The Snake and the Turtle
(Door Hugo Kijne te Hoboken USA)
Yesterday Mitch McConnell, nicknamed ‘the Turtle,’ finally congratulated President-Elect Joe Biden. He waited until another creature, Vladimir Putin a.k.a. ‘the Snake,’ had done the same, enforcing the notion that he is indeed Moscow Mitch, who waited for permission from his boss. Trump was still in denial, having explained in an interview before Monday’s Electoral College vote that he was driven by concern about the possibility that someone might become president who has not been elected by a majority of the voters (!). After he lost that EC vote the president became an electoral luddite, tweeting that ‘tremendous’ problems have been found with voting machines that showed a 68% error rate in Michigan. It was the prelude to Trump’s last act, for which Stephen Miller announced the appointment of alternate Electors who could still replace the official Electors if Congress questioned the election results in particular states when the Electoral College reports on January 6th. This is a putschist’s wet dream the president and Miller share, but Mike Pence will have to accept the report and acknowledge Biden’s victory and then it will all be over.
After almost a year of mixed messaging, attacking science and making fun of mask-wearing, as well as staging a superspreader election campaign and even this month still organizing an X-mas party with 400 largely un-masked guests in the White House, not outdone by a party at the State Department where only 70 guests showed up, Trump takes full credit for the roll-out of the first COVID vaccine, claiming that ‘the world has never seen anything like it’ and ‘Biden couldn’t have done this,’ in spite of the fact that by consistently disparaging scientists he has considerably contributed to the vaccine-scepticism that threatens the development of herd immunity in the US. And after initially prioritizing White House staffers to be injected the president took a step back and indicated that nobody would jump the line, although it’s pretty certain that preferential treatment is available for him and his cronies, like it was for Rudy Giuliani, who had access to Regeneron’s anti-body cocktail and therefore only lost his legal reputation but not his life, and Chris Christie, who was treated with a similar medication, although Trump probably regrets that now.
Around the time Joe Biden broke the 270 vote barrier in the Electoral College that secured his victory the White House announced the resignation of AG Barr, giving the president a share of the limelight. Trump was furious because Barr had declared that the Department of Justice had not identified any consequential election fraud and because an investigation of Hunter Biden’s finances had not been made public, in compliance with DOJ policy. It is more than likely that Barr’s successor is already under orders to appoint a Special Counsel to continue this probe.
As long as the president keeps pretending that there is still a chance that he might stay in office he keeps scamming his followers for money, and for that he leaves no stone unturned. Next to his re-tweeting a demand of jail time for the GOP Governor and Secretary of State of Georgia Trump solicited financial contributions for the senate races in that state, with in the small print of his request the specification that the money would be split in 75% for him and 25% for the RNC.
While Melania is already packing her bags there is some concern about the well-being of the Trumps at Mar-a-Lago, where they will have to do with a 3,000 square feet suite after the 55,000 square feet White House residence and their similarly sized Trump Tower apartment. It looks like Ivanka and Jared, who just bought a $30 million property in Florida, will have more space.
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