Category: Uncategorized

10

Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 10:45 AM Central Standard Time (11:45 AM Washington Time)

It was Taco Wednesday again at the Bank Street Bar and Grill, a venerable local institution that had been recently reinaugurated after the reopening of the establishment in question in the fall of 2020, in the wake of the Virus Crash and the lifting of the second round of restrictions on gatherings of more than ten people. A few of the regulars were wearing masks, but even most of these had them on top of their heads or around their necks, to facilitate drinking and eating.

A larger than usual assemblage of customers was there on Wednesday morning, maybe an hour early for their low-priced lunch, an increasingly popular option in the neighborhood, thanks to the chaotic economy. The bar, in a decent-sized town surrounded by a semi-rural area, 50 miles from a large city, drew an older crowd; even on a normal Wednesday, some of them could be expected to come out to get away from the bosoms of their families, or the lack thereof.

But the Inauguration definitely was a draw today, thought the longtime bartender, Janet. She hoped that the crowd remained in a festive mood. Politics had become a dangerous subject in bars. There had been fistfights last year before the election. A younger guy, a stranger to the bar, had gotten cold-cocked after some locals badgered him until he loudly admitted that he was not exactly a fan of the President. Even at the bar’s Halloween party, a female college student had been punched in the face by a local tough guy for saying something similar. She had dodged the main force of the idiot’s fist, and was mostly just shaken up, but her boyfriend, rushing up to defend her, had absorbed his next punch at full speed, and had ended up in the hospital. The Presidential fan was outraged to be taken away by the police, yelling that the cops should be standing up for the President, not the “communists.” The cops probably agreed, although they managed to refrain from saying so openly as they escorted the jerk out of the bar.

Janet didn’t give a shit about politics; she just wanted her shift to be as uneventful as possible and her tips to pay her rent and feed her kids.

So far, this morning, things seemed calm. She pulled another beer for Pete, a quiet older guy she liked. He was big but calm, and had a nice laugh. Sitting next to him was his friend Mike. He was nice enough, but he was a bit of a know-it-all. Some of the guys had dubbed him “Cliff,” for the tiresome character from “Cheers.” To his credit, he took the ribbing in a good spirit. But he could provoke some of the others with some of his opinions when everyone had had a little too much to drink. She would keep an eye on him.

The TV was tuned, as usual, to Wolf News, with the sound almost muted. Other screens were tuned to sports channels, also as usual. A phalanx of older men, almost all regulars, sat in front of the Wolf News screen, waiting for the inauguration to begin. At the extreme end of this group, and also at the extreme front end of the bar, sat Mike. He was the only one of the group who was not in an obviously jocular mood. Janet now recalled that Mike was definitely an outlier, politically speaking, for this bar. The vast majority of the older regulars were big supporters of the President. Janet hoped Mike would remain quiet. Somewhere in the back, Angelo, a noted, often-homeless, always truculent alcoholic, coughed. He’d better be wearing his mask, thought Janet.

“So how are you feeling about all this?” Pete asked Mike.

“It is what it is,” Mike said.

“Well, isn’t it always?”

“I guess,” Mike said. “But it seems that it is more it now than it has ever been.”

“You’ve got nothing more to say?”

“Everything I have ever said about this President has simply hardened attitudes all around. I don’t even begin to know how to change that.”

“And you don’t want people to support this President?”

“In the same way you didn’t want people to support his opponent.”

“I’m not going to get anything out of you?”

“We were winning until he came out and said he had the virus, which I am not entirely certain was not just a way to get out of debating our guy again, and a cheap method of getting a sympathy vote. And his whole campaign was ‘Make Liberals Cry Again.’ I’m not gonna cry,” Mike replied in a low voice. “I was in the majority, not you. You guys won, or maybe tied, according to the arcane rules set up to entice slave states and tiny farmer states into the Union in 1787. Tell me how those rules are more important than ‘One Person, One Vote.’ There’s no morality to the Electoral College. My vote should not count less than someone in Wyoming simply because my state has 20 times the population. I’m just as American as those…effers.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Pete said. “Effers?”

“I’m trying to cut down on the swearing,” Mike said.

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” Pete said.

“I’m sorry,” Mike said.

“Don’t be,” Pete said. “You haven’t said anything since the election. I could tell it was building up. Let it loose, man.”

“For thirty solid years,” Mike continued in a low voice, “America’s been getting pounded in the ass by Republicans, and they just keep electing the effers.”

“Preach!” Pete said, also in a low voice.

“They rammed through deregulation of Wall Street in 1999, and that brought us 2008, which cost us up to $120 trillion in long term wealth lost, according to one study. That’s five years of national income. I used to be an actuary, so maybe I don’t believe that number, but hell, cut that down by 90% and it’s still $36,000 for every man, woman and child in America. Republicans refused to keep tabs on al Qaeda, because only hippy Democrats monitor non-state actors, and kaboom, 9/11 happened. That cost us a few thousand more each in new anti-terror stuff. Okay, maybe that would have happened anyway if the Democrat had gotten 538 more votes in Florida, because the FBI and CIA hated each other more than they hated al Qaeda.”

“Now don’t start having second thoughts,” Pete muttered under his breath. “Bring it home!”

“But Republicans’ response to 9/11 was to attack the only country in the Middle East other than Israel that didn’t have al Qaeda terrorists. Three trillion dollars — that means $10,000 more from each and every American man, woman, and child. Then when the 2008 crash happened and no one was buying anything, which meant companies were firing people and even MORE people couldn’t buy stuff, which meant MORE companies closing and firing MORE people, in an endless downward spiral to hell, and we needed the government to spend like crazy to keep us from having Great Depression 2.0, they would not give Okomo a single vote for a stimulus package that was maybe one third the size it should have been. Why? He was a Democrat.”

