I’ll have plenty to say in the days, weeks and months ahead but I’m feeling… it’s hard to put just how into words. But I’m experiencing a lot of mixed emotions tonight.
I’m old enough (mid sixties) to have seen and experienced much in my life. Good times and bad. A handful of truly golden moments and even (too brief) periods of time. And almost unbearable awful moments and times. Gain. Loss. Of people who I loved, and of things.
Some things once lost can never be regained. Likewise some things that are broken can never be fixed. Sure, you might bind up gaping wounds or put back together a broken vase that had been handed down through generations of your family but the scars, or the cracks will always be visible.
So it was with the aftermath of the 2020 election.
Yes, I was in high school when Watergate was going on and could comprehend to a large degree what I was witnessing and living through. Yet, in my elders, especially of my parent’s and grandparent’s age I sensed there was something more. Something I didn’t really “get.” As the scope of Nixon’s crimes became known faith in our institutions, especially for those who suffered through the Depression and children of it who would go on to fight and win WWII faith in our institutions was, I now realize badly shaken. Given their life experiences how all that happened could happen affected them in a way I only barely perceived. And didn’t understand at all.
I get it now.
I grew into adulthood and lived my life believing that after Nixon, nothing that bad could ever happen again. I didn’t like what our government did at times, and simply couldn’t understand how so many people could believe the b.s. conservatives were selling well enough to elect some of the people who held such enormous power. But the system, or so I thought was solid. It might take a while, too long in fact for it to correct itself but like a pendulum, the political goings on would swing back towards where I believed it should be.
I believed our institutions were so strong, that nothing could ever approach the scope of what Nixon and his henchmen did during Watergate.
I was wrong.
We saw worse, and are living through worse. We are far from being through it and I for one am not at all sure we’ll make it through okay. Scarred for the rest of the life of our country but back to basic health and able to do most if not all the things we did before. I think we are far from being able to know how things will turn out.
After two terms, our first President chose to walk away. George Washington could have remained President for the rest of his life but chose not to. He willingly and even many say eagerly turned over power to a new President. THAT began a tradition, an institution of Presidents peacefully handing over power to their duly elected successor. No matter how bitter or close an election had been. Even when the new President lost the popular vote! That tradition, that institution existed until January 2021.
When a f**king crybaby, spoiled rich kid LOSER decided if the voters rejected him, he’d round up a riotous mob of his supporters and incite them to attack the Capitol and stop the certification of his successor. Oh, and give him an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and declare “Martial” (meaning Trump) Law. No more America. No more Constitution. It wasn’t the only action he undertook to keep Joe Biden from being sworn in as his successor, but it was the most visible. And the entire free world, just as all but MAGA Americans did watched in horror as it played out live on TV. (With Trump reportedly commenting while watching the carnage “isn’t this great?”)
Every inauguration in my life I’d hear sage news people, anchors and former anchors and other august figures intone about this uniquely American trait – the peaceful transition of power. We could always when criticized by others in the world (justifiably at times) point to this exercise in the peaceful transition of power and shut them up. WE didn’t have riots in the streets to keep someone in the Presidential Palace (or WH) or to get them out of it. When it was time to go the old President went, and helped the new President’s team get up to speed – the transition. Trump fought having any transition at all. Hell, his GSA head fought to keep the offices locked up and to release the money allocated for it!
But this and other things were only part of what Trump did. The guy who slept with Mein Kampf on his nightstand engineered a modern Reichstag Fire, and unlike Germany in the 1930s we were in the television age and the images were broadcast (live) around the world. So much for the United States’ ability to brag about its unbroken record for the peaceful transition of power. Just as when Baby Bush made torture an officially sanctioned practice by our country a moral credibility we once had was lost.
Like virginity, some things once lost are gone forever. What Trump did will be in history books forever. Because he was what he’s always been – a petulant LOSER and he refused to admit what he damn well knew. He’d lost. Again. Huge.
When I think about the MAGA invasion of our Capitol, just as I did while watching it thoughts of the Civil War come up. Yes, when the British took DC during the War of 1812 they burned all the official buildings. Well, except for the Marine Barracks at 8th & I out of respect for my Corps for our stand at Bladensburg. But, while construction on our Capitol was begun in the 1790s the original building wasn’t completed until 1826. So bear that in mind as I point out that not even the Confederate Army stormed our Capitol. NO one ever had. Until Trump incited his insurrectionist, riotous mob and aimed them at the seat of our government! Seeing some of those traitorous insurrectionists running through the halls waving that effing RACSIT Confederate RAG filled me with a white hot fury. It still does. Not even the goddam Confederate Army did THAT!
But Trump supporters did. And are proud of it. And members of Congress are proud that happened. Some things, some images can’t be forgiven or forgotten. They will leave an ugly, Trump orange stain on our country forever.
