Send In The Clowns

 Detail, James Fangboner's multi-media piece "Send in the clowns"

Just more post about the entertaining parallels between crumbling empires suggested in Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk and then I'll get off this jag I'm on.

When the real deciders are hidden behind multiple layers of ostensible rulers, those playing the roles can be as buffoonish as you like. In fact, the more buffoonish the better! Who doesn't get distracted by a Punch & Judy show with puppets bashing each other?

Part of the comedy in Pamuk's book is how rapidly the "head of state" can turn over without really affecting much. When the main requirement of the job is telling lies as if they were plausible, the persons doing the job are interchangeable. Weaselly bureaucrat, revolutionary hero, or princess of the blood all fit the purpose.

In the declining days of the U.S. empire, the homeland and its vassals have had some hugely entertaining characters inhabiting the role of decider. Also some sadder acts like an 80 year old showing signs of dementia having others announce for him that he'll seek a second term. 

In the clown car:

Wants to be top clown again after refusing to admit to losing his last election. Almost does not need clown makeup to look clownish. Brought clowning to social media in a big way.

Sad clown who wanders aimlessly and can't do press conferences. And a VP clown who can't run herself because her shtick is hilarious word salads. How could this slapstick duo be in charge of the nuclear hot button that blows up the whole world?

Allegedly a Green, the German minister for foreign affairs is a blurter who comes up with some real doozies. She reminded the EU that they're not at war with each other they're at war with Russia, and later told reporters that Russia's president had better do a 360° turn in Ukraine or else face the consequences. Twice.

The UK prime minister predicted to have a shorter shelf life than a head of lettuce (true at 44 days) who forgot to use her encrypted cell phone to tell her boss in the U.S., "It's done," after the Nord Stream pipeline explosion.

These were the three most popular Halloween costumes in Ireland in 2019, according to the Irish Times. It's enough to give a person coulrophobia (fear of clowns).

The Clown Show Winds Down

The current occupant of the White House was known for his book The Art of the Deal long before the corporate press elevated him to be a contender for the presidency. I remembered this factoid as news reached me yesterday that, posturing aside, he did after all sign the gargantuan military spending bill connected with the insultingly paltry pandemic relief payment of $600 for the people. Also extending unemployment insurance and a freeze on evictions in the first winter of covid.

Clearly the threat to veto the bill until Congress amended the payment to $2000 was a bargaining chip in a deal that paid off somehow. 

We may or may not ever know what was exchanged in that transaction.

As our days fill with pardons of war criminals who slaughtered children and other civilians, plus white collar criminals, 2020 draws to a close.

Those observing with clarity point out that the current occupant of the White House was essentially the same as all the other occupants: beholden to the death machine of the US militarized economy, and unconcerned to keep the promises they rode to election.

The incoming administration will be no different.

Ending subsidies to fossil fuel extraction profiteers was a promise during the primaries that Democrats used to lure idealistic youth climate activists, but quickly abandoned to kick off the general election season.

Forgiving student debt (that he had a key role in fashioning as a yoke built to last a lifetime) was another grandiose promise now being reduced to ashes.

Or maybe dangling $2000 was meant to ensure the current president's legacy remains strong among the struggling workers who still think he went to Washington DC to drain the swamp?

Here was his final "swamp draining" budget proposal.

70 million people voted for the clownish Twitter personality the second time around because the reality of their lives is deadly peril from threats more sure than succumbing to covid.

Covid is now the leading cause of death in the US, and will be for the near future even as vaccines roll out for Congress but not for most of us. 

Facing the dangers of a virus or of your job without health care has a huge impact on one's ability to survive, but the corporate-sponsored House of Representatives won't even consider a performative vote on Medicare for All much less legislation to enact universal health care. 

What show will ensue after the pageantry of the new president's inauguration subsides? 

Will the manufacturing of consent rest on the White House dogs who are vastly more telegenic than their elderly, addled master?

I'm betting it's the good-looking, intelligent Vice President who will end up carrying this administration's public relations efforts. As she is a woman and bi-racial, she is guaranteed to draw the vitriol of white supremacists losing their grasp on earning a living. (You know, the ones who voted for leaders that literally went golfing and skiing on Christmas without responding to the fact that a bomb was detonated in downtown Nashville.)

The show must go on! But most have tired of clownish "governing" and many in the younger generations actually find clowns terrifying.

Me? I'm older, and I find the incoming cabinet more terrifying than any clown. Ticking boxes for identity politics while elevating the executives of the very corporations who have murdered and impoverished working people is cynical. 

Yes, selecting Deb Haaland as the first Native Secretary of the Interior is wonderful and may she uphold indigenous wisdom in the Democratic Party (it's hard to even type those words). I was also glad to see an actual educator, Miguel Cardona,  nominated to head up the DOE. 

Speaking of the art of deals, how about a former small town mayor who parleyed stepping down after a modest primary showing into a nomination for Secretary of Transportation. But he's openly gay! That will be a great comfort to liberals in the owning class who bemoan climate crisis while supporting elected officials who consistently fail to invest in a robust public transportation system to address climate like other countries have.

And you can't blame the clownish performance of the defeated president for any of that.

Revised 12/30/20: Correcting my misunderstanding that the current occupant of the White House's veto of the military spending bill (aka NDAA) remains in place until a vote in Congress to overrride occurs. The pandemic stimulus/relief bill was signed, and the $2000 counteroffer by the deal artiste was also found to contain provisions for contesting certification of the electoral college victory of his opponent.