So. Weeks past the Last Election (and I do mean the Last.Bear with me) Here’s some thoughts. This is not going to be pleasant. Feel free to avoid if you’ve already had too much poison in your system, and I am certainly no political analyst or pundit so you are free to swerve around this personal take on the situation and go do whatever you feel is a better alternative – find a more studied and posibly evenmore doomful analysis or else put your fingers back in your ears and go LALALALA really loudly).
Everything pointed to what might be a return to sanity. the size of Kamala’s rallies. The enthusiasm. The endoresements. The lack of baggage that she brought to the battle, as compared to a Hilary Clinton. The rapid registration of a bunch of young voters in the wake of her candidacy. ALL of it. But… on election night I watched it be 2016 all over again. And given what’s been happening since it’s going to be 1950 soon. And then 1939. And then 1918, and then 1914, and then back and back again. It might be a couple of centuries before we stop.
RFK Jr – Wormbrain himself – in charge of health and social services? GOD HELP US if another pandemic type strikes. There won’t BE any vaccines. And let me just say this.on the social services side. I was eligible to receive Survivor Benefits after my husband died, but not until I was Old Enough (at age 60). SInce I was only 57 1/2 when he went, I survived for two and half years on air, promises, and credit. The benefits kicked in on schedule and they aren’t princely by any means but at least I can rely on some sort of regular income on a regular basis – but this may now not be a thing at all, or they may cut the benefit to the point at which it becomes laughable, or they may introduce “means testing” for it or some such thing, and – well – I had only just begun to simmer down from a state of permanent high anxiety about survival. Now I am right back there. And no human being should have to live out their days in a state of permanent high anxiety. I cry a lot.
The attorneys presiding over the criminal case which Trump LOST – and was found guilty by a jury of his “peers” 34 times over – are now nominated for high federal offices where they will be in a position to wreak vengenance on the judge of that trial. The rule of law is a smoking wreck. Good luck trying to find people to fill a jury from now on. I mean, what’s the point? You give weeks of your life to a trial,. you convict, and then the felon gets elected president and the case gets dismissed out of hand. You might as well join the local community theatre instead and put on a production of “12 angry men” – at least you get to charge admittance, and it’s not a real case so there isn’t even a suspicion of real responsibility. Good luck finding judges willig to preside over cases. Good luck trying to bring any criminal to justice. In fact, why bother arresting them at all? Just give your murderers and your rapists and your frauds and your felons a stern talking to and send them back out to do it again. What’s the point? What’s the point of a “day in court” any more?
A self-confessed Russian sympathiser and admirer of Vladimir Putin is in charge of our national intelligence. As someone put it, just give Putin an office in the White House already and be done with it. It’s a charade by now.
A man under investigation for sex with a minor and sex trafficking resigned from Congress (which had jurisdiction over said investigation and was due to release its report within days but now won’t or can’t because the subject of said report has resigned from congress and therefore their jurisdiction) is nominated as Attorney General AND IN CHARGE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE.
Any one of these appointments on its own could be Trump being Trump and rewarding a loyalist. All of them indicate an intent of destroying the entire edifice of the US government. Nero, watching while Rome burns. Worse, Caligula. If you think about the matter metaphorically, let’s say that the USA is railway tracks, which are magically being laid down as the train advances, the train being all of us who live in and belong to that country. We have had a tradition of the guy who steers the train being elected to that position every four years with the keys to the White Locomotive being handed over peacefully as the new Chief Engineer takes over the helm. But this time… this time the guy just ushered up there has barred the door behind him, and he’s tossed the keys out of the window, and the tracks that are being laid are leading straight over a cliff and into the abyss. The SCOTUS was stolen the last time (and it is only going to get consolidated this time around) and the results of that have already been in evidence over the last handful of years – but now they have that, and the House, and the Senate, and the Presidency, and what makes you think they will let any of that go? Ever? Again? Why would they? This really was the Last Election. Wait until the midterms and see, if you don’t belive me. And I am so very afraid.
America has just cracked its nation like an egg and thrown it onto a hot griddle. Now watch it fry.
Watch it BURN.
You think I am being pessimistic? I repeat, RFK Jr in charge of health and social services. And since they are talking (because they can) of all these people being given “recess appointments” (i.e. without full Senate confirmation) , he’ll probably be in that position come January. And I don’t know how I, personally, and many others like me, live beyond that.
I cannot tell you how deeply scared I am right now.
In other news, a bracelet that hasn’t left my wrist in decades, placed there by my late husband, broke this morning and I can’t go about trying to fix it until Tuesday at the earliest and even then I don’t know if it is in fact fixable or how much that is going to cost me. I’ve been crying a lot today. I suspect I will cry a lot more.
There’s a fog ahead of me and I can no longer see the future.