“Ancient history. And his Democrat predecessor signed that Wall Street deregulation thing. And you say I never learn anything from Wolf News,” Pete said, smirking while taking a swig of his morning lager.

“Very true,” Mike said. “He signed that Republican bill. You ever notice, practically the only time Democrats have effed up in the past 30 years was when they caved to Republicans? ‘Hey, a Democrat President signed Wall Street deregulation. Hey, look, some Democrats voted for the Iraq War. Look, some Democrats voted for tax cuts for the rich in 2001. A bunch of Democrats voted for the PATRIOT Act.’ And they never learn. One Democrat didn’t even vote to impeach this pig-effer, when Republicans would have voted to remove a Democrat right after the Inauguration for that stuff! And, of course, Democrats supported all the stimulus stuff after the virus hit. That sure bought them a lot of love from Republicans, huh?”

“I am starting to think that swearing is less offensive than saying ‘effer’ every few sentences.”

“And all the predictions Republicans have made about the great things that would happen if their policies were enacted, and the terrible things that would happen if Democrats’ policies were enacted. Has a party in this country ever had a worse record on that stuff, since the end of the Cold War? ‘Our 2001 tax cuts will PAY FOR THEMSELVES! We will be greeted as LIBERATORS in Iraq! Wall Street can regulate ITSELF!”

Janet had come over toward them. Leaning over the bar, she asked, “Everything okay here?”

Pete smiled. “You’ve made everything great again, Janet.” Janet glided away toward the other end of the bar to fill an order.

“That was uncalled for,” Mike said. Pete was now grinning.

“So, you were saying?”

“Come on. You don’t care.”

“No. I give an ‘s,’ you ‘effer.’ You were saying?”

“I was reviewing ancient history. I was saying that Republicans have been on a 28-year losing streak in predicting the future. 1993 – the Democratic President’s budget raised taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Republicans refused to give him one single vote. Why? They said that raising taxes would destroy the economy. Destroy jobs. What happened? 22 million jobs created in eight years. Positive job growth in 96 out of 96 months. Biggest boom in the history of the universe. But did Republicans apologize? Say they got it wrong? Hell no. They just went on to the next prediction. ‘The Kosovo War is unwinnable and will destroy our military!’ Result: ZERO Americans killed in action. But a Republican senator went on national TV and told the Serbs, ‘I don’t want to say anything, but we’re runnin’ outta Tomahawk missiles!’ Imagine the Republican reaction if a Democrat had gone on national TV and told Saddam Hussein we were running out of missiles and if he just hung on he’d be okay. Jesus Christ on a dump truck.”

“Breathe,” Pete said, still grinning.

“‘The reconstruction of Iraq will cost $2 billion.’ That was one of my favorites. How many hundreds of billions was that Republican administration official off? ‘The stimulus will cause HYPERINFLATION and DEBASE THE DOLLAR!’ What happened? Lowest 8-year inflation in the history of the country. Maybe the history of anywhere. ‘Okomocare will cause MEDICAL HYPERINFLATION!’ What happened? Lowest medical inflation since the 1960s – even with 20 million more people insured! But were the Republicans ever called to account for that? Hell no. They went to work to destroy Okomocare, and I think they’ve finally succeeded now.”

“Easy, now. You’re gonna blow a head gasket.”

“Now this genius gets into office promising that he’s going to be hard on the billionaires, and he will be paying higher taxes himself, and what does he do? He cuts taxes on the wealthy, and once again, Republicans promise ‘The tax cuts will pay for themselves!’ Result? Trillion-dollar deficits, during an expansion. What a shocker! And now, finally, there is this pandemic, the biggest and costliest and most deadly eff-up in the history of this nation. Killed more Americans than any terrorist attack or even any war we’ve had since World War II, and who said it was going to be nothing? It was going to go away magically? He had it all under control?” He pointed to the screen. “This mothereffer. And then he uses it at the end to win the election. Or come within stealing distance, anyway.”

“Are you done?”

“Medium rare.”

“So, let’s say all that is true. How did you guys lose?” 

Mike pondered this for a moment.

“I don’t know. Why did you not vote Democrat?” 

Pete thought for a moment.

“I feel like Democrats just don’t give a damn about me,” he finally said. “I think they have contempt for me. They think I’m stupid and racist. Even worse, ‘privileged.’ And they’re all about some expert telling me what I should do. ‘Don’t shake hands. Wear a mask. I don’t care if you can’t pay your rent or your employees, you have to shut down your business.’ They could afford to sit at home and work on their computers. We couldn’t. But when we lowlifes who work for a living, who work with our hands, and not by typing, when we people who have to go out to work ask them how we can pay our bills without working, they got nothing. Just a bunch of experts and Hollywood types saying, ‘Stay home.’ How can I stay home when I’m being evicted?”

“That was a huge mistake on their part,” Mike said. “They became the Party of No. Even though it was actually them that got people the benefits that kept people afloat for the first couple of months.”

“And the President was more about how I could get back to work. Also, Democrats don’t respect entrepreneurs. It still sticks in my craw what Okomo said. ‘You didn’t build that.’ Well, I did build that. And he said we ‘cling to guns and religion.’ You bet I do. I’d rather cling to that stuff than what he was selling. Democrats are all about handouts to lazy people, and experts shaking their fingers at us.”

Pete considered this for a moment.

“I think you and most Republicans were spring-loaded to leap onto anything Okomo said that you thought showed that he thought you were dumb or hicks. I guess it would be pointless for me to tell you that he didn’t mean it that way. But Okomo had an amazing ability to inflame people with ill-considered offhand remarks,” Mike said.

“I don’t think they were all that ill-considered. Or offhand. I think he really believes that stuff.”

