punctuating the symbolism of protecting black school children’s right to integration. But even when it was used inappropriately , such as during the LA riots sparked by Rodney King’s beating, the edict was made as a last resort, maybe panic, and quickly retracted as order seemed restored.

Like everything else, Trump views US armed forces as “his”, to do with as the moment suits him. This particular moment has him reducing our troop presence in Germany by a third for no other reason than getting even with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the de facto leader of the free world, for snubbing his invitation to come to Camp David for the G-7 conference during the global pandemic our President has decided no longer exists.

Meanwhile, Trump is at Twitter war with DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, who politely and very professionally informed him by official letter that her city was no longer in a state of emergency, thus his conglomeration of National Guard, Bureau of Prisons, US Army regulars and perhaps even Blackwater mercenaries, which she never did request, are not at all appreciated in the nation’s capitol.

The President’s response was so predictable a drinking game could have been created around it. Bowser, tweeted little hands, “is grossly incompetent…. totally out of control and is constantly coming back to us for “handouts”…. is now fighting with the National Guard, who saved her from great embarrassment…“ Of course, it wasn’t enough to dog whistle at Bowser during a national racial epiphany, the President needed to threaten her as well. If Bowser kept complaining, “we’ll bring in another group of men and women.” What that gibberish meant is anybody’s guess… perhaps some militia types from Idaho. Whatever. Fact is, were it up to Trump, every day would be the right day for the Insurrection Act. That’s where we are and that’s where we’re surely staying during the run up to November.

The photo op Trump’s accordion monkey, Billy Barr, ordered peaceful protesters gassed and pummeled for clarifies Trump/2020 is less about even turning out the base than simply serving notice anything goes. There is not a whiff of concealment, it’s all in the open now. MAGA is at war with the rest of America, and seeks zero lib affirmation for anything it does, most notably its constant sedition. As for “the blacks,” they can either do the Candace Owens and express proper gratitude, or they can get treated as the problem any uppity whining deserves. No “kneed” to make that any clearer!

On the same day Trump waved his hand and declared a much hailed maritime sanctuary established by Obama off Cape Cod – that data showed conclusively had no negative impact on New England fishing prosperity – was now open for encroachment, Rush Limbaugh held forth on the joys of disunion. It’s them against us folks, the supposedly gravely ill Medal of Freedom recipient screeched: “….they keep firing at Donald Trump and it doesn’t even wound him.” And the protests? “We’re being told they are aimed at us,” contorted Limbaugh, “… but they are really against blue state governors.” Er, Okie dokie…… sure thing!

Make no mistake, ditto heads are already frothing for a junta. There is nothing about self-determination they like, they want Trump determination. Sean tells them it will be a landslide, Trump tells them it’s all rigged, either is fine with them. Trump isn’t leaving regardless of result, that’s now a MAGA given. The only one in America who hasn’t gotten that memo yet seems to be Chuck Todd.

The fervent, if not desperate, hope for democrats everywhere is that the strong and steady stream of nationwide protest necessitated by the murder of George Floyd has been received by McConnell et al. as but the appetizer to a main course they can count on in November when Trump disdains the will of the people. Forget Trump and the MAGAites, forget his GOP House flunkies, and forget Fox/AM – there is no doubt anymore how low they will go – it’s what’s left of the now extinct GOP establishment who will determine our fate. Call them what you will; Mattis is part of it, so is George Will, who has finally also come fully out from behind his pomposity to confront our pestilence. Lisa Murkowski appears to want back in on the right side of history after her impeachment disgrace. Even Condi Rice now figures it’s time to recognize police brutality against minorities as a problem, even if she made triple sure she didn’t dirty her hands mentioning Trump.

But what will any of that mean if, the day after the election, the turtle and his cadre of eunuchs emerge from under their rocks to give even a whiff of credence to Trump’s lies. Can’t you hear him now, with that voice that always sounds like he’s just about to vomit? “Well, I think we better all just slow down and let the process work here. Frankly, I’m a bit disturbed by some of the reports coming in. This election is just too vital to rush.” Another drinking game on the horizon.

Yet again an awful consequence of electing Trump is being processed as another opportunity for us to rediscover the joys of national unity. Utter nonsense. How are we going to coalesce around reform of our police departments’ circle-the-wagons response to any and all brutality complaints when half of us never recognized it as a problem in the first place. One video will be transformative? What about the dozens before?

Roger Goodall comes out and mea culpas that the NFL “got it wrong” with Colin Kapernick. So the MAGA fan base is prepared to tolerate similar sideline activism once games finally start again? Really? Where is that bridge inventory when you need it? Last time I looked, he’s still unemployed. Who wouldn’t rather have old Josh McCown running their offense.

George Floyd’s murder sparked a refreshing outpouring of activism, even if it no doubt exposed thousands to Covid-19 and provided more than an element of unnerving mob violence. It’s better than the alternative of apathy and more normalization. The hope that many who count, like James Mattis, like former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, like ex-DNI Dan Coats, and others have been shamed enough by the conduct of the nihilist they previously enabled, they are prepared to step forward and act as patriots should is tangible. They know even better than most that crises he creates only provide a platform for Trump’s worst; that never changes. The question has always been when will his worst ruin us? Slowly but surely more seem to be coming around to the imperative we must stop tempting fate in that regard. Yet and still, time is not on our side. BC