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PUTSCH! It will fail, but it is a bad omen

Pro-Trump extremists stormed the Capitol today and halted the constitutional process of confirming the Electoral College votes. The President encouraged this violent attack on the transition of power. Capitol Police seem to have been lamentably unprepared, despite weeks of advance notice. They did little to stop the assault. You can imagine what would have happened had they been chanting “Black Lives Matter.”

The proper response is for the Congress to meet in an alternate location this evening and quickly accept the electoral result. The House should re-impeach President Trump tomorrow and the Senate vote to remove him from office. Vice President Pence should be sworn in to finish out Trump’s term while he is arrested for inciting violence.

None of my daydream will happen, because the Republicans won’t be on board and the Democrats will hesitate. A dozen Republican Senators had already loudly pledged to object to the certification of the electoral votes. They too are morally responsible for the deplorable behavior of the rioters, who are virtually all white and male.

So I’ll offer a more realistic scenario. The Congress should meet tomorrow to complete the certification of the electoral votes. As soon as the two new Democratic Georgia Senators are able to take their seats, the Congress should pass a corona virus bill providing $2000 relief payments to less well off Americans and financing for the states to accelerate Covid19 testing and vaccinations as well as reopening of schools and support for small businesses. Biden should sign it on January 20.

Congress should also vote to admit Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia (to be known as the Douglas Commonwealth) as states. This would enfranchise their more or less 3.8 million citizens and ensure a majority in both Houses that supports the constitution for the foreseeable future, or at least until the Republican party figures out it will need to appeal more broadly in order to regain power.

Whether that all happens or not, the putsch will fail. But it should never have happened and bodes ill for the future. Trump has managed to convince a significant part of the population that they have good reason to object to the electoral outcome, despite the failure to produce any evidence of electoral fraud, his loss of 62 court cases, and the illogic of asserting that the Democrats somehow stole the presidency but neglected to steal more House and Senate seats.

None of that matters because the real cause of the resentment lies elsewhere. Trump’s diehard supporters resent losing power to people they think are not their equals, because they are black, immigrants, women, gays, socialists, communists, and other unworthies. White supremacy is not just about people saying they are superior because they are white. It’s about supposing that you are the victim of persecution by people who are not like you.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand,” Lincoln said channeling Mark 3:25 and Matthew 12:25. America is certainly a house divided. It is a bad omen.

Free at last, by a hair, with work to do

The outcomes of the two Georgia Senate run-off races run yesterday are dramatic. Democrat Raphael Warnock has won by a hair. Democrat Jon Ossoff is leading with mostly mailed-in absentee ballots, which generally favor the Democrats, remaining to count. The Democrats appear certain to take control of the Senate in addition to the House of Representatives and the White House, enabling Joe Biden to pursue what he promised during the electoral campaign with vigor. The Grim Reaper, aka Mitch McConnell, will lose the capacity to block anything he disikes from reaching the floor of the Senate.

At home, this will mean many things: Trump’s populist ethnic nationalist racism will be discredited, the Republican party may have to retool in a more truly conservative direction, democracy will be able to show that it can govern effectively, and Biden or Kamala Harris can hope to campaign in 2024 with a record of success behind them. Health care, energy, education, income taxes, and many other areas will be opened to reform. There is also the real possibility of terrorist violence by Trump supporters, whose more extremist wing will be gathering today in Washington to protest the certification of the presidential election result in Congress.

The Georgia race had nothing at all to do with international affairs, but its ramifications are significant also abroad. The United States has demonstrated that it could recover from ethnonationalist populism by democratic means. Other countries may follow suit: Hungary? Poland? Israel? Serbia? India? None of their would-be nationalist autocrats are delivering results for their countries’ economies and fights against Covid-19 much better than Trump did in the US. And they all start, as Trump did, down by the percentage of minorities who won’t vote for them. While each country has its own political dynamics, the global tide may have turned.

Also important: Democratic control of the House and Senate will enable Biden to try to defeat Covid-19 and restore the economy without being blocked at every turn by current Senate Majority Leader McConnell. Biden aims to vaccinate 100 million Americans in his first 100 days (which will be mid-April). The vaccine rollout so far has been much slower. The economy, which has recovered about halfway from the depths of the epidemic, is now faltering. The Democrats will use control of Congress to fund both a stronger vaccination effort and payments to lower income people and small businesses as well as safer reopening of schools. If by summer the US is back to steadier economic growth and herd immunity is reached, Biden will be a hero at home and far stronger abroad.

Today though will be devoted not to celebrating the Georgia victory but to defeating Republican attempts to change the electoral votes as they are reported to the Congress. The normally pro forma process will be lengthy and contentious as the certified results from some “battleground” states are debated and voted on. But in the end, the Congress will acknowledge Biden’s victory, removing the final hurdle to his inauguration January 20. We are free at last, by a hair, but with lots of work to do.

