ABSURDARAMA!

Tales of the Absurd in this Mad, Mad World

America has become a Country of the Absurd

In the United States, perhaps 50-70 million voters, including a vast majority of Republican voters and almost all Republican legislators and elected officials, are living in a fictional parallel universe ruled by Donald Trump.

Trump and his sycophantic supporters are earnestly embarked on a mission to enact state laws that will suppress the Democratic vote, particularly among African Americans and other minorities, and to amend state legislation in ways which will give Republican governors, legislatures, and other officials the tools they need to nullify or overturn the results of popular votes in future elections.

These developments represent an imminent threat to American democracy–imminent in the sense that they could thwart the people’s will as early as 2022, and could overthrow the true popular and electoral results in the 1924 presidential election.

Donald Trump, who led an attempted coup d’état following the November 2020 election, committed numerous election-related crimes after November 3, and through his four years in office committed numerous crimes involving obstruction of justice and other crimes for some of which he was impeached in 2019 and 2021, is allowed to militate openly in support of the delusional alternate universe and propaganda bubble which keeps him in the public eye, His public appearances are reported with excerpts on top television programs. His co-conspirators are interviewed and reported on as if they were legitimate political leaders who support democracy.

It as if some foreign country that is an enemy of democracy had launched a massive missile attack on the United States that unleashed a tasteless, odorless gas on the entire population, causing total amnesia regarding certain tenets of democracy and the rule of law.

One such bedrock principle of the rule of law is that crimes must be punished, criminals must be indicted and tried, and, when found guilty, sent to prison.

In the absurd country which  America has become, however, the feckless Democrats have become complicit in the Normalization of Impunity for high public officials who commit political crimes while in office.

If Trump gave us the Normalization of the Unthinkable and the Normalization of the Unforgivable, President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland have given us the Normalization of Impunity for political crimes and other felonies committed by high public officials.

The scene is reminiscent of the situation in Medellín, Coloumbia in the 1990’s when Pablo Escobar, the notorious head of the Medellín Drug Cartel, was allowed to roam freely in Medellín and even to undertake certain charitable activities to bolster his support among the population.

The situation in America is so absurd that one turns to one’s imagination to try to understand what is going on,  One uses one’s imagination to enquire into what life in Germany might have been like if Adolf Hitler had not committed suicide in April 1945 and, even after the surrender to the Allies on May 8, 1945, had been allowed to miltate for a resurgence of Nazism.  What might it have been like  if, and after a few years, Hitler had been allowed  to propagate a second  Big Lie, that Germany had not really lost World War II, but had only come under Allied Occupation as the result of a second “stab in the back” and the machinations of a massive worldwide Jewish Conspiracy.  What would it have been like if Hitler could have given interviews on the radio and in the press and held mass rallies in support of his resurgent Nazi party?

That, of course, would have been ABSURD!

What is going on–TODAY–in the United States is equally ABSURD!

America has become a Country of the Absurd, in which democracy is hanging by a thread.

The Moderator of the Absurd

 

Trump appoints elephant to Supreme Court

During the reign of Roman Emperor Caligula (37-41 A.D.), according to myth and legend, the Emperor appointed his favorite horse, Incitatus, to be Consul and preside over the Senate. The Senate, at the time, was among other things a kind of a Supreme Court that could review criminal and other court decisions. Historians, however, cast doubt on the idea that Incitatus was ever actually appointed Consul.

But for President Donald Trump, these subtleties of historical fact were of little interest.

On September 22, 2020, it had become clear that Senate Republicans comprising a majority of the Senate would vote for President Trump’s nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, whoever that nominee might turn out to be.

As noted, according to legend, the Emperor Caligula appointed his favorite horse, Incitatus, to be Consul, and to lead the Roman Senate. Not to be outdone by Emperor Caligula, on Semptember 26, 2020, President Trump appointed an elephant to the Supreme Court of the United States. There is no provision in the Constitution prohibiting him from doing so.

Republican Senators defended the choice, pointing out that elephants are extraordinarily intelligent creatures. While Madame Dumbina, the new nominee, does not have judicial or legal experience, Republican Senadors defended her selection pointing out that she would bring broader experience to the Court, and that her appointment would help redress the gender imbalance on the Court.

Moreover, Madame Dumbina had long served as the leader of her herd of elephants, who were renowned throughout the world for their peaceful relations among themselves, and their progressive social policies in areas such as childcare and protection of the rights of the elderly.

While Madame Dumbina is not a lawyer or a member of the bar, neither of these qualifications is necessary to sit on the Supreme Court. President Trump declared at the nomination ceremony , on September 26, 2020, that “Some people are saying she can read, and has been studying previous Supreme Court decisions.”

Republican Senators defending the President’s choice stressed that Madame Dumbina, in various moot court trials, had voted with the other Justices, after seeing how the conservative majority was going to vote, by raising her trunk. In a close case where she could be the deciding vote, Republican Senators said that when she casts the deciding vote they expected that she would loudly trumpet the victory of the Republican majority on the Court.

Architects have already begun remodeling the Supreme Court’s main hall and the Justices’s chambers and restrooms in order to accomodate Madame Dumbina’s special needs.

Absurdo

A few words on the terms “a-rama” and “o-rama”

What is the meaning of the blog title “ABSURDARAMA!”

Here is a little history.

Here are other examples of the use of the terms.