“Ring Out the Old, Bring in the New” could not be more apropos than it is now. As badly as I want to find the Trump presidency humorous, I can’t. Granted, he has been an easy target, even for me. The pundits and cartoonists have had a field day like never before. I admit, I do love the millions of cartoons that have emerged so easily during the past four years, usually with very little tweaking of the real truth.
He can’t laugh at himself, at least not that I have seen. Of all his spineless GOP sycophants, including Mitch “Gobble, Gobble” McConnell, Lindsey “Cracker” Graham (or Lindsey “Yawl come now, hear?” Graham), Mike “Throw me a Bone” Pence, and Rudy “Fingers His Balls” Giuliani, the only person who is not a fair humor subject is Melania. If she had any other countenance than a scowl, she keeps it hidden from the public. Who can blame her? It looks like she is always seriously constipated, or she has on wool long johns. Privately, as she snuggles into her guillotine-fitted Kryptonite chastity belt, I want to imagine her laughing fiendishly as she counts the days and money until she can escape. I heard that she has started a PTSD (Post Trump Stress Disorder) chapter in Washington. Maybe she and Mike get glimpses of a comic side to the Orange Man, but I doubt they get by with openly snickering. Unless, they’re hidden in the bathroom closet amongst the vats of tanning lotion, OJ and bacon grease while Trump is getting his body make-over, which includes a thin suit, flack girdle, inflatable gloves and other appendages, orange-brown coloring, Beach Boy brand hair dye, pucker kit (lemons), etc.
Mike’s Ode to Hormel
As Mike knows well, there can be problems with Hormel hair.
He thanked the Lord he sent a fly instead of a bear.
Trump has not taken his loss well, as expected. In retrospect, I think Trump was a mistake, but not so extreme as to be unrecoverable. He too easily exposed a darker side of our underbelly which most first graders could have predicted. Trump’s daily extremist techniques wore us down, thus unleashing the beast side in us. Apparently, too many of us are still closet racists, sexists, bullies, even white supremacists when Trump gave us an excuse to party without consequences.
If we don’t consider this election an immense wake-up call, almost a gift as to how fragile our 250-year-old democracy still is, then we don’t deserve the temporary relief that Biden will provide us. Temporary, because he must take on the biggest challenges in history both for this country and the world: climate change and an out-of-control pandemic, individually bad news but together a deadly cocktail. I’m not saying Biden is responsible for the world, but we certainly can return to be the beacon we once were as recently as years ago. But, without bipartisanship at every turn, we have no hope. None. Meanwhile, Europe is waiting for us to catch up regarding climate change, but we are all in the same untethered Covid-19 boat.
The truth is all that matters, and ever did matter, and it certainly doesn’t discriminate between between political positions. As a retired scientist, we are bound to seeking the truth and facts that reflect reality, regardless where it leads us. Otherwise, research and learning are useless, and that can be a precious waste of time and energy, not to mention horribly wrong and dishonest.
Accepting and implementing truth is rarely painless. Since the 1980s, scientists have been begging the public, the politicians, everybody that we need to take climate change very seriously unless we are willing to accept a mega-tragic ending. No one listened and now we are in almost over our heads. The same holds true for the Coronavirus. We ignored or listened to the experts too briefly, and now look where we are. If we had made the tough sacrifices like moving rapidly to a fossil fuel free world we needed to make in the 80s and 90s, we would have been there by now. Even now, that transition to sustainable energy isn’t going to be as difficult as it might seem because the technology is so much further along and way more popular than it was before 2000. We only lack the will and motivation to do so. Both can shift rapidly, especially if there are leaders to take the lead and in the right direction.
Trump and his corruption-riddled gang provided us a glimpse how bad it could get. He was a lesson for those of us alive today which we can pass on to our grandchildren. He took us to the bottom of the well, where fortunately we saw our reflection in the water, and what we saw wasn’t particularly appealing. I’ve heard a lot of concern about the fact that almost 50% of us didn’t see that frightening reflection and didn’t see the need for major change, thus Trump’s invincible core. In 2018, the highly reputable magazine, Science, reported that the percentage for societal change need only be 25% of the population, which is exactly one-half what we already have. The motivation, which I believe is there now, should get us off dead center, and the implementation is already happening with Biden’s team as we speak. As I see it, we are half-way there and the only thing lacking to move ahead is getting over or around an ego that transcends anything any of us living today have ever witnessed in a president. Were Americans not so confused and fearful of a leader so eccentric, so abnormal, so egocentric, and so selfish as Trump, I believe he would have been gone long ago, even given his lap-dog core. But now he is gone, despite his histrionics and barrage of unfounded lies. I don’t honestly believe that Trump’s core liked him (who could) but they were mesmerized by him, almost hypnotized.
As Joe Biden’s hat suggests, I believe we have already put the rose-colored MAGA glasses away and are returning to a reality both in an administration and in a society. And to a norm that, I hope, we all recognize and feel comfortable with.
