AN AMERICAN CAESAR, BETTER ANGELS, WORST TACO TUESDAY

Steve Schmidt on his The Warning blog on Substack sums up the Harris/Walz loss for many of us in a few words: Losing sucks, reality bites! He quotes Harris ally and former chair of the Democratic National Committee, Donna Brazile, from her Washington Post interview: “The next step for the Democrats is deep introspection. You don’t jump from one horse to another when you are riding a donkey,” explaining that there needs to be a process to figure out what went wrong before the party decides on next steps and who should lead it. Schmidt believes it “means rejecting the extremism and cloistered divisive politics of Washington, DC mandarins whose grip on power has sent America veering into the Trumpian abyss.” He pinpoints 83-year-old James Clyburn as a “foremost architect of the political catastrophe that has left Trump as an American Caesar, unbound, unrestrained and thirsting for revenge,” calling for ‘Clyburnism’ to be rejected as divisive in the game of division in which only “the greatest divider always wins.” He believes Clyburn can’t see the mutuality of connection that forms the great union, seeking “preferences and prerogatives in the name of a faction” with a toxic philosophy and disastrous primary maneuvering. The end result allowed Trump to build a “multi-ethnic, multi-racial coalition of malice that utterly rejected Democratic Party platitudes, indifference and speech codes.” Schmidt says Democratic politicians treated Trump like a prop, not a threat, and Biden like an FDR instead of as a political liability…now the bill has come due! Republican pollster Frank Luntz told Jonathan Karl on ABC News that the person who directed Harris to focus on former president Trump in her campaign “committed political malpractice,” because everyone knew who Trump was with his long presence on the scene…we wanted to know about Kamala!

Schmidt writes that it is easy to denounce the electorate for going down the MAGA path, embracing election conspiracy theories and other nonsense…a possible consequence being the unleashing of a far-left reactionary mirror image of MAGA that will make the current MAGAts look reasonable…an occurrence which must be rejected. He suggests that it is important for us to realize that Trump has “substantially destroyed two political parties, the first and third oldest in the world, and he has also destroyed the credibility of most of America’s media by unmasking its hypocrisies, dishonesty and bias for clicks over news. The dimensions of his accomplishments are staggering, frightening, and very real.” So, for at least the next two years, “Trump will smash the federal government by deregulation at whim, writing executive orders at a record pace, obliterate the concept of Senate confirmation for top positions, hatchet the US Civil Service, turn the Justice Department loose against his foes, reward his cronies, cut government indiscriminately, militarize the Southern borders, deploy the US military domestically, invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, and attack expertise at every turn in the government as evidence of disloyalty.” All with the impotence of DC politicians! Schmidt views the Democratic Party as a “tightly held possession of a handful of people” and that we should be outraged by the result, and the entitlement of people like Chuck Schumer, while also pointing a finger at Joe Biden, who was soundly repudiated. The party’s next nominee will have to talk about big ideas, big reforms because the next nominating speech will be to a different America…the Democrats had better be looking for a cross between our two Presidents Roosevelt.

Schmidt concludes, “We are about to set sail on a new and endless sea of corruption, cronyism, malice, extremism and self-interest that will carry this country far into the abyss for which it voted. Two years from now, when the question of ‘should we stop it?’ is at hand, we will be deep in. Getting out will be no easy task, but there is a way out…it is to embrace Americanism over both Trumpism and Clyburnism. There are two years for an opposition to prevail in an election, and from the smoky pit of defeat and rejection it will be a long climb from the crater to the surface. My political advice is simple: when in a hole, stop digging. Now is the time to face reality before it bites us again.” As Henry R. Greenfield posted on Quora, “Good luck America, you did it to yourself!”

Jimmy Kimmel on his Wednesday show following the election, said, “Let’s be honest: It was a terrible night last night…the worst Taco Tuesday of my whole life. We had a choice between a prosecutor and a criminal, and we chose the criminal to be the President of the United States. More than half of this country voted for the criminal who is planning to pardon himself for his crimes. Kamala Harris called Trump today. She conceded and then explained what the word ‘conceded’ means.” He continued, visibly emotional, “It was a terrible night for women, for children, for the hundreds of thousands of hard-working immigrants who make this country go, for health care, for our climate, for science, for journalism, for justice, for free speech. It was a terrible night for poor people, for the middle class, for seniors who are on Social Security, for our allies in Ukraine, for NATO, for the truth and democracy and decency. It was a terrible night for everyone who voted against him, and guess what? It was a terrible night for everyone who voted for him, too. You just don’t realize it yet. But it was a really good night for Putin and for polio and for lovable billionaires like Elon Musk and the bros in Silicon Valley and all the wriggling brain worms who sold what was left of their souls to bow down to Donald Trump.” Suspecting that he is on Trump’s ‘enemies list,’ he asks that he be able to share a cell with Taylor Swift since he is good at making bracelets, “and I think we get along just fine.” On The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon said, “America decided to get back with a crazy ex and elect Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States, and no matter who you voted for, I think we can all agree that it’s going to be a rough Thanksgiving.” Stephen Colbert on The Late Show asked, “Can we just tell Jimmy Carter that SHE won? And then can Jimmy Carter tell ME that she won?” Seth Meyers on Late Night cracked that, “They’re going to have to give me whatever drugs they’re giving Trump,” to be able to endure his second term in office. All three show hosts had similar jokes with the same punchline: “Online Google searches for ‘Did Joe Biden drop out?’ spiked on Election Day, most searches being from Joe Biden!”

