1/21/25

 'I was saved by God to make America great again.'

 I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.
     I don’t want to think about it.
     I don’t want you to talk to me about it, since that makes you have to think about it.
     I don’t want to watch it, hear it, read about it. I don’t want it my home, coming out of my speakers, on my computer and my TV screen. I don’t want it fouling my rubbish bins and poisoning my state’s sold waste landfills.
     The Trump presidency is a pestilence, an affliction and a blasphemy.  It spoils our history, corrupts our conscience and stains our souls.
     But we must, at the very least, pay attention. And in paying attention, take the next step, which is to do something.
     But do what?
     I know I'm a day late in talking about  the inauguration. The smart people, the brave people, the effective people have already had their say about Inauguration Day, and they’ve and moved on to Day Two, which is going on right now, even as I’m writing this.
     But I’m doing what I can.
     I watched the inauguration, wearing headphones, because my wife is allergic to Trump’s voice. She was not hiding out, but like another hero of our time, Michelle Obama, my wife did not want give to Trump the honor of her presence.
      As for what I took away from what I saw and heard, just a few things, because that's all I can handle. I know there was a lot more, and still more happened today.

“SAVED FOR A REASON”
     Beyond the irony of the ceremony being in the Rotunda that was desecrated by the Jan. 6 insurrection four years ago – when some of the inauguration guests could have been murdered or injured – there was this memorable section from Trump’s triumphant, arrogant address:

      Over the past eight years, I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history, and I’ve learned a lot along the way.
     Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom and, indeed, to take my life.
     Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear.
     But I felt then and believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.

     Frank Bruni, a New York Times columnist, pinpointed this part of his address as more important perhaps than sending troops to the bordered, proclaiming the U.S. as a two-gender nation and renaming the Gulf of America.
     “That’s the keeper this time around,” Bruni wrote. “Trump’s trademark narcissism and usual grandiosity, along with an unsettling measure of theocracy, in one profoundly disturbing sentence.”
     That one statement took us back centuries,  to the divine right of kings. The monarch knows all, can make no mistakes, everything he does and says is a Heavenly mandate.

THE PARDONS
     God, it turns out, has been troubled by the American system of justice.
     On Inauguration Day, Her emissary  moved to abolish justice, at least as we’ve come to know it, as a system of laws, impartially and fairly administered by the courts.
     Trump used his Constitutional powers to commute and pardon the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
     As described by the Times:
     Trump, “in one of his first official acts, issued a sweeping grant of clemency on Monday to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, issuing pardons to most of the defendants and commuting the sentences of 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militia, most of whom were convicted of seditious conspiracy.
     “Mr. Trump’s moves amounted to an extraordinary reversal for rioters accused of both low-level, nonviolent offenses and for those who had assaulted police officers.
     “The pardons will also wipe the slate clean for violent offenders who went after the police on Jan. 6 with baseball bats, two-by-fours and bear spray and are serving prison terms, in some cases of more than a decade.”
     What does this mean for justice overall?
     Does it make sense, any longer,  to dial 911?
     Should police arrest bank robbers, rapists, embezzlers and  thieves?  Should prosecutors bring cases to grand juries? Should citizens sit as jurors? Should judges pronounce sentences according to established guidelines? Should appellate courts review lower court decisions? Why bother, if crime is to be defined as only whatever Donald  Trump, speaking on behalf of God, says it is? Or isn't?
     And God help us if the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and other violent, racist groups come after any one of us. Because maybe the president, chosen by the people and by God, wants them to assault our homes and beat and shoot and hang us. It's all for a reason.

THE HAT

      I’ve always found it petty to talk about what First Ladies and other celebrities, especially women, wear to events like inaugurations.
     But, as many people have commented, it was hard to avoid staring at Melenia Trump’s hat – its wide brim hid her eyes and even interfered with her husband’ attempted  kisses, which may have been a good or a bad thing.
     But, overall, that hat, which surely was chosen for a reason gave her – and the entire proceedings - a severe, menacing and dangerous look.
     Almost as scary,  as Elon Musk’s Nazi-style salutes later in the day.

THAT IS WHY THIS IS SO HARD TO TALK ABOUT.
     Yes, we knew what was coming. But this does not make it less shocking.
     Yes, we knew it would hurt. But this does not take away the hurt or make it hurt less.
     The United States, the people who voted for Trump and the people who voted against him, are going to suffer the coming days and years in so many ways.
     We  will be sicker, less safe, more frightened, less apt to get justice. We will be discriminated against, unfairly taxed, defrauded, lied to, detained, assaulted, insulted, and  our homes will be destroyed by floods and fires.
     “My life was saved for a reason,” Trump said
     That was an applause line at the inauguration.
     And today, it’s among the many reasons it’s so hard to talk about.