Posts Tagged ‘Inauguration’

The Dumbest Thing in My Lifetime: II

Saturday, January 25th, 2025


By Bob Gaydos

The highlight of Inauguration Week 2.

The highlight of Inauguration Week 2.

    I spent a good deal of “Inauguration Day 2: The Revenge,” trying to recall how I reacted to “Inauguration Day 1, The Bad Joke.” I kept drawing a blank. Was I angry (likely), depressed (probably), disappointed (undoubtedly)?

      Then I had a clever thought: Why not see what you wrote?

       Turns out, I didn’t. Write, that is. I didn’t write anything on Jan. 20, 2017 or, for that matter, the whole month of January. (In fact, from Christmas Day, 2016, to Feb. 24, 2017, my pen was silent. My blog was blank.

        Oh, right, I suddenly  remembered. From Dec. 26, 2016 and most of January, 2017, I was a guest of Garnet Medical Center, just outside of Middletown, N.Y. Not by choice. By chance and another driver whose car wound up sliding on ice and hitting mine head-on. I guess you don’t forget, but you don’t rush to remember.

        So, no, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the Trump pre-inauguration hoopla or the day itself. I had doctors dealing with a fractured right wrist, a detached left patella tendon, eight broken ribs, a deflated lung and a bump on the head. The car was in worse shape.

        But the doctors did their jobs and I survived to get a second shot at a Trump inaugural. No, I didn’t watch. Instead, I checked what I wrote on Christmas Day, 2016. 

    The first paragraph: “I have been in a funk since Nov. 9. That’s the day I woke up with the realization that millions of Americans had lost their minds, if not their souls, and elected a man who is morally, psychologically, intellectually and spiritually unfit to be their president. The dumbest thing that has happened in my lifetime.”

      Well, turns out the 2016 election was only the second dumbest thing that has happened in my lifetime. The dumbest thing was electing him again.

      But I did discover something interesting about myself in this research. That Christmas column was all about my not writing for a while, and, instead, returning to reading. Funny about that, but that’s exactly what I did this time around.

     One of the books mentioned in the 2016 column was “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” by Tom Wolfe. Before becoming a prolific author, Wolfe was a reporter for The New York Herald Tribune.

   As serendipity would have it, one of the books I recently mentioned that I need to get back to and finish is “The Paper: The life and death of The New York Herald Tribune.”

    In that 2016 Christmas column I turned to sports to get me back in the writing groove by adapting the philosophy of former NBA star, Reggie Miller, who gave Knicks fans nightmares. Miller, a great shooter, said the only way to get out of a shooting funk was to keep shooting. Eventually, the shots start falling again.

    Also coincidentally, the other book I recently said I need to finish, is sports-related: “Satchel,” a biography of the legendary pitcher, Satchel Paige.

    I’ve long ago discovered that this “coincidence” stuff happens all the time if you only pay attention.

     So, here we are again. Shock and awe, lies and misdirection, bigotry and bluster and a profound display of cowardice and hypocrisy by the onetime party of Lincoln.

     But enough of the predictable. The highlight of Inauguration Week 2 for me, since I had no excuse not to watch this time, was watching an Episcopalian minister, like those doctors back in 2017, doing her job.

  That was Episcopal Bishop, Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde speaking directly to Trump, seated nearby, at a service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

   “Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you, and as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.” She also asked him to find compassion for those who fled their homelands to find safety 

in America.

      Mercy and compassion. What else would one expect to be encouraged in a church?

      The man who didn’t put his hand on the Bible at his inauguration asked for an apology.

       None was forthcoming. To which I say, amen.

      

MAGA Race War: Musk vs. Bannon

Friday, January 17th, 2025

By Bob Gaydos

Steve Bannon and Elon Musk ... not friends

Steve Bannon and Elon Musk … not friends

    I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m rooting for Steve Bannon in his food fight with Elon Musk over who’s the bigger racist in the MAGA tent. Not because I agree with either man’s views on immigration or anything else, but rather because Musk’s money has the potential to do a lot more harm than Bannon’s pure bile and, frankly, anything that exposes the hypocrisy of the Trump cult is good for America, especially if it’s self-inflicted.

