The above picture depicts Rufus T. Firefly in his successful tenure as the President of Freedonia. The diplomacy of the neighbor state, Sylvania, proves Ambrose Bierce right. "Peace is a period of treachery between two wars."
Why do I refer to both a Marx Brothers' comedy and Ambrose Bierce in the same paragraph? The answer is simple. As I write this, our president is undermining the faith his followers should have in our democratic institutions. As incompetent as Rufus T. Firefly was, he was able to lead his forces to victory against Sylvania. Compare this to our current president, and Trump will look totally incompetent by the comparison.
When I grew up, it was assumed that once the winner of an election was announced, that the loser would graciously concede defeat, and that a peaceful transfer of power would take place as smoothly as possible. No major decisions or appointments would take place during the transition. Today, our current president is violating the norms, and making it much harder for the next administration to have a successful tenure. This puts us all at risk. We've seen how an incompetent president's mismanagement of pandemic response has made it possible for more people (instead of less) to die from Covid-19. Even worse, we've seen him organize "Super spreader" political events which only served to make the medical problems worse. Is this the sign of someone who believes in the unwritten assumptions that kept our country functioning well during a transfer of power?
Many people are angered by this president's frivolous and needless lawsuits geared to nullify the results of the popular vote. They only serve to do one thing: energize his followers to give him money (presumably to fund his campaign and its lawyers) to line his pockets one last time. Since a third of the nation will follow this buffoon without question, I have to pose this question: How strong are America's democratic institutions, when a large part of the population craves an authoritarian government? History shows that democratic forms of government are at their weakest when the needs of the average person haven't been addressed by the elites. Our president is an incompetent kleptocrat. But he seems to want to be an incompetent autocrat as well. This is a big risk for all of us - especially when the people in his political party are afraid to acknowledge the truth that Biden won the general election.
Hopefully, we will soon see the last of our current president, except when he is in court defending himself against all the charges which will likely be brought against him. That will be fun television for many. As for me, the man (and his defenders) disgust me. So I will change the station and stream all 270 episodes of the classic Perry Mason show. At least, I know that the innocent will go free at the end of each episode....
