In the wake of the events that took place at the U.S. Capitol building yesterday, things could have gone one of two ways. The Awfulisers worried that Trump would ‘double down’, perhaps even invoking martial law. So, they added, if ever there was a time to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove a madman from office, this is it. By contrast, the Trivialisers, myself among them, were pretty sure that having made his point, Trump would now back off. And today, apparently, he did.
If I’m right, he’ll spend the next two weeks either keeping his head down or, in order to salvage what he can of his reputation, comporting himself like a proper outgoing office-holder. Either way, the question is, what will happen with the MAGA zealots left in his wake? The Awfulisers predict some kind of low-grade civil war. We Trivialisers doubt this.
But our trivialism cuts both ways. If the Right will be taking a Valium, the Left – or at least its leadership – will be savvy enough not to provoke the Right’s 75 million-strong sleeping giant. So we’re predicting a few boring years ‘going forward’.
More particularly, Joe Biden will be passing the torch to Kamala Harris for 2024. The Awfulisers give the GOP nomination to some Retrumplican, whereas we Trivialisers suspect it will come to its senses. It might even nominate Mitt Romney again.
There no longer being anything exciting to report, CNN viewership and WAPO readership will plummet. Covid will disappear, economies will recover, race relations will continue to improve at glacial speed … But global warming rhetoric will not make a comeback. The pushback, which is now only nascent, will gain momentum and take its toll on the cancel culture that’s just now approaching its best before date. So, in short, God is in His heaven and all’s well with the world, by which is meant, once again, for many bloggers there’ll be some pretty ho-hum years ‘going forward’.
But if the Awfulisers are right – and they very well might be – by 2024 Middle Americans will have re-enacted the Jim Crow laws, and coastal Americans will all be speaking Chinese. The former could be pretty awful, but the latter wouldn’t be so bad, were it not for the food that comes with it.
Categories: Everything You Wanted to Know About What's Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask
Paulosophical Vimplications 
I was hoping you would have something sensible to say in the wake of Yesterday.
I was not disappointed.
The awfulizers on TV were fretting that it would take days to be sure all the protesters were cleared from the vast network of tunnels and interconnected office buildings. In one of those “Hold my beer” moments, the police had secured the place by 6 p.m. in time for curfew, almost while the awfulizers were still yakking. So clearly the protesters, though armed and dangerous and noisy, were co-operative, even to the point of not shooting back when a cop mortally shot one of their number. And the election results were duly ratified.
In reference to my own awfulizing about Covid a while back, I was pleased to read a Leger poll in which 75% of Canadians in urban areas plan to get the vaccine when their turn comes. This could be enough right there to get herd immunity. And many of the hesitant 25% will come onside once their vaccinated families and employers apply the appropriate social pressure, phrased as “… or else!”. (Rural folk were less eager but they don’t matter in the epidemiological scheme of things There are too few of them and they are too far apart to sustain an epidemic if the cities are mostly vaccinated.)
Global warming talk is dead, yes. The low-hanging fruit of non-fossil energy (uncontroversial dams and nuclear power plants) was picked many decades ago. Today we have Site C and Muskrat Falls. Tomorrow it will be the hydrogen boondoggle in our ancient succumbing to Ponzi schemes to get something for nothing. Meanwhile, since China makes all our stuff using our coal and, soon, gas — Coastal Gaslink perking along nicely, not a protester in sight — we can let them book the CO2 emissions while we futz around with windmills to charge our smart phones. Collective action problems remain intractable until they collapse, or until the King steps in to enforce the public good by using his power to behead those who oppose him. Nothing new there.
So God is indeed in His heaven and I am going back to piano practice.
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Knowing less than nothing about either herd immunity or energy policy, I prefer to remain silent to be thought a fool than open my mouth and remove all doubt. But on behalf of yaks the world over, I deeply resent your spelling of yacking. But on the more urgent matter of the piano, I only got as far as Toronto Conservatory Grade 7. My concert piece was a Chopin, but I much prefer Beethoven. My favourite has always been his 846th Symphony, which he wrote posthumously.
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