Tone Deaf Antoinette

 

Shepard Fairy

I been cheated

Been mistreated

When will I be loved?

--Linda Ronstadt (among others)

"I think the nouveaux riches Obamas are seriously tone-deaf," said the authority on opulence, Andre Leon Talley. "We all love Beyonce. But people have so many things to worry about with Covid, voting rights, climate warming. People are afraid of being evicted from their homes. And the Obamas are in Marie-Antoinette, tacky, let-them-eat-cake mode. They need to remember their humble roots."

--Maureen Dowd, quoting Talley, appreciatively

Oh, Maureen, I know just what you mean!

I worked SO hard getting Barack Obama elected! 

I stood on a "visibility" line, holding an "Obama for President" sign in the middle of Hampton, one Route 1, across from "The Old Salt" restaurant. And that wasn't the worst of it: I was new in town, still trying to figure out how tough this campaign was going to get, and chatting with a blue haired doyen (dressed in Ann Taylor from head to toe), and she was telling me Republicans in New Hampshire were misguided, but not unreasonable, when a pick up truck drove by and a goateed guy leaned out of the window and shouted, "Nigger lover!"

And I thought things were tough down home in Maryland. 

But I soldiered on, going canvassing with my neighbor, locally known as "The Madonna" (named not after the singer, but the less famous mother of God.) We knocked on door after door, braving dogs and hornets' nests and Madonna of Hampton connected with each dubious home owner who bothered answering the door; she quickly established some connection, either through Winnacunnet High School or The Academy or  some book club or library committee, through children and children's friends, and then she got on to why they should vote for Obama, and damned if it didn't seem to work, at least for thirty seconds, until they returned to their televisions, which we could hear or see back in the living rooms, tuned to Fox News.

And I bought that Shepard Fairy poster of Obama and framed and hung it in my hallway upstairs outside the guest bathroom. 

Oh, how I suffered and worked for that man.

But was I invited to the big bash for his 60th birthday?

And me just down the road in New Hampshire and across the ocean from Martha's Vineyard?

Not a peep.

I wasn't even briefly invited, not to mention disinvited.

I didn't even make the first cut!

And that left me home, worrying about Covid and global warming and voting rights and worrying about other people who might face all sorts of travails.

But not a sniff from the Obama people. Not so much as an engraved invitation I might frame, not to mention a photo op with the former President. (He will always be my President.)

My neighbors and I briefly considered holding our own birthday party for Obama and for the Queen (both August 4th, which must mean something in the cosmic realm) and we would have a cake and play on youtube his victory speech in Grant Park that glorious night in November, 2008, when he won and he walked out on stage and said, "If anyone here ever doubted that in this country, the United States of America, anything is possible, then this night will be your answer." And there was Oprah sobbing, tears running down her cheeks, and damned if there weren't some on mine. 

Obadiah Youngblood

But nobody so much as sent a limo to pick me up to take me to the ferry on August 4. And me just down the road in New Hampshire.

And I read Michelle's book, "Becoming" so I know she didn't come from money. And Barack himself, well, he was so poor his mother had to move to Indonesia, so enough said. And for him to forget his roots and fail to remain forever impoverished is just close to unforgivable.

I mean, if you're going to get rich and throw parties, you got to do the Gatsby thing and invite everyone, all the poor folks, like Lincoln and Andrew Jackson did at the White House. Really, I'm sure the Proud Boys would have swallowed a little pride and caught a boat to the shindig.

Alice & Martin Provensen

You know, I bet even Trump had a party at Mara Lago on August 4th, and you know he didn't let just anyone in, but then again, nobody expects him to allow the hoi polloi to cross his threshold, because he's from money, and when you're from money, you don't owe anything to anybody. But Obama owes everybody and he should not be allowed to have a good time and enjoy his money because that money doesn't belong to him; it belongs to everyone who ever helped him, which would include me for standing on Route 1 with that sign and listening to the blue haired lady.

Oh, Maureen, how you nailed it. You think they are your soul mates, your brothers in arms and then they get rich and forget all about you!

It's like that song: nobody needs you when you ain't got a penny, and all your friends you ain't got any.

So where is my invitation?

