Stunned

I haven't written any of these Civic Duty columns for awhile. It's been sort of a writer's block of bounty – so many potential topics, all whirling around in my head in a maelstrom of possibilities with the result that I have not acted on any in a stupor of indecision. 

 

The operative word here is “stupor.” In a word, I have been stunned into silence by what I see and read and hear. I have to admit that after Trump went down, I slackened up a bit, thinking that maybe the job was done. More fool me. January 6 erased that kind of magical thinking on my part. That was a Philly left hook to any naivete here. And since then, the punches to our democracy have just kept coming, each one a stunner in its own right. Actually, it's been more like being punch drunk than any kind of highfallutin' writer's block.  

 

The initial shock of the insurrection was followed by the stunning vote of the Republicans whose lives had just been threatened by the howling Trump-fueled mob to nonetheless repudiate the presidency of Joe Biden. Stunning also was this scenario: the traitorous mob seeks to find and hang the vice president, who has been targeted by the president himself. Later the vice president will categorize this villainy as not “seeing eye to eye.”  

 

I am stunned that there are almost 400 bills in the various key states to limit voting access. They are like some kind of creeping political vine that the Republicans have carefully planted and now are nurturing into potential evil blossom. They are a contagion of potholes on the already bumpy road to democracy. And they are spreading to other crucial states. Yet I take some succor in the notion that there are activists out there – the Stacy Abrams of this world – striving to hold off this onslaught. I am nonetheless stunned that it has gone this far.          

The “audit” situation in Maricopa County in Arizona is stunning for its very brazenness. In front of the world, two-and-a-half million ballots are being counted by hand, voting machines are being irreparably damaged – and for what? Odds are that the errant fools behind this will come waltzing forward some time in August, when the “audit” is completed, with the earth-shattering news that Trump actually won. 

 

Maybe that has some connection with the stunning news from New Jersey that Trump believes he will be magically reinstated in August. The Pillow Guy said Trump got the idea from him because that is when Pillow Guy's case to the Supreme Court will overturn the election. Hmm … last anybody looked – about twenty minute ago – there is no provision in the Constitution or anywhere else for reinstating an ex-president. 

 

In the real world, it is truly stunning – although totally in character – that the Senate Republicans will not allow a bill to investigate January 6 in all its tragic dimensions and equally stunning that two Democratic senators will not vote to eliminate the filibuster, which would make the investigation possible and also allow lawmakers to move forward on bills to aid an America that is in desperate need.

 

Mitch McConnell's answer to all this is that he is “100 percent committed” to blocking any Biden legislation.