This Just In — Last weekend gave us all an opportunity to enjoy some respite from the daily stress of following the naked emperor, President Narcissus J. Drumpf. What a glorious relief and critical inflection point for the nation.
It was the occasion of the inaugural weekend of the Obama presidential center and with its opening ceremony we were all able to pause and remember what these kinds of events are supposed to be … celebratory, high caliber, non-controversial and star-studded.
Watching some of the many interviews with the Obamas in the last weeks, my take on this is supported by theirs. This is not nostalgia – this is normal. Those things that are normal can exist concurrently with what is spectacularly ABnormal. It happens every day.
What is different in our politics right now is that the GOP is contorting itself beyond recognition in order to cling to power. There’s no other reason to explain this. It’s just a desperate effort to keep their own power. Spoiler: It will fail.
As the Titanic deck chair rearrangements continue, President Drumpf (his real name) thrashes about like the wounded, disoriented animal that he is. It’s brutal. He insists that an outbreak of predictable algae in a pool of stagnant hot weather water is the result of vandalism. He orders investigations and fencing with razor wire around the reflecting pool. He orders it. We pay for it. Everyone involved knows they are playing along with a dementia patient.
Yesterday, Drumpf was expected to sign a housing affordability bill passed in both houses with huge bipartisan majorities. This would, by the way, be a way that he could claim he was helping the citizens struggling to afford housing.
Instead, he cancelled the event and said he would not sign the bill until the Congress passes the SAVE Act – a bill that, thankfully, has failed to pass through Congress. It seeks to make voting more difficult in the name of election security, claiming to be solving a fraud problem that doesn’t exist.
Cancelling this bill signing was described yesterday as a “presidential tantrum.” Exactly accurate. Like most toddler throw-downs, this will not result in the toddler getting what he wants and everybody in that aisle of the grocery store will be delayed (not denied) in going on about their business.
Because this housing bill was passed with veto-proof margin in the first place, it will become law automatically regardless of the president signing it. So all the toddler has achieved is to forfeit his receiving the slightest amount of credit along with proving his increasing weakness politically. He cannot make a bill pass, try as he might.
Former President and current national leader Barack Obama reminded us that although we are currently in a difficult political time, we are not in a unique time. Great political achievements often occur during times of great difficulty, complexity and conflict.
What we saw last weekend in Chicago was entirely positive – a great American celebration and renewal of spirit. It felt extraordinary, yes, but what it was mainly (and why it felt extraordinary) was NORMAL. For many of us, this is desperately needed and valued in a way that it hasn’t been.
So the DC reflecting pool will be drained and re-sealed and re-filled and it will again turn green, because that’s what stagnant water is going to do in the absence of treatment or natural plant life that controls algae.
When that happens all over again (in about a month or so) it should be just in time for the Congress to take its August recess and skip town. Drumpf will flee to his New Jersey golf course and set about his summer ritual of claiming to win the club championship as every mosquito in North America will be feasting at the feet of President Lincoln.
Hurry November. Hurry.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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