I can finally unclench my jaw. Trump is out of the White House. There were no riots, no deaths today.
Let’s take a few moments to appreciate this peaceful inauguration day, because this peace may not last too long.
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@Naglfar
There wasn’t really any chance of violence at the inauguration, 20,000 troops make a hell of a deterrent. Also, everyone with the resources and will to go storm Washington did it already on the 6th and are now in custody, on bail, on the lam, or digging a hole and pulling it in after them.
@ dali
Tell that to Publius Quinctilius Varus.
@Alan,
“Steve, ‘designated doggo’ is not a thing. I need you to take this seriously!”
@Dalillama
Fair enough. One thing which I did somewhat fear but was definitely unlikely was an Indira Gandhi-type situation where a rogue soldier turns on the president and/or others.
@ moggie
Oh, I dunno.
https://people.com/pets/major-bidens-indoguration-raises-200k-for-delaware-rescue-that-adopted-out-pup-to-joe-biden/
@Naglfar
I’m not. Once they killed a cop, got prosecuted and saw McConnell warn against pardoning the traitors, and saw the military move in, I’m not surprised at all that they backed down. Now they know, actions have consequences. They don’t want to faces consequences.
@Moggie
While I generally feel bad for cult members being taken advantage of… I draw the line at cult members of violent cults. They could have chosen a peaceful cult, but desired instead to join a mutual hate group. One cannot say QAnon love-bombs its members: you get in by being hateful enough at the start to win approval of how hateful you are. So while I agree with your anger at the top alt-right thugs getting away with it to start new grifts, the gullible bear their own responsibility for their own hate.
@Moggie again
Oops… read up some more… seems like this discussion was already had between you and Naglfar and came to the conclusion that we will definitely agree with one another. I blame it on the placement of the comments box at the top encouraging the premature writeup of comments…
@Naglfar again
Dammit I got ninja’d by Dalilama too!
I plead guilty to having spent the countdown refreshing http://istrumpstillpresident.com until the stroke of noon. The site started out simply stating the number of remaining days (http://web.archive.org/web/20170126024909/http://istrumpstillpresident.com/) but took a distinctly saltier direction in 2020:
http://web.archive.org/web/20200810204702/https://istrumpstillpresident.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/20200722233715/https://istrumpstillpresident.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/20201008084311/https://istrumpstillpresident.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20201008084311/https://istrumpstillpresident.com/
A breather is very welcome in this!
A tale of personal woe, re: inauguration
I celebrated by having leftover imPEACHment cobbler with rum raisin ice cream, and let’s say that my cobbler was already kinda loaded with actual dark rum to begin with…
…and then, at 7:15 pm (since 7 pm is when swearing in Biden happened in my neck of woods), bosslady sends me a text message “hi, I need these pics by 10 pm” and I’m oh sh*t, I can barely stay upright at this point and I have no idea if I can coordinate my mousehand and instead of asking “can it wait ’till tomorrow” I replied “ok”.
Did my thing, shambled to bed and fell so deep asleep that I didn’t hear her reply but now that I’m up at 4 am, she seems satisfied with what she got.
The Chinese government has banned anyone from the Trump administration from entering Chinese territory.
Of more import, any company associated with them is prohibited from conducting business in China. That might limit future job opportunities a bit.
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/t1847554.shtml
It’s much too early to celebrate- at least with Trump we knew he was up to no good at all times. Now we’ve exchanged that for what’s no doubt going to be a repeat of the Obama administration, specifically the part where its way of “reforming” all our broken institutions was to slap a new coat of paint on it and declare that there was never really a problem at all. Expect to see the Biden administration’s defenders bringing up Trump’s excesses every time they want to justify their own excesses- after all, their only real problem with those excesses was that their party wasn’t calling the shots. Complacency is exactly what they want right now- if anything, we should start getting even more aggressive in pushing back against the infrastructure Trump has left behind which they will almost certainly take for themselves given half a chance.
Forget about the conservative opposition- it’s the centrist fence-sitters (both the ones who only say they’re centrists because they’re too cowardly to make their side known and the ones who care more about seeming reasonable than about doing what they ought to do), the opportunists, the liberals who care more about not rocking the boat than they do about real issues, and everyone else who thinks that platitudes and honeyed words about unity are all that’s needed to fix a system that was arguably broken from the very beginning.
