Day 318…
The cold wind is rattling our windows.
I don’t think that Michael and the cat are getting out of bed for a while. There is a clear white, almost florescent, cast to the light streaming in this morning. It looks as cold outside as I am sure it actually is.
It seems hard to believe that the inauguration was only three days ago. Everything seems to have become so normal so quickly.
At the beginning of the week, I watched TV on the edge of my sofa completely convinced that some white cracker was going to try and take out our newly elected leaders before they could get into office. I would wake up in the middle of the night and check my phone for news alerts. All through the inauguration, every single time the President or Vice President seemed to be out in the open I would grit my teeth until they got to some place that seemed safer.
I still can’t believe that the whole thing went off without a hitch. But it did.
Nothing awful happened at the Capitol in Washington D.C. and nothing awful happened at any of the State Capitol’s around the country.
There was one guy with a banner outside the State Capitol in Albany. A guy with a jacket that said “Impeach China Joe” was outside the Capitol in Harrisburg, PA. Small groups in Columbus, OH and Salem, OR were vastly outnumbered by law enforcement officers posted there. There was a small group in Sacramento, CA but they turned out to be a left-leaning group advocating for immigration reform.
Nothing happened except that our new President and Vice-President were sworn into office and got to work. For the last couple of nights, I have just slept through the night.
Flipping through news channels today, they are all covering separate stories. That’s different. These past weeks and months they have all concentrated on the same ones.
In the last two days, we have lost three remarkable cultural figures: choreographer Bob Avian who won two Tony Awards along with the great Michael Bennett for the Broadway musicals A Chorus Line and Ballroom, talk-show host Larry King and the baseball legend and social activist Hank Aaron.
Had they passed away last week, attention to them would not have been paid. This week, they are being given their respective dues. Of the three, only Larry King seems to have succumbed to COVID-19. While the cause hasn’t been officially announced, he was hospitalized with it last month in Los Angeles.
There has been a nasty revelation that has come to light in regard to our now ex-President. It seems that a few days before he incited the insurrection at the Capitol, the then-President was plotting with a Justice Department lawyer named Jeffrey Clark. What apparently was being discussed was that the ex-President was going to fire the then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and replace him with Clark who would then move to overturn the results of the Georgia election.
The difference that a week makes in terms of how we receive that information is remarkable. Last week, that revelation would have increased our pre-inauguration anxiety significantly.
What’s going to happen? Is he going to leave office? What else is he going to try before the end of his term?
Finding this out yesterday, however, did not appreciably increase any anxiety. All it did was increase the resentment that many of us are starting to feel for having had to live through this past Administration.
The guests that the various network anchors invited on to their shows to comment on this were also asked to comment on other topics over the course of their interviews. Last week, that wouldn’t have happened. This bombshell revelation is not sucking up all of the airtime.
Rather than fear, what I am feeling this week, is disgust. We have been dragged through it.
The Senate impeachment trial has been set to start on February 9. The Senate Minority Leader wanted more time before it started but seems to be fine with the two-week delay. For the Democrats, it also seems to be a workable decision. The delay allows more of President Biden’s Cabinet members time to get confirmed.
Whatever happens at the trial, it is going to be humiliating for the ex-President. At the moment, there does not appear to be enough support from Republicans to get the needed 2/3 majority to convict him. GOP support for conviction appears to be weakening. Two weeks, however, is a very long time. Anything can change.
This month is set to be the deadliest month of the pandemic that we have experienced so far. We will hit 25 million cases this weekend and we are already at well over 400 thousand people dead. New York state ran out of the vaccine yesterday although the Governor says more is coming.
Yesterday, the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that there is some evidence that the UK strain in addition to being easier to transmit, may also be deadlier. Danish scientists have discovered that the variant is already fairly widespread in Europe and it seems that it is probably here, too. Our testing levels are far too low to be able to truly tell.
As the first weekend of this new Presidency gets underway, there, blissfully, doesn’t seem to be all that much to say.
The answer to the question, “What is a weekend?” that the Dowager Countess asked those sitting around her at the dining table on the show Downton Abbey is now answerable. It is a time to take a break from the work of the week.
For many of us over these last few months, Saturdays and Sundays haven’t differed all that much from any other day of the week. This week, however, is different. We all worked this week.
Waiting for the transition of power to happen, watching the transition happening and waiting to see what would unfold afterwards was not easy. We have all earned a couple of days off.
We can take them knowing that the people we’ve elected in Washington appear to be working through the weekend regardless. What a relief.
Have a good weekend everybody.
We all felt anxious, relieved now and even more disgusted at the damage Trump inflicted. I can’t imagine how those emotions must be for you though. Take care and hopefully feel more at ease
Jx
I'm happy that you're feeling more settled but I, for one, still feel very anxious, and I just can't shake it. 😥