Why Would You Support the World’s Dumbest Coup?
Donald Trump’s last-ditch attempt to hang on to the presidency is simultaneously hilarious and terrifying.
Today is the scariest Sunday of the year. Why you ask? Because tomorrow is the first work day of the year. For the past week (or longer in many cases) you’ve been lazing around the house, eating like a maniac and relaxing. Even if you were working in between Christmas and New Years we all know you were half-assing it, as is your right. Tomorrow you go back to work and it’s going to suuuuuuuuuuuck.
I’m here to help you through the year’s very first work day by providing you with 3,000 words on the state of our democracy, MF DOOM and the False Dmitrys. I highly recommend you pair this delightful newsletter with an insufferable Zoom meeting, just make sure to nod from time to time and nobody will be the wiser.
As always, thanks for reading, tell your friends, yadda yadda yadda. Let’s dive right in, shall we?
For a little more than four years, I have been daydreaming about the day Donald J. Trump would be evicted from the White House. My belief was that Trump would go out with a whimper. He’d lose the election, probably tweet about it a couple of times, then go down to Florida for Thanksgiving and never come back. This would have made sense given his history, he’s all bluster and very little follow through.
What I didn’t expect was that he would try and launch the world’s dumbest coup to stay in power. And what I really didn’t expect was a significant chunk of the GOP going right along with it.
Now, don’t get me mistaken, I’m not saying people like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley or Mike Pence are moral folks with strong principles preventing them from attempting to steal a fair election. They are grifters and power hungry assholes who care about absolutely nothing beyond maintaining their personal status. What shocks me is that they would risk it all on a stupefying scheme led by an utter moron and his legal minions who are somehow even stupider than he is.
I understand why Republican politicians would tie their star to Mitch McConnell, an actual political mastermind who has perfected the art of cynically destroying what this country is supposed to stand for. McConnell has been the most destructive force in politics for most of this century and thanks to his court packing the carnage of his time in the Senate will last long after he is dead in the ground. If you want to take away people’s reproductive rights and never pay taxes again, Mitch is your guy.
Tying your star to Trump is never going to benefit anybody but Trump. His MAGA movement (blech!) is a cult of personality, not an actual political movement. All of those people lining up for hours to attend superspreader events weren’t waving flags with an elephant on them, they weren’t crying out for smaller government and chanting about lowering corporate taxes. They don’t give a shit about the Republican party or conservatism. They care about Trump, the reality TV star who said the vile shit they said among their friends on the big stage. That’s it.
There isn’t going to be some sort of MAGA Party where Ted Cruz becomes their presidential candidate. They’d support Tiffany before they’d support the Zodiac Killer. So why would they fully support an attempt to block the results of an election with nary a shred of actual proof of voter fraud? An election that, in the end, wasn’t even particularly close?
Now that Trump has gotten to the point of calling the Georgia Secretary of State and begging him to find enough votes to overturn the result in Georgia, which would still not give Trump anywhere near enough votes to win the election, how is anybody buying into his shit? How are senators and representatives lining up to support this idiocy?
But here they are making a mockery of the entire electoral process, filing frivolous lawsuits in an attempt to give Pence the power to throw out electors from states they don’t like. I’ve watched and read so many interviews of Trump acolytes talking about how they know there is fraud, we just need to look to postpone the inauguration to have time to find it. Keeping the threat vague and staying away from specifics is actually the only smart thing they are doing here. If the threat isn’t specific it can’t be refuted by a total lack of evidence.
Everyone of these senators and representatives knows they have nothing. No evidence. No fraud. No possible chance to prevent Joe Biden from becoming president in a little under three weeks. But like a degenerate gambler they just keep doubling down. They keep jumping through whatever hoop Trump sets out for them. Each one trying to outdo the others and prove they’re the most obedient lap dog.
All this will do is fracture what little belief Americans have left in the system. Disillusion the people a little bit more and keep them from engaging. With less people paying attention to the system, the right can just keep pilfering whatever they want, letting the rich get even richer, taking peoples’ rights away and letting corporations destroy our environment and our working class for the sake of profit. Which has been the plan all along.
The world’s dumbest coup never had a chance to succeed. But in a way, the GOP are still going to get what they want. And that’s why it really scares me.
Weekly Song to Rock Out To
Sofa King by Danger DOOM
I don’t believe that a year can be cursed. The concept that an arbitrary collection of 365 days can be evil while a different collection of 365 days can be good is beyond ludicrous to me. But even I was wondering if 2020 had been blessed with nefarious powers when I learned of the passing of MF DOOM on New Year’s Eve.
I’m not a hip-hop guy and I’d never pretend to be, but I’ve always been attracted to the underground hip-hop scene because it can get so delightfully weird. MF DOOM was the weirdo among the weirdos and just so damn brilliant. He did things no other MC would do— he made an album all about food, another album about weird cartoons and he wore a Dr. Doom mask all the time—and he made it work. It wasn’t weird for the sake of weird, it was weird because that’s what was in his heart.