@Alan:
Even before that, folks from the Trump administration were already having trouble finding job opportunities elsewhere, especially after January 6th. This despite the infamous government/lobbyist revolving door. Anybody who had actually stayed with Trump until the end was treated with some suspicion… and most openings were already taken by the ones who had realized they should decamp earlier.
Pretty much all that’s left for a lot of them is going to be the AM talk radio circuit (since a lot of them didn’t have any real useful skills at anything other than boot-licking and politicking anyway, with Trump having driven away most of those with greater ambitions), and that’s already pretty crowded.
Phew. I can start to relax a bit now. Feeling my shoulders drop a bit. This is such good news (we need some!) and glad to see the first list of policy changes from Biden.
I am thankful that in the choice between “fascist manchild grifter” and “any functional adult” the adult won out, and is now in charge. It’s not the adult I would have chosen by a long shot, but still considerably better than the alternative.
The symbolic year does not respect a calendar. 2020 the phenomenon and not the literal year, started back in March or April for most people, and it probably won’t end until mid-2021 for many. But I’m still thankful that, barring the unlikely, the rate of tragedy will be decelerating soon if it hasn’t already. I know, low standards at this point.
I am thankful that I finally got my right arm out of that damn cast recently, as doing everything with my left was awkward and tiring. I am also thankful that the injury wasn’t for nothing, and a bad person is off the streets for a while.
There is a lot which I am very much not thankful for, but let’s not dwell on that much.
@Jenora Feuer:
Sounds like the so-called “wingnut welfare” is going to be spread pretty thin for a while. Some of them might even have to get ordinary-folk jobs at Amazon and Mickey D’s!
@Skiriki
That’s a harrowing, not to mention amusing, tale. Glad it worked out.
@Everybody else
Four years of trauma every damned day. I’m so happy to see the back of that man.
I had an inauguration experience today that was similar to @ Gwynfydd.
I work in a library. At one point during my shift, I walked by a computer where a patron was reading inauguration coverage. I could see the headline, with the words “President Biden” in it, and my arms literally went limp (glad I wasn’t carrying anything!) from relief.
@Dalillama : the main thing that prevented violence is that theses 20k troops were correctly vetted and that the mishandling of the army by Trump mean not a lot of them were on his side to begin with.
During the 6th, Trump showed that despite everything he did he still had enough influence in the Pentagon to prevent actions against his coup, which is the most chilling and sobering part of 2021 so far.
I leave for surgery in about 3 days, I’m a bundle of nerves.
On other topics, I think the t***p bullshit that Biden lets stand, will be rather telling.
@Jesalin
Sending good thoughts your way, and hopefully some luck too.
On the topic – today were the first day I didn’t feel dread before checking the US news.
@Snowberry
I feel this as well. For me time just feels weird, because one part of me feels like we’ve been in lockdown for years, but another part is convinced time stopped in March and has yet to start again. It’s unclear how a new presidential administration will affect this since we’re only one day into it.
@Jesalin
Best of luck with the surgery.
O/T: Marjorie Taylor Greene has said she will put forth articles of impeachment against Biden today. That may have just been bravado, if it isn’t I am genuinely curious to see what her delusional articles say. If she can figure out how to create them, that is, and doesn’t just think that writing “he stole the election” is an article.
@Naglfar
TBH this makes me worried that a majority of Republicans will jump in with her – obviously that won’t get it into the Senate, but it would still set a dangerous precedent.
The Democrats need to stop with the bipartisanship attempts and start playing hardball. Same reason I think militarizing DC for the Inauguration was the right decision (even though in the broader picture I’m against nation-states and militaries) – for Republicans now it’s all about what they can get away with, the only thing that will put them in their place is an overwhelming display of force. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.
@Cyborgette
I share that fear. She’s not the only one who has said she would like to impeach Biden for no reason, and over 140 reps voted to overturn the election, so she could likely get some colleagues on board.
And I agree re: troops in Washington.
Last night was blissfully free from nightmares around end of the world scenarios. For some reason I have had those since 10th of November, 2016. Gosh, wonder why.
About Marjorie Q Greene’s impeachment attempt – things are not going smoothly:
https://twitter.com/charlesbethea/status/1352310651402792963
@Threp
My guess is that she expected all she’d have to do was write “I impeach Joe Biden” on a piece of paper or something. In the event that she does produce articles, I’m expecting them to be conspiratorial nonsense.