instill warmth and flavor into the proceedings

 

 Comrades,

The Americans have never got irony. So the sweet irony of DJ Trump! pardoning a turkey due to get necked for Thanksgiving has been lost on them. Turkey saves turkey - LOL! - I get it. Try as I might to try and find some irony trawling through the Fake Media, there is none. The closest they came was the Reuters news agency quoting The Donald wishing the bird named Corn "a long, happy and memorable life" (a turkey gets to have a memorable life?) and then adding in the next par: "Thanksgiving turkeys are bred for slaughter, and most of those receiving a Presidential pardon die within a few months."

The Trumpotus has been well described as "the world's most successful unsuccessful man", and his behaviour since the election only goes to reinforce that concept. And let's face it, while the The Donald may not be stupid, he's just too plain dumb to be have ever been an authoritarian ruler. For that, you have to be very smart. Just ask some his mates like Vlad the Impaler or Fatboy Kim. The Trumpotus is all consumed by perceived slights, petty grudges, and meaningless vendetta's to rule with an iron fist. To do that you need to put your real enemies in the jailhouse at the bare minimum, or preferably get a goon squad to take them out - permanently. And that's just the start down the road to Totalitarianism. But DJ Trump!, now quite obviously, is "a shot bird".

I'm no mathematician or psephologist, but I'm guessing that maybe 20% at most of those 50% who voted Republican are hard core believers in the Cult of Trump - the ones who tote guns, fly Confederate flags and are suckers for any kind of MAGA merch. So maybe only 10% of the electorate as a whole are in fact Clinton's "deplorables". That's hardly enough of a base from which to mount a national insurrection, even if they're all heavily armed in a country seething with dichotomy and riven by partisan division. Twitter has abandoned them, so what do they do? They transport themselves through the ether to another "free speech" platform known as Parler, which in reality is a gigantic echo chamber talking to four walls...no one else will hear them from a minor player in the Soshul Meejah landscape dominated by a duopoly. The Trumpotus manipulated the Fake Media very well into taking him seriously on the time honoured principal of "all publicity is good publicity".  But now that nobody takes the Lame Duck seriously as he has lost all the very considerable power and authority of Oval Office, my confident prediction is that not only will he fade from view, he'll disappear up his own arsehole - only coming out from time to time to appear in a court of law as a defendant. There are dire predictions he'll set up a TV channel with Real News and that Trumpism will dominate American politics for years to come. What rot. The bloke is worse than broke for a start off. Granted, the Donald is much a better showman than Sarah Palin ever will be, but now that the DJ is no longer the Master of Ceremonies and has quickly become a withdrawn, depressed shell of his former self who'll now be persecuted by all and sundry, the extent of his influence will go the way of the Tea Party. Nowheresville. He's not conceded defeat, and never will, because he doesn't know how to, but he knows deep down that he's a loser, and that's worse. Infinitely worse. It's no secret that Uncle Joe rigged the Electoral College the best this time, but who could have predicted an exact flip on four years ago? What's the chances? It's remarkable that Trump won the college back in '16 by 302 to 232, and Uncle Joe won it this time around - you guessed it - 302 to 232. Just pity poor ol' Joe for accepting the poisoned chalice in a plague infested country hurtling headlong toward a prolonged economic depression - but more on that once he's been Inaugurated.

For the moment, consider the contrast between The Donald's bizarre appearance on election night with its bluster and fluster about "this is the greatest fraud ever committed against this country!" and " we will go the the Supreme Court!" to the one minute - that's right - 60 seconds of prepared remarks at the time-honoured 73rd turkey pardoning. This from a man who could gibber off the cuff for an hour and a half in a press conference to a recluse who can now barely speak at all. Little wonder he's spending all his weekend's on the golf course (described by the Secret Service as his "safe place") to get away from the shitting Christmas decorations at the White House that his soon-to-be ex-wife hates with an absolute passion.

Never mind that the GOP is still controlled for the moment by fascist apparatchiks intent on wrecking democratic institutions which should now be classed as an extremist organisation. Worry not about his weak-as-gnat's-piss enablers trembling in fear - fancy going to an election with no party platform whatsoever, other than "we're sweet with whatever this guy thinks". For the moment, wiser heads have prevailed, and the Miracle of Democracy has triumphed once again. But as my dear departed father was fond of saying "the price of freedom is eternal vigilence".

So perhaps it's best to leave it with a final word on the turkey - without doubt the very worst all the eating birds. In the 1941 "Holiday Edition" of the American magazine Gourmet, the wine writer Peter Greig fearlessly weighed in with some tips on festive imbibing, including what libations to serve with that Thanksgiving bird: "A pretty unattractive meat at the best of times, so often dry and tasteless, turkey calls aloud for a rich red Burgundy or Rhone wine to instill warmth and flavor into the proceedings".

And doesn't everyone need some more of that?