The Quiet Transition
So Trump is out, with some last kicking at American political norms. But rather muffled kicking, by Trump standards. Trump's ban from Twitter was really quite a significant change in the political landscape, it turned out! There was the continuing stream of blatantly corrupt pardons: Bannon (for defrauding Trump supporters), Broidy, Erikson, etc., a pardon for Levandowski just to kick at the Goog. Some seemingly normal use of the pardon power in the mix, at least. No Assange, no Snowden. (No surprises? Some of this other stuff should be more surprising than it is, probably.) No pardons for the Capitol mob, who Trump has somewhat predictably thrown under the bus, just as he cuts loose each of his failing ventures. Was Trump outright selling pardons? (Or was Giuliani soliciting bribes for himself, on the assumption he could bend the President's ear to whatever later?) Are there secret pardons for Trump himself or close associates? (Those would definitely see challenges in court.)
But whatever Trump has done, he is done. As President. At least for now, and I would bet on for good. Trump's political movement, such as it were, and his political party, such as it is... well, that's a different story. Wouldn't count on Trump himself fading away, either, but was quite a change to not hear "what Trump's up to now" immediately. The most devoted Q cultists will surely carry on like Miracle Mike, but that kind of thing is still a bit hard not to notice.
This inauguration has a bit of a "bullet dodged" feeling, but you're not really taking the analogy to heart if the emotion that evokes is immediate relief. If you've just dodged a bullet, chances are that your immediate situation is still quite perilous!
Biden gave a pretty good inaugural address, I thought. The recitation from 2017 Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman was good, too.
It's not all this country needs, but the country really does need organizational competence right now. I'm optimistic the Biden administration will bring that. The Trump administration's pandemic response was a massive failure, even by their own standards. The main thing they now praise themselves for getting right was pushing for quick vaccine development. To what extent they helped, hard to say, but it's sure good that it happened. So it's a bit disheartening that the vaccine distribution planning seems nonexistent.
(That lack of organizational capacity is just so pervasively evident for the Republicans at every level. There's a reason the party couldn't pass a party platform and was afraid to even try. Trump could have been so much worse if he'd had anyone in his administration capable of understanding and following the Administrative Procedures Act. And Biden will be able to much of what Trump did because Trump got so little done legislatively. Trump is a President who managed to make his major tax cut legislation unpopular, through sheer fiscal insanity and the most blatant giveaways to the already-wealthy. There's the courts, sure, Republicans are counting on the courts as the thing that will be able to deny the United States good governance forever. Maybe!) This entry was originally posted on Dreamwith.
comments are there.
But whatever Trump has done, he is done. As President. At least for now, and I would bet on for good. Trump's political movement, such as it were, and his political party, such as it is... well, that's a different story. Wouldn't count on Trump himself fading away, either, but was quite a change to not hear "what Trump's up to now" immediately. The most devoted Q cultists will surely carry on like Miracle Mike, but that kind of thing is still a bit hard not to notice.
This inauguration has a bit of a "bullet dodged" feeling, but you're not really taking the analogy to heart if the emotion that evokes is immediate relief. If you've just dodged a bullet, chances are that your immediate situation is still quite perilous!
Biden gave a pretty good inaugural address, I thought. The recitation from 2017 Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman was good, too.
It's not all this country needs, but the country really does need organizational competence right now. I'm optimistic the Biden administration will bring that. The Trump administration's pandemic response was a massive failure, even by their own standards. The main thing they now praise themselves for getting right was pushing for quick vaccine development. To what extent they helped, hard to say, but it's sure good that it happened. So it's a bit disheartening that the vaccine distribution planning seems nonexistent.
(That lack of organizational capacity is just so pervasively evident for the Republicans at every level. There's a reason the party couldn't pass a party platform and was afraid to even try. Trump could have been so much worse if he'd had anyone in his administration capable of understanding and following the Administrative Procedures Act. And Biden will be able to much of what Trump did because Trump got so little done legislatively. Trump is a President who managed to make his major tax cut legislation unpopular, through sheer fiscal insanity and the most blatant giveaways to the already-wealthy. There's the courts, sure, Republicans are counting on the courts as the thing that will be able to deny the United States good governance forever. Maybe!) This entry was originally posted on Dreamwith.
comments are there.