A piece in The Hill by Max Burns, Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies, wrote, “No matter what the results ultimately show, American’s commitment to a fair and peaceful vote is a thumb in the eye to authoritarians both at home and abroad. That’s about all the joy Democrats (and lovers of democracy) will find in…the election results. The fleeting optimism that washed over the party…has crashed back to reality. In its place is the realization that democracy’s worst-case scenario is unfolding in real time. Our democratic institutions are not ready for what comes next. Neither are the American people.” He calls Trump a man “steeped in unsettled vendettas” and a string of federal felony charges which he is empowered to wipe away. “Trump will see his priorities as he has always seen them: party over country and self over all,” he surmises. “A man with 34 felony convictions can’t win the presidency in a nation where trust in institutions is high. It’s only in a culture where the justice system has long since lost its legitimacy that a man with such a thick criminal record as Trump glides by relatively unremarked. That one man can so effortlessly game American institutions to his own benefit says as much about the decrepit state of America’s institutions as it does about the moral decrepitude of the crook.” Exploiting the nation’s systemic weakness at every turn, and flooding social media networks with misinformation are the earmarks of the MAGA movement, while torching public trust in the courts with past claims of a ‘rigged justice system,’ even as Trump appointed ethically vacant Supreme Court justices. Burns concludes, “It matters that Trump won his office in a free and fair election. It matters that free people voluntarily chose to cloak Trump in power he will almost certainly abuse in far-reaching and destructive ways. Our country made the choice to walk down the dark path of Trump’s resentments and conspiracies. We will come to regret it.”

As Common Dreams reported last week, Trump’s campaign confirmed that “the largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrants” ever is set to start immediately after the former president returns to the White House on January 20. Coincidentally, the chairperson of a leading US private prison corporation gushed over the “unprecedented opportunity” presented by Trump by delivering on his promise to begin mass deportations on “day one.” GEO Group stock surged more than 56% from the close of trading on Tuesday to Friday’s closing bell. CoreCivic, a competitor, had shares skyrocket by 57% in that same period. In the three months preceding Election Day, GEO had seen a 21% rise, and CoreCivic inched up only 11%. “The GEO Group was built for this unique moment in our company’s [and] country’s history, and the opportunity it will bring,” said George Zoley, founder and chairperson. “We have 18,000 available beds across contracted and idle secure services facilities, which if fully activated, would provide significant potential upside to our financial performance,” he added, and the scary part: “We also believe we have the necessary resources to materially scale up the service levels in our [Intensive Supervision Appearance Program] and air and ground transportation contracts.” Is there a waiting list to be Taylor Swift’s cellmate? Just asking! According to a study published last month by the American Immigration Council, deporting the estimated 13.3M people in the US without authorization, in one massive sweep would cost around $315B, while expelling 1M undocumented immigrants per year would cost nearly $1T cumulatively over a decade. Trump claims “there is no price tag” on his deportation plan, and that using concentration camps comparable to his first term’s mass detention centers are not of concern. “Summer camps,” as one Trump official had termed them! The Biden administration is on pace to match his predecessor’s 1.5M deportations, marked by President Biden’s signing of an executive order for reform of our incarceration system, and to eliminate the use of privately operated criminal detention facilities…not applicable to detainees held by ICE. A US Senate investigation in 2022 verified allegations of staff abuse against migrants jailed at facilities owned by private company LaSalle, despite their claims to be “run with family values.” Torture, medical neglect, sexual assault, and forced sterilizations don’t sound like the “unprecedented opportunity” we should wish for on “day one.”

Former Senator Claire McCaskill on MSNBC’s Morning Joe said Americans must now “acknowledge that Donald Trump knows our country better than we do” after his decisive win over Kamala Harris. She lamented, “[Trump] figured out that anger and, frankly, fear were way more powerful than appealing to people’s better angels. That anger and fear were going to work in this election, whether you’re afraid of immigrants or afraid of trans people, he figured that out. And I think we all thought everyone’s better angels would prevail. Turns out our better angels went on vacation when Donald Trump came down the escalator and they haven’t returned. The majority of America believes he was persecuted, not prosecuted.” David Axelrod, former advisor to Barack Obama, said, “Democrats have become a smarty-pants, suburban, college educated party,” leading to the Harris/Walz defeat. “I do have concerns about the way the Democratic Party relates to working-class voters in this country. The only group Democrats gained with in the election was white college graduates. And among working-class voters, there was a significant decline,” he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “The only group…Democrats won among were people who make more than $100K a year.” Rolling Stone magazine says the Harris campaign’s tent may have been too big, noting that several Democratic aides warned her against campaigning so closely with former US Representative Liz Cheney, daughter of Iraq war hawk Dick Cheney. “People don’t want to be in a coalition with the devil,” said an anonymous source. One strategist felt that involvement with Cheney risked alienating the liberal base as they reached out to Republicans in general, and wouldn’t convince many swing voters, if any. Caution warnings from donors and state party chairs were ignored.

Just in time! According to satirist Andy Borowitz: “Responding to ‘a situation of utmost urgency,’ President Biden released the nation’s Strategic Alcohol Reserve just hours before Election Night. Immediately following the announcement, the price of vodka dipped below three dollars a gallon and Biden’s approval rating surged to 94 per cent. But even as Americans cheered, experts warned that excessive liquor consumption could cause severe mental impairment akin to that exhibited by undecided voters. Statistics show that the nation’s alcohol supply has been under acute pressure since November of 2016.”