It’s been an exhausting hiatus for this blogger since the last post about the election of Vice-President Joe Biden.* Remember when Reality Star Donald Trump proclaimed his landslide election victory four years ago with 306 Electoral College votes even though he received 3 million fewer votes than Hilary Clinton? Fast Forward four years… November 3, 2020 (seems so long ago!), Vice-President Biden was awarded 306 Electoral College votes and received 7 million more votes than President Trump and … YES, Trump still declared that he won “in a landslide…” dismissing all those new votes that state Republican legislatures were unable to suppress… those Democratic (minority) … aka fraudulent votes… Racist implications? No way, just count the number of minorities that you see on the screen during the “Fox & Friends” morning show.**
Props to Kellyanne Conway, President Trump’s Senior Counselor (her husband is George Conway, founding member of the Lincoln Project and one of the most outspoken critics of her boss!) for edifying us about ephemeral universe of “alternate facts” that explain the world of Trumpland versus the factual lens that most of us rely on… According to Trump, he received more votes in 2020 than in 2016… so he must have won in another landslide… Just watch FOX ‘News’ (an oxymoron?) and its resurgent Far Right (contradictory term?) cable tv competitors, Newsmax and OANN.
Although Christopher Krebs, Director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was appointed by Trump, he declared that the US 2020 election was the most secure in US history. Of course, President Trump immediately fired him… and soon thereafter the Russian Hoax became the reality of the 2020 Russian Cyber Attack on key US bureaucracies (hmmm, who wants to sabotage the US Treasury?) and some major corporations… Undaunted, the ‘Opinion News’ networks shamelessly asserted that the US election was marred by unprecedented levels of electoral fraud and illegality while overlooking this serious breach of national security.
Never mind that “down ballot” Republican candidates received many more votes than expected (US House Republicans gained 11 seats rather than the projected loss of 15 seats). Never mind that over 50 lawsuits of voter fraud have been dismissed—many by Trump appointed judges. Add some QAnon conspiracies with the Cult of the Donald Personality and mix with hundreds of spineless/immoral Republican politicians (several plan to run for US President in 2024) and the hyper partisan echo chamber of Extremist Media… and, what a surprise that these toxic ingredients exploded into American Carnage on January 6th … The Day of Infamy… Who can forget the chant “Hang Mike Pence” that echoed throughout the Capital Rotunda on that day …
And, four years ago, little did we expect that President George W. Bush would be such a prophetic seer when he commented on President Trump’s inaugural address, “that was some crazy s**t”! And, that was before Trump declared that more people attended his inauguration than any previous US President. Remember, when Sean Spicer (first of many Trump Press Secretaries) began his tenure with White House Press Corps with “I will never lie to you.” Then, he immediately provided the media with distorted photos of the Trump and Obama inaugurations, asserting that the attendance was the largest ever for President Trump. And, that was just the beginning of Four Years of “American Carnage” that exhausted us with a daily bombardment of ‘crazy s**t.’
And, it will be months before we find out the rest of the ‘crazy s**t’ that has been swept under the rug by Trump political appointees… It is scary to think what the “fake news” journalists will find hidden in government office closets… as disoriented Trump appointees stumble into the real world of COVID, Constitutional rights, economic recession, foreign policy nightmares, and the ‘reality’ obscured by QAnon conspiracies. Not to mention how the beautiful mind of the genius President handed the Democrats with a majority of the US House of Representatives, US Senate, and of course the US Presidency. All since 2018. Wondering why Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is seriously considering Trump's Impeachment trial next month? The future of the Republican Party hangs in its balance...
Four Years ago, Donald Trump defined the onset of his Presidency with the metaphor of overcoming the AMERICAN CARNAGE of the Obama Administration. It ended with the unprecedented AMERICAN CARNAGE in the ‘People’s House’ of the US Capital on January 6th, 2021. As the Trump family confronts the reality show of its own impending personal Armageddon, stay tuned for future DCInsider reports on both alternate realities of contemporary American Politics…
*For full disclosure, I voted for Joe Biden in the US General Election but voted for another candidate in the Primary Election. Even if NY adhered to a “ranked” voting procedure during the state primary, Biden still would not have appeared on my ballot.
**For full disclosure, I have been a guest and was interviewed twice in the studio of FOX & Friends during the Obama Presidency. It was quite an experience to observe the gender and racial dynamics of the newsroom… off camera.
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