Let's make Trump the anti-authoritarian vaccine

Tweet

Happy New Year. 2021 doesn't have a hard act to follow.

The world, especially this country, has been put through the {wringer,ringer} in the last four years of Donald Trump "presidency," and 2020 proved to be a real zinger. A year ago, we didn't know what a novel coronavirus was, let alone what it could do. Since then it has killed 1.8 million people worldwide, 350 thousand of them in the United States, and we now face not only a novel coronavirus, but multant novel coronaviruses as well! 

Trump's mismanagement and utter disregard for human life is the biggest reason why 4.25% of the world's population has suffered 18.89% of the COVID19 deaths in spite of being a wealthy country with advanced medical technology, and extensive industrial infrastructure. 

So, this might be a good time to put Trump's much hyped "Operation Warp Speed" into context by remembering that both the Russians, and Chinese had vaccines earlier, and the first US vaccine was developed by Pfizer outside of the Trump program. Now that they've started actually vaccinating people, even though they are starting with the low-hanging fruit of health care workers, and people in group homes, they are doing so at a rate that will take about ten years before they get to everyone in the US. (These projections may be exaggerated, because they probably don't take into account all the people who won't need vaccinations because they will be dead before it gets to them.) Warp speed indeed! 

Of course, our response to the pandemic isn't the only thing Trump has degraded.

Many other countries have already brought this pandemic under control ahead of a vaccine by practising the disciplines of mask wearing, contact tracing, and quarantine as necessary. Vietnam, for example, a country with 28% the population of the US, has lost only 35 people. We, on the other hand, have been put in the position of having to wait for Big Pharma to come to the rescue.

Fortunately, it looks like they have, or at least their scientists, and other workers have, and we now have  a number of vaccines that can put down this pandemic—provided they can now manage to get it into enough people's arms.

Can there be "vaccines" against "diseases" of the body politic?

With all the attention to the pandemic and vaccines, we've gotten an education on how vaccines work. We have learned how they imitate the pathogen, or some of its aspects, so that the body's immune system can learn to recognize the elements of the disease, and produce antibodies to fight it. Early vaccines even used a weaken form of the virus or bacteria to create the vaccine, although this could be very dangerous. Some used a related animal disease, like cowpox to make humans immune to smallpox. All worked in basically the same way: After the body wages a small bout with the weaken "disease," which may be no more than a sore arm for a day, the body has learned to recognize the disease, and mount a winning defense against it should the body encounter it in its most virulent form.

It is my most fervent wish for 2021 that the Trump presidency will have a similar lasting effect on the body politic of the United States: That this Trump experience will be like an anti-authoritarian and anti-racist vaccine for the United States.

After all we've seen over the past four years, there is no doubt that he would be a fascist dictator if he could. Fortunately for us, this wannabee Hitler is a buffoon. We have been suffering from a weak version of an authoritarian attempt to overthrow our democracy, such as it is.  

Finally, land is in sight. Its beginning to look like we weathered this storm. Nobody expects what is euphemistically referred to as "Trump's base" to go away in 2021, but Trump out of power will be a good start. It will be an even better start if we learn to recognize the signs of developing dictatorship, and patch our systems to better defend against fascism. Still, it ain't over till..does a fat lady sing at the inauguration? Anyway, it ain't over till then. Until January 20th, the circus is still in town, and Trump will still be trying to execute his ham-handed coup d'état.

So, we must remain vigilant, and not take anything for granted. Here are some important dates to watch:

3 January 2021: The new congress is sworn in. 

It is also the 1st anniversary of Trump's assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. If there is an Iranian revenge attack, it may be a false-flag attack, like the Gulf of Tonkin attack US President Lyndon B. Johnson, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara hatched up in 1964 to get the US fully involved in the war in Vietnam.

As documented in Vietnam: American Holocaust, we found this interesting phone call between McNamara and LBJ that took place before the fateful second attack:

MCNAMARA: Now this is an action that we might well wish to consider after the second attack. But I think it would be inappropriate, and General Wheeler agrees, and Dean Rusk agrees, inappropriate to provide the task force commander that authority. There will be ample time for us, after a second attack, to bring this problem to your attention, and you can then decide how far you wish to pursue the attacker into his base area....

