Longsuffering patrons of this establishment need not be told
that the Ol' Bloviator is not much given to seeing the metaphorical tankard as
anything other than half-empty. Those who know him personally also know that he
is responsible for making many an actual tankard completely empty. During the
holiday season, at least, the O.B. has traditionally striven for a less baleful,
more hopeful, cheerful outlook, which in sufficiently intoxicating doses can
actually lead him to feel, for a few days at least, grudgingly optimistic about
the future of humankind. Unfortunately, his strivings this year to "keep on the sunny side"
have thus far availed him zilch.
The O.B. had no celebration plans,
regardless of the outcome on November 8, and in the first days that followed,
he did his damnedest to discount the ramifications of his fellow citizens' electoral
embrace of the decidedly greater evil of the two evils confronting them. There ensued
a truly Herculean effort to suspend his well-honed instincts for disbelief and
entertain just the faintest hope that having shocked nine-tenths of the human
race, himself charitably included, by actually being elected president, the Orange
One,--a.k.a. " the O.O"--might now cease and desist in his bombast, bullying,
boorishness, lying, scapegoating, etc. In other words, maybe, just maybe, he
would summon from somewhere hidden deep within himself, the self-control
requisite to doing justice to the job he had so ardently and effectively
pursued.
Well, so much for that. It turns
out that not only is there no moderating impulse within our next prez, there is
absolutely nothing within him at all. His innards are without form and void. His
outtards are where it's all happening, and it is important to understand this above
all else right now. The O.B. don't have much truck with all these diagnoses of ol'
Orangey as a narcissist or self-delusional psychopath or whatever. It ain't all
that complicated. The man is just an asshole. Not simply of the garden variety,
to be sure, or even of the sort that comes along only once in a great while. Indeed,
it would seem in this truly extraordinary case that the Almighty himself,
having finally lost patience with seeing so many of his human creations
seemingly hell-bent on establishing their individualized asshole bona-fides, He
had decided to show them how it was really done. Throwing himself totally into
his work, he proceeded to construct the ultimate aspirational model for
assholes everywhere. Not just one for the here and now, but one whose monstrously
obnoxious, befouling presence would continue to induce shudders and grimaces across
centuries and millennia yet unimagined. Struck by the brilliance of his own handiwork
the Creator then succumbed to the puckishness that is sometimes his wont, and
opted to showcase his achievement on the biggest stage available
If, somehow, the campaign itself
did not fully validate this unflattering version of his nature and origins, how about the copious examples of President-Elect Orange's aggressive disregard,
not simply for official protocol, but international stability, the benefits of a smooth transfer of power, or the need for a
unity after a campaign propelled by the politics of polarization and division.?
On this latter point, it appears that the O.O., who continues to go merrily
about the business of mocking, taunting, and demonizing those whom he has
vanquished is intent on establishing himself as history's worst winner. More
troubling still is the prospect that he sees the next four years as a
continuous victory lap in which he gets to strut, posture and encourage his
adoring minions to greater heights--make that greater depths--of bitterness and
animosity toward anyone who has dared to stand in his way.
The O.B. started flatly telling
folks early on that O.O. actually envisions the presidency of the United States
as, for a person of his incredible talents, certainly, nothing more than a
part-time job. Let somebody else cool their heels in those butt-numbing daily
briefings on threats to national security. Let the kids sit in on as many
high-level meetings as possible so that they can assist him in assuring that
the business of America is not just "business" but HIS business. Then there is
the proposed cabinet of the Great Orange "populist," which is still a long way
from being complete but already boasts an aggregate worth estimated between $13
and $16 billion--50 times that of W's first "millionaires club "cabinet and more than the
annual GDP's of some 70 small countries. In keeping with his promises to save
the American working class, the poseur-elect has tapped a labor secretary who
thinks the current minimum wage of $10.10 per hour is too high, and to see to
their health care needs, he has designated a physician who is primarily
interested in healing his suffering fellow physicians while stripping millions
of their healthcare with nothing resembling a replacement to fill the void. The
forces of Orange are quick to cite his quick fellow-up on his vow to force
Carrier to abandon its plans to ship some 2,000 jobs at an Indiana plant to
Mexico. It is true enough that Carrier's
mother company, United Technologies, does a fair amount of business with the
feds, but it's also fair to suspect the prez-elect's rhetorical stick -or shtick--may
have been insufficient to seal the deal (which actually saved only half those
jobs) without the $7 million tax-break carrot served up by the state of Indiana
(Wow! The O.O. must have really done a sales job on Indiana's governor. . . .
