I must start by explaining my long dereliction of duty, my editor is entitled and there may be some readers who’ve missed me. I had excused myself from Christmas dinner with my kin because I had no appetite. I tried a baked pork shop in its place. I couldn’t finish it. The day after Christmas I had a light lunch, salad and a couple of sardines. Shortly after I voided my stomach by every means a body allows. If the International Olympic Committee recognized vomiting as a sporting event, I’d have a gold medal. (Never mind that other operation.) I could only watch the deposits as I up-chucked and up-chucked. Happily, I saw no fragments of my internal organs, although I thought I detected a square of zwieback I ate in 1964.
After that, a five-day seltzer water diet. No nutritional value, although hydration therapy is recommended. Now we have almost reached the point. When you remain inert for days you are going to spend your time thinking. That’s the only way to escape death by utter boredom. Your brain may be equipped with factual knowledge, experiences, and ideas accumulate over decades, but you have to regain the neglected ability to sort all that into a coherent form. You require a strong stimulus.
Now the point: disgust, loathing, irritation, are excellent energizers. January 5 and 6 provided all this excellent stimulus and plenty of them.
For me the first stimulus was the liberal pastor that decided the House of Representative prayer should end with “amen” and “awomen.” I can’t fault him for being ignorant that “amen” is a Hebrew invocation meaning “let it be so,” I didn’t know it myself until the question came up.
We can all despise him for failing to understand that it was an invocation with no bearing on sexual identity. Custom includes all kinds of invocations: “God Save this Honorable Court,” “God Wills It—Deus volt” for medieval crusaders, and many more.
What’s worse this distinguished idiot gives a perfect example of one of the plagues of today’s America – ignorance and indifference to words and their meaning. More and more Americans seem unable to understand words at all. They can hear only sounds. Boobs hear “Amen” and detect misogyny at work. At the very least the think they can herd some female voters by displaying sensitivity. This inability to detect the meaning behind sounds was just reinforced by a conversation with my nephew in Portland, Oregon. The familiar phrase “dog eat dog” is being replaced with “doggy doggy.”
Now. Trump must receive full credit for the inspiration I needed. His speech at 4:17 p.m. on Wednesday, four hours after the attack on the American Capitol, Trump had addressed a “Stop the Steal” rally. The gilt-tipped goofball repeated his usual claim of widespread election fraud, with a particular emphasis on Georgia. He denounced Georgia governor Brian Kemp, calling him “one of the dumbest governors in the United States.” Kemp was a strong Trump supporter and had made Georgia the first state to lift its spring coronavirus shutdown, an action urged at the time by Trump. Now Kemp was the enemy because he had not engineered a Republican victory in the Senate run-off. The Imperial Goofball’s three nominees to the Supreme Court were damned for “disloyalty. They love to rule against me,” Trump told the crowd, “They couldn’t give a damn. They couldn’t give a damn.” Vice President Mike Pence was also given notice that he would soon join Trump’s ever-growing list of “very bad people,” because he failed to embrace a novel constitutional allowing a V.P. to protect his president by invalidating hostile votes.
Trump’s January 6 list of allegedly deliberate ballot improprieties recycled the same unproven allegations that have been incessantly amplified on Trumpophiliac websites and either rejected by dozens of courts or held back from adjudication by the Trump legal team itself.
An hour after the rally ended, dozens of attendees broke into the Capitol to halt the validation of states’ electoral tallies. They vandalized, collected selfies, grabbed souvenirs, attacked members of the press and fought with the police. Trump’s first response to this fiesta of superannuated juvenile delinquency was a good time to denounce the violence. He never did so. His first response during the Capitol invasion was a tweet accusing Pence of cowardice,
Ten minutes later, Trump asked his followers via Twitter to “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!” After another 10 minutes, he reiterated his plea to remain peaceful. “No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order—respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue.” These were necessary appeals although he chooses to say nothing about vandalism.
Finally, on Jan.8, President Donald Trump read a speech from a Teleprompter. He condemned the violence of the last day, he acknowledged the certification of the 2020 election. “My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly, and seamless transition of power,” he told us. Concluding on a lighter note, without any rancor whatever I make a gift of dialogue from “Yes Minister,” a brilliant British political satire from over 40 years ago.
Prime Minister Hacker is preparing his first speech before the British people. His communications advisor wants to know what it will be about.
HACKER. About? Me,
ADVISOR. Of course, but what policies?
HACKER. Ah yes. The usual. You know. A better tomorrow. All pull together. Heal the wounds. That sort of thing.
Sound familiar?
John Frary of Farmington, the GOP candidate for U.S. Congress in 2008, is a retired history professor, an emeritus Board Member of Maine Taxpayers United, a Maine Citizen’s Coalition Board member, and publisher of FraryHomeCompanion.com. He can be reached at jfrary8070@aol.com.
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