December 23, 2020
With a mere 28 days remaining in Trump’s miserable reign, we can expect the next four weeks to be a concentrated version of the last four years, marked by criminality, cruelty and chaos. Since November 3, Trump has focused all of his attention on maintaining the presidency, and none on the actual job of President. After multiple federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, suffered a massive Russian cyberattack that was the worst security breach in history, Trump downplayed it and did nothing, (Source: “What we know-and still don’t- about the worst-ever US government cyberattack,” by Kari Paul and Lois Beckett, theguardian.com, 12/19/20).
On Friday, Trump convened an Oval Office meeting to plot to prevent the inauguration of the duly elected President and Vice President. Criminal former NSA head Mike Flynn and Sidney Powell, the Trump lawyer who has trafficked in bizarre conspiracy theories featuring long dead Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez, were in attendance. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Guiliani, attended by phone, as did White House Counsel, Pat Cipollone and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. This convocation of kooks and fabulists discussed Guiliani’s recommendation that DHS impound voting machines in battleground states to look for “irregularities,” as well as Flynn’s recommendation that Trump impose martial law and “rerun the election.” Lastly, Trump floated appointing Powell as Special Counsel to investigate alleged election fraud, (Source: “Trump Weighed Naming Election Conspiracy Theorist As Special Counsel,” by Maggie Hoberman and Zoltan Kenno-Youngs, The New York Times, 12/19/20).
It fell to Pat Cipollone and Ken Cuccinelli, hardened ideologues who have supported Trump’s noxious agenda at every turn, to push back on these dangerous schemes. If all that stands between us and the imposition of martial law are a corrupt lawyer who led an impassioned defense of Trump in his impeachment and an immigration hardliner determined to end DACA, we are in deep trouble.
While Trump was busy using the people’s house as home base for his criminal conspiracy, the number of coronavirus infections soared to dizzying heights, with no end in sight, a direct result of Trump’s genocidal combination of malevolence, depraved indifference and stupidity. As The Washington Post details in this deeply reported story, Trump’s monomaniacal obsession with challenging the election results instead of doing his actual job has resulted in more than 300,000 American deaths and a continuing daily death toll that has risen to 3000 deaths per day! At every turn, Trump, Pence and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows failed to do the simple things that would have saved lives- advocating for mask wearing and implementing a robust testing program. After a spring spent politicizing normal public health measures and promoting quack miracle cures, Trump, like the addle-brained toddler he is, has grown bored with COVID and abandoned any effort to mount a coordinated federal response, (Source:”’The general was missing in action,’” by Yasmeen Abutaleb, Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey and Philip Rucker, The Washington Post, 12/19/20).
Yesterday, Trump added chaos and cruelty to the mix by threatening to veto the 900 billion COVID relief bill hammered out by Congress, and in a revealing move that exemplifies the depraved immorality of this administration, pardoned a rogues’ gallery of the corrupt and murderous, all of whom were white,(Source: “Trump Pardons Two Russia Inquiry Figures and Blackwater Guards,” by Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt, The New York Times, 12/23/20). This stands in stark contrast to the rush to execute thirteen federal inmates since July, 6 of whom are Black and one is Indigenous.
Taken together, Trump’s actions toggle back and forth between the gleefully racist and the chillingly cruel. In the face of such stunning criminality, it is cold comfort to remind ourselves that Biden will take office in four weeks. Trump is clearly determined to show us just how much havoc he can wreak for each of the next 28 days. We can say that Trump is an aberration, but if we want to make sure of it, starting January 21st, we’d better make him pay.
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