The insurrection that is still being televised...

January 7, 2024

Bison on winter range east of Denver

Opie and the Bully revisited…

At least for the three weeks after Jan. 6, 2021 it appeared as though the nation might be allowed to turn the page on Donald Trump, if not Trumpism.

The sight and sounds of a mob ransacking the Capitol were as fresh as they were stunning. Both Kevin McCarthy (the California Congressman who was then the Republican leader in the House of Representatives) and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made swift public statements vigorously denouncing Trump. Both made clear they were holding him morally (if not legally) responsible for the events at the Capitol on 1/6. But then it was as though history reversed course. Within days after Trump’s second impeachment McCarthy flew south to Florida, to console Trump and pledge his support. Call it the triumph of the bully, and the feckless.

McCarthy’s ignoble pilgrimage gave Trump new political life. Two years later, the ex-President is, by far, the odds-on favorite to win the Republican nomination. Though McConnell’s denunciation of Trump’s behavior on 1/6 was even harsher than McCarthy’s (McConnell called it a “violent insurrection” and “disgraceful”) he stopped short of voting to impeach Trump, opining that Trump was ineligible to be convicted because he was no longer holding the office of the Presidency. Hundreds of the “loving” people (to quote Trump) who stormed the Capitol—injuring dozens of police officers—would eventually receive jail sentences. Trump flew off to palm tree sunsets at his resort in Florida.

The Big Lie no longer needs wings to fly. It is a miracle craft that defies gravity. It also serves the greater purpose of vilifying those who live outside its reality-defying heat shield—that is to say if you buy into the Big Lie you are also buying stock in the belief that the election was stolen by horrid people willing to resort to all sorts of treachery. The rest of us pay a price for this simply by having to adjust and protect ourselves and our families from a wildly misinformed, radicalized, and ever more heavily-armed society.

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