     Bannon has called Musk “pure  evil” and pledged to get gim out of the guest rooms in Mar-a-Lago and the White House. In fact, Bannon said, “I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day.” 

    That appears to be unlikely, but that’s what Bannon told the Italian newspaper Corrientes Della Serra last week. He also said the billionaire won’t have full access to the White House. Trump says he’s giving Musk the building next door to try to figure out how to steal from the poor to give to the rich.

      The crux of the fight between Trump’s old sidekick/strategist and his new, much richer one, is which immigrants are acceptable to MAGA and which are not. Old school Bannon took Trump at his word when he said he’s going to round up millions of undocumented immigrants, (mostly brown or black) and ship them back wherever they came from. No more immigrants. More jobs for real Americans.

      But Musk and other big tech billionaires say real Americans are too dumb (they actually say untrained, but  that’s what they think) to fill the jobs in their companies. They say they need more better-trained immigrants, mostly from Asian countries, here on H-1B visas as “skilled workers,” to fill all those good jobs at the tech companies.

    Musk says they are vital and Trump agreed and Bannon blew up, basically saying an immigrant is an immigrant. He also wasn’t thrilled with Musk’s opinion of real Americans’ intelligence, which actually is the same as (“I love the uneducated”) Trump’s. 

   In response to Bannon’s comments, Musk said he would go to “war” to preserve and defend the program for foreign workers at tech companies. 

    Bannon replied, “He should go back to South Africa. Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans … making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”

      Clearly, irony is lost on Bannon.

       Now, Musk may be right about that lack of skilled American workers for tech companies, but no one ever talks about more training programs for Americans. The real reason Musk and the other tech bigwigs want immigrants from Asian countries on their payrolls is that they are willing to work for less money and are happy just to be in America for all the advantages it provides. Just like all those immigrants Trump and Bannon want to round up and deport. Hypocrisy.

      The good news in terms of reducing Musk’s influence is that Bannon has the voice and support of the hard-core far-right Trump base. The ones who vote for candidates he endorses. Musk, who seems to live in a high-rent area of the spectrum, basically is just in this for his own enrichment and gratification. Like Trump. But Trump is going to be president and his ego typically wins out over his affection for other people’s money and sycophancy. He has no real agenda other than enriching himself and staying out of prison, which he thus far has managed to accomplish.

      Bottom line is that promising all things to all supporters only works when all supporters are in it for the same reason. Bannon just wants to get rid of all non-white immigrants. Musk apparently just wants to be emperor of the world, with lots of non-tran children. Maybe they should check with the suddenly much poorer Rudy Giuliani to find out what went wrong with his love affair with Donald Trump.

 rjgaydos@gmail.com

 

The News: Regrets and Renaissance

Monday, January 13th, 2025

By Bob Gaydos

The cap of a proud Notre Dame alumnus. RJ Photography

The cap of a proud Notre Dame alumnus.
RJ Photography

   Ok, I’ve dithered long enough. The holidays came and went and he’s obviously not going to do the same. The first four presidents of my lifetime were FDR, HST, Ike and JFK. Dotard felon doesn’t have quite the same ring, so I guess I have to stick around until America realizes it needs a woman  president. Therefore, with a bow to the late, great Jimmy Cannon, I persist.

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: All that Canada, Greenland, Panama BS spewing out of his increasingly distracted “brain” is just that, a distraction out of the Putin playbook And an embarrassing one, at that. Only true MAGAS and the sold-out mainstream media treat it seriously. Which is, of course, sad.

    — Maybe it’s just me, but: Having his hands tied by the U.S. Supreme Court’s presidential immunity nonsense, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan made the best of it by making sure Trump gets sworn in as a convicted felon. The first ever, America. Be proud. Merchan made sure everyone knew that if it had been anyone else there would’ve been more serious consequences for the 34 felony convictions than a blow to the huge Trump ego.

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: The fact that the Supreme Court allowed the sentencing in New York to go on before the inauguration suggests that the court is not necessarily 100 percent in Trump’s pocket. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal justices in rejecting Trump’s bid to avoid sentencing before the inauguration. The four stooges objected without any comment.

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: I hope Merrick Garland fades into the woodwork as quickly as did that other faux prosecutor, Robert Mueller. A major disappointment.

