Trump.2, Week.1

So, I briefly left the country, and y’all put in a new President. How’s that working out after 1 week?

Return from Japan to Find…

Yes, we went to Japan to visit family, about which more later.

Suffice for now that we arrived back in the US about 8 hours after the inauguration. Honestly, I was kind of scared. Yes, we are utterly, completely, and scrupulously legal:

• I had recently renewed my US passport, so it’s got 10 years to go on it.
• Yes, my spouse had recently renewed here Japanese passport, so it’s got about 10 years go to on it.
• Yes, my spouse had recently renewed her green card, and used it, so we knew it worked and had about 10 years to go on it.

Entry to Japan: It was pretty easy, actually. They noted my cane, and with their overly florid consideration for the elderly, directed me to a priority immigration lane. Later, I waved around my phone with the QR code that showed I’d filled out the customs forms ahead of time. I think they were a bit shocked to see a gaijin who actually played by their rules. So they sent me to the customs lane where nobody was present and I could just walk right into Japan. Very easy.

Entry to the US: This was what had me slightly scared. But border control officials noted my cane and directed both of us to a priority line, rather to my surprise. They actually sent us through the diplomatic line, which seemed like a dodgy thing to do. But the official noted the cane, the recent passports, the recent green card, and just nodded after the ceremonial photograph.

Still… against the lawless, being lawful is a slim defense. And lawlessness appears to be what now prevails in the US:

• attempts to ignore the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (and yes, I personally remember Nixon’s attempts at this),
• firing the Inspectors General so they can’t report on corruption,
• mass intimidation and threats to federal employees,
• attempts to replace career civil employees with illegal political cronies,
• wildly extreme rhetoric (transition referred to as “genital mutilation”, scientific grants called “Marxist”),
• proposed cabinet level appointments of proudly misogynistic and racist scum,
• absurdly delusional policy decisions (such as the shutdown of almost all medical research, including life-critical clinical trials).

It just never ends.

WH Auden seems to have captured this moment in poetry. Like his “September 1, 1939” which we’ve used previously on this Crummy Little Blog That Nobody Reads, Auden also captured a lot of the nature of our contemptible leaders in the hell-year of 1968:

“August 1968”

The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.

– WH Auden

The ogre has power. But the ogre is stupid.

Is he stupid enough that he can be induced to incapacitate himself?

The Weekend Conclusion

We all desperately seek phronesis sufficient for the times. Auden again: “undo the folded lie”!

As long as we’re on a late 60s kick with Auden, maybe we should resurrect a slogan from my youth and re-target it from Nixon to the FFOTUS (First Felon of the United States):

Jail to the chief!

(Ceterum censeo, Trump incarcerandam esse.)

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Notes & References

Nope.