“Oh, I think he believed that entrepreneurs would be in tough shape if it wasn’t for the trillions of dollars of infrastructure – streets, police, courts, licensing, communications, power, heat, you name it – that government helps provide and regulate,” Mike said. “And I believe that he believes that in times of uncertainty, people need something to fall back on. Personally, I don’t see myself falling back on guns, because I don’t think they make me safer. And I am not the religious type. But I agree you have to cling to something in times of trial. Hell, the last year has proved that.”

Pete looked straight ahead, with no reaction.

“It’s starting,” Pete finally said. “What are you going to cling to?”

“Honestly,” Mike said, “probably this bar.”

From the back of the bar, an impressive coughing jag could be heard. 

“Angelo,” Janet yelled. “You better be wearing that mask.”

 

© 2020 Nolan O’Brian

11

Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 12:30 PM Eastern Standard Time

The President had just finished the opening part of his speech, calling for unity, and lauding his own recovery from the virus, and now had gone into the real theme of the address, which was about something like the opposite.

“Four years ago, I called on all Americans to put America First, America always first,” he said. “Most of you heeded that call. But some Americans – I shouldn’t really even call them Americans, they hate America, and they hate you, and they hate me – these people, they did not heed that call. They spent the entire last four years trying everything they could think of to destroy me and to destroy America.They stole my first term…”

Vaneida, Jenna, Janice and Joe, all maskless, and wearing red baseball hats and red sweatshirts with various of the President’s mottos on them, stood together inside the ticketed area of the National Mall, near a north entrance, as far to the rear as possible, with no one behind them. They had applauded the President dutifully, but less enthusiastically than their neighbors in the crowd, who as a result seemed to regard them with a bit of suspicion. Vaneida could tell that much of the suspicion was focused on her, and she did not have to guess for very long why.

“What’s she doin’ here?”

“I told you, lots of black people love the President. It’s only the Fake News that says they don’t.”

“I bet she got the virus. You think that guy is her husband?”

“Nah, he’s white.”

“A lot of them marry white people. My cousin’s kid did. Marry one of them. Didn’t work out, course.”

Vaneida tried to keep a straight face while listening to all this speculation under the blare of the President’s speech, which was projected from speakers and a huge screen close to them. When he said, “In this, my first real term, I intend to use all the power of my office and all our legal and law enforcement might to fight against these un-American socialist sore losers…” she turned to Joe and nodded.

Quickly, but not too quickly, so as not to alert the President’s fans all around them, Vaneida took her coat and back brace off. The other two women undid the tape on the banner. Vaneida raised her arms and Jenna and Janice passed the banner around her, unfurling it as they did so.

When they had gotten it completely off her, Joe grabbed the left end and Vaneida the right end. They walked away from each other behind the crowd and then held the banner up. It read “BLM – REIMPEACH THE PRESIDENT – RESTORE DEMOCRACY.” Jenna and Janice held it up in the middle, as Joe and Vaneida stretched it out to its full length.

Vaneida began to count down from 30.

After about 15 seconds, a large white man turned around and tried to read the banner, which was difficult from close range. He looked at the four of them, in their pro-President gear, and said, “What the f –”

This caused several others to turn around. The four protesters still held the banner high. Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen… Vaneida looked over toward the exit. No movement from security yet.

The large white man said, louder, “These are fucking protesters. Human scum!”

Others now turned around as the President continued his speech: “We have made America great again, and now we will make her even greater than she is now.”

The large white man was yelling, but the cheer that followed dampened the localized reaction to the banner, and allowed them to continue holding it up.

“They’re dissing the President, y’all! Come on, let’s get them out!”

Finally, as the cheer for the President faded, the crowd in the area of the banner began to focus its attention on what was going on behind them. A woman in front of Joe started pulling at his arm. He kept holding the banner up.

Someone at the far end was tugging on Vaneida, but she was able to resist their attempts to dislodge her. Eight, seven, six… She felt a tug from the banner itself and saw that someone was trying to grab it away from Jenna or Janice in the middle. Three, two, one… Still the banner was held high. Vaneida decided they could go a little longer. Zero, one, two, three… Now there was a generalized shaking of the banner, as numerous members of the crowd put hands on it, and a few tried to put hands on the protesters.

Suddenly she heard a cry from Jenna. The large white man seemed to have punched her. Now Janice let go of the banner and went to her aid. She pulled Jenna up. The banner began to bow inward from the ends. Vaneida tried to catch Joe’s eye. Eventually she succeeded, nodded, and yelled, “Let’s go.”

She and Joe simultaneously dropped their ends of the banner. They both went toward the middle, where Janice and Jenna were being pummeled by people around them. Joe knifed his way through the crowd, put his arms around the two women, and said, “Let’s go.” Vaneida was right behind them in a second. Joe guided them toward the exit, where two security men seemed to have finally noticed what was going on.

As they moved toward the exit, a number of the attendees took the chance to cough on them, spit on them, punch them, and kick them. Vaneida yelled “Dr. King Rules!” to the others. One of their attackers yelled back, “Not here he don’t!” and punched her in the stomach. Vaneida took the blow and pressed on.

As they were approaching the exit, security men of some vague sort (police? Secret Service? U.S. Marshals? Joe could not be certain) were approaching them. After a few seconds, they met up, with Joe in the lead. “She’s bleeding,” Joe said, pointing to Jenna. “Just get us out of here. Then you can arrest us.”

The first security man looked a bit confused, but nodded, and he and the other formed a phalanx in front of Joe and the other three, who had still been being pummeled and spat upon as they came forward. Vaneida seemed to notice a glint of recognition between one of the security officers and Joe. Almost immediately, as the officers flanked them and they all started moving toward the exit, the beating stopped, and they were whisked out of the storm with no further damage.

The security men brought them to a tree and had them sit down under it. The four of them pulled masks out of their pockets and put them on.

