I really resent that Trump continues to force me to pay attention to him. I would like to look to the future beyond January 20, and start thinking about all the issues that Trump’s attack on democracy and his incompetent handling of the pandemic have pushed onto the back burner: climate change, wealth inequality, health care, policing, reforming the presidency in the wake of Trump’s abuses, controlling disinformation, and figuring out how we should think about federal budget deficits, just to name the most important ones.
I actually had a post outlined where I would take a few paragraphs to reset the stage on each of those topics and provide links to review what’s been happening while our attention has been elsewhere. Then the section about deficits got out of hand, and I considered just doing a post on that, and saving the survey post for another week.
And then all hell started breaking loose. Saturday, Ted Cruz and ten other fascists in the Senate (there’s no point trying to be polite about it) announced that they would join Louie Gohmert and his pro-autocracy faction in the House to challenge several slates of Biden electors. The challenge won’t go anywhere, and should be resolved within a few hours, but when so many of our elected officials make such a blatant attempt to overrule the voters, it can’t be ignored.
Then yesterday, the Washington Post released a recording of a call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, pressuring him to “find” enough votes for Trump to win the state. If there were time, Trump should be impeached all over again just for this extortion attempt, because it’s exactly the kind of abuse of power I outlined in 2018 in “What Is Impeachment For?”
So anyway, looking past the inauguration will have to wait another week. The featured post will cover the Republican attack on democracy. It should be out around 10 EST.
The weekly summary will cover “lesser” news, like the thousands of Americans who continue to die every day of Covid, and the problems in distributing the vaccine. Tomorrow, two elections in Georgia will determine who controls the Senate for the next two years. And Nancy Pelosi got re-elected as Speaker yesterday. Little stuff like that.
Let’s imagine that gets out around noon.
The Weekly Sift 
Comments
Thanks for doing this. And I’m as tired of thinking about him as you are.
Doug, I’ve been a regular reader for several years, and I don’t know if I’m part of the 6032 but thank you very much for all of your hard work. Your blog is fantastic and keep it up in 2021!!
have found an excellent defense against trump cooties is to shower each morning with Oxiclean. The product bills itself as a stain remover, but it seems to have protective powers too.
A call for from congress for DJT resignation would at least indicate there is some spinal structure to our legislature, albeit too little, too late.
To me, the Republicans appear either gung ho for Trump, or too afraid to speak against him. What is interesting is there is little or no principle or policy behind decisions they make.
It would be great to have a day without Trump news. May he dig a hole so big for himself, that he falls an and isn’t able to crawl out.