THE UNITED STATES’ FALL FROM GRACE

The United States’ fall from grace has been dramatic and swift. A Nation that the world looked up to for fifty years has disgraced itself on the watch of Donald Trump. He has turned an enviable example into policies and strategies more associated with a third-world country.

     The handling of the pandemic has been nothing short of pathetic. The handling of the distribution of the vaccine has been laughable. At the rate the U.S. is vaccinating its citizens, it will take ten years to complete the job. I am reminded of an old English expression. “They couldn’t organize a piss-up (drunken party) in a brewery”. Perhaps more appropriately, since the army is in charge of distribution, is the U.S. World War II acronym “SNAFU”. Translation: Situation Normal, All Fucked Up”.

     The recent revelation of Donald Trump’s blatant attempt to divert the course of democracy is just the latest example of this fall from grace. A U.S. President, caught on tape, trying to bully Georgia’s Secretary of State into changing a certified vote count, sounds like a scene from a banana republic. In fact, it classifies the U.S. as a third-world banana republic. Worse, large numbers of republican congressmen, and even senators, refuse to condemn this behavior.

     I expect that the institutions of the U.S. will survive this lunacy. Joe Biden will be sworn-in as the next President in a few days. However, there is a chance that an even more dangerous escapade will be championed by Trump before inauguration day. He could stage an attempted coup.

     I have suggested this possibility in previous blogs. I didn’t want to believe it possible at the time, but, now, I believe it’s a real threat. If the Armed Forces, the FBI and the Secret Service do not have a planned scenario to combat this possibility, they are derelict in their duty to the country. If Trump tries such a move, “The United States’ Fall from Grace” will be the least of the country’s worries.

     Try to imagine a situation where the President of the United States calls his ‘armed” faithful to surround the White House and prevent anyone from trying to evict him. Result: a firefight. Unthinkable……hopefully!

     Horrific as this possibility is, there is a far more worrying aspect of this lunacy. I repeat, lunacy. At the time of writing over 140 republican congressmen, and 12 republican senators, are supporting Trump in his fantasies of election fraud. What does that say for the future?

     We can’t organize “a piss-up in a brewery”, we have a President potentially staging an armed coup, we have a compliant and complicit legislature, and we may well have citizens on the street.     

What does that remind you of?

The third-world banana republics we all condemn as the antithesis of democracy.

     What the hell is going on in America? More importantly, what should we do about it ……NOW?