“That’s a pretty bad cut above your eye,” Joe said to Jenna. He turned to the security men. “You guys have any first aid?” One of the security men went off, presumably to get some.

Vaneida finally exhaled. “Good work,” she said to her three colleagues. “We did what we came to do. I hope the TV cameras picked it up. But at least we can say we were here, representing.”

She looked over at Joe. “You know those guys?”

“Huh?” Joe replied.

“The security guys. You know them or something?”

“No,” Joe said. “Maybe they sensed I was one of them, sort of.”

“Huh.”

Joe got up and went over to the remaining security man. They talked for a minute. Then he came back and sat down.

“I guess we’re going to be arrested. They’re staying with us until the D.C. cops get here. They may cuff us, they may not. He said probably we’re going to the D.C. lockup in Southeast. We’ll probably be booked and then released.”

The second security man came back with disinfectant and some tape and gauze. He walked up to Jenna, knelt down, and put latex gloves on.

“Let me put it on,” Janice said.

“You’re under arrest,” he said. “We have to do it. Liability and stuff.”

The man disinfected his hands, then wiped the cut off and applied a topical disinfectant ointment. Jenna cringed. Then he got out the gauze and tape and covered the wound.

“That should do till you get to the jail,” he said. Jenna leaned back on the tree.

Vaneida suddenly began to shiver uncontrollably as the initial adrenaline hit passed. She remembered that she had left her coat and sweatshirt and back brace in the ticketed area. And it was January.

“Take my coat,” said Joe aid.

“No,” she said.

“I’ve still got a sweatshirt. Take it.”

“I’ll take your coat if you turn that damn sweatshirt inside out,” she said. 

Joe grinned and complied. The four of them waited for the police.

 

© 2020 Nolan O’Brian

12

Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 1:30 PM Eastern Standard Time

The bearded young man had gotten separated from the 2021 BLM/Poor People’s March when police had hit them with tear gas and then charged, but that did not particularly bother him, since he had come here on his own.

He was coughing and choking and disoriented when a law enforcement officer in camouflage without insignia swung his billy club, connected with his skull, and left him lying on the Mall. He was crawling away when a surge of “Proud Doorknob Lickers” swept over him, some of them kicking him. Some carried Confederate battle flags; others wore swastikas or other Nazi symbols; still others wore Hawaiian shirts. He looked up and read the signs and tee shirts.

“SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT OR HE’LL COUGH ON YOU”

“BIG IGLOO – BOOGALOO CIVIL WAR II”

“PROUD BOYS – WE STOOD BY – NOW WE ARE NOT STANDING BACK”

“WE KILL ANTIFA”

As he was trying to get his bearings again, from the opposite direction, a line of black-clad rioters counterattacked, swinging sticks. They carried no signs or flags. The line passed over him as the “Doorknob-Lickers” retreated.

One of the black-masked rioters lifted his face mask and sneered at him. “What are you looking at, loser?”

Another grabbed the first rioter and yelled, “Cover your face, Sal, you dumbass! Don’t you know what ‘false flag’ means? Besides, we have orders to get over and burn some shops before 2.”

The first “Antifa,” a dark-complected white man, looked down at the bearded young man with hate. The bearded man looked up at him wonderingly. Sal aimed one of his black boots, and kicked the man’s head as if he were attempting a fifty-yard field goal.

Fifteen minutes later, as the bearded man came to, he saw an elderly African- American woman leaning over him.

“Are you all right, honey?” she said.

He tried to respond, but instead his eyes rolled back in his head, his body stiffened, and he began to shake uncontrollably.

The woman melted away, and when he had come to again, some District of Columbia police were hauling him to his feet.

“What’s your name?” one cop said.

He simply stared at him.

“Is he drunk?” the other cop said.

“I don’t know. Are you drunk?” the first cop said to him. 

He tried to speak, but instead got dizzy.

“I think we load him in the van with the others,” the first cop said. “I think he’s for St. E.’s.”

“Okay,” said the second cop. “Thanks for volunteering.”

“Fuck you,” the first cop said. “He’s drooling on me now.”

“This is your chance to protect and serve, mofo,” the second cop said. “Remember what it says on our cruisers, ‘We Are Here to Help.’”

“Okay, where’s that van?” the first officer said.

He began to half-drag, half-carry the woozy bearded man toward the nearest police van.

 

© 2020 Nolan O’Brian

13

Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

Kathleen “Red” Kiersay got off the elevator and entered the Washington Bureau of the New York Record. It had been a long day already, and it was really just getting started, with several Inaugural Balls for her to cover. But it was time to file her story on the Inauguration, the speech, the crowd, and the protests. So many people, she thought to herself, considered coming into the office a burden. For her, as for most reporters, she thought, the office was a respite from the relentless samsara of the outside world. She thought of her office as a haven in a raging sea. Especially after several months of not being able to come in because of the work-from-home rule. She remembered the old saying, “No one ever said on their deathbed that they wished they had spent more time at the office.” After the last year, she thought, to hell with that.

As she entered her haven, she hung her coat on a hanger behind the door, dumped her computer bag on the desk, and squirted sanitizer on her hands. It was time to give the tri-state area, the rest of “elite” America, and the developed world the official account of what exactly had happened outside the Capitol building.

Headlines were above her pay grade, so she toyed with various ledes. “Lede” was how it was spelled at the Record, and so the rest of the elite press spelled it that way, too. Even some people at Wolf News used that spelling, those who maintained pretensions to “real journalism.” Most of the few gainfully employed journalists that were left in “flyover country,” where she originally came from, spelled it “lead,” as in “bury the lead.” She mused inwardly that if she ever amassed sufficient power within the Record, she might one day officially change it back to the “real American” spelling. But that day was far in the future, and for now, she knew, she had better stick to time-sanctified idiosyncrasies.

