The Last Full Day…

First, an apology.

I don’t mean to dwell so much on politics but, at least for me, it, along with other things, seem to be consuming whatever free time I have.

Truly, its been a frustrating few weeks.

It feels like I’m on a treadmill, running in place and just getting by each day to keep up with things while not accomplishing the stuff I would dearly like to be: My writing.

It’s all my fault and my fault alone, but it certainly bothers.

Anyway, today is the last full day of Donald Trump’s presidency. Tomorrow, supposedly at 8 A.M., he’s going to fly out via Air Force One to Mar A Largo. He hasn’t acknowledged Joe Biden’s win nor wanted to be in Washington D.C., as is customary, to watch Joe Biden’s inauguration. His wife, Melania, similarly hasn’t called Jill Biden or invited her into the White House for the customary transition visit, either.

It’s all childishness, of course, petulance and obnoxiousness, all rolled into one.

But it ends tomorrow and today we get the joy of seeing the last full day of Trump’s presidency and, at least at this early hour, we wonder what exactly he’s going to do.

There will certainly be pardons, as I mentioned before and as many pundits suspect, and I can almost guarantee many of the names will cause much gnashing of the teeth.

Will he, though, pardon his kids? Will he try to pardon himself?

As I also mentioned, doing so has a certain… stink… associated with it, especially if it is an inter-family pardoning. His kids haven’t been formally accused of anything, at least not yet, while Trump himself has been referred to in at least one case which led to some convictions of individuals which, of course, he pardoned or commuted their sentences.

There is some worry that someone on the far right, a Qanon fanatic or fanatics, may try something tomorrow with Joe Biden’s inauguration.

It certainly is possible but I suspect what we saw on January 6th, the riot and insurrection, is a one off affair that won’t repeat.

The people involved in that, many of them, were severely deluded and felt like what they were doing was somehow patriotic based on the various rabbit holes they pursued online and through the far right wing sites many I’m sure frequented.

However, now that they see the end result of their adventure and are both exposed personally for what they are and face justice, a harsh reality and not a conspiracy twinged pseudo-reality are hitting them directly in their collective faces.

Some are losing jobs while many others may lose their freedoms as they potentially face years in jail.

Truthfully, I feel for them.

It feels -at least to me- that their fears were taken advantage of over the years. They’ve been brainwashed with literally years of increasingly frenzied and alarmist statements about the “evils” of socialism and/or liberalism… to the point where I truly doubt they know what these political philosophies really mean, much less do they know why they hate them.

Do they hate the idea of a universal healthcare system? Do they not like taxing the very rich their fair share? Are they truly against public schools and social security/Medicare? I suspect many of them have benefitted from some -if not all- these services yet there they are, protesting the philosophy that created many of them in the first place.

My hope is that perhaps the more reachable of these people were given the equivalent of a cold shower and maybe, maybe they realized they’ve gone too far.

Today is the last day of Trump’s presidency.

All I wish for is a calm, quiet day.

Tomorrow, all I wish for is to hear/see him arriving in West Palm Beach and disappearing into Mar A Largo.

From that point on, I’ll be perfectly happy if I never hear about him ever again.