The third criminal case against the forty-fifth president of the United States was the “Breaking News” on both liberal and conservative media sources on Tuesday, August 1st. On the conservative news stations, there was outrage, deflection, and an attempt to minimize the significance of the charges. Liberal news sources broke out everything but the party hats and featured all of their news show hosts along with every former prosecutor, former government officeholder, law professor, or pundit that was not busy on some other channel.
By the next day, MSNBC’s Morning Joe looked like Hollywood Squares and had the screen divided into nine rectangles. Joe and Mika shared one slightly larger square and eight other talking heads filled the rest. I looked for Paul Lynde and Charley Weaver but, alas, death had spared them from this dark stain on our nation’s history. Each square was, however, filled with someone eager to share their analysis of the four new felony indictment charges that bring the total to 78 in three separate jurisdictions.
Meanwhile, over on Fox and Friends, their Three Musketeers were on a set Wednesday morning labeled, The Melting Pot and they were interviewing a professor who was setting up a new online university to counter all the other universities that feature a prominent liberal agenda. At that moment, the news that Trump was being criminally charged with three new crimes, including conspiracies to defraud the United States and to obstruct an official proceeding, was no longer worthy of exclusive coverage.
 |
| Fox and Friends |
This brings us to the scary part. Donald John Trump holds a “trump” card if he can win that election. His “Get out of Jail Free” card, traditionally an ironic shade of orange, is his for the taking by any and all means possible. Given the lessons of the last election process and the motivation provided by a threatened life in prison, can a winner-take-all cage match not be in our future? The mere thought of watching two aging gladiators duel to the finish is not a comforting thought.
A free and fair election process without violence might have been a foregone conclusion in the past but, given the events surrounding January 6, 2021, and a sword of Damocles hanging by a single hair of an elephant’s tail over the golden coiffed dome of one candidate, an even more tumultuous event would be the likely forecast. In 2020 Donald Trump very much “wanted” his presidency to continue and was willing to attempt to invalidate the will of the people in a violent insurrection, but in 2024 his motivation is survival.
Donald Trump is the most accomplished bloviator to come along since the days of Warren G. Harding who described the process as a style of empty, pompous, political speech, that lasts as long as the occasion warrants, where you say absolutely nothing. Trump’s advantage over Mr. Harding is that he has television and social media allowing him to bloviate ad nauseam to his Scientology-like cult, some of whom are armed and dangerous. He has also managed to motivate the Trump courtiers within the GOP brain trust. This would include the likes of Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Lindsey Graham, JD Vance, Jim Justice, Henry McMaster, Tommy Tuberville, Carlos Gimenez, Paul Gosar, Jim Jordan, Scott Perry, George Santos, and Pete Sessions, who have all hitched their careers to the runaway honey wagon that is the Trump campaign.
If Trump had any knowledge of the ancient moral parable attributed to the Roman philosopher Cicero, he might understand the reference to the sword of Damocles. He might see the similarities between his lust for power and the inherent risks. He might identify with Dionysius, the unhappy tyrannical king who switched places with the envious Damocles. The story symbolically tells of the constant apprehensions of those in power who labor under the specter of anxiety and imminent death. The sword that hangs by a single thread threatens them constantly. While JFK mentioned the “nuclear sword of Damocles” during the Cold War, whose supporting thread could be severed in a moment of madness, it is doubtful our 45th president would have understood the reference.
 |
| 2024 Election |
The 2024 election is stacking up to be a singular choice between democracy and socialism. This critical fact will be hidden beneath a barrage of obsequious nonsense that passes for current political rhetoric. Barring some unforeseen event to derail the two leading freight trains heading from opposite directions to the trestle bridge that is our political future, we are only missing Snidely Whiplash tying Stormy Daniels to the tracks to complete the picture. This election has disaster film written all over it. Not so much The Towering Inferno, Titanic, or The Poseidon Adventure, but more like Snakes on a Plane.
No comments:
Post a Comment