Sunday, January 19, 2025

As the Window Closes


It’s Sunday, the final day of the Biden administration and the last day before Trump takes office. And just in case this is the last good day for American democracy for a while, maybe we should take stock.

That ours has been an imperfect system these past 250 years is clear. The flaws are on full display. The two major parties have become so entrenched in their opposition to one another that depending which one is in power, the country lurches back and forth like the airplane piloted by an inebriated Denzel Washington in the film, Flight (2012).

Of course, democracy is really just an idea —it wasn’t decreed or sent down by the gods. The norms and guardrails we’ve developed since the 1770s have been able to hold the line against would-be tyrants and kings of the sort that dominate most societies on earth — so far. We’ve resisted falling under the spell of a strong-man type leader, but in that regard our luck may finally be running out.

To be blunt, I think Trump will try to consolidate power to a greater extent than any President has heretofore. For at least the next two years, he has both houses on Congress on his side, plus a Supreme Court that has been shockingly willing to help him avoid responsibility for his many crimes, including trying to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power in 2021.

Despite all this, Trump has been given another chance by a majority of our fellow citizens. 

So be it. Still, he may well fail in his drive toward autocracy, because what he disparages as the “deep state” is actually a strong and resilient bureaucracy that will be difficult for him to uproot completely.

Trump is surrounded by a coterie of zealous lieutenants, some of whom, but not all, are right-wing ideologues. He himself seems to have no coherent ideology beyond his belief in his own preordained right to be the center of attention.

More dangerous than his ideology is his narcissistic celebration of excessive wealth. He is constructing a government of-, by- and for- his fellow oligarchs — much like that in Russia, whose government he openly admires.

The problem, of course, is that for one person to become a billionaire, many millions must sink into poverty. These truths are intertwined and co-dependent. Today, the disparities of wealth in the U.S. are shameful.

Trump has made a lot of promise — draconian mass deportations, a campaign of retribution against his perceived enemies, and a radical reconstruction of the federal government. Maybe these things will happen or maybe they will not. There is the very real prospect that a renewed resistance movement will arise to thwart Trump’s most extreme desires and reduce him to the status of a would-be strong man as opposed to the real deal.

But lest we forget, one of Trump’s starkest vows was to declare himself a dictator as of “day one.”

That would be tomorrow.

***

Although many of us probably share a sense of dread about the prospect of Trump’s return to power, we can’t afford to lose our sense of humor. With that in mind, I watched last night’s SNL, which opened with a spoof of MSNBC trying to cover the second Trump administration by not getting distracted by his many outrageous statements.

"This time around, we're not going to get sucked in by every new shiny, crazy statement from Trump," Ego Nwodim's Joy Reid said. "We need to focus on what he does, not what he says."

But in the sketch, the panel's discussion is repeatedly interrupted by increasingly absurd new Trump comments, including that he would "like to trade Connecticut for Italy" and will "end fire by filling the 'Up' house with water balloons."

So here’s the bottom line. If in its coming episodes, SNL too starts bending a knee before Trump, I’m moving to Canada — oops, oh yeah, our 51st state.

HEADLINES:

TODAY’S ARCHIVAL VIDEO:

Sheryl Crow, Levon Helm, Emmylou Harris - "Evangeline" (Live, 1996). Three great talents combine on a classic, in black and white. 

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