Be it resolved: the specter of Old King Donald makes disunity on our part unthinkable.
Last year, journalist/author Jeff Sharlet published The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War. In a brief interview the week of its release, he declined to say much about the book per se. By far his main concern was to warn all autocrat-averse citizens that uniting (especially this year) would prove of the essence.
Since then, the “Slow,” virtually one-sided “War” in his title has sped up. Part and parcel of that acceleration: six power grabbing, all but unaccountable jurists have seen fit to effectively bestow all but limitless clout to “officially” break the law on (for the nonce, of all people) President Biden.
That they seem to feel confident he won’t deploy it speaks volumes. Shelves. Libraries. (Clearly, the preening, bottle blond head of those judges’ party harbors no such compunction!)
But still. Voila: a big, blue house divided. On one hand, “Take some drastic action: liberals urge Biden to use new presidential powers” (Raw Story, 7/1). On the other hand, the New Yorker (among others) calls on Mr. Biden’s veep and cabinet to peg him non compos mentis- and use the 25th Amendment to shunt him aside.
Never mind how scads of mental health pros (viz. The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump) observe that the White House’s true whack job supreme, in recent years, has been the Ocher Ogre Himself. (Sad.)
Never mind how his own niece (a psychologist who seems to know him 6 ways to Sunday) pegs him a malignant narcissist. A sociopath. And a textbook case of arrested development. (Oh, well!)
Now hear this. The crisis we must face did not arise overnight. In fact, the “civil war” footing Sharlet resolves dates at least to Ronald Reagan ally Jerry Falwell’s incendiary howl for “a holy war” to install a GOP (purportedly God’s Own Party) theocracy.
Those who foresaw today’s horrors were not (as the saying goes) whistling “Dixie.” Safe to say, remedial vigilance (on behalf of Lady Liberty and Uncle Sam) is long overdue. In 1972, 3 months after the Oscar-winning film “The Candidate” hit theaters, thugs hired by the (then as now) larcenous-not-holy GOP broke into the Dems’ HQ at DC’s Watergate complex. The film’s ending poses a question that now looms larger than ever.
Namely, what do we do now?