One of my lifelong facial tics, exacerbated when frustrated or perplexed, was working quadruple-time last week at the Baltimore County hospital where I receive a bi-monthly phlebotomy for a peculiar, but manageable, blood condition. I get on well with the nurses who perform the procedure, a laugh here and there, family discussions, the weather, all light banter. But this time I was enmeshed in a ball of confusion when I tossed off a remark about the recent election. “Crazy, wasn’t it?” I tossed off, and she instantly turned sour.
I let her talk, since she had a needle in my scarred right arm and I didn’t want it re-directed to the neck or eyeballs. I was surprised when she claimed that UnitedHealthcare executive Mark Thompson “had it coming” when he was assassinated last Wednesday—this was a hospital, after all—and I didn’t have the strength, as blood dripped into a pint bag, to say what appears obvious: that it was a contract killing, and the smiling perp, perhaps paid off with a million bucks or more—by UnitedHealthcare to squash damaging testimony—was probably safe in St. Petersburg or Caracas. That he’s now a folk hero in some quarters, a modern D.B. Cooper, is confounding, but bloodlust is in vogue. It’s shooting season, and who’d be surprised if say, Bobby Jr. takes a bullet in the next six months, Tulsi Gabbard or Jared Kushner. Another try at Trump is inevitable.
I expressed a dissatisfaction with both candidates, and the nurse went into a belated campaign commercial for Kamala Harris. “I did my part, but the little people have no say anymore, and the Green Party barely exists” she said bitterly, and I attempted to shift to generalities, such as the locked-up products at drugstores and supermarkets. (The Safeway near my office has, in the past month, fortified its premises even more, installing a dozen guard rails to thwart potential thieves, while refusing to open seven of nine checkout stations; in addition, the ATM now allows withdrawals of only $60, with the same onerous fee, so I’m not counting on the longevity of this location.) The nurse agreed, citing CVS in particular, and then threw me for a loop by blaming it on Trump’s (proposed) tariffs. On a roll, she echoed the daft warnings of Beltway Democratic pros, saying, “It looks like we won’t be voting again in four years.” Citing an article in The New York Times, she stopped me short: “That’s a right-wing rag.” I pivoted to Christmas trees and she lit up like a 1950s bubble-bulb and we were square.
Last week, I speculated that Biden, after his early pardon of son Hunter, wasn’t done saying fuck you to all those who, in his mind, did him dirty, and sure enough later in week it was reported that the outgoing president is mulling over a slew of freebies. In The Wall Street Journal last week, Peggy Noonan—who pines for the 1980s when “normies” made up the government, not unreasonable, since I’d like to be 30 again, but it’s fantasy—was aghast, in her polite way, over the Hunter pardon and Trump’s administration wish list. She wrote: “[Hunter Biden’s videotaped nastiness] became an emblem of the assumption that the elites of our nation, the people pulling the strings, are wholly decadent—dope-smoking lowlifes, abusers of others. It’s looking very Late Rome among our leadership class.”
I’ve had it up to my ears with comparisons to Rome in the last several years. Talk about a “hive mind” talking point. Trump nominates Kash Patel and it’s very Late Rome. Biden’s hair gets messed up at a Christmas tree lighting (which made him look younger) and it’s Late Rome. The Grubhub delivery is 15 minutes late and Late Rome is in cinders.
The New York Times’ insufferable Michele Goldberg—a shame she’s not following Paul Krugman’s lead and retiring; was the Gyro Gearloose economist pushed out the door?—took up the Late Rome cudgel last week by suggesting Biden issue a mess of preemptive pardons. She wrote: “There’s no version of a Trump restoration that doesn’t result in both human and institutional destruction. Biden still has a duty to save who he can.” Vintage Michelle-From-Brooklyn-You’re-On-The-Air.
Joe Biden, by all appearances, is in a mischievous state of mind this December, probably not helped by Democratic donors who are threatening to withhold funds for his post-presidency library. I don’t think it’d be startling if the Man From Scranton (and Rehoboth Beach, Amtrak and County Mayo) flips the script and pardons Donald Trump. That’s bipartisanship!
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023
