Can we 'lower the temperature?' We'll find out soon - By Gene Lyons

[DonViejo]

Regardless of what delusional schemes Donald Trump puts into play over the next couple of weeks, he’s done. The center will hold.

By Gene Lyons Dec 30, 2020, 2:48pm CST

So what’s it going to be, America? The beginning of the end or the end of the beginning? Chaos and misrule, or the gradual rebirth of democratic governance under President Joe Biden?

The omens are unclear. In the short term, a specter of pandemonium looms. Maddened by defeat, Boss Trump appears determined to shoot the moon: summoning a mob to Washington to bully Congress into reversing the 2020 election. “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” he tweeted the other day. “Be there, will be wild!”

The so-called “Proud Boys” and other toy soldiers envision an anarchic takedown of government itself. Trump’s psychodrama requires destructive theatrics; millions of his followers remain enraptured by the spectacle: basically a professional wrestling extravaganza on a national scale.

In short, choreographed make-believe.

The smoke had hardly cleared from the Nashville bombing before QAnon-accented conspiracy theorists announced that the Clintons and George Soros had orchestrated the whole thing, because the building damaged in the explosion held confiscated voting machines that would have proven the presidential election was stolen.

An admission of defeat, if you think about it.

Now the “steal” can’t be proven.

more: (no paywall)
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2020/12/30/22206920/post-trump-politics-president-joe-biden-lower-temperature-gene-lyons