Time to Go

Until yesterday, I planned to write something clever about being fired. Not me being fired. I’ve haven’t had that experience, at least not yet. But losing an election (and despite what the president or any of his cult says, he lost, “bigly”) is just like getting fired. I figured I could crank out  600 words in my usual snarky tone about the president getting the axe.

I had some bits about how everything I know about getting sacked comes from the movies. There, the employee gets the boot, their meager personal belongings, which always includes a plant, are thrown into a bankers box (which always seem to be available), and security escorts them out of the building.

But when the president is fired it’s different. The president gets almost three more months on the job. I planned to compare that to anyone else who is let go. Something along the lines of “you’ve done a terrible job here at Joe’s House of Widgets, we’re going to have to let you go.  But don’t worry.  You can stay a few more months and continue to fuck up our widget company.”  I hadn’t yet worked out the ending, but I thought I might be able do something with an offer to send a bankers box to Washington if it would help speed things along to the escorted out by security phase.

That was my plan. Until yesterday, when most of my snark vanished. In its place, anger, shame, and disgust but not surprise, because anyone with an IQ above 62 should not have been surprised by what happened yesterday. The president has been sowing the seeds of yesterday not for months, but ever since he came down that escalator.  For five years, he has encouraged, not a return to greatness, but a return to hatred.  He has plied his followers with one lie after another about the election.  Now he and every one of his enablers, not to mention his family, bear responsibility for what happened yesterday. It was frightening, shameful, and yet another new low in a presidency made up only of lows.

But now, the day after, what’s next? There have already been calls for resignation, for impeachment, or the 25th amendment. Sigh. Normally I'd have written that differently. Something like, “there have already been calls for impeachment, the 25th amendment, or at the very least, require him to rewatch the entire New York Jets season.” But that's an attempt at humor and I’m much too angry for that.

I’m angry that his endless lies have bamboozled people into thinking there was election fraud when there is not a shred of evidence to back that up.  I’m angry that a crazed group of white people ran amok with little consequence. We all know if that group had been black, it would have been a different story. I’m angry that for too long, people have made excuses for this president, “that’s just Trump being Trump.” Bullshit. That’s an authoritarian demagogue who will stop at nothing to stay in power and doesn’t give a fuck about anyone but himself.  I’m angry that the Republicans in the Senate had a chance to get rid of him a year ago and looked the other way.I’m angry that he has done nothing but divide a country that this year, more than any other, needed unity. And I’m angry that there are never any consequences for him. He literally gets away with everything.

But not this time. There are currently thirteen days left in this nightmare but he is a disgrace and he needs to go now. He has always been unfit for office but it’s gone beyond that now. He is simply too big of a risk to have the keys to the Oval Office, never mind the nuclear codes. So I’m in favor of all the actions above (okay not the Jets thing). He should resign immediately.  If he won’t resign (and I’m sure he won’t), then the 25th amendment should be invoked and I better not hear the word pardon come out of Pence. And if it takes impeachment to ensure this horrible human being never holds office again, I’m all for that too. He’s fucked up our widget company for far too long. Whatever it takes, he has to go now. And if he needs a bankers box or two...