When Putsch Comes to Shove

Scrawled on the mailbox outside the apartment I’m subletting in Manhattan is the message ‘Fuck Trump’. You expect that sort of thing, I suppose, in this often vulgar and always blue city, where any 12 names from the phone book will convict a Republican in a New York minute. About 500-odd miles to the west, in the yard of a heavy machinery dealer beside an Interstate near the West Virginia border, there is a monster flag on a very tall pole with the white-on-navy message ‘Fuck Biden’. One imagines it has now been brought down, just as Biden himself has been brought down, and that in some distant Chinese sweatshop the first rush orders are arriving for ‘Fuck Kamala’ banners.

In America’s legacy newsrooms, there has been no need for such prompts or instructions to begin stoking, as Joni Mitchell put it, “the star-maker machinery of the popular song”. And boy, was the media choir quick to get on-song with their hymns to Her. Behold Kamala, not the cackling klutz you might think you remember but a newly sainted smasher of glass ceilings, a strong woman  overlooked and underappreciated for too long. This has been quite the somersault. The same field hacks and big house pundits who just four weeks ago decried any coverage and all footage of doddering Joe as “cheap fakes” have performed contortions that would daunt the India Rubber Man. Take the Washington Post‘s tame ‘conservative’ Jennifer Rubin as a case study in about-facism:. On July 11 she had this to say:

and a week later, once the new talking points had been issued

The shamelessness is breath-taking and recourse to salty exclamation at the chutzpah of it all almost unavoidable. Today, the woman it appears Jill Biden picked to lead the secret Service was being grilled on Capitol Hill about the attempt on Donald Trump’s life and it didn’t go well for her. Mind you, this is one failure that can’t be laid at the for-the-moment president’s feet as it certainly wasn’t Old Joe who selected Kimberly Cheatle. Asked just before he came down with Covid (reportedly, if you believe it) if the Secret Service director should resign, he expressed confidence in “him”. In that same interview he also forgot the name of his Defence Secretary, calling him “you know, the black man”. That he might not recall Lloyd Bentsen isn’t terribly surprising as eight months have passed since the last White House cabinet meeting. Yes, eight months. One might object to the way Biden was ousted by the big-dollar donors and Democrat silverbacks whose actions say they value fourteen million primary voters not at all, but there can be no argument the man being thrown on the scrap heap is nowhere near fit to serve nor has been for quite some time.

Nine days have passed since Thomas Matthew Crooks’ bullet snicked Trump’s ear and there has been little reason to place any faith whatsoever in the deluge of furphies and false ‘leaks’ that have bounced across our screens. Hence, while little was expected from her, Cheatle’s testimony was eagerly anticipated.  The questions were legion, the demanded explanations and clarifications endlessly denied.

Crooks bought a six-foot ladder, no, it was a ten-footer, except nobody has found one anywhere near the sniper’s perch.

Crooks bought a six-foot ladder, no, it was a ten-footer, except nobody has found one anywhere near the sniper’s perch. Oh, in that case, he clambered up via an air conditioner after driving to the rally in his car, or was it that van the FBI towed away? What, you mean he didn’t ride a bicycle after all! No, but he was bullied relentlessly, which is why those sorts all grow up angry and psychotic. Except the school says he wasn’t an outcast, behaved well and displayed a definite gift for the techie cyber stuff. Why was Trump allowed to take the stage long minutes after  local cops tagged Crooks as a weirdo? Why didn’t … so very many whys, and nothing like adequate answers to any of them. Just silence and stonewalling and suspicions.

Cheatle, a favourite gal pal of the now-First Lady when supervising her security detail during Joe’s days as Obama’s veep, copped it coming and going at today’s hearing. Last week she ill-advisedly turned up at the GOP’s Milwaukee party and was hounded up stairs and down by a posse of lawmakers demanding answers, not only about what happened on July 13 but why it was allowed happen. Given how little we know that is firm and concrete about the hit on Trump, how much needs to be known and made public to maintain some level of faith in once revered institutions, and how hard today’s panel worked to winkle out the few crumbs Cheatle was prepared to share, she deserved every lacerating minute of her four-plus hours in the hot seat. Without exception all inquisitors demanded she resign and none neglected to note that, were it up to one and all, she would be sacked on the spot.

Those few crumbs, though, among them was a jaw-dropper. It came in response to a question about recordings of the various agents’ radio communications, what each was saying and seeing before, during and after. There was a longish pause before Cheatle admitted no such audio records exist. Emails and .txts, yes, but an audio record, no luck there. As was noted, Cheatle has been rather careless with her audio files. Asked at an earlier appearance to produce Capitol Hill agents’ to-and-fro from January 6, she regretted to confirm they had all been scrubbed.

Somewhere in New Jersey and late at night, a black guy called into talk radio to share the theory that Biden hadn’t authored the note announcing his decision to quit, was most likely being held captive, no doubt drugged and maybe even dead. What sort of a president stands down without addressing the nation, as LBJ did and Richard Nixon too? Yes, yes, all fever-swamp stuff — a coup in the United States? Unthinkable, and that scenario especially so because the husky voice of a definitely alive Biden was piped in late this afternoon to a Harris rally in Philadelphia. It’s the default position of a rational, adult mind to assume catastrophes owe more to incompetence than conspiracy, but these days, well you just have to wonder, which many are doing. After that first talk-back caller, others rang in to endorse, expand or introduce their own theories about what is really happening. They were still at it when I found a parking spot and turned off the ignition.

That so many Americans are prepared to entertain the idea of a putsch in progress isn’t surprising.

That so many Americans are prepared to entertain the idea of a putsch in progress isn’t surprising; indeed, it is to be expected under the circumstances. A President has been to all intents and purposes deposed, an ex-President has escaped death by millimetres and Madame Cackle, in a grab for the gold worthy of Steven Bradbury, is now commander in chief in all but name. And all this after four years of weaponised courts, scam impeachments, show trials and exhortations to hate Donald Trump, enemy of democracy, with all ones heart and soul.

Those Fuck Kamala banners will be turning up from Guangdong any day now, like those of similar sentiment for Trump. When you can’t believe what little the State is prepared to tell you, what fills the void doesn’t signify peaceful days and quiet nights ahead.