Stimulus, Finally
FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | December 22, 2020
“We should never lose sight of the fact that Trump’s defeat in 2020 has prevented a catastrophic destruction of our democracy.”
As the 116th Congress heads to a close, Congress yesterday passed a $900 billion coronavirus relief bill and a $1.4 trillion appropriations bill, as President Trump sat in the White House raging against the dying of his presidency.
According to Axios, Trump is attacking everyone around him for failing to buy into his desperate schemes, including Vice President Mike Pence, chief of staff Mark Meadows, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
At the same time, Trump is plotting with fringe House Republicans, including a newly elected QAnon backer, convicted and presidentially-pardoned perjurer Michael Flynn, and his “legal team,” featuring lead conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell.
Together, this cabal is planning an unprecedented and bound-to-fail political coup. They are seeking to have Congress throw out enough presidential electors during the January 6 ratification vote in Congress to somehow prevent President-elect Joe Biden from being acknowledged as President and to then reelect Trump.
We have here the makings of King Lear and Mad King George rolled into one.
Trump, who has spent four years stomping on the nation’s norms, is ending his presidency by trampling on one of our most sacred norms – the country’s peaceful transition of power, first established by President George Washington more than two centuries ago.
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A few final thoughts for 2020:
Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) deserves kudos for playing the role that elder statesmen have played for this country in the past. His singular Republican vote in the Senate to convict Trump during the impeachment proceedings and to remove him from office, and his outspoken attacks on Trump’s baseless, destructive efforts to overturn the presidential election, deserve special recognition.
By appointing three Democratic Members of the House to his Administration, incoming President Biden has left House Democrats and Biden’s “First Hundred Days” legislative agenda in a precarious situation. Democrats may end up with just a bare three-vote margin in the House during Biden’s critical first couple of months while special elections are held to replace the departing Members.
This would allow a very small group of House Democrats to attempt to leverage Biden and the great majority of Democrats on House bills, with the threat of not voting for the bill or for the rule to bring the bill to the floor, unless they get the legislation they want.
As we come to the end of the term of the worst and most corrupt President in American history, and to the end of a year of historic devastation caused by the coronavirus, we can look forward to better years ahead.
As problems arise in the future, we should never lose sight of the fact that Trump’s defeat in 2020 has prevented a catastrophic destruction of our democracy.
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