Isolation Report, Week #45

[You could also read the most recent report, or even start at the beginning.]

Well, since our last isolation report, a lot has been going on, at least politically.  It’s difficult to know what to say about the events that have transpired here in the U.S. ... on the one hand, it seems completely predictable and expected.  On the other, that doesn’t keep it from being horrific.  Our only real saving grace here is that this attempted insurrection was being run by complete idiots.  Well-armed idiots, granted, but hardly brain giants.  Throughout the whole thing, I kept wondering to myself: what exactly do they think they’re going to accomplish?  Did they imagine that the entirety of the Congress was going to say “gee, people ran us out of the place we normally meet; I guess we can’t do anything now! may as well go home”?  Some Congressperson tweeted that we were lucky that one of the staffers got the official electoral college ballots before the rioters could destroy them ... but so what if they had?  Would that really have stopped the election from progressing?  Our entire government would have just thrown up their hands and said “oh, well, I suppose Trump will just have to be President forever now.” Sure, that makes sense.

So, they caused a lot of chaos, and, sadly, some people died (on both sides).  But I just can’t believe it was ever going to change anything in the long run, or accomplish any of their actual goals.  Assuming they had goals.  Aren’t these the same people who were sitting at home and laughing at the Occupy Wall Street movement for not knowing what they wanted?  But it seems to me that this was the same thing.  Except the Occupy-Wall-Street-ers never killed anyone.  I hope that wasn’t their goal.  That would be sad, and scary, and even more disturbing than it already is.  But somehow I don’t think that was ever the point.  They just listened to Trump, and Giuliani (“trial by comat!”), and the other morons, and they decided to go fuck some shit up, without any real goals or concrete ideas of how it was going to end up.  Certainly if they had planned a little better, they wouldn’t have managed to all end up on camera, faces exposed, and easily identifiable by the authorities.

But it happened, and we have to deal with it, and we’re still all locked down and not really able to go anywhere or do anything.  A friend told me that one of their relatives who works at a local hospital says they’re putting patients in the gift shop at this point.  Admittedly, you’re hearing this third-hand, so feel free to discount it as an unreliable source, but if you live in the U.S. I bet you’re awre of similar conditions where you live.  Things are getting worse, and we still have to wait another week or so before it can even start to get better.

Of course, the House has impeached Trump, again—no surprise there—and many people on television are expressing dismay that the Senate won’t vote to convict before Trump is already out of office.  I’m not stressed on that point.  Sure, he’ll no doubt do plenty more damage on the way out, but I think the important part is that he does get convicted, and that’s more likely to happen with the new Senate than the old one.  Why is it important to convict him after he’s already out of office?  Well, first of all, it’s important to send that message to any future idiots who find themselves in Trump’s position.  But I think it’s just as important that Trump not be allowed to run for office again (as some people in the media have pointed out), and that he not be allowed to reap the benefits normally afforded to ex-Presidents (as apparently no one has thought to mention yet).  A retired President continues to collect a stipend for life, plus the Secret Service protective detail, which we already know that Trump views as a money-making venture.  So I really don’t want my tax money going to support that sort of bullshit for however more years he manages to cling to life.  And, in my experience, only the good die young: true assholes can live for-fucking-ever.

I don’t know.  I guess we’ll have to see how it all shakes out.  Hopefully there won’t be any more violence, and hopefully the new administration will restore some sanity.  But I honestly don’t know.  I’m just waiting to find out like all the rest of you.