By contributing editor-at-large Tess Lawrence
Cometh the hour, cometh the People. At last America can breathe easier. Much of the world too, Australia included.
President Donald Trump’s strangulating hands have been prised from the reddened neck of the United States.
Reasonable force may be required to ultimately evict President Agent Orange (courtesy Rod Quantock) from the White House on behalf of the landowners, the People.
TRUMP DEFECATED ON AMERICAN PEOPLE — SELF EVIDENT TRUTHS
If so, the saga must be played out in public, the same arena in which Donald Trump chose to shamelessly defecate on America and its people, democracy, justice, equality, freedom, international agreements and covenants, the American Constitution, and all self-evident truths.
What network/news source did you most rely on to watch this latest episode of Trump’s Daze of our Lives and the Presidential election? The Twitterati? Breitbart News? Kanye West, from the Birthday Party, who got a measly 60,000 votes? Steve Bannon’s War Room podcasts?
TRUMP COLONISED WHITE HOUSE: ROGUE STATE WITHIN USA
The role played by media – social, anti-social, dark and deeper webs, mainstream and independent – is critical to all forensic analyses of the rise and fall of the enablers and ushers in the White House and its non-incumbent elect. And of how they came to be there in the first place; how the Cult of Trump colonized the White House and made it a rogue state within the United States proper.
Cable News Network, founded by the mercurial Ted Turner in 1980, was blooded in the rigours of frontline journalism during the "First" Gulf War, where it claimed and built on its reputation for courageous quality journalism and journalists toiling on comparative volunteer budgets.
CNN BULWARK TO MURDOCH AND TRUMP PROPAGANDA
These days CNN is a powerful bulwark against Murdoch’s Trump propagandist peddling — the self-debased Fox News.
Now that Murdoch’s poxy proxy Prez is on the way out, Fox is trying to pull back on being Trump’s personal TV channel. Too bad. Too late.
For this news junkie and millions of people around the world, who hardly slept for days awaiting the outcome, CNN was the first major U.S. network to declare Joe Biden, the man Trump derided a “loser”, as the President-elect.
I’m sure I heard the planet’s collective gasp of relief. Trump’s loser is America’s win. Praise be to the lord of the fries. We know Trump faces Macca’s several times a day. He is what he eats. His politics reflect that.
Keeping up with the Trumpians has been an enthralling and galling reality TV show. The tragedy for the world is that, unlike most flash trash pulp non-fiction, Trump was not acting. He was for real. Unreal.
TRUMP’S "LOSER" CALL ON BIDEN A BADGE OF HONOUR
Anyone labelled a loser by Donald Trump should consider it a badge of honour. They are in exalted company after all. He considers soldiers who die in battle as “losers” and “suckers”.
It was fitting then, that Biden, this senior son of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, found sweet victory in his birthplace, delivering him those 20 electoral college votes — a handsome ransom that exceeded the mandatory 270 by three. There are more to come.
At the time of writing, the score was 290 to Biden. Trump’s constipated score remains at 232, and we are waiting for the last remaining states – Georgia, North Carolina and Alaska – to be called.
BIDEN WILL CELEBRATE 78th BIRTHDAY SHARING AMERICAN PIE
In less than a fortnight, Biden will celebrate his 78th birthday, pledging to share his preferred celebratory cake, the American Pie. It is a legacy recipe Trump scorned in favour of junked democracy. Americans now have another song to sing, other than the battle hymn of a dying republic. Hallelujah.
What could be a better birthday present from the majority of Biden’s fellow Americans than entrusting to him the nation’s highest office — an office sullied, defiled and abused by Trump and his ghastly nepotistic Klan.
EXCAVATIONS TO RECOVER THE HOLY GRAIL: SOUL OF AMERICA
Already, excavations are underway to recover what is left of the elusive Holy Grail — the soul of America. It was set to be a museum exhibit, remnants of which may be found in sepia-tinged torn photographs of another era, like a lonely doomed unfound message in a hand-blown glass bottle floating upon the plastic infested seas of nostalgia and false memory alike.