The Danger DOOM album was my entry to his music, this song being the first I ever heard, so it seemed the most appropriate for me to post. It wasn’t his coolest song, his best song or his most important song, but it’s the song that hooked me.
There will always be imposters, as there always have been, but there will never be another MF DOOM.
Charlie’s History Corner
The False Dmitrys
It’s sort of a miracle that I held off until issue 3 to discuss the False Dmitrys. Ever since I learned about the False Dmitrys in Professor Cracraft’s class at UIC back around 2001 I have been completely enthralled by it. I find it difficult to fathom that there could be even one False Dmitry, but there were three. THREE. Get ready to hear a tale so remarkable it could only take place in Russia during the early 17th century.
Ivan the Terrible was, for lack of a better word, terrible. Sure, he’s responsible for turning Russia from a minor medieval state into a massive empire, but when you’re not the Tsar being part of an empire isn’t always a great thing. During his reign, Ivan initiated more than a few bloody purges (a Russian tradition) and he was responsible for the Massacre of Novgorod. Oh, and Moscow burned down, never a great thing.
Fear of Ivan was rampant among the Russian people, including within his own family. Ivan had four wives, three of whom coincidentally passed away after allegedly being poisoned by other royal families looking to promote their daughters as potential wives. I’ve got a bridge across the Volga to sell if you believe that story.
As he got older, Ivan was often overcome by paranoia and rage, leading to violent outbursts. In one of these outbursts Ivan beat his pregnant daughter-in-law for wearing immodest clothing, causing a miscarriage. Ivan’s second son and heir, Ivan, was naturally furious about the incident, and when he confronted his father a scuffle broke out. A scuffle that ended up leaving Ivan Ivanovich (the son) dead. Thus, very late in Ivan the Terrible’s life, he had lost the heir who had been training for the position for years, leading to stability.
The throne would pass to Ivan’s second son Fyodor, a man who was both ill-equipped to lead and uninterested in doing so. Fyodor left the affairs of the country in charge of a regency council headed by his brother-in-law, Boris Godunov. Fyodor ended up dying without an heir, a bit of a problem for a monarchy. Which brings us, finally, to Dmitry.
Dmitry was Ivan the Terrible’s youngest son. Being the youngest son in a Russian monarchy can be quite detrimental to one’s health. The only way that the youngest son of the Tsar can end up on the throne is if his older brother dies first before having a male heir of his own. Which means that for as long as that older brother is childless the second son is a constant threat to one’s power. Unfortunately for the young Dmitry, his older brother not only was childless, but he had turned over all the power to Godunov. Godunov wasn’t family, thus he wasn’t restrained by polite notions like “I probably shouldn’t murder my brother.” Godunov had Dmitry and his mother exiled. While in exile, Dmitry tripped and fell while holding on to a knife. A fall that conveniently plunged that knife deep into his throat, ending both his life and his chance to serve as a rival to Godunov’s power should Fyodor die.
When Fyodor died Russia was thrown into what has come to be known as the Time of Troubles. There was no heir to the throne so royal families were jostling to grab whatever they could. And then out of nowhere an heir showed up—Dmitry.
Everybody in Russia knew that Dmitry had been killed, but what this stranger was presupposing was, what if he didn’t?
Dmitry I was on the radar of Godunov about five years before he would end up on the throne. While in Moscow, Dmitry was impressing people left and right with his tale about escaping the attempt on his life. Naturally Godunov wanted to get a look at the man, see if he really was Ivan’s youngest son. Dmitry knew that this royal inspection could be bad for a myriad of reasons, fled the capital, but not before making some very powerful friends.
This Dmitry may have been an illegitimate son of the Polish king or he may have been a monk, depending on whose rumors you believed. His origin wasn’t nearly as important as the support he had raised, particularly among the rival Polish Commonwealth. His mysterious origin meant he could actually be related to Ivan, whereas Godunov most certainly was not a blood relation to the crown, thus making Dmitry’s claim stronger. When Godunov died and passed down the throne to his son, Fedor II, a coup took place ousting the unpopular tsar’s son, leaving the door open for Dmitry. And so Dmitry I became Tsar of Russia in the summer of 1605.
After taking the throne, Dmitry received the blessing of the real Dmitry’s mother, thus confirming his story and legitimizing him. This new tsar was not the kind of man to let bygones be bygones, so he had all of Godunov’s family murdered with one exception, Godunov’s daughter Xenia, who Dmitry raped and kept as a concubine for five months. Pretty much all of Godunov’s supporters were exiled and all of those royal families who had been exiled by Godunov were pardoned.
A month or two into his reign, Dmitry had already ruffled many a feather, but then he decided to go a step further—taking on the Russian Orthodox Church. Dmitry took on a Catholic wife who did not convert, thus allowing boyars to spread the rumor that Dmitry was making an allegiance with the pope and the king of Poland, trying to end Russian life as they knew it.
