The Living Embodiment of Irony
ironic //īˈränik: happening in the opposite way to what is expected, and typically causing wry amusement because of this.
Anyone notice the extreme irony of Donald Trump’s last days as POTUS as compared to his first? Throughout the fateful 2016 campaign against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “Boss Tweet” spent a great deal of time promising to build a “big beautiful wall” between the U.S. and Mexico. He promised it would solve most, if not all our immigration problems by keeping out the violent, job stealing dregs of humanity stealing across our southern border. And the price? No object; Mexico was going to pay for it. He was so serious about this wall that beginning in late December 2018, he actually shut down the federal government for well over a month unless and until Congress gave him all the money he wanted in order to complete it. At one point, he even famously said he would be “proud” to own the governmental closure required to secure the funding . . . and then put the blame on Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and the Democrats. (BTW: when asked about what happened to the Mexican payment, he simply denied ever having said a word about it and, true to form, blamed the “lame stream” media. about it.
Four years later, as President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris are about to shed their respective title adjectives, we find that during his four years in office, Donald Trump has built precisely 15 miles of wall along our southern border. And here’s where the irony comes in: In the final days of the Trump/Pence administration, a virtually impregnable fence has been constructed all around the Capitol grounds to keep the very symbol of our Democratic Republic safe not from illegal immigrants, but rather from home-grown, home-sewn domestic terrorists. In other words, Donald Trump accomplished what he promised . . . but in the most ironic way imaginable.
The first blog I posted after Donald Trump’s inauguration came out on January 23, 2017 and was entitled Can Knowledge Be More Dangerous Than Ignorance? That was blog #629, and already evinced a weary, jaundiced feeling about the new administration and its leader. Today’s blog, which posts 3 days before the next inauguration, is #826. This post carries a degree of hope and energy a vast number of us have not felt for a long, long time. Ever since November 3, 2020, the Biden/Harris team has shown a greater degree of humanity, organizational smarts and political professionalism than anything we have experienced since the end of the Obama/Biden years. But let’s not kid ourselves: the country faces formidable challenges in such diverse - though ultimately, interlocking and tangible - areas as public health, economy, racial justice and international relations, not to mention such abstract necessities as empathy, civility, and trustworthiness. We as a nation must together relearn that just because the law does not forbid something, doesn’t mean that it should be done.
I for one have been both heartened and thoroughly impressed by the caliber, competence and experience of the people named to join the incoming administration. Unlike those they are replacing from the previous administration, these men and women are capable of hitting the ground running; they have no need to introduce themselves to their institutional constituency. Let us both hope and work for their acceptance by the United States Senate. Now controlling the barest of majorities in the Senate, the Democrats should be able to manage this feat without undo exhaustion or political horse trading. Then too, I urge senatorial Republicans to give the Biden/Harris team an opportunity to lead. Try hard not to claim before your constituency that the Biden/Harris folks are “a bunch of ultra left-wing communists and socialists.” You know that’s not true, so why lie to them? For the sake of an election in 2022 or 2024?
Let us also urge the opposition not to waste time and precious energy pointing out each and every one of the incoming President and Vice President’s shortcomings, character flaws or supposed past vices. They are both good and honorable people . . . who also happen to be human beings. By now, you should know that they consider themselves to be servants of the people. After what we’ve experienced these past four years in terms of what one might call “private cupidity as public policy,” it will be next to impossible for anyone with an ounce of honesty or reason to accuse Joe Biden or Kamala Harris of being corrupt. Woodrow Wilson, likely the most academically sagacious of all presidents once said, “the difference between the two parties is that the Republicans are the party of property; Democrats the party of the people.” For Republicans to support Donald Trump even after all he has done for himself and then turn around and accuse Joe Biden of essentially being the head of a crime syndicate is not only deeply ironic; it is the height of madness.
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and a Democratic Congress are not going to bring clear skies overnight. They will, I believe, do their very best to bring honesty, civility and morality back into politics. It’s not going to be easy. President Biden is facing the most divided nation since Abraham Lincoln . . . and he knows it. But unlike his predecessor, he has lived a real life devoted to making the lives and dreams of real people manifest. If ever a POTUS/VPOTUS need prayers said on their behalf, this would be it. Were I to have been honored with delivering the opening prayer (which I was not . . . no problem) I would quote the angriest, most insightful of all the prophets: Isaiah (61:1):
ר֛וּחַ אֲדֹנָ֥י יְהֶוִֹ֖ה עָלָ֑י יַ֡עַן מָשַׁח֩ יְהֹוָ֨ה אֹתִ֜י לְבַשֵּׂ֣ר עֲנָוִ֗ים שְׁלָחַ֨נִי֙ לַֽחֲבֹ֣שׁ לְנִשְׁבְּרֵי־לֵ֔ב לִקְרֹ֤א לִשְׁבוּיִם֙ דְּר֔וֹר וְלַֽאֲסוּרִ֖ים פְּקַח־קֽוֹחַ
(Ruach adonai eh’loheem ah-lye: ya’ahn mashakh adonai oh-tee l’va-sayr ah-na-veem sh’lakhani , l’ckhavosh l’nee’b’ray-layv, leekro l’ishvuyim d’ror, v’la-ahsureem p’kakh ko-akh.”
Namely, “The spirit of the Lord God was upon me, since the Lord anointed me to bring tidings to the humble, He sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to declare freedom for the captives, and for the prisoners to free from captivity.”
Of a certainty, this is a tall, tall order; but one I feel resolutely certain President Biden and Vice President Harris will carry out with every fiber of their being.
Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone