Dear America,
It's been strange not having any Trump contretemps to complain about. Since Trump has tucked his tail between his legs and retreated to the executive mansion, it's been pretty quiet in America. I'm not complaining; that's good. But between the pandemic and non-Trump news, things have been pretty unremarkable...until the past couple of days that is. Now Trump is creating a tempest in a teapot over the national indiscretion of naming military installations after what would be war criminals in any circumstance other than our civil war: a coup that got big enough that its leaders couldn't be condemned without alienating half the population of the country. Oh, and he has fabricated a new issue by demanding that congress add more to his deficit by increasing the recovery payments authorized in the most recent pandemic relief package. It's grandstanding, probably in the faint hope that there will be a groundswell of support for his own coup attempt, a subject that was apparently bandied about in at least one high level administration conclave. I say that because if Mitch McConnell had thought for a moment that Trump would sign for any amount, a bill authorizing it would have gone before a joint session and would surely have passed. After all, the Democrats in The House passed a bill with much more relief in it months ago and have been arguing for it ever since, and the pusillanimous Republicans in The Senate wouldn't dare vote against something that Trump let it be known he was for.
What this is actually, at least in my opinion, is Trump saying to the Republicans, if you won't throw the electoral college results out and elect me over the objections of 80 million American voters, I'm going to sabotage your efforts to reclaim your dignity, credibility and integrity after I'm gone. I'll keep you from passing what the American people want and need, because as you know, I don't give a damn about them or anyone other than myself. Then, in 2024, I can campaign for the opportunity to save America from both parties. Maybe I can win that way after losing the popular vote twice as a Republican. And if you show callousness by going home for a ten day Christmas break, I won't even have to do anything because your bill will die in my pocket as long as I don't sign it, and you won't even be able to override that kind of "pocket veto." As to refusing to sign the current defense and stop gap funding bills, you can all go swing. You'll get it done, it just won't by as easy for you, and in the bargain, I lock up the bigot vote for 2024 by opposing renaming bases named after confederate slavers. How's that for proof that I'm a stable genius.
The irony of it all is that McConnell and the minority leader in The House, Kevin McCarthy (who's as much of an idiot as Donald Trump is), are now going to be hoist by their own petard. They have spent four years sucking up to a sociopath...a devious, narcissistic megalomaniac who is now plying his talents at their expense, and they can't get out of the way. The monster they created is going to devour them, and all they can do is whimper and flail about. Trump will make his point in spite of anything they will do, and the only possible beneficiaries of Trump's scheming will be either him or the Democrats, who can turn to you, America, and say, "you see? I told you so!"
Personally, I would bet on the Democrats in this whole thing. We won't know the outcome for maybe a couple of years or more, but I think that most Americans feel now that we will have dodged a bullet if Trump doesn't try to marshal the U.S. military in an attempt to usurp the power he has always coveted. But I think that what will happen is that the American people will recognize that the name Donald Trump is a stain on not just the American presidency, but on America as a whole. He represents our basest, and ironically-most-self-destructive instincts as a culture, and we let him into our house...our White House. True, the majority of us can just shrug and say, hey, it wasn't me who let it happen. It was the basket of deplorables who did it. We cast our votes, but thanks to Alexander Hamilton and a few other "founding fathers", our system allowed them to have their internecine way with the first modern democracy.
That's what I think will be the course of human events in America. But then, I thought even Hillary could beat him.
Your friend,
Mike
P.S.: Happy Holidays
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