So… the “lede.”

Protests marred the second Inaugural of the President… no, that was too inflammatory.

A somewhat weather- and virus-diminished crowd greeted the President as he took the oath of office for his second term… no, that seemed somehow weak.

She sat back, took a breath, and let fly. Third time’s the charm.

Gray skies and clouds marked the second swearing-in of the President today, perhaps befitting the nation’s most controversial and divisive leader ever. The fact that the ceremony took place at all was protested by those who pointed out that the President has not even been confirmed as the winner of the presidency after an almost unprecedented apparent 269-269 Electoral College tie and other disputes over electors. Disputed results in some midwestern and southern Congressional races resulted in the House of Representatives, which is constitutionally stipulated to resolve any tie, not being able to arrange a vote by state, as prescribed by the Constitution. Swing states sent rival sets of electors to the capital, throwing the certification of the result into further chaos. Unlike in 2000, when the Democrat ceded the election to the Republican after a month of legal wrangling and an ongoing recount in the State of Florida, neither side was willing to concede in 2020. But very much as in 2000, a conservative-majority Supreme Court stepped in and rendered a one-off decision, not meant to apply to any future case, and the result was a Republican candidate being declared the winner. Democratic leaders have refused to recognize the re-election of the President, but without clear results in Congressional races to preempt the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Inauguration went forward. The Democratic candidate, intent on taking the oath himself, was turned away by Capitol security for refusing to take his seat as a guest; no previous presidents attended the event.

Democrats point out that this time their candidate won the popular vote by an even larger margin than in 2016, despite a late surge in sympathy votes for the ailing President. Republicans correctly reply that the popular vote has no relevance in the American presidential election system, and perhaps less correctly add that they are certain that vote fraud is responsible for the entirety of the popular margin.

“PERHAPS less correctly?” she could hear her usual liberal critics screeching. Some days she could write her own Tooter mentions in advance. Get a life, she thought.

Democrats, in turn, pointed to accelerated, what they have called “desperate and frantic,” efforts in 2020 on the part of Republicans to suppress the vote in several key battleground states and all across the South and Midwest, which they said included “obviously targeted phony health scares,” taking advantage of resurgent virus outbreaks, the existence of which the administration hotly denies. They also pointed out that early voting and voting by mail had been fought tooth and nail by Republicans, some of whom, even including the President, openly admitted that higher turnout would hurt Republicans’ chances. Republicans respond by calling Democrats “sore losers” and hailing the President’s recovery from the virus. Russian and/or other interference in the election may have been at least as effective as in 2016, but there is no official way to compare the two, because even after Republicans in Congress failed to block the appropriation of funds to study the issue, the administration simply did not spend the money that had been allocated to combat the problem. The Carter Center denounced the election as “irretrievably discredited,” “rife with foreign tampering and completely uncontrolled dark money, possibly from other countries,” and “grossly undemocratic and worthy of third world dictatorships,” and even some moderate Democrats who previously called such rhetoric “extreme” have been outraged by what they say were clear Republican attempts to use the threat of the virus to “steal” elections.

Democrats also pointed to what they called “abuse of power” on the part of the Attorney General, who ordered the Director of the FBI to hold regular press conferences about ongoing investigations into the Democratic presidential nominee and his son all through the campaign, and also to give the press regular updates on investigations into the 2017-2019 Special Counsel probe into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election, and into potential involvement on the part of the President’s 2016 campaign in that interference. The Attorney General had previously announced that the United States government was dropping all charges against the Russians who had been indicted by the Special Counsel’s office. The only people who are left unpardoned and/or in jail as a result of the Special Counsel’s probe are those who cooperated with the Office of Special Counsel against the President’s wishes. All others have been pardoned, had their sentences commuted, or had any pending charges dropped.

The Democratic National Committee, in a press release this morning, said: “It is a national shame and scandal that this Inauguration has been allowed to proceed before the outcome of this manifestly flawed and corrupted election has even been determined. We refuse to acknowledge this empty ritual, nor do we concede this race. Because of the 2010 Citizens United decision which opened the floodgates for outside dark money; further similar court decisions that blinded our authorities from ensuring that foreign money was not perverting our sacred elections; open disruption of polling places in Democratic-majority districts; and the crudely partisan court decisions that forced Democrats and minorities to choose between endangering our health by exercising our sacred right to vote, or simply allowing Republicans to steal our elections, we may only find out in the distant future whether our people were allowed to choose their leaders freely in 2020 – or even 2016!, or whether they have had them chosen for them by malevolent outside forces, aided and abetted by crooked Republican politicians and partisan Republican judges who have put their own short-term political interests above our beloved nation.”

Democrats and others have been further enraged by the President’s further pre-emptive pardons, just after the election but before the Supreme Court had ruled, of virtually his entire administration, including every campaign staff member that had been languishing in prison (with the exception of anyone who had meaningfully cooperated with prosecutors), and most provocatively, practically his entire family. In addition, there have been several shootings of migrants trying to cross the Mexican-United States border; the President pardoned the officers involved in these cases as well, saying that they were simply trying to protect Americans from infection by “diseased outsiders.”

On top of all of these contentious issues, of course, hovered the radical dislocation of the virus outbreak and the profound economic shock it caused, and the security restrictions put in place for the event for the pandemic. This was the explosive context for the President’s second Inauguration.

