The End Of An Error

The most horrified I have ever been in my life was four years ago today, when an orange cheato somehow moved into the People's House of the United States, despite receiving 44 million fewer votes than his opponent, the rightful President of the United States of America. And little he did in the intervening four years surprised me, because it's been no secret what a grifter Agolf Twittler is to anyone who knows anyone in New York City, where Trump was such a well-known con-man even other con-men wouldn't have dealings with him. Well, and he managed to bankrupt a casino, for Pete's sake. More to the point, his inaction and misleading statements and outright lies have directly caused at least 400,000 unnecessary deaths due to the novel coronavirus. So, yes, the most relieved I have ever been in my life is today, now that we've finally flushed that orange turd for good.

While I suppose most Americans spent the day glued to their TV sets, Keith and I don't have that option. Living here in rural Maui, off the grid, we don't have access to live television. We do have Internet via satellite and like any quarantined American in a pandemic we stare at our cellphones whenever we are in wifi range and aren't distracted by paradisical views. Still, that isn't all the time; and we are pretty busy out here. So it wasn't until evening that I learned the transfer of power to now-President Biden did not go smoothly.

I had seen hints of this coming during my roaming of the Internet. (Oh please. In a pandemic, even in Paradise, one eventually winds up with nothing else to do.) Apparently, there are social media sites that cater to those on the extreme right. One is called "e;Parler.com"e; and no, I do not provide a link because I don't wish to be associated with them or to drive up their search engine position. But it seems that white supremacist groups with names like Oath Takers and Proud Boys had been planning to crash today's formal counting of the Electoral College ballots. These are the same people who truly believe the South never lost the Civil War; so of course they believe their poster boy never lost the election. They planned to kill Nancy Pelosi and hang Mike Pence (who Trump claimed didn't support him) and steal the Electoral College ballots.

I didn't take it seriously because, if I had got wind of it, so must the FBI.

Which now indicates the FBI has been infiltrated by seditionists. Our new President Joe Biden will definitely have his work cut out for him. Democracy will not be safe from Fascism while a single #Trumpster remains in public office (or the media). The First Amendment doesn't allow yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater; and that's exactly what repeating the Big Lie, that Trump somehow won the election despite all evidence and countless court findings to the contrary, is.

So the corpse is still thrashing but Trump and his movement—a bowel movement if ever there was one—is dead meat. Like the bloated carcass of a whale that's beached itself on too many Big Macs, there's going to be a lot of smell and a lot of nasty cleanup.

But thanks to the vast majority of Americans, people of color as well as human white people, we managed to take back the Senate and the White House and keep the House. Getting the Senate is particularly thanks to Stacey Abrams, a Georgia woman who should have been Governor right now but was cheated by the current holder of that role. Ms. Abrams proceeded to throw support and drum up votes for Democratic candidates, who subsequently won by an unbelievable landslide. Those same votes gave Trump a crushingly humiliating defeat in a state he expected to carry.

Hawaii, a Blue state, reliably also went for Biden and we don't seem to be having any protests or demonstrations today, at least, on my island. As far as I can tell there were no more than 30 or 40 #Trumpsters on all of Maui (plus their unfortunate spawn). I know because I saw their uniformly white faces demonstrating last November. The thing is, so did their Native Hawaiian neighbors. Hawaiians haven't been subjgated by whites for as long as other groups, so they tend to take less shit. I'm suspecting by now the Trumpsters are finding themselves having to mow their own lawns and tend their own gardens.

Good.