TRUMP'S COUP FAILS

Trump's reign of misrule began with "American Carnage" and it ends with American carnage.

For the benefit of my overseas truckbuddies and any others who care to watch, here are some videos of the filthy, horrific scene at the Capitol - a direct attack on our democracy at its very heart - the culmination of abomination that has been growing for the last four years - continuously cultivated by an evil man and his minions:

Just minutes before the rioters broke into the Capitol, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell broke decisively with Trump, urging his Republican colleagues to accept the fact of Biden's electoral victory:

 

About 3 p.m. Texas time, nearly three hours after the Capitol was invaded, President-Elect Joe Biden addressed the nation with a stirring call to patriotic values:

 

About half an hour later, the current occupant of the Oval Office hypocritically poured gasoline on the fire he himself started:

  

What I Say:  Your Head Trucker has faith that our Republic will survive this brazen attempt at overthrowing our democracy; but the name of this filthy would-be tyrant will be an execration down all the centuries to come, and his descendants will bear the shame of it to the last generation.

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Aftermath, 1/7/21, 5 a.m.--To their eternal credit, the members of the House and Senate, undaunted by armed attack, reconvened at 7 p.m. last night, Texas time, to continue and complete their Constitutional duty of certifying the vote of the People. In the early hours of the morning, Vice President Mike Pence dutifully announced the result from the chair of the Senate, sealing beyond all doubt or question the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the next President and Vice President of the United States.

 

The chaplain of the Senate, the Rev. Barry Black, delivered this prayer from the dais, echoing in large part the prayers of millions, including your Head Trucker, these several months:

Lord of our lives and sovereign of our beloved nation, we deplore the desecration of the United States Capitol building, the shedding of innocent blood, the loss of life, and the quagmire of dysfunction that threaten our democracy.

These tragedies have reminded us that words matter and that the power of life and death is in the tongue. We have been warned that eternal vigilance continues to be freedom's price.

Lord, you have helped us remember that we need to see in each other a common humanity that reflects your image.

You have strengthened our resolve to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies domestic as well as foreign.

Use us to bring healing and unity to our hurting and divided nation and world. Thank you for what you have blessed our lawmakers to accomplish in spite of threats to liberty.

Bless and keep us. Drive far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to do your will and guide our feet on the path of peace. And God bless America. We pray in your sovereign name, Amen.

Your Head Trucker would add only, Thanks be to God.  Alleluia.

So the election is settled. Now we must somehow wait another two weeks for the life of the Nation to begin anew - with a wild beast, a raving, resentful madman, the enemy of the People, in the White House, manifestly unfit to govern. This is so wrong. In this modern world of instant terror and pushbutton destruction, there should be a quick and simple way to protect the Nation from a rogue President; just how that could be done by legal and constitutional means is the thought of many minds at this time, I am sure. 

I was very proud to see that Vice President Pence, after four years of kowtowing to the monster's whims, at last acted the man and the patriot today in fulfilling his Constitutional duty to ensure the peaceful, legitimate continuity of government in our democratic republic. He ought to be Acting President now. 

And one more thing:  I also like the fact that the Congress publicly certified the votes that each of the fifty states had already certified, in a ceremony that is usually a mere formality.  Notice what great legitimacy and certainty it gives to the results.  No sane mind can now entertain the slightest doubt that the next President was lawfully elected - a fact endorsed by dozens of courts across the land that have unanimously refused to overturn the will of the People.

Our election system needs an overhaul and tune-up, to be sure, and perhaps a new set of wheels - but keep today's profound scenes in mind as you listen in the coming months and years to the debate about reforming our system of electing a President.  Efficiency is important - but even more so is public confidence in the fairness and accuracy of the results.  These things are not mutually exclusive.