The President’s speech began with a brief appeal for national unity, and thanks to his supporters for their sympathy during his and his wife’s recent illnesses, but quickly transitioned into heated rhetoric that belied that opening. He accused the Democratic opposition of “stealing” his first term, “using tactics better known in Nazi Germany to undermine and cancel a democratic election,” and of refusing to abide by “the lawful rulings of the courts.” He then turned to the role of the press. “Never have so many fake journalists been so closely aligned with one political party and its lawless abuse of the impeachment power,” he stated, to jeers from his supporters. “These hoaxes will no longer be tolerated in this, my first real term. They even claimed my illness was fake. I intend to use all the power of my office and all our legal and law enforcement might to fight against these un-American socialist sore losers and their anti-gun, anti-family, anti-fetus, anti-God, anti-American, pro-virus agenda. We have made America great again [long pause for cheers from supporters], and now we will make her even greater than she is now.”

There were reports of mass arrests of protesters by masked federal officers without insignia, outside of the ticketed security area, within which the President’s supporters were mainly contained. Weapons were not allowed within this enclosed area, public health officials took temperatures of those entering, and “MK” medallions were required for entry, but masks were notably absent within, and thousands more of the President’s unmasked supporters were armed and watching from just outside the ticketed area. Many of the armed supporters of the President sported “Boogaloo”-themed Hawaiian shirts, an emblem of a movement said to be devoted to starting a second Civil War.

“QAnon” supporters were also armed and in evidence; a number of the “Boogaloo” and “QAnon” supporters were accused by protesters against the President of aiming their weapons at them and threatening them, actions protesters said were ignored by Inaugural security staff, who they claimed seemed focused only on arresting, beating, or gassing unarmed peaceful protesters against the President.

A few protesters who managed to obtain tickets and briefly unfurled a banner saying “Re–Impeach the President” were removed from the secure area, after several of them seemed to have been beaten by some of the President’s fans. The President seemed to take cognizance of this during his speech, when he departed from the text of his speech that had been distributed to the press to say, “That’s the way, hit them! We must have zero tolerance for disorder and anti-American activity. If you cannot deal with our fair and square victory, you should move to Canada or Mexico. We can finally build that wall, and this time, no more fooling around, we WILL lock them up, believe me. And this will just be the beginning of pardons for real Americans who have fallen afoul of crooked rigged justice just for trying to keep this country great again.” This statement was followed by a long series of chants of “Shoot Them Down,” apparently a reference to the recent shootings of migrants at the border.

A “2021 Poor People’s March” led by Black Lives Matter was also in attendance outside the ticketed area, though they made up a far smaller component of the crowd. They consisted mostly of local demonstrators protesting police killings of African-Americans, federal law enforcement “invasions” of Democratic cities, as well as what they say was unfair distribution of food relief to the suddenly unemployed masses across America last year. One popular sign among this crowd was “STOP THE PRESIDENT’S WAR ON THE BLUE STATES.” Hopes for a larger “Poor People’s” demonstration seem to have been dashed by the inability of out-of-area protesters to pay for transportation, as well as fears of reportedly resurgent virus outbreaks. Still, police said the protest was vigorous enough to require a brief “crowd control response,” with tear gas and baton charges.

Though the vast majority of other protesters were peaceful, several groups of black-clad self-described “Antifa” protesters clashed with some of the more extreme supporters of the President, but seemed more intent on breaking shop windows, looting, and setting fires. Some injuries and at least two deaths were reported. “These people do not represent us,” a leader of the Women’s March said. “We don’t know who they are and we do not condone their actions.” The President’s campaign manager, in a statement released after the Inauguration speech, wrote: “This violence is the direct result of the hatred of all Democrats for this great President. They have tried to take him down from even before his first term, they welcomed and seem to have exacerbated the economic devastation of the overblown, exaggerated virus upon our people and economy, and now that they have failed so utterly, they resort to disorder and violence, which will not go unpunished. The ties between Democratic leadership and this hateful deadly violence cannot be hidden forever. They have gone low, and we will go high, taking America to greater and greater heights. Keep America Great Again!”

Tonight, the President will attend several Inaugural balls, including one that critics accuse of being organized by an extremist white supremacist group of self-described “Doorknob Lickers” who have been accused of deliberately infecting themselves and others with the virus in order to create a cadre of “invincible warriors” for the President. The President has dismissed such criticisms, saying, “I’m not going to apologize for my supporters to these people who have been trying to throw me out of office for more than four years. They are diseased crooks and socialists. I will be celebrating with the real Americans.” Observers will be watching to see whether attendees extend the fascist salute to the President and shout “Hail the President, Hail Victory,” as they did in a celebration after the 2016 election, and as increasing numbers have done at the President’s many campaign rallies starting in mid-2020.

The inauguration, despite its imperfections and the protests, marks yet another victory of the President over his Democratic opposition. From the inconclusive Russia investigation, through his exoneration by the Senate in what many see as a pointless impeachment and trial, through his much-criticized but not universally unpopular handling of the virus and the Black Lives Matter protests, to his apparent victory in the election and the stamp of approval handed to him by the Supreme Court (four members of which he will have picked, since the relatively sudden deaths of two Democrat-appointed justices in the past few months), the President’s grip over the nation has been relentlessly consolidated, and according to some polls, for the first time since he was elected in 2016, a majority of this disease- and strife-ridden nation seems, if only out of exhaustion, to have accepted this state of affairs, and to be in a mood to move on.

Kathleen reread the copy, imagined, with some satisfaction, the reactions of the haters on both sides, and hit “Send.”

 

© 2020 Nolan O’Brian

14

Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

The door of the police van opened and the District of Columbia Police ushered their captives, now all masked, in. Janice and Jenna climbed up, serious and silent, and sat down along one wall of the van. Jenna was bleeding from the cut above her eye; she held a handkerchief to the wound, which had bled through the bandage. Another woman, a bit older and more substantial, came in and sat between them; this seemed to take the first two women aback. Next, Vaneida entered, unspeaking; she situated herself in the middle of the opposite wall. Finally, Joe climbed in, walked past the others, and sat in a far corner, beyond Vaneida.

