Having somewhat incautiously announced the reappearance of my inner Tigger, I find that I must take my optimism slow, as it were, what with the constant drumbeat of appalling news from our President-Elect. There seem to be innumerable progressive individuals and groups and organizations making plans and working to keep up our collective spirits, which I take to be a good sign.
Tomorrow, the members of the Electoral College will disappoint us all by choosing Trump as president, and then we can put that fantasy behind us and get down to work. We are, after all, the majority, and that is supposed to count for something in a Democracy.
I have been working my way through my book of NY TIMES crossword puzzles, to take the place of MSNBC, which I can no longer bear to watch [I am on puzzle Number 103, which is a pretty good measure of how much time I waste.]
We now have conclusive and irrefutable proof that the Constitutionalists in the Senate [such as Orrin Hatch] could not care less about the actual Constitution. Indeed, the only opposition Trump will face on the Republican side of the aisle will come from those, like McCain and Graham, whose love for the military and hatred of Russia take precedence even over party loyalty.
I am unable to respond with even gallows humor to the "basket of deplorables" Trump has pulled out of the dark corners and recesses of the American scene with whom to fill his Cabinet.
But enough. I feel Eeyore pushing his nose out of the closet, his ears flopping about his head. I shall stop, breath deeply, and practice bouncing up and down Tigger fashion.
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If you run out of crossword puzzles, I spent my extra time today watching interviews with Eric Hobsbawm in Youtube, a fascinating man. Here's one with Christopher Hitchens (less obnoxious and more respectful of Hobsbawm than I imagined) interviewing Hobsbawm in his 80's. Anyway, a leftwing intellectual talks about his life, with its ups and downs, its illusions and disillusions, his books and his political activity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFTq9pz_hFM
I keep making the same mistake over and over. Every time Trump does something that seems incoherent,(most recently, to tweet that we should tell China to keep our drone), I think, "Why in the world would he do something so provocative?? In this case, why would he do something so politically fraught, even within his own party?" Then I remember, his logic is that of a promoter of World Wrestling Entertainment. The provocation is WHY he does it. "Oh, my God, Andre the French Giant has picked up the referee and thrown him out of the ring!!! The crowd is going crazy, folks!! They've never seen anything like this!" We keep trying to read some coherent policy into his statements. We will never be able to do that, because his aim is to defy coherence. Chaos sells tickets. It's what keeps the mob screaming for more.
Sigh, I fear you are right, Tom. A truly disciplined and conscientious press would respond by ignoring him, but that is asking of them something they cannot comprehend and would be incapable of if they did. The most we can hope for is that Trump's lust for attention will make his efforts scattershot and contradictory, and therefore less destructive than they would be if he were capable of discipline.
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