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3 March 12020 is Super Tuesday. It is also World Wildlife Day, Mothers’ Day (Georgia), Martyrs’ Day (Malawi), Liberation Day (Bulgaria), and probably
many more. The saint of the day is Cunigunde of Luxembourg, whose party trick
was walking over red-hot plowshares without injury. It’s 24 Meshir 1736 on the
Coptic calendar, 7 Adar 5780 on the Jewish calendar, and 8 Rajab 1441 on the
Islamic calendar. And the world is apparently holding its breath waiting for
the American Democratic Party to choose Joe Biden as its candidate for
president. (I personally am not looking forward to watching Trump crush him
like a cockroach come November, but that’s what I expect if the Democrats are
really dumb enough to nominate this fumbling stumblebum as their torch-bearer.
What’s the big idea here? To show that Democrats can make America even more of
a laughingstock than the Republicans?)
And speaking of fumbling stumblebums, linguist Noam Chomsky
for once appears to have the election situation pegged: “If the donor class
succeeds in nominating a centrist candidate, progressive activist forces might
be disillusioned and reluctant to do the work on the ground that will be needed
to prevent the tragedy—repeat, tragedy—of
four more years of Trumpism. If a progressive candidate does gain the
nomination, centrist power and wealth may back away, again opening the path to
tragedy. It will be a fateful year. It will be even more important than usual
to remain level-headed and to think through with care the consequences of
action, and inaction.” (Quoted as from an interview of last November.) Mind you
I would call it not so much a tragedy as a bloody farce, using bloody in its literal sense. I mean, the
Iranian hardliners just triumphed in the elections there (thanks to Trump), the
Taliban is working out the terms of American surrender in Afghanistan (thanks
to Trump), a new plague is threatening to do serious damage to the United
States (partially thanks to Trump), and North Korea is holding a nuclear sword
over everybody’s head (thanks to—well, not Trump, but he didn’t do anything to
remedy the situation). Yes, Trump needs to go ASAP but not at the cost of
installing somebody as bad or worse, even if his badness is (shall we say) different from the Dopey Don’s.
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