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: Watching the Dow, NASDAQ, etc. tank on the heels of yet another report showing a healthy increase in jobs on Joe Biden’s watch is a worthwhile reminder that Wall Street has little to do with Main Street. More like the Vegas Strip.

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg can all _______. Fill in the blank.

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: I’m still waiting for someone to tell me what all the New Jersey drone stuff was about. Remember newspapers?

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: Jimmy Carter was a wonderful human being and a better than average president. Not a bad epitaph.

  — Maybe it’s just me, but: Welcome back to nightly reports, Rachel Maddow; turn off the lights, Morning Joe.

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: Having given up following college football when they started mixing and moving colleges willy-nilly to conferences across the country based on big bucks and big ratings, it came as a pleasant surprise to me to see that the two schools who will be playing for the college football championship are Notre Dame and Ohio State. Of course. Who else? It was as if I had escaped from a time warp. Their names are synonymous with success and championships. Then I learned that Notre Dame, the university in South Bend, Indiana, had undergone a renaissance much like the other Notre Dame, the cathedral in Paris, France, which has been rebuilt and reborn and recently returned to its position of prominence after a devastating fire. No, I don’t believe in coincidences.    

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Dear Mr. President, We’re With You

Thursday, January 21st, 2021

    Dear Mr. President, sir, Mr. Biden, Joe … 

 President Joe Biden

President Joe Biden

   Wow, this is harder than I thought it was going to be. After four, really almost five, years of writing virtually nothing but columns of anger, fear, shame, bewilderment, outrage or embarrassment, writing a simple note of congratulations and best wishes is proving to be a challenge.

      But it is the necessary and proper thing to do. Already, that’s a change.

      I guess I wanted to start by saying that it’s not every presidential election in this country that is greeted with a huge, “Thank God!” when the final result is announced. Even atheists, maybe especially atheists, had that reaction when you were pronounced the winner last November. Yes, I know and recent days have demonstrated that not everyone was pleased with the result. But I for one have sensed a profound feeling of relief and hope arise in this country, “Joe won!”

       Thank God.

       The final weeks before your inauguration were … frightening I guess is the appropriate word. The assault on the Capitol by racist Trump loyalists shook America and the world. But, as you and others have noted, we survived. Democracy survived. I always felt we would, but then I did not think it would ever come to that horrifying scene of Jan. 6.

       Yet here we are. No subsequent violence, as warned against. Instead, many calls for unity, some certainly motivated by self-preservation. There is, I think, a palpable calm across the country, a result of being rid of the chaos and anger of the last four years.

       I do not envy you your challenges, but I do have faith that you understand them and will not seek to avoid or downplay them. I look forward to a measure of decorum and honesty that had all but disappeared from the White House. I also look forward to an opportunity for another era of growth in America. It is my sense that millions of my fellow citizens, including many who did not vote for you, are grateful to have survived an attempt to dismantle our democratic republic and are more than willing to do what is necessary to fix what we learned was broken.

       To me, this means holding those responsible for assaulting our laws and principles accountable for their actions as well as initiating a comprehensive effort to re-educate many Americans on what Lady Liberty stands for in the New York harbor, what “liberty and justice for all” really means in the Pledge of Allegiance.

        It will not be easy and many will resist at first. But sending the truly traitorous to prison will undoubtedly get the attention of many of the merely ignorant. As always, hope lies with the new generation.

        Mr. President, I know you know all this, but I think it’s important you know how many of us are with you in confronting this challenge. There are actually happy memes on Facebook again. I will undoubtedly disagree with you on some policy or another, but I don’t expect to be slandered on Twitter because of it. For my part, I will try to go back to my professional approach of not using profanity to express my opinion. I will also write a more specific letter in the near future on actions I think need to be considered. (Your executive orders undoing much of the damage of the past four years and your plan for dealing with Covid are a great beginning, by the way.)

      In closing, as someone who is a few months older than you, let me say I hope you get plenty of rest, pay attention to what you eat, exercise regularly and maybe give Kamala Harris more to do than most vice presidents typically get. It couldn’t hurt.

      Again, congratulations and be well.

Bob Gaydos

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.