Jan 15, 2025
Remember the scene in “Frozen,” when it’s Coronation Day? (What? I have two daughters. I’ve seen “Frozen” 47 times.) Anyway, it’s a thrilling song. Anna is thrilled because her sister Elsa is about to be crowned Queen (or something, I don’t know, I’m usually looking at my phone and not the movie) and she’s very excited because this means a party is coming to the royal residence and she’ll see people for the first time in forever, yada yada yada. Gotta say, I’m not feeling the Anna vibes as we stumble toward our own Coronation, er, Inauguration Day Monday. Yes, former President Donald Trump will become current President Donald Trump, and … I mean, OK. Things are certainly different this time around. Last time he got inaugurated, we were coming off eight years of Obama, and Trump seemed like a glitch in the matrix. It seemed impossible that he was about to be president. He won the Electoral College, but lost the popular vote, and there was a groundswell — nay, a tsunami — of fierce anti-Trump opposition. Not only in politics, but in boardrooms. Not only in boardrooms, but in front lawns and social media. Seriously: Everywhere you looked, there was anti-Trump sentiment. It was dominant. It’s incredible to consider that was only eight years ago. Then we got through the Trump years without much trouble — economy was good — and then came COVID and things got weird and in rode Joe Biden, Obama’s vice-president and everyone’s slightly creepy but probably OK uncle. After a lifetime in politics, he was given the nod and he won and for a good chunk of the country, our national nightmare was over. Hard to believe that was only four years ago. Then Biden and his team steered the ship out of COVID, and we have the world’s strongest economy, but the post-COVID blues — and the price of eggs — did Biden (and just about every other incumbent in the world) in. So the Democrats kicked him out and put in … a horrible candidate. Can’t even bring myself to type her name. She got a quick boost, but then … pfffft. Nothing. Now, we live in a world in which Trump routed in the Electoral College and won the popular vote. He’s coming into power with something just short of a mandate. And you know what? The opposition is weary. Almost nowhere to be seen. We’ve reached — at least for the moment — American Nihilism. When the leader wants to burn it all down and the opposition is like, “oy, this again?” it’s … well, it feels weird. I want to say “dangerous,” but maybe it’s not. It is, definitely, weird. So what’s going to happen Monday afternoon and for the next four years? I mean, who the heck knows. Part of me thinks President Trump just says what he says to get votes, and at the end of the day he’s just a normal, pro-business Republican. I can live with that. But part of me thinks Trump has a little too much of Hans and the Duke of Weselton in him. There is a not-zero chance that he is going to seek to remake the republic in his image, whatever that means. And just the fact that there’s a not-zero chance of that, love it or hate it … yeah. Definitely weird.
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