The Trumpettes, particularly his adult children, are forged in Trump’s own image and unlikeable likeness, who CNN’s Jake Tapper wonderfully refers to as Trump’s “spawn.”
TRUMP’S “SPAWN” OUTRAGED THAT BIG DADDY’S BEEN TURFED
The rotten fruit of his loins are coughing up blood, such is their histrionic outrage and aggrieved sense of entitlement at the realisation that Big Daddy, the Great White Hope of the Far Right’s blatant proud racists and xenophobes, is the biggest loser of all and has been evicted from office by the very democracy he sought to bend to his will.
Don’t send in the clones.
They will never ask Big Daddy what he did in the war on coronavirus, on poverty, on injustice, on inequity, on racism, inequality, sexism, systemic institutional injustice and corruption, bigotry, hatred, inciting violence et al, because they know the answer — nothing!
Mind you, the above are all questions that we, in Australia, might well put to our own political maladministrators.
WHITE HOUSE RECLAIMED BY THE PEOPLE — CHANGE THE LOCKS!
Ain’t it good to see that celebrations about Biden’s win began immediately. And continue! There is dancing in the streets. So far, Trump has refrained from having the police or military tear gas them.
The people have reclaimed the keys to the White House and must now change the locks to ensure such an aberration of power is never repeated.
Has it not lifted your hearts to see the joy displayed by the mask-wearing crowds at Black Lives Matter Plaza, around America, the World? Biden’s win is an antidote to the sullen, bleak, self-centred, vindictive, dark, malevolent joyless animus that permeated and contaminated both sides of the White House walls.
AMERICA FIGHTING TWO DEADLY VIRUSES — COVID 19 AND TRUMP 45
America has had to contend with two deadly virus strains — Covid 19 and Trump 45. It will take decades for the U.S. and the World to recover from the retrograde impact of Trump’s personal weaponising of the presidency, and its once proud and effective Administration and talent pool.
Without question, the police murder of George Floyd, and other Black men and women has – like the national and international protest juggernaut it provoked – had a profound impact on the American psyche and voter turnout of this election.
The World can never unsee the killing of George Floyd. It was arguably a state-sanctioned execution, given the systemic police violence towards African Americans and people of colour.
We Australians know what our American brothers and sisters are talking about. It is why I/we marched. We marched for George Floyd, and we marched for the deaths in police custody of our Indigenous family and to acknowledge our own shameful past, that is still replicated today in so many ways.
LAWRENCE ON AIR FORCE ONE WITH FIRST LADY NANCY REAGAN
Whilst travelling on Air Force One with First Lady Nancy Reagan, who was spearheading the "Just Say No" to drugs campaign, we visited cities in the Deep South.
Also on board were other national and international media representatives.
Invariably, there were civil rights protests awaiting us – African Americans and White supporters alike – taking the opportunity to send a message against racial discrimination to President Ronald Reagan via his wife and the press corps.
I found it disturbing when some of my colleagues reported only on the First Lady’s anti-drug speeches at schools, or when we were taking tea with a governor at a local historical mansion or suchlike, and yet made little or no reference to the civil rights protests in their reports.
When I queried this omission, the response was “but they [the protestors] always do this”. I’ll leave that with you.
The Black Lives Matter movement – and like-minded groups and campaigners – are a salutary and inspiring lesson for civilian activists. So is the amazing Women’s March movement that galvanised protestors from around America and the world to protest the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony.
PRO JOE ROLE OF BLM, NATIVE AMERICANS AND WOMEN’S MARCH
To this day, this international protest known as The Women’s March on Washington holds the record as the largest march or single-day protest in American history.
Please read this comprehensive Wikipedia entry about TWM to fully grasp its powerful influence, that unquestionably favoured Biden over Trump, and which assiduously campaigns in favour of justice and equality for all.
And whilst there was little in international media about the influence of Native Americans on the outcome of the presidential election, I can report that major institutions endorsed Joe Biden over Donald Trump.
