The Basement Tweets
President Donald Trump has spent the past two weeks tweeting from his basement. If you ignore these tweets, he hasn't done much of anything else at all for that entire period of time. He laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier for Veterans Day, and he gave a very halfhearted announcement on the progress of the vaccine trials... and he's also played a lot of golf. So much golf. But you know what? Trump golfing or sulking in the basement is actually a lot better than Trump in a fit of rage, trampling things all over the place like a deranged Godzilla.
Of course, Trump isn't literally in the White House basement. The private residence is actually on the top floor. But we're all entitled to a little poetic license on this one, since Trump himself spent the entire campaign season mocking Joe Biden for "hiding in his basement" even though that wasn't true either. Call it Trump being "hoist by his own canard," if you will. (OK, I apologize for that one. Don't know what came over me. Heh.)
My point is that Trump richly deserves exactly the same level of mockery now. He is sulking in the White House, no matter what floor he's on. He's taken his bat and ball and gone home. He's walked away from the fight, because deep down he knows he has already lost. Sure, he's dispatched Rudy Giuliani to go out and make some noise, but what's more notable is what Trump hasn't done.
Trump hasn't scheduled massive rallies in the disputed states (only disputed by Trump, I should clarify). Trump loves his rallies, so this was always a real possibility. Trump hasn't even bothered to notice the two Georgia Senate runoff campaigns, which could flip control of the Senate next year. He could have been holding lots of rallies in Georgia, but he has not. He doesn't even mention these crucial races in his tweets. Trump hasn't given a press conference or a speech from the Oval Office to lay out in fantastical and excruciating detail the depths of his conspiracy theories about the election. He could have been doing so every couple of days, but he has not. In short, Trump has been very un-Trumpian for the past two weeks. Which, as I said, should come as a relief, considering what he could have been spending his time doing.
Of course, he's also not doing all the things he's supposed to be doing as president -- which he still will be for another two months. He has blocked all access to the federal government for Joe Biden's transition team. He has not addressed in any way (with the exception of some wildly deluded happy talk during his vaccine announcement) the explosion of the third wave of COVID-19. Even some Republican governors are now sheepishly admitting they've been wrong all along and mandating mask-wearing, but Trump refuses to even acknowledge the new reality of America adding a million new cases in one week. This is where Biden should be most vocal (and mostly has been) -- because blocking his transition team from the government's coronavirus task force is going to wind up costing American lives.
In other words, Trump being as petty as possible and sulking in his basement is not all a good thing. And you have to wonder how long this phase is really going to last. All the state vote certifications will soon begin to happen, but they won't all be done until after the first week in December. Trump is losing lawsuit after lawsuit, because in a court of law ranting and raving about conspiracy theories is not actually evidence of anything. This is why all these cases are getting laughed out of court. This is just going to cause Trump to sink further into depression, one assumes, as he loses more and more of them. So realistically, we could be in this Limbo for weeks to come.
The election results weren't truly known until the weekend after the election. Last week, most Republicans allowed Trump some time to sulk without contradicting his sore-loser claims that he "really won." This week, however, some cracks are already beginning to show. Hopefully these cracks will only widen until the dam bursts (say, when Pennsylvania certifies its election results). But there's no guarantee of that. As Chuck Schumer recently put it, most GOP senators right now seem to be vying for roles in "Profiles In Cowardice."
Our man-baby president is going out as he came in -- in the most whiny and petulant fashion imaginable. Trump was a real sore winner the last time around, insisting that three million votes were somehow cast illegally (which would have given him the popular vote win, too). There was never any shred of evidence of this claim, but that didn't stop Trump from whining about it for months.
Even more fittingly, Trump's first Big Lie in office was about the size of his inauguration crowd. His most-recent press secretary bookended this by bragging about the "million MAGA march," even though she was off by a factor of at least 100 in her estimate of the crowd at the pro-Trump rally last weekend.
