By PETER BERGER
By Peter Berger
Poet John Dryden came of age during the English Civil War. He turned 18 in time for the trial and beheading of King Charles I at the instigation of Oliver Cromwell.
After five years ruling Britain, Cromwell died in his bed. The dead king’s son, Charles II, was restored to the throne, following which Cromwell was dug up, tried for treason, and beheaded three years after he’d died. His head was displayed on a pike for 24 years until the pike broke in a storm.
Highlights of Charles II’s reign included the bubonic plague and London’s Great Fire. His unpopular successor, James II, was persuaded to flee the country, and the throne passed to James’s daughter, Mary, and her Dutch husband. This transfer of power was christened the Glorious Revolution because they managed to dispose of a king without killing him or too many other people.
Shortly before his own death, Dryden wrote a poem about his century. It concludes with the couplet, “‘Tis well an old age is out, and time to begin a new.”
Donald Trump’s brief, yet interminable, reign shaped and even induced our present age, but it also reflected where our age was already headed.
Like 17th century England, we’re beset by a plague. We’re history’s greatest republic, defended by the world’s most potent military, and home to its most powerful economy and leading research universities. Yet, while the United States comprises only 4% of the world’s population, 20% of the world’s COVID-19 deaths have been Americans, one of every five COVID-19 fatalities. By Inauguration Day when Trump leaves office, the virus will have killed 400,000 of us.
Our problem isn’t medical. It’s political, rooted in a president who dabbles in quackery, from injecting bleach to what he calls “herd mentality;” who has repeatedly blamed China and “Democrat cities” for the fruit of his own incompetence; and who, when pressed about his administration’s inept response to the pandemic, declared without blushing, “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
If the virus could talk, it would thank him for convening rallies and White House events where supporters, staff and visitors could inhale its contagion. He’s further served the plague by manipulating data, lying, placing his own electoral fortunes above his country’s health and welfare, and leveraging his political allies and sycophants into doing the same. He’s also turned wearing a medical mask into a political statement.
It isn’t Trump alone. Hospitals are running out of oxygen and morgue space. Overwhelmed emergency departments are turning ambulances away, while funeral homes can’t accommodate all the grieving families. Meanwhile, 50 pro-Trump protesters stormed a grocery store in the name of “freedom,” chanting “Masks don’t work. It’s a conspiracy.” One protest leader proclaimed, “I’ll pull off my underwear right now and put them over my face.”
Republican Congressman Jim Jordan objects to stay-at-home orders, rhetorically tweeting, “What would the Founders say?” The answer is General Washington was isolating Americans exposed to smallpox in 1776. President Washington signed the first federal quarantine law in 1796 during a yellow fever epidemic.
In addition to filing unsuccessful lawsuits to overturn Joe Biden’s election, attorney Lin Wood has accused Chief Justice Roberts of complicity in the death of Justice Scalia, conspiracy to deny Trump a second term, and pedophilia. Justice Scalia died of a heart attack in 2016. The Chief Justice’s alleged electoral co-conspirator is Vice President Pence. Wood claims the molested children were obtained from Jeffrey Epstein, who took his own life in prison but somehow isn’t actually dead.
Wood has urged Trump loyalists to stock up on “Second Amendment supplies” because “our leader is Donald Trump, not Biden.” He’s decreed Mike Pence should literally “face a firing squad,” threatened Georgia’s governor and secretary of state with prison for opposing Trump, and accused them of conspiring with China to rig the election, a false allegation that was summarily dismissed by a federal judge.
Who tolerates this insanity, let alone applauds it?
Donald Trump, for one. He retweeted Wood’s posting of the two Georgia officials with superimposed Chinese flag facemasks.
Some Republican leaders persist in disputing Joe Biden’s election, even though in more than 50 cases, courts, including the Supreme Court, have ruled against Trump, and even though federal, state and local officials of both parties have affirmed the election was legitimate, and even though Republican leaders themselves know Biden is the lawful president. Despite multiple recounts, audits and court rulings, Republicans claim Trump voters nonetheless feel “disenfranchised” because they believe the election was fraudulent.
First, you don’t get to feel disenfranchised just because your candidate got fewer votes than the other guy.
Second, what else would those voters believe when that’s what Trump began telling them months before he lost? What else would they believe when Republican leaders have shamelessly failed to tell them the simple truth?
Trump lost.
Timid Republicans duck for cover, adjust their flag lapel pins and by their pernicious silence, assent to the madness. The boldest partisans engage in legislative sedition. They are men and women of puny conscience and colossal ambition, crippled by cowardice and repellently comfortable with deceit.
Despite their machinations, Biden will most likely be installed as our next president. But the cost of their treachery is no less than this: Contesting and casting doubt on election results will from now on be the rule in what once was our democracy.
Every election will be suspect.
Donald Trump is retweeting QAnon postings. QAnon disciples believe the federal government is controlled by a worldwide conspiracy of Satan-worshiping, pedophile elites. The QAnon faithful are awaiting “The Storm,” when Trump will institute martial law, and the “elites” will be tried by tribunal and executed.
The FBI has designated QAnon a “domestic terror threat.”
Trump says QAnon followers “basically believe in good government.” He recently hosted three movement leaders at the White House.
Pardoned Trump aide Michael Flynn is calling for martial law and “rerun” elections in states Trump lost.
Trump has summoned his followers to a “wild” Washington rally to “stop the steal.”
Trump is on tape coercing Georgia officials to “find 11,780 votes” so he’ll win the state.
Trump and his coup co-conspirators are the real thieves.
He may be a mad king, but they have no excuse.
Behold the end of the age.
Peter Berger has taught English and history for 30 years. Poor Elijah would be pleased to answer letters addressed to him in care of the editor.
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