Doug's Darkworld

For the past four days I’ve consoled myself, I and millions of others, with the fact that Biden won the election and we would get back to something resembling a normal functional government. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Trump thinks he won the election and only massive fraud explains his loss. This is delusional thinking, the man really is insane, but it doesn’t matter. Enough of the GOP is going to support him, through shared madness or cynical self interest, that they will manufacture a way for him to ‘win’ the election. It will have the imprimatur of legality and constitutionality on it, but it won’t be. And at that point, we’re in a dictatorship. Trump, president for life. That’s the second party that’s over, America’s two century experiment with democracy. It was flawed horrifically from the beginning, but at least it was a step in the right direction. I hope I’m wrong, but at this point, with the Senate and the SCOTUS in Trump’s pocket, I don’t see any other outcome.

So what happens now? Beats me. There will be rising shock and horror on the left as Trump slimes his way towards stealing the election. There will be protests, there will be riots. All of which will have about as much effect as the Occupy Wall Street protests had. As long as Trump’s core is loyal, and it’s a given they will, protests will accomplish nothing except give Trump cover to seize more powers. We may well see him arresting his political enemies.

Wrote that this morning. Reading so many posts and articles today about Trump and his refusal to concede the election. Four or five days now, unprecedented in what wasn’t a close election. Most speculation along the lines of “When is Trump going to get it?” and positing he’ll be eventually dragged screaming and kicking from the White House. There’s two horrifying assumptions in this thinking. The first is that Trump will eventually get it. No, no, he won’t. Trump won the election in his mind, how could the greatest and most popular president in US history lose the election? The Dems cheated. Like Sharpiegate, he will never back down, Trump can’t back down.

The second assumption is that everything will proceed “normally” now, Biden is certainly doing all that’s expected of a president elect. The election will be certified, Biden will be sworn in, and Trump will be shuffled off to Twitter jail or some such. Trump is not a normal president, these are not normal times, and simply going through the motions will not magically make them normal times nor make Trump concede. I mean, Trump’s been saying for months that the Dems will cheat and he won’t commit to a peaceful transition, in fact he refused to commit to any transition. In his mind a terrible treasonous crime has been committed, and he’s going to fix it.

And so far McConnel, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, pretty much all the GOP Congress, not to mention tens of millions of Americans … all have Trump’s back. Secretary of state Pompeo promised “A smooth transition to a second Trump administration.” This isn’t going to end well. Trump is incapable of conceding. Saturday we all woke up to the mainstream media declaring Trump won. We’re not going to wake up to “Trump concedes.”

A fascinating spectacle, front row seats at the Colosseum, Trump vs. Biden. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and all sorts of other learned people are going to be studying these days for centuries to come. The greatest Empire the world has ever known crippled by a plague that by all reason they could have fought but didn’t. Combined with a political/constitutional crisis second only to the Civil War. And one of the things that I find especially interesting about this is how much it highlights just how invested most people are in their world view, they have a very hard time seeing that times have changed, they so much want to cling to “normalcy.”

There’s no such thing as normal, but right now America is divided into two diametrically opposed visions of normal. I don’t think that historically conflicts like this get resolved peacefully. Too much at stake, too many people’s identity and worldview at stake. The fun ride continues. Hope I get to see as much of it as I can. First round of surgeries next week, if I abruptly stop writing next week, well, no one lives forever.

And a PSA about Covid, in the same vein, saw someone wondering when Covid will end. My response: It’s not going to end unless there is a concerted coordinated global effort to end it, as Smallpox was eradicated. Covid-19 is both more dangerous than Smallpox and harder to control. By many metrics it’s one of the most frightening diseases we have ever seen, there’s been nothing like it before. Some countries will keep it under control, but as long as it rages elsewhere, none can let their guard down. The very best case scenario, it’s still going to be with us for years.

There’s in fact been more unpleasant discoveries about Covid-19, and the hyped Pfizer vaccine has a lot of caveats, it’s only going to be useful in stable developed urban areas. So, tomorrow’s blog will be depressing too! Stay safe everyone. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula

Copyright © 2020 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.

(Image: The Hindenburg disaster, 6 May 1937. Credit: Sam Shere (1905–1982) It’s believed to be a Public Domain image, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. I needed an image of an unexpected disaster, though far more can be read into it than that.)