The banality of madness

I suppose this is where we say it again, on the day after a sitting president and his congressional surrogates incited a treasonous assault on the seat of American government. Or maybe we've said it so much these past four years we no longer need to say it, because it's become like some empty pleasantry which requires only a similar response.

Hey, how are ya?

Great, you?

That sort of thing.

And so when we say "Unbelievable!" now we don't really mean it, because after four years of  Donald John Trump anything is believable.

And when we we say "I never thought I'd see the day ...", we don't mean it, either, because we have seen that day at some point, and this day is just the next one we're going to see.

So I won't say either of those things about what happened in Washington yesterday, when domestic terrorists in service to the delusions of the President of the United States stormed the Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the mechanism of democracy. And which they succeeded in doing for awhile, because the law enforcement charged with keeping them from doing so instead pulled aside the barricades and took selfies with them, like some bouncer behind a velvet rope who recognizes a buddy in the crowd.

I'd say the whole thing was appalling, but that word too has lost its juice in these four mad years.

What I'll say instead is what we saw yesterday is what an attempted coup looks like in countries to which America has always felt swaggeringly superior. Why, we'd never allow such riffraff to threaten our democratic institutions, because our democratic institutions are inviolable and enduring. We do self-governance better than anyone, by God.

And then yesterday happens, and we discover we're just as vulnerable to lunacy as anyone if we put the lunatics in charge.

America elected a deranged, faithless degenerate four years ago, and he was so adept at  spinning his mad fantasies that a frightening number of Americans became just as deranged as he is. Nonsense most Americans once would have laughed out of the room instead became articles of faith for people who used to know better. Political thought once considered the province of fringe loonies and full-tilt racists became instead the bulwark ideology of certain senators and congress critters.

And so it was hardly unbelievable that when America roundly rejected  the Mad King after four years of nuclear crazy, the Mad King and his mad acolytes would spin one last gargantuan fantasy about a stolen election -- thereby undermining faith in the very foundation of American democracy.

There's not a scrap of truth to any of it, of course, which is why the courts (Trump appointees in many cases) have roundly rejected it, at times with rolled eyes and utter contempt. But the deluded believe what they believe. And all it takes is a wink and a nod from the right guy to set them on the path to full-on insurrection.

Even here, boys and girls. Even in America.

The good news, if there is any, is that the Mad King finally pushed the envelope too hard  even for some of his supplicants yesterday. In turning loose the mob on Congress itself, he scared 'em green. And so it was the Vice-President and DoD that finally called out the National Guard, essentially 25th amendment-ing the Mad King if not officially doing so.

Hours later, after the mob had been dispersed (without the gestapo tactics that were used last summer against protesters with a different political stance, naturally), Congress reconvened and did what it was going to do anyway. And without the opposition of some of those who had opposed it previously, and who had therefore egged on the mob to begin with.

That they were suddenly appalled by what they'd unleashed betrayed either an impressive lack of self-awareness, or an equally impressive capacity for hypocrisy.

In any case, the thing got done. And the Mad King has finally acknowledged his defeat, promising a peaceful transition.

He's a little late to the party on the latter, of course. And if he'd acknowledged what was obvious two months ago, there might actually have been a peaceful transition.

Then again, if he had done so, that would have been unbelievable.