BLUES JUNCTION Productions
7343 El Camino Real
Suite 327
Atascadero, CA 93422-4697
info
Four years ago, I made the very conscious decision to include in BLUES JUNCTION occasional editorial content related to the disaster that was (is) the Trump administration. I had several people who I trusted tell me that this would hurt our readership by alienating a percentage of our audience, we would be left with just sane people and lose Trump cult members. Of course, I don’t care about ratings. I wouldn’t be writing about blues music in the first place, if I cared about such things.
Every decision I have made that relates to BLUES JUNCTION has been based on my instincts and so far, they have served me well. So, I did what I thought was right thing to do. I let 'er rip…damn the torpedoes. I felt like this was not about public policy on the margins, but a wholesale attack on Americans. He was a threat to our democracy and his administration represented the biggest threat to the Constitution since the Civil War. I believed that when this sub-human took office and now we all know it for certain.
As far as our readership is concerned, we have attracted a much larger audience since I began publishing these quasi-political editorials. The response by way of letters to the editor and through social media has been overwhelmingly positive. Like myself, the blues community has a near universal hatred of Trump. The alarmingly large minority of Trump supporters don’t read much and certainly don’t read BLUES JUNCTION.
I have always encouraged people to voice their opinions on these matters, by way of contacting our website. I wanted to hear from folks with alternative points of views on these topics. The very occasional letters I received advocating different points of views were virtually non-existent. It was usually something along the lines of “I want to kick your ass.” These emails didn’t rise to the level of intelligent discourse, so I never 'published' these letters to the editor. I got back to these cretins with overtly civil and polite letters (which could be interpreted as sarcasm) thanking them for reading BLUES JUNCTION. As a service, I even corrected their spelling, punctuation and grammar, at no extra charge. This very predictably led to a two-word response from these 'tough guys' always in all caps and followed by multiple exclamation points.
Now that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are set to be our next President and Vice President respectively all of this unpleasantness will come to an end...Who am I kidding? The confluence of forces that brought us Trumpism are still deeply imbedded in our society, but I don’t give a damn. They aren’t in charge anymore. If you want to know where they went, I excused them from the grown-up table and sent them to their rooms. They can stay in there and play with their guns until bedtime, as long as they don’t hurt themselves or others.
Oh sure, they will still race around the streets in oversized pick-up trucks, honking their horns, waving huge Trump banners and screaming obscenities and racial epithets at minorities. Not much we can do about that, I suppose. What we can do, is get behind the new administration and give them our support when it is earned.
I have noticed in my hometown over the past month or so Trump flags have been coming down faster than The Donald’s drawers at a teenage beauty pageant. It has felt like a neighborhood beautification project.
I have to be honest. I just can’t wait to be governed again by adults. By people who have experience in this field…by people who aren’t solely motivated by ego, self-aggrandizement and money. While Biden was not my first, second or even third or fourth choice as a candidate in the Democratic primary, he might turn out to be the right choice.
A lot of people were shocked that the election turned out to be as close as it was. I should remind you that by now Republican voter suppression is practically baked into our election process. It is as American as war, racism and tax cuts to the uber wealthy.
Meanwhile, Trump is reminding everyone why we fought so hard at every turn to remove him from the White House. He came into office a sore winner. It should come as a surprise to no one that he is leaving as a sore loser. In 2016, he described his victory as an Electoral College landslide. His opponent, Hillary Clinton conceded, even though she had won the popular vote. Nearly three million more Americans voted for her. This incensed Trump to the point he claimed, without any evidence, that these results were the biproduct of widespread voter fraud. Exhaustive investigations proved that these were baseless claims by then President-Elect Trump.
Now, the outgoing President is claiming widespread election fraud with, again, no evidence supporting his claims. This time he lost to his Democratic opponent by six million votes and by the same Electoral College result that he referred to as a landslide four years ago. His actions and words (Tweets) since his defeat are tantamount to an unrelenting and dangerous attack on our Democracy. He is virtually insuring, what was already certain, and that is he will go down as the worst President in American history and by a very wide margin. Relax Buchanan, you are finally off the hook.
While Trump desperately tries to stay in power, the country is reeling from the worst public health crisis in memory. He doesn’t want to even acknowledge its existence. He is spending all of his energy, and diminishing political capital, on trying to remain in office and therefore out of prison. He is also working on his golf game. He has hindered the transition of power between himself and President-Elect Biden. Trump’s actions (or lack of) are dangerous, illegal and are killing Americans.
As far as I’m concerned, Trump can’t get out of the White House fast enough, but the next couple of months will be horrible. He is already acting like a desperate despot. He seems to be accelerating his four-year scorched earth policy to eviscerate America’s most venerated institutions. Now, he seems hell bent on killing US. He is trying to turn a once proud country into a banana republic. In other words, his swan song will be a very ugly duckling.
- David Mac
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BLUES JUNCTION Productions
7343 El Camino Real
Suite 327
Atascadero, CA 93422-4697
info