A police officer clothed in head-to-toe anti-viral protective gear was half-carrying the last detainee, who appeared wobbly and semi-conscious. After fruitless attempts to load him into the van, he called out to the other officer.

“This one’s going to have to go in front. He’s not right. I think he’s gotta go to St. E.’s.”

“Oh, come on, man, he’s drooling all over,” another voice complained.

“He can’t sit up by himself. Can’t put him in with the others. Come on and help me with him.”

The other officer came around and grabbed the man by his other arm.

“Now drool over toward him,” he said to the man. The man regarded him at an angle through glassy eyes, then suddenly leaned forward and vomited.

“Oh, Jesus,” the second policeman said.

The man seemed to be trying to apologize.

“Well, at least he didn’t hit either of us,” he first cop said. “Nice job, guy.” The man nodded, then tried to regain an upright posture.

“Now are you gonna be all right? You’re done throwin’ up, right?” the second cop said.

The man gave what some might have interpreted as a nod. The cops carried him toward the front of the van. The people inside could hear the wheedling tones of the police trying to coax him into a seat, then buckling noises as he was fastened in.

The first cop came back and got into the van. He shut the back door behind him.

“When do we get released?” Jenna asked the policeman. He did not answer. Instead he began strapping her into her seat.

“What are you doing?” Jenna said, annoyed.

“Department policy,” the policeman answered. “No Freddie Grays in our vans.”

“So, when do we get released?” Jenna asked again.

“We have to get processed first,” the woman next to her, more substantial and confident, responded. “I’ve been arrested before,” she added, almost proudly.

Janice stifled a snort next to her.

“What’s that about?” the new woman asked, in an offended tone.

“Nothing.”

“No,” the new woman persisted. “What’s the problem?”

“Just, I guess it really worked,” Janice replied sarcastically. “Thank god you got arrested so he didn’t get re-elected.”

The unknown woman muttered something under her breath. 

“What did you call me?” Janice said.

“Ladies,” the policeman said, continuing his buckling.

A sullen silence reigned for a minute or so as he finished strapping in the other prisoners. Then he went to the rear door, reopened it, exited, and slammed it shut. In a moment they heard the front passenger door open and shut, and the van began moving.

The new woman said, in a low voice, to no one in particular, “We’re all on the same side, anyway. We shouldn’t be arguing.”

At this Joe turned his head away toward the front of the van and smiled. 

“What’s so funny?” the new woman said.

Joe shook his head.

“We aren’t all on the same side?”

“Sure,” he said, still smiling.

“Maybe you were one of those people looting,” the new woman said.

“He was with us,” Janice said. “Besides, he’s not wearing black.”

“Not anymore, anyway,” the new woman said, staring at Joe. He stared back, still smiling, if a bit more coldly. A moment passed.

“So you don’t think we’re all on the same side?” the new woman asked Joe, finally.

“If we were, would we even have to be here?” he asked.

“Millions of people were denied the right to vote,” the new woman said.

“That’s true,” Joe said. “But how was that even possible? It’s because the other side is completely united and determined to win at any cost. They did all the work to get that power to deny people the vote. Meanwhile, I bet if I asked all of you to write down what issue brought you out here today, you might each write down something different. Abortion rights, voting rights, health care, police shootings of black people, the war, climate change… Women’s March, Black Lives Matter March, Poor People’s March, Resistance March… to win you have to pick a lane. The one that will attract enough voters to win elections.”

“But we did win the election,” Janice said. “We got millions more votes than him. Even with his fake virus thing.”

“But still you lost, because there was no commitment to win, only to pursue a whole bunch of different causes, none of which could inspire a mass movement. A fractious coalition will never defeat a unified tribe, not without some compromises between its elements. None of you will compromise.”

“But we didn’t lose! Even in the Electoral College it was a tie!” Jenna replied heatedly, still holding the handkerchief to her face. “Until the courts figure out who won that district in Nebraska, we haven’t lost.”

Joe was grinning broadly now. “You really think they are going to put on a show like this, at the Capitol, all the pomp and circumstance, all the military, with the Supreme Court all there, having allowed this to go forward, and then let it all get reversed and just go home? I don’t think so. Too many of you guys keep thinking you haven’t already lost.”

“‘You.’ I suddenly notice you keep saying ‘you,’” Vaneida suddenly said, sharply. “‘You’ guys keep thinking, ‘you’ aren’t united, ‘you’ all stand for something different. I’m beginning to wonder whether you really are on our side.”

Joe finally lost his smile. He turned to Vaneida and said, “Listen, you are the leader here, you’re the professor. But to me, someone new to this cause, this is the whole problem right here. How long have we been in this van? Four minutes? Five? And we’re already seeing enemies everywhere. It’s so easy for the other side. We’re always so ready to jump on each other. We say they are stupid. Maybe they are. But they keep winning. If we’re so smart, what are we doing here under arrest? Why are they running the government? Why do they win even when they lose, even when it’s a tie?”

“Okay, why? You tell us.”

“Okay. Here’s my opinion, for whatever it’s worth. You’re a black woman.”

Vaneida’s eyes widened. Where is this coming from? she thought to herself.

“Obviously a large part of what brought you into the movement was racism, which has come back in a big way since the departure of the first black president, and with the police killings of African-Americans.”

“Actually, it came back as soon as the first black president got elected. And police killings of black folk have been going on for the last century-plus.”

Joe seemed momentarily thrown off by this.

“Of course, you’re right. Racism has always been there. But it has gotten worse. The KKK is growing by leaps and bounds. Cell phone cameras and body cams are showing us black people being mistreated by white cops where they would have gone undetected in the past.”

“Now you sound positively woke,” Vaneida said.

