Wednesday's postcard, Trumpapalooza, and where is Hunter S. Thompson when we need him most?

August 16, 2023

Avalanche lilly, Mount Rainier National Park

When the going gets hot, and weird…

I thought the rule was that the Dog Days of summer—which dates to Hellenistic astrology—ended on August 11th. I’m a little grumpy about this. It was 105 degrees here yesterday. I don’t have air-conditioning, and while jumping in the river in late afternoon reduces my core temperature for a few hours, it begins to wear off before the sun goes down. It’s supposed to get up to 101 degrees today, and tomorrow. Plus I’m fresh off a root canal procedure this morning, albeit in the cool air of my dentist’s office.

I could write about Trump and the Trump cult every day. It’s that vivid, that dangerous, that menacing. But that’s tantamount to constantly looking directly at the sun: a blinding symptom of madness. There’s more than a whiff of Mussolini and the horrifying 1978 Jonestown massacre in the Trump movement.

The multiple criminal indictments are deserved and, even Mike Pence had a brief fit of courage when he told an audience this morning that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen in Georgia and that he had no right to overturn the results of the Presidential election on Jan. 6, 2021. The reason Pence mentioned Georgia, of course, is that Trump—and 18 alleged co-conspirators—were indicted by a Georgia grand jury late Monday night.

Notwithstanding Pence and Chris Christie and Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, the vast majority of card-carrying Republicans still march in lockstep with Trump, repeating the big lies that the 2020 election was stolen and that Trump’s indictments for criminality are “evil” political ploys orchestrated by Joe Biden and the Democrats.

You may think, as millions apparently do, that Donald Trump is an instrument of God. Or you may be frustrated that he has been able to commit so many crimes (from rape, to tax evasion, to trying to overthrow the government) without facing jail time. I’m in the latter group. If he is ultimately hauled off to a state prison by a brave, dignified and persistent black woman from Georgia, I will count that as a good day.

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