TRUMP KNOWLEDGE OF NATIVE AMERICANS — TONTO, POCAHONTAS
Biden reached out to Native Americans.
I get the feeling that Trump’s knowledge of these fellow Americans extends to little more than The Lone Ranger and his sidekick Tonto, and reflected in his goading of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as "Pocahontas", along with his snide remarks about the heartbreaking massacre at Wounded Knee.
BIDEN’S JOURNEY RINGBARKED WITH PERSONAL TRAGEDY
If we turn back the pages of Joe Biden’s long tour of duty to his nation, we see that his journey is emotionally ringbarked with personal tragedy. But even before this, Biden had a reputation for being able to empathise; sympathise with others who had experienced grief and tragedy.
His victory date seemed a concessional kiss from the fates, since it happened 48 years to the day when, as a 29 year-old in 1972, he first won a seat in the Senate, representing Delaware. It was to be a 36 year tenure
At the time, Biden was the Senate’s youngest and I think, to this day, he remains sixth in line of America’s younger elected senators. It is a fitting bookend that he will be America’s oldest president on inauguration.
Tragically, a few weeks later, the Biden family’s euphoria over his win was cruelly extinguished. Biden’s wife Neilia and 13 month-old daughter Naomi (“Amy”) were killed in a car crash, and his two injured sons Beau and Hunter, hospitalised.
The following is the famous photo of Biden being sworn in as Senator whilst at the hospital bedside. Little Beau was to grow up and, among other things, joined the National Guard and became Delaware’s Attorney General. He died in 2015 from brain cancer.
When former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States of America on 20 January 2021, it will be a triumph of "We, the People" over the greedy, needy incumbent’s mantra of "Me, the President".
Ergo over ego.
By Biden’s side, as his equal, will be the woman he credits with enabling him to not only find love again, but also to, again, embrace life — Dr Jill Biden. She’s already made her mark as Second Lady in the Obama Administration and will have no problem in assuming the role of First Lady.
Dr Biden did not cease her special interest and work with military families when Joe Biden no longer held office but has continued with this work whilst teaching at a community college.
Biden will not have trampled upon the shoulders of giants to secure his place in history.
TRUMPED STOPPED BY THE BALLOT NOT THE BULLET
He will have been gently carried upon the backs of extraordinary ordinary people, a collective of individuals who have wrested the presidency, the White House and America itself from the facile, dangerous, disastrous nepotism and dynastic dictatorship of a petulant bully who treated the nation as his personal fiefdom.
Since 20 January 2017, Donald Trump’s pussy-grabbing self-aggrandising presidency turned The Greatest Show on Earth into the biggest political farce on the planet.
His pledge to “Make America Great Again” was poisoned by his own toxic brew of racist divisiveness and his societal psychopathy rewrit to “Make America Grate Again”.
The American Dream defaulted to a nightmare.
He almost got away with it, too. He was finally stopped, not with a bullet or the violence he shamelessly incites, but with democracy’s most lethal weapon — the ballot.
The White House, built by Black slaves, provided by subcontractors (sound familiar?), has become a safe house for supremacist sympathies.
Trump’s exhortation of far-right thuggees, the Proud Boys, to 'stand back and stand by' elevated them to cult status amongst their milieu.
Biden’s biggest asset might well be that he is not Donald Trump. But he is more than a throwaway line.
Like we all, Joe Biden is imperfect. Part of his journey is littered with controversy and unacceptable behaviour. There are substantiated accounts of plagiarism and lies about his educational qualifications.
Unlike Trump, Biden has admitted his lies and owned his mistakes.
"Sleepy Joe" has displayed extraordinary resilience in this gruelling campaign, especially given his serious health issues and surgery.
The Trump machine tried in vain to portray Biden as unfit for office. Ahem. Last December, Kevin C O’Connor, the Associate Professor of Medicine at the George Washington University’s Department of Medicine, released an extraordinary and detailed disclosure about Biden’s health.