Oh, wait!) There will doubtless be other such charades such charades for a while
at least, but please don't think the O.B too cynical for suspecting that not
many of those cabinet-level corporate bigwigs were enticed from the boardroom by the prospect of
championing the cause of the folks on
the assembly line.
Some are
inclined to credit the Orange One for at least pulling back on his demand for
top-secret security clearances for his offsprings, but the O.B.'s guess here is
that he simply realized he could get better, quicker intel from his best bud
Vlad Putin. As luck would have it, ol Puty has just picked up a great new
source in Michael Flynn, the proposed National Security Advisor who is as comfortable
sharing information of the classified sort as he is in disseminating total
fabrications. (BTW, since it's safe to assume you are reading this Vlad, word
is Mike wants to talk to you about some things Billy Clinton said about your
daughters. Also, don't be concerned that nothing has been announced yet about
Sarah Palin. An eager-to please Orange One will come up with something to
occupy her because he truly understands how creepy it must feel to know she is
constantly staring at your country.)
Alas, for those who are resting
their hopes on our vaunted system of checks and balances, don't let them rest
too easy. Obama already showed us how much can be done by executive order, and
while, on the face of it, these can be rolled back, the damage they might do in
the interim may not be so quickly or simply repaired. The simple fact of the matter is that the
framers of the Constitution and subsequent legislation pertaining to executive
power and privilege thought and wrote broadly about reasonable questions that
might arise, never in their wildest nightmares imagining an audacity even
remotely on the scale of that which is simply SOP for the new guy. For example,
search the regulations on what and how the president can earn or receive in gifts
while in office for the section labeled "In the event the President-elect wants
to continue to produce 'Celebrity Apprentice...'"
Washington was rocked badly by the
invasion of President-elect Andrew Jackson and his rustic supporters who
reportedly turned the inaugural festivities, still held in the White House at
that point, into a furniture- and carpet- destroying frenzy of boozing,
belching, farting, and fighting. Strong-willed and occasionally volatile, Jackson
himself simply scoffed at a Supreme Court ruling that would have blocked the
removal of the Cherokee from Georgia, but even he knew when to bluster and when
to back off, in a way not suggested by many recent actions of the O.O., who, as
they say at Harvard, is sooey-generous,
and not in a good way.
As he did during the campaign, said
prez-elect continues to convey toward the Republican Party something too much
akin to outright disdain to worry about finding a better word. How long do you
think his torrid bromance with Paul Ryan will last? The prospect of a president simultaneously
battling not only the opposition but his own party--and let's not forget the
lying liberal media--hardly seems out of the question. A lot of Republicans bit
big chunks out of their tongues because they were afraid of jeopardizing their
own campaigns this fall. Duly
re-elected, will they all maintain their locked-jaw deference and for how long?
If the Big Orange's legislative agenda is to be thwarted, that surely must
happen in the Senate, where some see a glimmer of hope for a fractionally bipartisan Senate
coalition of Democrats and a smattering of Republicans such as John McCain and
Lindsey Graham in numbers at least sufficient to block any ultra-ultra-idiotic
initiatives. Should this come to pass, what next? We are dealing here with the
explosive ego and a temperament of a man to whom mere opposition is anathema
and a definitive "no" from the Congress or the courts is almost certain to set
the stage for a firestorm of popular outrage deftly kindled by a master
arsonist who hardly seems the sort to shy away from provoking a constitutional
crisis in order to get his way. And, understand, this might be the best we can
actually achieve, for in the face of what appears to be the greatest threat to
the presidency, and perhaps to the entire governing process, in this nation's
history, gridlock is far from the worst possible outcome.