“So how did you feel when all the black candidates fell by the wayside in the last Democratic primary? Didn’t you feel at least a little betrayed by your fellow Democrats?”

“I felt more betrayed by the incompetence of the black candidates.”

“How about the Hispanic candidates? You,” he said, pointing to the new woman across the van. “You’re Hispanic, right?”

The woman shrugged in a way that could be perceived as an assent.

“How about the total lack of support shown for Hispanic candidates? Didn’t that get under your skin?”

“I’m kind of with her,” the new woman said. “I wish the Hispanic candidates had been better at winning votes.”

“Okay,” Joe said. “But here you are, the biggest Democratic voting bloc, now, and you’re more or less ignored. You never have had a candidate that looks like you, not even in the worst time for Hispanics maybe ever. Forget children separated from parents – they’re shooting people at the border now, with total impunity. …Then there are women.”

“Careful, Joe, you’re outnumbered,” Vaneida said, smiling sardonically.

“You had one female candidate in the entire history of the country, and she won the popular vote by 3 million votes, yet she’s seen as nothing but a cautionary tale. There were plenty of women candidates this time around, but the big question was, ‘How can we run another woman when we know what happened last time?’”

Silence from the others.

“Then there are the gays. You had a gay guy running, for the first time. But he didn’t win either.”

“Are we approaching a point somewhere here?” asked Vaneida, turning back toward him with a flat expression.

“My point is this. The Democrats are divided into subgroups. Each of them is aggrieved – rightly so. Women got one shot at the presidency, and that’s that. Hispanics have never even had a shot at all. Black people got eight years in the White House; now, four years later, it’s like after Reconstruction – they’re worse off in many ways than they were before they got one of their own elected. Gays finally had their first serious candidate this time, but they still have not been rewarded with real power in proportion to their numbers and contributions.”

“POINT,” Vaneida said.

“The point,” Joe said, “is that each of these groups has a completely legitimate argument that they and they alone should be at the top of the ticket. Hell, you each almost have a moral obligation to tell all the other groups, ‘Hey, we’ve been there for you, now you had better be there for us, or we are not coming out to vote.’ Every one of you is completely justified in being intransigent and maximalist in your demands.”

“‘You’ again,” Vaneida said. “You’ve got all of us pegged. Well, what are you doing in this van? What pigeonhole do you fit? You ain’t Hispanic, you ain’t black, you ain’t a woman. And I don’t think you’re gay or trans.”

“Nope,” he replied. “Straight white male. I just remember where my people came from.”

“Down south?”

“Nope,” he said. “They came from the original shithole country – Europe.”

“Europe’s not a country,” Jenna said.

“Well, the European-Americans wouldn’t have come here if all of their countries weren’t shitholes. They went straight to New York and Boston and Chicago with their diseases and poverty and illiteracy and violence and drunkenness, and they were refused work and lodging and had their religious buildings burned until the Democratic Party found a use for us. It took us a while to be accepted as white. Now most of my people, from the earlier waves of Northern European immigration, have forgotten that history, and consider themselves the whitest, most American people out there.”

“So why have you come to all those meetings?”

“Because I am a patriotic American who sees what this administration is doing to our nation. It is allowing the government to fall apart and misusing the military to satisfy the whims of one ignorant self-absorbed man. Most of all, they have gotten rid of the rule of law. It’s sending unmarked secret police to scoop citizens off the streets without warrants. And look at that election. Total chaos, totally premeditated. Look at those pardons last month. Everyone who kept his or her mouth shut got pardoned, and so did his whole family. This is so much more basic than any of the factional grievances any of you” – he stopped to correct himself – “any of us – have. Forget democracy. Accountability for criminal action and abuse of office is way more fundamental than even the Constitution. Any republic, democratic or not, has to have rules. When they apply only to the opposition, and never apply to the party in power, then you no longer have a republic. It’s a one-party state, like the USSR.”

“So, are you even a Democrat?”

“What does that even mean anymore? Do I have to check every box? Pro-abortion, but pro-child, pro-trans, but pro-non-trans-women, pro-black but also pro-Hispanic, pro-labor but anti-white-working-class? It starts to be impossible. Is the Democratic Party even going to exist in five years? Does it even exist now? If your party can’t beat the worst president ever, the Plague President, is that really a party anymore? They couldn’t even get their members to vote for impeachment until the guy almost dared them to do it. I’m pro-competence, anti-stupid, pro-common sense, pro-the greatest good for the greatest number, anti-tyranny, anti-corruption, pro-democracy as the worst possible system with the exception of every one that’s ever been tried.”

“Churchill,” said Vaneida.

“Right.”

“A real racist.”

“As were most in his day. But he came around, on the Irish, on India, on most things. He kept evolving. As I am trying to.”

“You were in the Middle East.”

Joe paused. “You know I was,” he said, after a long pause. After another pause, just as Vaneida seemed about to speak, he said quickly, “And you know I don’t like to talk about that.”

“But it’s part of the reason you are here?”

Joe reflected. “Of course,” he said, finally.

“Thanks for your service,” the new woman said from across the van.

“You’re welcome,” Joe said. “But I hope you’ll excuse me if I say I hate that phrase.”

The new woman seemed taken aback again. Vaneida and the other two women were staring at Joe, as if they did not know him. Joe felt their eyes could see through him. He felt a need to explain everything to Vaneida. But first he would have to explain everything to himself.

The van turned suddenly and came to a halt. The back door opened.

“Okay, we’re here,” the police officer announced. “D.C. Lockup.” He climbed in and quickly undid the prisoners’ seatbelts. “Everybody off.”

The prisoners arose, some looking anxious, some alert, some bored, in preparation for whatever was to come next.

 

© 2020 Nolan O’Brian

© 2020 Nolan O’Brian

© 2020 Nolan O’Brian

© 2020 Nolan O’Brian