The Other New Normal

The YouTube algorithms presented for my approval a video about how the year 536 AD was the worst year of all time. I can't resist things that I know a little about. I'm a great enough fool to watch the whole video just to confirm what I already know for purposes of ego-gratification. It happened that I did know part of the story, plagues and steps along the path of the fall of Rome, but there was a major piece of the puzzle that had eluded me. 536 was the first of five or six years of very weak sunlight and cool temperatures. Growing seasons were severely affected all around the northern hemisphere, and famines and malnourishment became commonplace. These conditions probably set the stage for the onset of a plague, usually called the Plague of Justinian, which was almost certainly an early occurrence of the more famous Black Plague. That would be the Black Death of the Fourteenth Century. Death rates were comparable.

It was volcanoes. Iceland; El Salvador. There was a big eruption in the northern hemisphere every couple of years there for a while. It is a good lesson for us to note that up to the year 535, everyone was thinking that things were going very well. Good enough for them to become complacent. Justinian's great general Flavius Belisarius was stomping Goth butt all over the place; business was good; Constantinople was prosperous; and the Muslims had not yet arrived on the scene. Things often proceed this way. History lulls us into a false sense of security, and then, BAM! Right between the eyes.

We were as complacent as they must have been.

We completely took for granted all of the advances made in the lives of working people, things like weekends, vacations, sick-days, unemployment insurance, retirement security, affordable housing, and good free educations. And we hilariously took for granted all of the regulatory advances in the areas of cleaning up the environment, insuring worker safety, and preventing abusive banking practices. Many of us took pride in the advances that had been made in the area of civil rights, and those who did not agree with us learned to stay quiet about it. Slowly and covertly there were reactionary forces working to undo it all. Most of us missed it. Some, like me, saw the signs but lacked the courage, the time, and the energy to do something about it.

Now we are faced with our own year 536 AD. Surprise! Instead of volcanoes, we are being torn to pieces by a rapacious class of billionaire gangsters and their attendant wannabes, along with the Republican Party led by President Trump. With his cotton-candy hair, his awful parody of a suit and tie, and his deep catalog of comical facial expressions, Trump is the political equivalent of the fictional Pennywise, the clown with teeth, the clown who leaves a trail of blood-smear behind him wherever he goes.

Amazingly, even people who should know better act like all of this is something new. Yahoo News got ahold of a tape of President Obama saying that the rule of law may be at risk. This was in connection with the Justice Department, and Attorney General Bill Barr, dropping all of the charges against General Flynn after his fair-and-square conviction. He's the one who confessed and admitted twice in open Federal court to lying to the FBI about some political improprieties in eastern Europe. Obama belatedly believes that the rule of law MAY be at risk? It's like he fails to recall even the “Year of the Eight Justices.” Where was the rule of law then?

They don't even try to disguise their delight anymore. Someone asked Mr. Barr the other day what he thought history would make of his decision to free General Flynn. Barr has a grin that reminds me of Renfield in the Dracula movie, in his cell at the insane asylum bragging about all of the flies he has caught and eaten and how happy their deaths will make his master. So Barr puts on his own crazy little grin and says, “that depends on who writes the history, and history is usually written by the winners.” An FBI investigator named Asha Rangappa Tweeted that, “he seemed to be strangely confident that he'll be on the winning side.” Wondering out loud in the Tweet, “why would that be?”

The answer, Miss Asha, is that he knows something that we don't know. He has knowledge from a place where most Americans will not even allow their thoughts to roam. Even most Republicans still believe that they and their party are just playing hardball by the rules as they have always existed. Mr. Barr knows the truth. The rules mean nothing anymore. The Constitution means nothing anymore. Dear reader, your rights don't mean anything anymore. A couple of decades ago, politics in America became an all-or-nothing game where the ruthless beat the rule-bound every day of the week, and twice on Sunday. Win or lose in November, the Republicans will win, just like they consistently won during the eight years of Obama. Barr knows that this game is over.

Welcome to the new 536 AD! We even have our own plague! The major difference is that Justinian didn't want people to die. The famines will be here presently. Rule of Law? Requiescet in pace.