Here it is in full, so you can read for yourself the degree of intimate health information Biden has authorised, in direct contrast to Donald Trump, who still has not exposed his full tax returns for public disclosure.
No mention of Joe Biden’s success in this election can be made without acknowledging the incisive impact of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on the outcome.
She has already altered the course of history, given her gender and multicultural heritage.
Make no mistake, she is no Tonto to Biden’s Lone Ranger. Biden it must be said, is no Lone Ranger.
VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT KAMALA HARRIS. YES SHE CAN!
We know that Kamala Harris is a President-in-Waiting. She is a heartbeat away. Is she up for it if Biden falls ill during his term? Can she fulfil the role? Yes she can! Independent Australia cast its vote last month.
The Biden Harris ticket signals a new dawning in America’s long dark night under Trump’s messianic and narcissistic autocracy. It is a new dawning, not just for the USA, but for the rest of our frail world.
We’ve had a surfeit of hate, a gutful of conflict, inter-racial violence and war, including the many wars and forms of violence against women and girls.
BIDEN’S SPEECH EVOKED LINCOLN — YOU KNOW, TRUMP’S MATE!
During his victory speech, Joe Biden alluded to Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural speech and his reference to “better angels”.
You know Abe. He’s that dude mentioned by Donald Trump. The thing is, whilst President Lincoln’s powerful address, made on 4 March 1861, remains a historical touchstone – and not just for the United States – I’ve always been disappointed that he copped out of the slavery issue, by laying the responsibility upon individual states — just as politicians do today.
My Admin has done more for the Black Community than any President since Abraham Lincoln. Passed Opportunity Zones with @SenatorTimScott, guaranteed funding for HBCU’s, School Choice, passed Criminal Justice Reform, lowest Black unemployment, poverty, and crime rates in history…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 2, 2020
BUT LINCOLN WASN’T GOING TO RUN WITH ABOLISHING SLAVERY
By the time he made this speech, seven Southern pro-slave states had already seceded and mere weeks after his inauguration, Civil War broke out.
So Lincoln was forced to confront the issue:
“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so and I have no inclination to do so.”
To no avail, Lincoln called for the "better angels" of our nature to prevail in the face of Civil War, as Biden did.
Lincoln’s words:
“ ...We are not enemies, but friends...Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
TRUMP MIA — BIDEN HARRIS ASSUME PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES
Whilst Donald Trump remains missing in action from Oval Office duties, like presiding over the nation, and whilst his fellow Americans continue to die from Covid 19, and the many tiers of economic and civic slavery, Biden and Harris have stepped up to the void and already assumed the mantle and responsibility of presidential office.
They have appointed a 13 member Coronavirus Task Force and held numerous virtual consultations with experts. Trump disbanded a pandemic tactical response team set up by the Obama administration.
Americans have already endured more than 10 million infections and more than 237,000 deaths. Trump’s mishandling and diffidence to the virus would surely render him liable to charges of negligence and manslaughter, if he was the CEO of a corporation rather than a nation.
SEARCH FOR THE ELUSIVE SOULS OF NATIONS — THE ANIMA MUNDI
Like Trump, America’s soul has gone AWOL. But given the tectonic shift in the mood of the nation from despair to hope in mere days, there is great cause for optimism and optimum performance from the Biden Harris Team.
The souls of nations are elusive by nature. Only glimpses of them have been seen in passing. They never appear whole, always in part. Always in fragments. You won’t find them on flags, nor in uniform.
Sometimes you sense a soul leaving the corpse of those murdered by the praetorian guards of statutory enslavers. As with George Floyd. His brutal death has inspired millions of people to fight injustice. Perhaps such souls find refuge in the hearts and kindness of the living.
Perhaps there is only one soul that embraces all peoples, the anima mundi. Perhaps it is only when fragments within us are joined for the greater good, that America and all nations, will regain our misplaced souls and be shameless in the quest for love, rather than hate and peace, rather than war.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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