Whoever is scripting this life of ours needs to calm the eff down. You can only keep an audience on pins and needles for so long before they turn on you. Though he’s evaded punishment of any sort his entire life, Donald Trump is about to face real accountability for the very first time. At least it sure looks that way. Or feels that way… How about “seems that way”? As we’re learning, anticipation of what should be inevitable has a certain toxicity. Normal becomes absurd. Absurdity becomes lethal. Maybe that’s why waiting for Trump’s indictments to drop is like Waiting For Godot.
Sometimes I think that the people who believe we’re actually part of a giant computer simulation have it right. Life can’t really be this absurd, can it, and still continue to exist? Surely beyond a certain point of utter ridiculousness, life simply stops. Or comes apart spectacularly…
Hmmmmm… This moment in time kinda feels that way, doesn’t it? Like we are racing toward a very real historical pivot point that will fork us in one of two directions. We know that whenever we get to that point, it will change things profoundly. If only we’d just get there!
Existenaialism
The existentialists emerged from WWII understandably cynical about life and everything they’d ever been taught about it. Big-assed wars have a way of breaking cultures down on the way to breaking them. Take WWI. That’s the one where Old Europe officially passed away. WWII was WWI’s final act (having very much been its legitimate sequel).
Yet another of WWI’s final acts is slowly playing out here in America. The Cold War may have killed off the Soviet Union, but it didn’t kill off Russian ambitions. Vladimir Putin is a Cold Warrior who dreams of restoring Greater Russia. He’s always seen America as Greater Russia’s nemesis.
“Putin Pays Trump”
Maybe that explains why “Putin pays Rohrbacher and Trump” – as current Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy put it on June 25, 2016 to a roomful of Republican leaders. (Then) Washington Post reporter Adam Entous quoted this (recorded) conversation in April 2017. As Entous reported, Republican leaders never questioned McCarthy’s assertion about their about-to-be nominee. In fact then Speaker of the House Paul Ryan insisted that the entire room – the GOP leadership – keep quiet about the subject. “That’s how we know we’re family” is how Ryan summed it up.
The GOP (and, to a degree the news media) has always known this would ultimately be a story about Russia. The GOP refuses to admit it because they’re complicit! The news media refuses to admit it because they’ve bought the poison that “both sides do it”. Thinking that convinced them that criminal acts done for a political end are the same as entirely political acts.
It’s like the news media hasn’t just questioned whether Trump would be indicted, they’ve hoped against it.
In “Waiting For Godot”, Vladimir and Estragon (the two tramps who show up every day to wait for Godot) both wish Godot would finally appear while also dreading what Godot might tell them. Or do to them. Every day begins with hope and ends with despair. Is this how it’s always going to be?
America feels like that, too, now. Every day begins with the hope that we’ll end this long national nightmare and ends with despair because we haven’t ended it. Instead we’ve looked again to tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow justice will finally show up.
Fresh Hell Or Fresh Hope?
This morning brought fresh hope. Jack Smith’s Grand Jury will meet again this week. If, per reporting, a huge chunk of his investigation is done (regarding the stolen secret documents at Mar-a-Lago) then he’s ready to ask the Grand Jury to return indictments on Trump and those who co-conspired with him to steal our secrets.
Is today the day? Is this week the week or is this month the month even? FFS, the waiting is killing us…