All the while, Trump doesn't have the energy to do more than sulk and tweet from his basement. Everyone else around him is tiptoeing on eggshells (if that's not too mixed a metaphor), scared silly that they'll send him into another fit of rage. Leaving us all to sincerely hope that T. S. Eliot is proven right -- that Trump's presidency will end: "not with a bang but a whimper."
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Sherrod Brown is on Chris Cuomo LIve in a minute ... I'll report back!
Well, it wasn't really about economics except to highlight how many Americans are now relying on food banks to eat while congress fails to pass a COVID relief package in the middle of a horribly worsening pandemic. :(
EM #2 We all need to be a little more precise in our language. It is not "Congress" that is failing to pass a stimulus bill. The House passed one many months ago, it is the Republican Senate, Moscow Mitch to be precise, that is refusing to help Americans. We all need to make it abundantly clear who is causing Americans to suffer needlessly. As always it is the Repubs.
"Tiptoeing on eggshells" is not a mixed metaphor as long as you understand, correctly, that an attempt to tiptoe on the eggshells will end up making them crack even louder.
Big Orange basement tweeted a pink slip to Chris Krebs today. Krebs should get a Most Impressive Republican of the Week award on Friday.
The Wayne County, Michigan canvassing board incident today highlights just how insane the GOP has become. The fact that the board fairly quickly reversed the vote indicates that the two Republican members underestimated just how much heat they would take for their idiocy. Living in a bubble and a death cult can only provide so much insulation. Two fairly anonymous people instantly became international media villains and apparently didn't like it. The upside is they decided not to drink the Flavor Aid for Dear Leader.
He doesn't even mention these crucial races in his tweets.
I'm afraid that's incorrect.
[7] I should have said I'm afraid you've spoken too soon.
Sorry about that Chris.
The orange one has cancelled his Thanksgiving trip to Florida so he can stay in the basement. He must be afraid they'll lock him out earlier than they actually will.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent the following text to the death cult:
Please note that the Dems would only take control if The Monster is the tiebreaker. Junior is skating on thin ice.
COVID positive Senator Chuck Grassley met with Mitch McConnell on Monday. Fingers crossed!
Dolly Parton was one of the funders of the Moderna vaccine development. She donated one million dollars.
Yes, SF Bear, precision is important when attributing blame for not helping the American people.
Your fellow citizens are hurting, for real. And, I'll bet that most of them don't care who is to blame for their pain. They're just trying to get through their day.
Democrats could have gone along with the nonsense of Republicans before the election and passed something, regardless of how inadequate it was because it was something. And, they could try again.
This should be the number one issue Democrats run on for the Georgia senate seats.
Here's a little reminder about the concert tonight ...
Classic Albums Live perform live from the Empire Theatre ... Houses of the Holy, note for note, cut for cut!
https://theempiretheatre.com/live/classic-albums-live-led-zeppelin-houses-of-the-holy/
Had to look up the word "canard" to figure out why that joke was supposed to work. I only knew the second definition of the word, a forward wing of an aircraft, and was wondering how that could possibly be related to the topic (although, the image of Trump stuck on a wing of a fighter jet is hilarious). Thanks for the vocab lesson!
LizM,
Re: Houses of the Holy
Led Zep was never my cup of tea, but I did like D'Yer Mak'er. It amuses me that DJs still mispronounce the name of it. It's a reggae-inspired song and it's pronounced Jurmaker (Jamaica).
Maybe your Sunday party should do reggae (and reggae-inspired) tunes some time.
E.m is correct. I saw the same show in Picton, Prince Eddy County, Ontario, (Prince Eddy is that lump of shmutz that can be found tethered to the northside of Lake Ontario)
It's remarkably good, the ensemble includes well-appointed session musicians, the quintessential starving artists of music.
I've also seen the similarly styled 'Brown Bomber' and Aqualung iterations of the same theme.
The halcyon days of thoughtlessly hauling myself half an hour in the wrong direction to arduously enjoy an undistanced and awkwardly close social happening.
Went out for that once a year event that one does to satisfy social convention on the anniversary one's existence. Et-al is fond of this niggle some perennial chore, I enjoy the free lunch.