I don’t like Christmas, but I still enjoy it

My wife said I should write this post. I have my doubts. It is sure to offend.

I don’t like Christmas. It’s not just the commercialization, the artificial cheeriness, the tinkly upbeat and lethargic downbeat tunes, the destruction of pine trees or their synthetic replacements, and the silliness of telling children that elves make their toys and a mythological Santa Claus delivers them. Those would all be good reasons to have doubts.

Nor do I mind the finer things associated with the holiday. Dinner with family, listening to Handel’s Messiah as well as Amahl and the Night Visitors, the many beautiful paintings of the Nativity, the inspiration to do good, and the celebration of human fellowship. These are all welcome, any day of the year.

What I object to is the specifically Christian aspect of Christmas. The story itself is incredible. A virgin gave birth to the son of God? That son of God was destined to die for human sins on the cross? He will return some day as the Messiah to initiate a last judgment? I suppose it is logical that people who believe such things might also invent something as unbelievable as Santa Claus and his elves, but that doesn’t make it more appealing.

You may write all this off to my being Jewish, or if you like to my being a skeptic. To me, the Messiah is as fantastical as Santa Claus. Consider what we know:

1. Our earth is just one of millions of planets throughout the universe. It is unlikely that its living inhabitants are unique. A few billion years and millions of planets will have generated the physical and chemical conditions for life elsewhere, as they did here.
2. There is no good reason for God to have chosen this particular planet to impregnate the virgin with his son. I know he can do whatever he likes, but is He just capricious? Or does He do this on every planet? Or does our God do it here and other gods do what they want on other planets?

There is a good reason why the Pope burned Giordano Bruno at the stake in Campo de’ Fiori in 1600 for preaching a multiplicity of worlds. That fact is incompatible with traditional Christian beliefs. I can imagine the hostility and violence with which our first visitors from outer space will be greeted. I can only hope they are as wise and powerful as those in “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” The 1951 version of course–one of the first films I remember.

Still, I do enjoy Christmas. It has many virtues not found in shopping malls and churches: on the day itself, less traffic, fewer emails, more quiet, an opportunity for contemplation, the invitation to be charitable, a feeling of good will towards others, and the warmth of family and friends. Whatever God or gods there may be, they have a lot of planets to play with. If there is to be any good in the world, humans will have to make it happen.

Merry Christmas miscreants! And to all a fake handout!

President Trump yesterday pardoned 15 miscreants, none of whom seem to have expressed remorse outside a courtroom, made restitution, or devoted themselves to good works. They include mass murderers, fraudsters, liars, drug traffickers, and thieves. There is nothing wrong with pardons for the deserving, but this group wouldn’t even pass muster to be considered for pardons in the usual Justice Department process. Another five people had their sentences commuted.

The President also let it be known that he favors bigger relief payments in the legislation Congress has just passed, after more than 7 months of negotiations and Republican stalling. He would like credit for advocating more than triple what is being provided, but he has intervened too late to make it happen except by a procedure known as unanimous consent. The Democrats will likely propose to use that, but at least some Republicans will object. The President’s handout proposal is a fake.

Pardons are a double-edged sword, since they make it impossible for those pardoned to refuse to testify in court proceedings on grounds of self-incrimination. Thus far, none of those pardoned would appear to be a good candidate for testifying against Trump in court. One who was, Roger Stone, got a commutation of his sentence, which doesn’t erase the conviction and enables him to “plead the fifth.”* Trump may pardon his lawyers, business associates, and family members, but only those he can rely on to lack evidence against him or he thinks are determined to defend him at all costs.

While Christmas has elicited unmerited pardons and a fake handout, the New Year will produce confirmation of the electoral outcome in Congress, where at least a few Republicans will object on January 6 to Joe Biden’s win. That will make for lots of political drama with no substantial effect while Trump’s diehards demonstrate in the streets of Washington and generate the kind of turmoil Trump predicted would happen under a Biden Administration. Trump is determined to leave office with his reputation for promoting violence and wrecking the American political system intact.

Biden is a far more credible and less volatile leader. He has already named a cabinet of worthies that is also more inclusive of minorities and women than any in the past. He will inherit a disastrous epidemic and a still far from fully recovered economy. Depending on the run-off election in Georgia January 5 his party may not control the Senate. But he is a man who respects the American political system, eschews violence, and will quietly but firmly try to restore confidence in America at home and abroad. That will be far better than the unproductive chaos of the last four years.

*PS: This changed a few hours after I posted–Trump pardoned Stone, who can therefore no longer avoid testifying based on self-incrimination in a Federal proceeding.