I woke up this morning to the news that Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina had died suddenly last night. And to speculations of a nefarious assassination due to his recent trip to the Ukraine. Occam’s razor suggests to me that his death was natural causes brought on by an age over seventy, a long history of excess alcohol use (ask any bartender in Charleston), and the inner demons and self loathing that must have eaten away at his soul given his status as a closeted gay man actively working at all opportunities against gay rights and for his abandonment of everything he originally stood for in politics for short term political expediency and a place in the White House inner circle. I’m sure there are people out there who loved and cared about him but I imagine those are far outweighed by those who viewed him and his choices with loathing and opprobrium. You can’t please all of the people all of the time but pissing off the many to please the one for callous political considerations has never been a goal of mine.
This event, of course, changes political calculus going into the midterms, especially since Mitch McConnell seems to have joined the cat inside Schrodinger’s box. All evidence points to McConnell being either dead dead or brain dead but with vital signs making him technically alive. You would think a good investigative reporter could clear it up with a couple of phone calls but the administration and DOJ’s heavy hand on the first amendment in recent months seems to have cowed that branch of journalism into submission. When I was a resident, Racquel Welch checked into UC Davis Medical Center for a surgical procedure so as to be away from the prying eyes of LA. Everyone on staff knew she was there, what room she was in and why within twenty-four hours. And this was a time before cell phones and instant electronic communications. I can guarantee you that pretty much everyone on staff at whatever hospital McConnell is purported to be at knows something.
I haven’t a clue how the midterms will go. It will depend entirely on turnout. If the population gets off their butts and goes to the polls, the Republicans are likely to be routed in the house and just might lose the senate as well. But the Democrats, as an organized body, have a long history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory through a combination of internecine strife, over reliance on purity tests, and the placing of party standing over electibility. Will the administration try to monkey with the election? They’re already trying and, if there are some more negative monkey wrenches thrown their way, they’re likely to double down. Everything from the SAVE act, which will disenfranchise millions to fix the statistically non-existent problem of undocumented people voting (even the Heritage foundation could only track down fewer than 100 cases by combing through every national election since the Reagan administration), to the vacationg of the Federal Election Commission (thank you SCOTUS for granting the presidency that power) so that there is no functional federal agency to make sure elections happen on the up and up, to the weaponizing of DOJ to go after local election officials.
The administration is also busy firing on the 1st amendment with DOJ issuing subpoenas to reporters who printed a relatively inoffensive story about Trump’s gold plated Qatari jet and how it did not have all the defensive capabilities of the older Air Force One planes. This dissing of his pet vehicle irked Trump so much that he’s determined to find out who gave the reporters that information and is using DOJ to try and get them to reveal their sources to a grand jury, completely against journalistic ethics and constitutional protections. But then again, the only amendment that appears to be sacrosanct to these guys is the second.
After destroying the East Wing and the South Lawn, the administration appears to have started on the North portico. No one really knows what’s going on underneath the tarp but I imagine the ionic columns will reappear as corinthian, likely with gilding as well. The conspiracy theorists have been running amok with stories about new fortifications so that the administration cannot be removed come January 20, 2029. I’m not inclined to believe these as of yet but, once again, I wonder at the lack of investigative journalists asking the workmen what they are doing from day to day. I’m sure they’ve all been forced to sign NDAs but a couple of drinks usually gets around those. The administration has also confused the National Guard with the Praetorian Guard and ordered them to remain on duty in DC through the date of the next inauguration.
So where are we all headed and why are we in a handbasket? I wish I knew. I’m just trying to keep my head down and make it through my projected retirement date at which time, if I so choose, I can isolate myself in my condo and ignore the outside world. Knowing me, that’s unlikely to happen. We have three basic paths to follow over the remainder of my lifespan. The first is the path of fire. The divides infecting politics and the economy spill out into the streets and eventually into military action leading to civil war. Our wealth inequality is greater than the conditions that brought about the French revolution and one could draw parallels to the conditions before the Russian Revolution as well. The second is the path of ice. The federal government ossifies and becomes more and more ineffective. We’re already seeing this in the legislative branch which has, for the most part, has ceased to function in terms of doing the will of the people. The end result of this becomes the Medieval papcy or the World War I era Austro-Hungarian empire. The last is the path of resetting the balance. We’ve done this before. We were in similar times from about 1885-1930 and the reforms of the Progressive era and later the New Deal moved power away from capital and back towards the people keeping either of the other futures from happening and creating postwar America which became the envy of the world. We’ve been busy dismantling that piece by piece for the last fifty years. Those who are proposing a restructuing in that way are being branded as communists (as if the people throwing that term around actually know what it means).
I’m all for capitalism (it’s treated me well) but I strongly believe that it has to be monitored and managed or else, as in Monopoly, one player ends up with all the money and everyone else ends up broke. And that’s no way to run a successful society. Put money back into the commons and get the profit motive out of the sectors of the economy in which it doesn’t belong – healthcare, education, corrections. And let younger generations have their place at the table and bring new ideas and new ways of doing things. The gerontocracy in DC is not healthy for either those participating or the country as a whole. Just because we can now live into our eighties does not mean that we have the bodies and brains of thirty and forty year olds at that age. Take it from the geriatrician
Life, The Universe, and Everything 