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Update, 1/7/21, 11 a.m.--The political landscape seems to be shifting by the hour in the wake of yesterday's violent attack on Congress.  To show how far minds have changed in just 24 hours, studly Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger has just posted this video on Twitter calling for Trump to be removed from office by the 25th Amendment:

It’s with a heavy heart I am calling for the sake of our Democracy that the 25th Amendment be invoked. My statement: pic.twitter.com/yVyQrYcjuD

— Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) January 7, 2021

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To Make Myself Clear

I am in process of listening to a podcast by CNN's Don Lemon about racism, doing it slowly so I can take notes and be sure I catch all the points that are made; perhaps I will summarize it here when I get done listening.  For now, though, I just want to say that I think I have made my thoughts and feelings very clear in the last few weeks about where I stand on the burning issues of the day:  police reform and equal justice under law.

Those issues - at the top of a long list of issues - need immediate attention, and are getting it, even as I type, in Congress as well as in many big cities and small towns across the breadth and depth of this country, with impetus from politicians and ordinary citizens alike.  Well and good.  What I call "a revolution of hearts and minds" has made a remarkable beginning and should be sustained at all levels until it is accomplished - by reasonable and lawful means.

I am on board with peaceable assembly and petitioning for redress of grievances, as the Constitution puts it; these are fundamental American rights, and the free exercise thereof has been essential from the very beginnings of this country in our never-ending progress towards "a more perfect union."

What I am NOT on board with are mindless rioting and hell-raising just because young hotheads can get away with it.  A protest and a riot are not the same thing.  Nor am I on board with mob violence and undemocratic destruction of public monuments.  If need be, a statue or monument can be removed to private property; there is no essential need to destroy it.  What is needed is to change people's attitudes, which violence does not do.  It gets people's attention, sure - but not the right kind of attention.

NOR am I on board with the cunning rhetorical trick of calling everything and everyone you don't like an example of "white supremacy" and "systemic racism."  That is painting with far too broad a brush; it is unfair, unjust, and untrue.  (I know - I grew up in the segregated South.  No one under 50 today has any idea of what legal white supremacy looks like.)

It will also not get the victims of police reform and political oppression what they want.  In society, as in physics, for every action there usually is an equal and opposite reaction.  An unreasonable, unjust push in one direction will likely provoke an unreasonable, unjust shove in the the opposite direction.  A punch in the eye invites a return punch on the nose.

It will also lose them the goodwill and support of many innocent bystanders and people of good will.  It is a fundamental rule of human life that if you want to get respect, you have to give respect.  It's not all about you.

And now - as I have privately feared - this orgy of destruction threatens to go far beyond the bounds of any conceivable justification.  There are voices - perhaps only a few, and certainly unreasonable - voices now calling for the destruction of monuments to Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, and anyone else who does not meet an absurd 21st-century purity test.

Not even Lincoln - the closest thing we have to a secular saint in the pantheon of presidents - is exempt from condemnation.  Voices are calling for the destruction of his statues.  And for the destruction of Mount Rushmore.

And even for the destruction of all images of "white Jesus."

Okay, obliteration of identity, history, and religion - what does that sound like, folks?  What is the logical next step - a "final solution" to end the threat of "white supremacy" forever?  Huh?  Where is that line of thought going?

This is madness.  This is hateful.  This is would-be tyranny.  This is evil.

This is not America.  Two wrongs do not make a right.

This is the time to settle down and think carefully about how to make our union more just, more equal, more perfect.  For everyone.

It is not the time to strike a match to the powder keg, and destroy the good and the bad in one big blowup.

You have been warned, people.  Don't listen to the crazies on either side.  Don't go there.

Back off.  Please don't go there.  We would all regret it, and we would all suffer.  Horribly.


P.S. - Nobody has anything to fear from me - I'll be hiding under the bed, out of the crossfire.


More mindless violence: Gay state senator beaten, kicked in the head by rioters at Wisconsin statehouse. The Hill reports, "Demonstrators also tore down two statues, including Wisconsin's motto Forward and the likeness of Col. Hans Christian Heg. Heg was a Norwegian migrant and an abolitionist who died for the Union Army during the Civil War. The Forward statue stood outside of the state Capitol and is a symbol of progress and devotion, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society."