Adapted from a piece the author posted on his Facebook page on Friday, January 8th.
So. To be or not to be optimistic. This is the question.
After the past two days, should we be optimistic or pessimistic about our future? Some of you don’t quite see blue skies ahead.
Let me first say what is perhaps obvious, but should still be established as foundational; optimism does not mean the road ahead lacks enormous pitfalls. We recognize the challenges. Which are many. Incredible division. A number of truly rancid politicians eager to stoke that division. An entire political/media/religious universe invested in keeping half our population in ignorance. Etc. Etc. We’re not blind to the world we inhabit.
So why am I optimistic?
As I watched Trump’s video release tonight, I thought, this is the moment he has become presidential. He has learned his lesson this time…
O.k. just kidding. We all know what that was about. That hamster wheel brain of his just paused long enough to register that pissing Pence off may not have been so smart. And that “the first president twice impeached” might not be the ideal phrase with which to open his biography. That little speech tonight wasn’t worth the teleprompter it was scrolling in. So why am I really optimistic?
O.k. for real this time. Why am I optimistic?
1 Yes, the Confederate flag flew in our Capitol yesterday. Trump and his insurrectionists took us briefly back to the 19th century. But on that same day, Georgia showed us the 21st century. In a deep South state once torched by Sherman, two corrupt Gilded Age plutocrats were defeated by a black pastor and a Jew. Change comes no bigger than that. Georgia is blue.
2 The trend lines point to Texas as the next Georgia. The larger the cities, the browner the skin, the bluer the state. Texas awaits its Stacey Abrams. If Texas finds her, Republicans will never sniff the White House again.
3 Minority leader McConnell. Say it slow. Let it roll around your tongue. Savor it. Trump is a symptom. McConnell is the disease. Great speech last night Mitch. But you have blocked progress long enough. Yertle the Turtle is back where he belongs. King of the Mud.
4 There are now three aisles in Congress. The aisle between Republicans and Democrats. And the aisle between Trumper Republicans and … what shall we call them? … Old stock Republicans? Romney Republicans? Still assholes, but at least with some shred of dignity left Republicans? Call them what you will, the Republican Party is deeply divided, and Democrats must pull up Richard Nixon’s playbook. The man knew how to drive in a wedge. Find the fissure and exploit it. If they play their cards shrewdly, Democrats can destroy the Republican Party before the next election.
5 Trump is gone. The addition by subtraction in itself makes our future bright. A gibbon behind the Resolute desk would lead to a brighter future than Trump, simply by the things the gibbon would not do. And, let’s face it, probably by a few of the things the gibbon would do.
6 Democrats may not need to work at destroying the Republican Party because Trump may very well do it for them. He has already made a good start. I am convinced that Trump out of the White House will cause more problems for Republicans than for Democrats. In his own dimwitted self-centered way, he’ll drive in that wedge. Bedlam’s Nixon.
7 Yes, Trump is gone, but Trumpers we still have with us. And there’s a lot of them. I understand the concern on that point. I share it. A couple thoughts about that.
7a. Look closely at the photographs of yesterday’s rioters. Look at those faces. Look in those eyes. How to say this without seeming too cruel. Did you see in those faces the kind of mental agility that leaders possess? No. You saw followers. Thugs. Rioters. Trump loaded them, aimed them, fired them. They didn’t go off by themselves. They require tending.
Our own revolution of 1776 was filled with such folk. We celebrate them. Even the tar and feathering, an absolutely brutal torture. [Perhaps after yesterday, those of us who teach American history will rethink how we discuss those “patriotic” riots.] But our revolutionary rioters had an extraordinary group of leaders to tend them. Brilliant. Educated. Honorable. Well spoken. Tall … Franklin said of Washington, “He’s always the tallest man in the room. He’s bound to lead something.”
7b. So who will lead these rioters? Who will shape a movement now that Trump is gone?
Josh Hawley?! He looks like he ought to be passing out tracts on his bicycle. I expect to see him on my porch nagging me about Jesus, not storming the citadel at the head of Bikers for … Josh. If a film producer requested an actor to play an instantly dislikable young Republican, the casting director could do worse than producing Josh Hawley. No. Not Hawley.
Cruz?! Seriously? Does anybody imagine that mob following a used car salesman? Matt Taibbi once wrote of Cruz that he has a face that looks “like someone sewed pieces of a waterlogged Reagan mask together at gunpoint.” Cruz oozes ambition from every pore like a wet runny burrito. A burrito that’s been run over by a truck. His best argument for his election fraud commission is that millions of people feel bad. Maybe the stupidest argument ever made by a man with a satchel full of degrees after his name. No. Not Ted Cruz.
7c. So who will lead the mob? It has to be someone without a glimmer of conscience. Someone who can lie, not with sphincter clenched like Mike Pence, who lies like he expects a scolding from Mother, but with joie de vivre. Lying is the air you breathe. It’s orgasmic. Like Hannibal Lecter sucking on his fava beans. You can’t think about it. What you said two minutes ago can have no bearing on what you say now. Trumpers expect their leader to weave a fantasy world completely detached from reality. A world where they win and nasty libs lose. No white lies. No half lies. Big, bold, beautiful lies. With nary a flicker in your eyes of acknowledgement that what you say is not true. Can you do that Josh Hawley? Can you do that Ted Cruz?
I think not. No. To lead this mob, you need to find a piece of garbage that hasn’t fallen far from the truck. I’m looking at you Don Jr. You’re the only one who approaches the master’s gift. If possible, you’re even dumber, cruder, more devoted to self over the good of others. My hope is that a New York prosecutor takes Don Jr. off the board. Or we really might be in trouble.
8 And finally. Although, as some friends constantly remind me, I am often wrong in my optimism, indeed have been wrong frequently during the Trump ascendance, mouthing something idiotic like “This will break the spell,” I really do think This, this time, may have broken the spell. What sexual assault, mocking the handicapped, belittling war heroes, encouraging racism, ignoring hundreds of thousands of pandemic deaths, etc. could not do, stirring up insurrection just may have done.
The National Association of Manufacturers, a business group closely aligned with the Republican party, is urging Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump and “preserve democracy.”
Prosecutors are taking numbers, queueing up to be the first to measure Trump for an orange jump suit. A charge of fomenting insurrection may top the list.
The Wall Street Journal is calling on Trump to resign. USA Today, in a full page editorial tomorrow, will call on Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment.
Trump’s supporters, outside of Hawley, Cruz, and a group of House Republicans recently come down from their snake-handling churches in Arkansas, are fleeing. Twitter is threatening to starve those little fingers of their necessary oxygen.
In the long run, yesterday may be a gift. The nation saw the natural end of Trumpism. And much of the nation was repulsed. Trump will leave office a diminished figure.
And so I am optimistic. If Biden and the Democrats manage to provide financial relief to the neediest Americans, get vaccine distribution back on course, reopen our shuttered businesses, build a foundation of green technology, rejoin the family of nations, there will be no need to listen again to a buffoon who promises an “end to American carnage.” Because someone is bound to speak up and say, Hey Don Jr., the American carnage ended when your father left office …