1/10/21

 In Disney’s Fantasia, based on Goethe’s poem Der Zauberlehrling, an apprentice is charged by his sorcerer master with replenishing a well, a process requiring multiple tedious trips carrying buckets of water.  The apprentice, seeking a less arduous way of accomplishing his assignment dips into the sorcerer’s book of spells and finds an incantation that will command a broom to carry out the task.  Pleased with his clever avoidance of manual labor, the apprentice falls asleep.  Meanwhile, the enchanted broom diligently continues to fill the well, even as it overflows.  The apprentice awakens to a flood, seizes an ax, and reduces the broom to splinters.  Which, regrettably, re-constitute as full-fledged brooms, each intent on continuing their water-carrying task.  The apprentice’s efforts to find the spell to put a stop to the mayhem fail, the waters rise, and all seems lost until the sorcerer reappears, and utters the conjuration necessary to restore order.

 

This comes to mind in the aftermath of one of the most execrable series of events in our nation’s recent history.  Like the apprentice, Trump summoned up a horde of the disadvantaged, dismayed, disenchanted, disillusioned and just generally dis’ed to do his bidding and overturn the November election by storming the Capitol and putting a halt to the procedural reporting of the votes in the Electoral College.  But like the apprentice (not to be confused – much – with the lamentable television show of the same name), Trump found himself, utterly predictably, unable and most likely unwilling to control the forces.  Not that he demonstrated much interest in trying.  After exhorting the crowd to march from the White House to Congress and saying “I’ll be there with you” he scurried back to the safety and comfort of the White House where he cheered on his televised incitees, while occasionally disparaging their appearance and costumes.

 

The tragic results, as of the moment, are five dead, the Capitol and what it stands for desecrated, and the world’s respect and admiration for our country diminished.

 

But here fiction and fact diverge.  For unlike the tale, there seems to be no sorcerer, no rational figure of authority and wisdom to put matters aright.  Certainly not the invertebrates of the Grand (sic) Old Party, a strong majority of whose House members, even in the aftermath of the assault on their – our – House, voted to refuse affirmation of the Electoral College results.  This was suggestive of nothing so much as a dog chasing a car without the vaguest idea what to do if the pursuit succeeded.  The Legislator’s derisory justifications for this inanity varied somewhat member to member, but generally centered on the premise that citizens (some or many, depending on one’s political orientation) believe firmly that the election was irredeemably riddled with all manner of fraud, that the results were therefore invalid and that the election should at minimum be investigated, if not re-run, if not ignored altogether.  This pretzel logic and the cynicism underlying it are truly Olympic Medal-worthy.  Even before the election and with increasing volume and frequency since, the President, his flunkies, enablers and media supporters have been predicting and then proclaiming fraud.  Why then any surprise that a portion of the population, taking their leader both literally and figuratively, refuses to accept the results?  All in spite of 62 of 63 court cases brought against the election having either been dismissed or withdrawn before being adjudicated (there being penalties for lawyers bringing to court cases lacking any evidence).   

 

Fate’s bony finger of scorn and ridicule is now directly and one can hope will forever be pointed at these craven lawmakers (looking particularly at you, Senators Cruz and Hawley) whose political calculation was as singularly self-centered as any and all of the actions taken by our soon-to-be-former President.  By their rank opportunism, not to mention gross violation of their oath “to protect and defend” they have forever utterly disqualified themselves from any position of public trust.  As has the President to whom they sold their souls.  Goethe had something to say about that, too.  See Faust.