Dolts are dolts

Garrison Keillor

January 13, 2021

Dolts are dolts: don’t give them too much credit

The pictures of Wednesday stick with you — the mob rushing up the steps when the line of cops broke, the bozo smashing the window with a pole, the gangs of Trumpers running wild in the marble halls and the cops in confusion, the lout lounging in Speaker Pelosi’s chair — it was an assault of a few thousand of the densest people in America, a congregation of barflies and dropouts and people you’d never hire to look after your children, who were so thrilled to triumph over authority they could hardly stand it. That was the whole point of it. To roam around where you weren’t supposed to go, to sit in the Speaker’s office, and to take selfies while they did it. It was the high point of their lives.

It thrilled them that Congress fled and hid in the basement and they got to parade around and wave their Trump banners and yell and own the place, which is pretty much how their man feels about the White House. He had little interest in policy but he loved the security entourage, the chopper on the lawn, Air Force One, being saluted. He was ill-informed and had the attention span of a housecat but he was Boss and smart people had to kowtow to him. It was glorious. What fool wouldn’t enjoy it.

In those debates during the Republican primaries of 2016, old pols like Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio stared at him in astonishment — the man made no sense but he could feel the audience’s fascination and he fed on it. There had never been a presidential candidate like him. He was the 300-pound man who won the pole vault. He was an auctioneer with nothing to sell but he could talk faster than anybody else.

The dunces who occupied the Capitol for a few hours got a similar pleasure from their adventure. They got to cross the NO ADMITTANCE line and sit in the Speaker’s chair and put their feet up on her desk, and get photographs of themselves doing it.

When order was reestablished, the suits came back and were full of pious baloney about how the confederacy of lulus had “desecrated” the place by their failed “insurrection” and I’m sorry but they gave the mob too much credit. The halls of Congress are not sacred — the idea of democracy is, but there have been plenty of fools elected to that Congress who desecrate it on a regular basis without any help from the outside. The mob was a band of anarchists with nothing in mind except to cross the red line and take selfies while doing it. As the man said, “Be there, will be wild!”

That’s the whole idea of Trumpism. To call him “authoritarian” is to give him way too much credit. To be a real dictator, you need to have ideas, a goal, something going on upstairs. The man is simply an anarchist. After eight years of the overachiever Obama, people were amused by the idea of a president who was bored with meetings, ignored briefings, liked to play golf, watch TV, and perform for large crowds of people who loved him.

I talked to my friend George on Wednesday as the American Stoopnagle Society took over the Capitol, and he was so downcast, he said, “I feel sad for my country.” I tried to cheer him up, but he’s 85 and a liberal Democrat so he is often slow to get the joke. I told him that the crowd was only out for a good time. And a poll of Republicans later showed that almost half supported the assault on the Capitol. It’s a Good-Time Party now.

The man was an anarchist, out to prove that it doesn’t matter who is president, a potted plant will do just fine. Joe Biden is an honest and decent man. More people prefer that to a potted plant and prefer thoughtful honest people in Congress to old bikers and bozos. So let’s have four years of thoughtfulness and then let the Republicans nominate a springer spaniel in 2024. It could be a close race.

Democracy wasn’t affected by Wednesday. Georgia showed on Tuesday that democracy is quite vital. More than 2 million came out to vote for two thoughtful senators over a springer spaniel and a stoopnagle. It was close, but close only counts in horseshoes.