Grifting and Drifting

This has been quite a week.

The back thing has not improved. I still find myself grabbing for the walker to get out of bed in the morning. We’re on day 31. I did have my first PT session this week. Someone should have warned me that the next day I would be in a seriously bad way.

So, I’m at day 31 as off today. More PT coming. I expect more bad days. I’ve canceled all my summer vacation plans. No real motivation for a vacation. At this point, all I would do differently is turn my chair around, so it’s facing the TV instead of the computer.

In the meantime…

Been watching, with fascination and terror, the January 6th Committee. Terrifying because of just how close we came to a coup in this United States. Even scarier is how Fox News and most Republicans would like to sweep this under the rug. Sure we have problems right now; inflation is undoubtedly top of mind. But to say that’s more important than the end of our republic?

The best witness, in my opinion, so far, has been Judge J. Michael Luttig. Here’s a judge with strong conservative solid credentials; he has been on the shortlist for the Supreme Court twice under George Bush. Tucker Carlson would like you to believe that the events of January 6 were ordinary political discourse and that we should ignore the committee.

Here’s what Judge Luttig had to say:

“January 6 was…a war for America’s democracy, a war irresponsibly instigated and prosecuted by the former president, his political party allies, and his supporters.”

And that was the same thing for the “what about the Black Lives Matter protests?

My answer is this. We’re not talking about the BLM protests, property damage, etc. I’m happy to have that conversation; let’s keep them separate. I don’t think violent protest is acceptable. I have examples in mind that would challenge that thought, but if we were to keep to the idea of non-violent protest, those are few and far between. For example, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. 100% justifiable. Am I protesting the “nth” killing of unarmed black people by the police? I understand the anger; the riots didn’t serve anyone.

What’s clear to me is that January 6th wasn’t a “protest”; it was an orchestrated, organized attack on the constitution of the United States. It was the manifestation of a disinformation campaign started by the former president weeks before the election. When he saw his polling numbers, he began making comments questioning the integrity of our election process. His remarks were not warranted, then or now. He was grooming (their word) his base to be ready to expect a rigged election. And when the election results came in, and they weren’t to Trump’s liking, he pulled the trigger on his pre-planned efforts to throw out the legal results by nurturing the seeds of dissent with his most loyal followers. He had accomplices at Fox and in party operatives around the country. When 60 lawsuits failed, his attempt to bully election officials in contested states failed, and finally, when Mike Pence stood up and said no…

Fire up the mob.

On that day and in those weeks, our battered democracy held up. In the year since the messaging from the Trump camp has intensified. They’ve found that it’s pretty profitable to cry foul and encourage people to send you money.

And who was shocked to learn that those donations did not go to a “protect the election” fund, that fund doesn’t exist. They went to Trump Inc, contractors who have been putting on his rallies and his kids.

They’ve also been able to put their followers into positions overseeing elections and sitting on school boards.

The coup isn’t over. I’ll close with the concluding statement from Judge Luttig on Wednesday:

Luttig urged Americans to remember that the fate of our democracy is in our hands and to reject the fever dreams of the Trump Republicans in favor of “a new vision, new truths, new values, new principles, new beliefs, new hopes and dreams that hopefully could once again bind our divided nation together into the more perfect union that ‘We the People’ originally ordained and established it to be.”

“The time has come for us to decide whether we allow this war over our democracy to be prosecuted to its catastrophic end or whether we ourselves demand the immediate suspension of this war and insist on peace instead. We must make this decision because our political leaders are unwilling and unable, even as they recklessly prosecute this war in our name.”