Rage Against the Light - The End of a Four Year Nightmare

I can no longer recall who posted this cartoon but it captures what it has felt like to live in Trump’s America (and especially here in Washington, DC) since the November election . . . perhaps even before that when it became clear that should he lose the election he would not be going gently into that good night.  Despite the fact that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had won the popular and the electoral vote with a comfortable margin, the candidate who clearly lost refused to accept the results or to concede the election.  He chose instead to “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”  Of course Dylan Thomas was writing about confronting death which none of us can escape when the time comes.  Still his words capture the essence of a president who could not bring himself to face the obvious, of a four year nightmare that just would not end.

Instead the former president sent his lawyers forth to contest the election results in courts across the nation while claiming that the election was from the outset rigged against him and that he had won a landslide victory without providing a shred of evidence to support his claim.  All but one of these court challenges failed.  Still he would not concede.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

When all else failed the former president (how wonderful these two words sound) called upon his Republican allies in the US Congress to stand in his defense; to question the reliability and veracity of the electoral process and to refuse to certify the votes of the Electoral College.  Over a quarter of the members of the US House of Representatives and thirteen US Senators rose in support of this challenge.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

On January 6, the day of the certification vote at the Capitol, the former president spoke to his supporters at his “Save America” rally on the Ellipse outside the White House and he urged them to march on the Capitol to support the vice president and those Republicans he believed were willing to challenge the results of the election.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. After this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down. We’re going to walk down any one you want, but I think right here. We’re going walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

We must stop the steal and then we must ensure that such outrageous election fraud never happens again, can never be allowed to happen again, but we’re going forward. We’ll take care of going forward. We got to take care of going back. Don’t let them talk . . . As this enormous crowd shows, we have truth and justice on our side. We have a deep and enduring love for America in our hearts. We love our country. We have overwhelming pride in this great country, and we have it deep in our souls. Together we are determined to defend and preserve government of the people, by the people and for the people.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

We’re going to the Capitol and we’re going to try and give… The Democrats are hopeless. They’re never voting for anything, not even one vote. But we’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help, we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

And so these supporters marched on the Capitol while the former president retreated to the warmth of the White House to watch on TV what he had wrought.  The crowd confronted and fought the assembled law enforcement officers responsible for protecting the building. They broke down doors and smashed windows.  They shouted obscenities.  They wore clothing with racist and anti-Semitic messages.  They beat police officers with American flags.  They roamed the halls of the Capitol leaving behind graffiti, puddles of piss and piles of shit.  They breached and trashed the Senate chambers, the offices of the Speaker of the House and others.  They looted.  And five people died.  The former president could have stopped all of this had he chosen to do so. He could have called up the National Guard to restore order.  He refused.  Instead he told the terrorists he had been wronged and that he loved them.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

For over a week downtown Washington, DC was a virtual ghost town as businesses shuttered and streets were closed to all but authorized traffic.  The National Mall was sealed off and closed to the public.  Over 20,000 heavily armed National Guard troops were deployed throughout this city.  Helicopters cris-crossed the skies.  They were  there not to fend  off a foreign threat but to protect our democratic institutions from organized domestic terrorists bent on sedition and treason.  Most of us have longed for the end of a four year nightmare. We did not imagine it would end like this.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Thankfully the terrorists were subdued.  Many have been arrested and will be called upon to answer for their crimes.  True to form, the former president took no responsibility for what he had wrought and he has been impeached a second time.  His supporters vowed to continue to fight yet the new administration assumed office yesterday without any further rancor or violence.  Like all bullies, the former president and his enablers and sycophantic supporters are bullies who do not have the courage of their convictions. 

It was not the dying of the light the former president was actually raging against for his interregnum was not enlightened but cloaked in a darkness, in an iniquity and an immorality engendered by ignorance and greed and resulting in chaos and debasement.  There was no good night for him to go into.  In the end, there was nothing left to rage against.   His time was up, his power gone.  He is an empty shell with nothing left to do or say.  A hollow man.  A broken and lost soul.  A hollow sham.  A straw man who failed to destroy the institutions of the American democracy.

Instead of Dylan Thomas’s poem perhaps T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” captures the pith of this nightmare’s end.  His hollow men fail to do what they promised and there is nothing left for them to say or do.  To paraphrase Eliot:  This is the way his world ends.  This is the way his world ends.  This is the way his world ends.  Not with a bang but a whimper.

The light was not there yesterday morning at Joint Base Andrews as the former president and his entourage slipped away almost unnoticed.  The real light was to be found a few miles away, on the same steps of the Capitol where the former president’s terrorists brought shame on this country.  It was found in the words of Amanda Gorman, a 22 year old poet from Los Angeles who asked:  “When day comes we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?”  We found the answer as the true face of America shone forth as President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took the oaths of their offices . . .  “when the day comes we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid, the new dawn blooms as we free it, for there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.”