So I don’t believe feeling grief is a strange feeling to have about what was lost that day. Or to still be mourning it. I will be for the rest of my life. And as the saying goes there is a time for everything. It even cites a time to mourn.
Now? We’ve reached the time to INDICT. Trump. The person most responsible for the grief he has caused. If there is any justice left in this world he will get a fair and speedy trial and be convicted. Sadly, unlike you or I or anyone else he will wind up being allowed to remain free while he appeals his conviction. Yet every goddamn day will complain he’s been treated unfairly, that NO ONE has EVER been treated the way HE has. In a way he’ll be right because as I said almost anyone else would be led out the side door of the courtroom in handcuffs and put in a holding cell awaiting transfer to the first way station on his trip to prison. Most convicts mount their appeals from prison!
I’m not celebrating tonight. Do I feel some sense of satisfaction that Trump has finally been indicted for January 6? Of course. In fact, I at times expressed frustration, if not anger that it hadn’t happened yet. However, I can’t help but be overwhelmed by how events unfolded that led to the need for today’s indictments. The cost Trump, and every goddam Republican (and Independent) that supported him, who voted for him (starting back in 2016) and especially those who conspired with him to do the awful things he did as President and THEN refused not only to hold him to account but even backed his attempt to illegally throw out the results of a free and fair election is appalling.
Our country, our Grand Experiment is in the Trauma Room at the ER. Still. Death has been for the moment averted. But the wounds are as severe as can be. And whether the Trauma surgeon and team can keep the “patient” alive so that others can do longer healing work remains to be seen.
So instead of celebrating I mourn because I know that even in the best of circumstances things will never be the same even if the doctors perform miracles. Ugly scars will always be visible. As will invisible scars. A national form of PTSD will manifest from time to time for at least a generation or two. If not longer.
Please folks. Don’t celebrate, or if you are then please stop. At best you are in the waiting room of the hospital as a grievously wounded loved one fights for their life. A great additional trauma surgeon is now at work. So there’s hope. And therefore a small measure of relief is okay to be feeling. But that’s all.
There is nothing to celebrate. I’m not sure anymore that even if I get the pleasure of seeing images of Trump in a prison cell in an orange jumpsuit I’ll want to actually celebrate. Just be thankful.
I am very thankful. Especially that he is finally being held to account. I don’t know why it took the DOJ so long to do this. It really seems that the congressional investigation into 1-6 and all the results being televised may have spurred Merrick Garland into action. I suspect Nancy Pelosi intended for it to happen that way. I also agree that our country is not out of the woods yet.
Sometimes one has to do SHOW & TELL.
We got to see the videos of J6 thanks to the Committee.
Now we get the text below the photos & videos in the indictment.
Sometimes it helps to repeat things to those who may not be paying attention.
Good timing, too.
For what it’s worth, Washington most likely chose not to seek a third term simply because he was worn out from the job. And it’s a good thing he walked away since he would die in 1799 which would throw the country into a fresh crisis since there was no Constitutional mechanism to replace a president who died in office. (Even when that first happened with W H Harrison in 1841, the government was making up stuff but no one chose to raise a challenge.)
Supposedly after the latter was sworn in Washington told Adams “I am fairly out and you are fairly in. We shall see which of us is the happier.” I agree. He had given much and deserved a quiet retirement even if it turned out not to have been for all that long.
To be honest, I never did believe that Trump kept a copy of ‘Mein Kampf’ on his bedside table as there isn’t, as far as I’m aware, a ‘comics illustrated’ version (which is about his reading level)
Or ‘Mein Kampf: The Coloring Book”
With no colors behind the lines, of course.
I read that it was a book of Hitler’s speeches, not “Mein Kampf.”
“Please folks. Don’t celebrate, or if you are then please stop. At best you are in the waiting room of the hospital as a grievously wounded loved one fights for their life. A great additional trauma surgeon is now at work. So there’s hope. And therefore a small measure of relief is okay to be feeling. But that’s all.”
For me Denis this says it all. Thank you.
In 71 I turned 18 and in 72 I voted for McGovern. I was in high school when Mississippi was forced to desegregate and I went through jr high and high school expecting to die in Vietnam. I was married in 73 and saw Nixon run out of town in the second year of my marriage. Carter became president the fifth month of my daughter’s life. I felt their would be nothing but roses and sun shine from then on out. So yes Mr. Elliott, the new century has made me sad and mad. The last ten years has just made me more angry. Until the fascist are crippled and completely out of power will I be satisfied. Even then I don’t think I will be able to regain the optimism I had in my early twenties. I can’t help but think of how my marriage started out with Watergate and will probably end during one of the many trials of Trump and his fellow traitors. My wife has Parkinson Disease and could very well die in the next few years.
As Faulkner said in ‘Requiem for a Nun’ “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
I will celebrate when Traitor Tot is convicted for his treasonous acts and executed! He is a TRAITOR, he deserves to shot!