I was astounded when our favorite darbar was open for take out only. Reeling, I asked the head waiter, Ashu, why so draconian these measures?
Apparently, our CV19 inflicted doubled overnight to six and according to rigorous 'tracing', two of the three lepers had been in the vicinity a few days earlier... Imagine my surprise. Our city of 140k has had almost zero CV19, less than 50 to be sure, for the first time this pandemic, I suddenly realised how oppressive lockdowns can be.
Serious drag this is, when I choose to be aloof it's because I'm no friend to crowds, proximity and people shorter than me by more than six inches but less than twelve. It makes me edgy, when I get edgy, the filter shuts off and an inconsolable brute drops by to ensure a a shit time is had by all.
I realise now, there are people other than myself. Am I glad they chose to live elsewhere?
Of course.
Remain safe, resist your libertarian urges, if you have to go out to fight in feral gangs for food, do so well separated and with face coverings. It really is that simple.
LL&P
[16]
Oh High Priestess of Sunday Evenings, I HEREBY second that reggae theme. (I could just "feel the power" of using HEREBY!)
Something for Elizabeth,
From Why Biden Won in The Atlantic.
Biden is only the fourth candidate to beat an incumbent in the past 100 years, and he did it against a president directing the force of his entire administration into a taxpayer-funded reelection effort. Biden won the most votes in American history, and with votes still being counted that are leaning his way, his share of the electorate is already on par with the percentage of the vote Ronald Reagan won in 1980; it’s looking like the second-biggest popular-vote margin in the past 20 years, after Obama’s in 2008. He had strong support from moderates and progressives, won more votes from Black voters and women than either Obama or Clinton did, and ran stronger in many white areas than Democrats have recently.
@caddy,
nice to see you back from self-imposed suspension. i felt it was inappropriate for me to say anything at that time, but major kudos to you for choosing to step back and do the introspection.
Oh no!
They say he's got to go.
Go.
Go.
Godzilla
Bleyd [15] -
After I wrote that, I had to look up the word myself, just to be sure I was using it right. And I found the second definition, for aircraft. "Huh!" I thought. "Learn something new every day!"
So your comment made me laugh, because I never would have imagined someone in the opposite position...
:-)
-CW
andygaus [4] -
After I wrote it, I thought about it and came to the same conclusion -- tiptoeing would BREAK the eggshells more! But I just liked the sound of it so much that I left it in...
:-)
-CW
Chris,
Was I wrong to think you were making a Bob Dylan reference? That's why I said Big Orange and pink slip.
[22]
Once I digested the thought, I smiled inward knowing I had chosen to spend a portion of my disposable time wisely.
Again.
I'm sometimes reminded of 'Frank' magazine, ( the trippy-go-lucky iteration of the poor thing as it was in the '90s) when Brian Mulroney was Byron Muldoon, the lounge lizard who always seemed to wind up horizontally jogging with some Back-bencher, figuratively or otherwise.
LL&P
MtnCaddy,
I'll take a look at that Biden piece after the concert.
And, I saw your mea culpa the other day and was duly impressed. I had to wait for Joshua to respond, though.
Kudos from me, as well ... very nicely done!
JFC,
Maybe your Sunday party should do reggae (and reggae-inspired) tunes some time.
Sounds like a plan! Shall we do it this Sunday?
MtnCaddy,
I HEREBY second that reggae theme. (I could just "feel the power" of using HEREBY!)
Your wish is my command. See ya Sunday night!
JFC [24] -
I wondered if anyone was going to pick up on that. I did consider trying to work "Yea! Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread" or "Please, Mrs. Henry" in, but gave up in the end...
Heh.
-CW
[29] I'm not a Dylan fan, so those would actually been lost on me. I just know that the Basement Tapes were recorded at Big Pink.
[27] OK by me. I've got ideas.
Excellent!
Wow. Well, I've never been to a Zep concert but, tonight, I got the next best thing. No stairway to heaven, though but, what an awesome show, again!
I remember, vividly, where I was and what I was doing when I heard my first reggae tune ...