Ten days after the marriage, a large and furious crowd showed up at the Kremlin. They stormed the building and Dmitry jumped out of a window attempting to flee. The fall broke his leg, ended his flight and he was captured. When he refused to repent, Dmitry was executed. His body was put on display for a while then cremated. The ashes were put into a cannon and fired in the direction of Poland, letting Russia know the price of falsely claiming the throne and aligning with foreign interests.
Surely nobody would ever attempt to do what Dmitry did ever, ever again. Or, you know, at least not for another year.
The second Dmitry strolled into Moscow in 1607. It had been a year since Marina Mniszech’s husband had been executed and his remains shot out of a cannon, so she clearly would have seen through the ruse of a second man claiming to be Dmitry, right? WRONG. She immediately validated this Dmitry’s claim by saying that it was her husband, who had apparently not been executed and shot out of a cannon.
The second Dmitry found some supporters (pretty much the same folks who supported Dmitry I) and started going to war with the Russian throne. For a while, things went pretty well. In an effort to get the people to join him, Dmitry said he would confiscate the estates of the boyars and redistribute them to the people, which made him pretty damn popular. Dmitry built an army of close to 100,000 supporters and was ready to take the throne.
Then things went a little sideways. Polish king Sigismund invaded Russia, drawing the support of many of Dmitry’s men. Then a Russo-Swedish army was raised against Dmitry’s troops, from which he fled while disguised as a peasant. After a couple of years in obscurity, Dmitry thought about having another go at things, but this wouldn’t go so well either.
After failing to take Moscow in 1610, Dmitry went on a bender. Half drunk and aiming to get a lot more drunk, he packed some sleighs with mead and hit the road. Whilst on the road a Tatar princeling with whom he had some beef—Dmitry had flogged him at some point—decided to get revenge on the usurper. The princeling rode up to the sleigh with a pistol and shot the now very drunk Dmitry and killed him.
Since these Dmitrys had a way of coming back, the princeling was taking no chances. He pulled out his saber, cut off Dmitry’s head, and rode away with the grisly trophy.
So that’s it. The end of the False Dmitrys. Only two men would ever have the audacity to pretend to be Ivan the Terrible’s son in an attempt to become Tsar of Rus…. wait. What’s that? OH MY GOD, THAT’S DMITRY’S MUSIC!
The third false Dmitry was a real shining star. The other Dmitrys had attempted to take the throne by building alliances, proving themselves to be cunning. The third Dmitry didn’t have time for that shit. He showed up out of nowhere in Ivangorod and proclaimed himself to be Ivan the Terrible’s long lost and thrice killed son, Dmitry. The Cossacks, the ever-present threat to order within tsarist Russia, immediately embraced Dmitry III and acknowledged him as Tsar in March of 1612. By May, the third Dmitry had had enough of his ruse and he wanted to give it up. Fleeing from the Cossacks, Dmitry was quickly seized by Russian authorities and executed for being an usurper to the throne.
The prior executions of Dmitry had not done enough to end the scourge of the False Dmitrys, so this time they were going to make sure to get things right. Dmitry III was drawn and quartered. Then, to make especially sure he couldn’t come back from the dead, each chunk of Dmitry’s body was placed into a cannon and shot into a different direction.
When any potential Dmitry IVs weighed the pros and cons from here on out, pretending to be Ivan the Terrible’s heir didn’t really seem worth it.
So in a couple of years when some coked out weirdo tries to claim the presidency as the long-lost Donald Jr., remember the lesson of the False Dmitrys and shoot that fucker’s ashes into the wind.
Things to Read
Here are some things I thoroughly enjoyed reading, plus a little more self-promotion if you’ll stomach it.
The pandemic has ravaged the service industry. But as restaurants struggle to survive during this perilous time, entitled customers are proving to be an even more formidable foe than the disease has been. https://www.foodandwine.com/fwpro/customer-is-not-always-right
This story of how two retirees from Michigan found a loophole to win millions in the lottery, legally, makes me wish I paid attention in math class. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jerry-and-marge-selbee-how-a-retired-couple-won-millions-using-a-lottery-loophole-60-minutes/
On New Year’s Eve I was going over all of my favorite articles I worked on this year (here’s the thread if you care:
I’m not working today so I figured I’d throw together one of those “Things I Wrote This Year” threads. I hate using Twitter solely for promoting my damn self, but I’m proud of a lot of the work I did during a pretty crap year. 1/13The article that ended up being my favorite is not one I was super excited about writing, nor one that I was expecting to be a particularly interesting conversation considering that I’m not much of a fan of the man’s music. So it was with some surprise that my conversation with Randy Blythe ended up being so engaging, and when the dust on a wild year settled, this was my favorite thing I wrote this year. https://www.inkedmag.com/original-news/lambofgod
A check in on Charlie’s sports sanity
The Bears made the playoffs. Normally this would be a time of celebration and joy, but not this year. They made the playoffs in the most pathetic manner possible, losing to the Packers and backing their way into a wild card spot that shouldn’t even exist. And in doing so I’m afraid they’ve saved the jobs of all the incompetents on the coaching staff and in the front office. This horrific slog of a football season goes on another week, God help us all. Bear Down, I guess.