LBJ: But I wish we could have something that we already picked out, and uh

MCNAMARA: We'll see

LBJ: and just hit about three of them damned quick. Right after

MCNAMARA: We will have that, and, and I, I've talked to Mac Bundy [national security adviser] a moment ago and told him that I thought that was the most important subject we should consider today, and, and be prepared to recommend to you a response, a retaliation move against North Vietnam in the event this attack takes place within the next six to nine hours. And we

LBJ: All right. Now we better do that at lunch. There's some things I don't want to go in with these other, I want to keep this as close as I can. So let's just try to keep it to the two.

MCNAMARA: I will be prepared to do so at lunch.

The NVA never made a second attack, but this didn't stop LBJ from claiming it, and using it to get congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which is the closest the US got to a Declaration of War in Vietnam.

If the Trump does try to trump-up an excuse for war, it won't even add to his list of firsts for a US president. So if a fracas develops between the US and Iran in coming weeks, ask who benefits? Cui Bono? Would Iran really risk war only days ahead of the change to an administration that promises to move back to jaw-jaw, and rejoin the Iranian nuclear deal?

On Wednesday, two nuclear capable US Air Force B-52s flew a "show of force" mission over the Persian Gulf near Iran. The US has a history of staging false-flags in Gulfs. Watch for it. In November, Trump was talked out of making a pre-emptive strike on Iran. Then. Now he is much more desperate.

Last month Trump removed much of the top civilian leaders of the military and replaced them with people loyal to him. Whatever his people at the Pentagon are doing, they are playing it close to the vest, and refusing to share with the Biden transition team.

Now we are being prepped for such an attack. Today's CBS Evening News is reporting:

Tonight US military officials tell CBS News that Iran, and its militias, may be planning to attack—act against a US embassy or military base in the region. This as a top Iranian commander is vowing revenge for the US air strike that killed General Qasem Soleimani one year ago.

This is the new civilian Pentagon leadership Trump just put in charge for final weeks that is spinning these tales to the media, the same officials who are still refusing cooperation with Biden's transition team.

Trump may try to start a war with Iran ahead of the transition as a pretext for keeping power. Given his long-time obsession with nuclear weapons, I wouldn't rule out his using one of the "little" nukes he had developed (so they could be more usable☺). In February, Trump had some of these so-called low-yield missiles deploy to boomers. Why would he have done that if he didn't contemplate using them?

Erik Prince is famous for creating the private mercenary army Blackwater. He's still tops in that field; he has already done a number of jobs for Trump, and his sister, Betsy DeVos, is Trump's Secretary of Education. Prince and his ilk are just the sort that Trump would call on for black-ops with Iran, or a little off-the-books intrigue in the US, and Trump just pardoned four Blackwater killers.

4 January: Trump campaigns in Dalton, Georgia for the state’s two Republican senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. Perdue is currently in quarantine "out of an abundant of caution." I knew he would say that.

5 January: Georgia Senate run-off election. We all know why this is important. Moscow Mitch has got to go!

6 January: Congress meets in joint session to confirm the electoral college vote. This is D-Day.

This is the crucial day. Several GOP congressmen and at least one senator have said they are going to challenge the vote. Like all of Trump's "legal" attempts to overturn the election, this too will fail. 

Trump has called for his supporters to come to Washington, DC for "Wild Protests," as congress votes. The Washington Post is reporting:

Threats of violence, ploys to smuggle guns into the District and calls to set up an “armed encampment” on the Mall have proliferated in online chats about the Jan. 6 day of protest. The Proud Boys, members of armed right-wing groups, conspiracy theorists and white supremacists have pledged to attend.

In this scenario, Trump is counting on his Iran war to galvanize his supporters, sow chaos, and drive anti-war protesters onto the streets. This threat to stay in office even after the election has been certified will also bring the people to the streets. While he has his supporters, including the Proud Boy types, gathered in Washington. 

JANUARY SIXTH, SEE YOU IN DC!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2020

Using this chaos as an excuse, he will attempt to invoke the Insurrection Act in a last desperate attempt to stay in power illegally. If the does that, it will be our biggest challenge yet, and it is one we must meet and beat back before we can declare Trump the vaccine and not the lingering disease.

Clay Claiborne