Cat Show. 1/15/2021

Here We Go. The Post-Insurrection, Pre-Inauguration Edition.

VG: Another eventful week right here, in the mother of all capitals – Washington. Indeed, people joke that due to the Covid restrictions, Americans can’t travel, so they are forced to create trouble at home. Anybody who wants to make sense of this event without a name? Insurrection, coup, rebellion, putsch, attack of the domestic terrorists, riot, charade, delayed Halloween party? How many ways to define it?

HOBBS: Well, any historian would tell you: look at who benefits, who has the power to name the events, who controls the discourse, who is ready to exploit the situation. That’s what matters. As Stalin would have said had he listened to me: “It does not matter who votes. We’ll shoot them first. It does not matter who counts. We’ll shoot them second. It matters what story is being published in Pravda. And we can always shoot them if they write the wrong stuff.”

ALICE: Exactly. That’s how bad societies operate. They have brutal regimes suppressing spontaneous manifestations of the pro democracy movements. They all are the same. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Lukashenko, Putin. They poison, kill, bully, threaten, and silence. And even more importantly, they always meddle. Nazis meddled in neighborhood countries, Soviets did, and so do the Chinese commies meddling in Hong Kong recently. And so does Putin and his cohort. These dudes just can’t help it but meddle. And then they always blame others: imperialists, Americans, Russophobes, Sinophobes.

We, on the other hand, are so magnificently different. In other societies, progressive forces rebel. In ours it is the forces of reaction. The hicks, the brainwashed, the deplorables, the Trumpists, the sexoracists, if you allow me to coin a new term. Can’t wait for Biden to squash them all with an iron hand.

VG: Brainwashed? How do you know all this stuff, Alice. Have you been to other countries? Have you seen how they operate? Did you talk to any of so called deplorables? Did you walk in their shoes for a mile?

HOBBS: Alice is just a typical – and mind you –not the worst case of TDS. Everything that Trump ever praised – is now being dismissed as unmitigated evil. Putin, common man of the provinces, attractive women, guns, burgers. And now – even such cherished American practices as protests, as skepticism toward the press and the establishment, as the right to dissent. It is all flushed down the toilet. We are going to have the triumvirate of Pelosi, Biden, and Fauci till the whole thing comes tumbling down. I expect the introduction of the new holiday on the Six of January. The Impeachment Day. To be celebrated annually with military salute, veggie burgers and matcha latte. And since the double Impeachment is as effective against TDS as double vaccination against the virus, I expect this Holiday gaining more and more traction, eventually replacing Christmas in the national conscience.

ALICE: How can you joke about this day of infamy and national tragedy? Our democracy had been under threat as it has never been before. First Putin, and now this! How can any democracy survive this double blow? Evil forces were ready to engulf the Capitol and the capital. Evil president and his tweets had incited the racist mob to do the most heinous things, like killing one of their own: a policeman. I know I am supposed to hate the racist cops, but when one band of racist pigs headed by Trump kills another racist pig headed by Biden, my choice is obvious. All Trumpists should be locked up or exiled, and their right to tweeting revoked permanently.

VG: Well, our discussion had taken a familiar course and that’s what I wanted to avoid. Trump or Biden. Evil or good. What a sad, pedestrian, and boring world. Tolstoy had this amazing character in War and Peace. Helen Kuragin. Utterly corrupt and cynical. So she hated her rich husband, slept around but eventually decided to marry another man. But she knew that even her corrupt society was not corrupt enough to support this blatant polygamy, so she quickly turned the terms of discussion. Instead of “what right do I have to marry another guy while my husband is alive and kicking, she started going around asking a drastically different question: should I marry a rich young foreign prince X, or a rich old Russian grandee Y. And the whole society quickly forgot about her husband and began to debate the relative values of X or Y.

HOBBS: I see where you are going Indeed, why are we discussing the relative values of Trump or Mitch McConnel, Trump or Biden, when the whole society is sinking? When neoliberalism destroys the planet and its inhabitants, when corrupt talking heads peddle idiotic topics for the debate instead of the real issues. US capitalism and imperialism had run its course. In the form we know it is dead. In War and Peace, as I recall, Tolstoy got so tired of Helene lies and intrigues that he eventually killed her in childbirth after she almost seduced some Catholic Dignitary, who promised her Catholicism, divorce from her husband, brand new marriage and all other perks. So yes, Helene Kuragins of Washington can go on for a while with their fake dichotomies, fake outrages, and fake new beginnings, but the god of history is watching and the sentence had been pronounced: You cannot fool all the people all of the time.

ALICE: Vladimir! Hobbs’ pessimism is sickening. Black cat sees everything in very gloomy terms. Us, grey cats, we sure do see things differently. Yes, there was a dark strip of Trump presidency. But now we have a Unifier. He is bringing back all the people ostracized by Trump: Nuland, Samantha Powers, all the traditional establishment. He’ll unify these crème de la crème of Democratic establishment with Republican establishment also ostracized by Trump. We are finally going to have the day of unity. Let the foot soldiers of both parties hate each other. It is good for business. The unity of the educated enlightened elites headed by Wise Leadership of DNC, will usher in a very bright period. Darkness of Trump years will be pierced. Starting with the glorious Impeachment and Inauguration. Long Live Democratic Party of America. Long Live its Wise Chairman Biden. Long live Freedom and Democracy. Down with Trumpism and its evil ways.

VG: I am speechless. I think I’ve witnessed similar enthusiasm before, but I forgot when and where.

HOBBS: Alice, when was the last time you took your medication?