The Incompetent Coup

 

When Adolph Hitler got thrown in jail for his part in the beer hall putsch, shots had been fired and he walked the walk with his storm troopers, until he got whisked away and he hid in a friendly woman's house. He used his trial to denounce Communists and weaklings and he used his brief prison sentence to write Mein Kampf, reputedly the only book Donald Trump has ever (at least partially) actually read.

Read about Hitler's manipulations of the Reichstag, of the reigning leader, a monarchist called Hindenburg, his careful manipulations of the rules of the Weimar Republic and you see he was clever and sly and when he did his coup to seize control of the government, he had a plan and he had armed troops, the Freikorps, a true paramilitary organization.

During the run up to Hitler's seizure of total power, there were 500 assassinations of politicians who opposed him.

When South American, Africa and Asian governments fall to coups, power flows out of the barrels of guns. 

When General Mark Milley contemplated the possibility of a coup emanating from Donald Trump, he correctly observed Trump did not have the "guys with the guns."

Writing in the New York Times, Christopher Caldwell makes one good point: Trump's actions to incite a coup were at best an incompetent effort, and at worse simply the role playing game of a born loser and Caldwell makes several insipid assertions about the role of General Milley, which was, as it turns out, prescient and well intentioned.

Caldwell is scandalized because the General observed that no coup can succeed without guns and that in his role as chief of the Joint Chiefs and knowing the FBI and CIA would not support Trump with their guns, no coup could succeed. Isn't is terrible that General Milley saw his role as crucial to preserving the stability of the Republic?

"General Milley seems to have a grandiose conception of his place in government,"
 Mr. Caldwell says.

Actually, no. The general is simply stating the bare facts. 

Caldwell's main point is Trump was simply too pathetic, too incompetent to have been a real threat for a coup. He was more like those men who do role playing with foam rubber swords in the park. He is to be taken seriously but not literally. As Sidney Powell's lawyer said about her statements about the voting machine company changing Trump to Biden votes, "No one would think she meant that seriously."

But, of course, she did, very clearly, mean that seriously.

If not a coup, did Trump "incite" a riot?

The history of incitement has a very long and sorry history in the United States, the First Amendment notwithstanding, dating back at least to Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous remark limiting the protection of the First Amendment, which he said did not allow any citizen to cry "fire" in a crowded theater when there is no fire, because that speech can be seen as a "clear and present danger" to all those who panic and stampede.

There have been a series of cases which culminated in Bradenberg v Ohio, in which the rule was put forward that speech is  protected unless it can be shown to result in "imminent lawless action."  So you can shout from the stage, "We have to rid our community of these Black vermin! We have to fight for the purity of our white women!" and you are protected. 

But if you point to a Black man in the crowd and shout, "We have to string up that Nigger!" and if the crowd lynches the man, then you are responsible.

The actions of some members of the crowd alone cannot indict you: if 5 Dallas police officers are killed after a rally against police violence, if some stores are burned in Minnesota after protests over a police killing, the speakers who decried the police cannot be held responsible because they did not call for "imminent lawless action."

When Trump shouts his supporters have to "fight like hell," and march down to the Capitol to defend democracy and prevent the big steal and his supporters march down to the Capitol, and at least some of them erect a gallows, bludgeon police and kill some police, is that not the exhortation to imminent lawless action or, at the very least, shouting "fire" in a crowded theater?

It is true, Trump did not say, "Go kill the Capitol police and burn down the Capitol with the Congressmen in it!" 

But, I would submit, he said enough to qualify as provoking or at least facilitating imminent lawless action. 

There are legal questions about whether acting as President, Trump is protected in a way he would not be as a private citizen, but that's all niggling. 

To my mind, his defense, "I didn't mean it literally" is no different than Sidney Powell's defense. He was standing in front of a crowd, many of whom wore T shirts saying, "Civil War Now!" and worse. He had the Proud Boys, proud white nationalists who want to fight a race war in front of him. If he didn't know this crowd, like many crowds at his rallies could be expected to react in a Kristallnacht manner, he should have known.

So, I would leave the coup talk out of it.

I'd simply say, the man cried fire in a crowded theater; if he did not shout "To arms! It's time to hang some Congressmen and the Vice President!" he still urged upon the crowd he had called together to commit imminent lawless action.

He should serve prison time for that. And long enough so that if he does write a Mein Kampf or manage to get on Twitter or some social media, he's so old by the time he gets out, he'll no longer be a danger.