Clinton, South Carolina, Wednesday, January 13, 2021, 11:01 a.m.

It’s been so long since I blogged here is that is difficult to boil my thoughts down to something coherent.

In truth, I doubt I’ll manage to do so today.

A week ago, I was working on something fairly mundane, with a news channel on mainly as background noise. The combination of the nature of the work and an exceedingly boring debate came close to putting me to sleep. I got up, walked into the kitchen and put some coffee on.

I didn’t anticipate hell breaking loose.

Within an hour, I didn’t lack motivation, just the will to keep going. I considered skipping the basketball game about which I was planning to write. Duty called, and I went, but a keen observer of my work might have suspected some distraction. It wasn’t the usual enthusiastic enjoyment of work. It was burying myself in work as a means of occupying the mind.

The President of the United States crossed the Rubicon, damned the torpedoes and released the hounds.

America hasn’t been the same since 1861, a few years before I was born.

The president, standing on a podium in the presence of the mob he led to this place and time, sent them off to fight and said he was going with them. Of course, he stole back to the mansion and watched them storm the seat of government on glorious, high-definition TV.

I thought of Harvey Korman in Blazing Saddles: “Now go do that voodoo that you do so well!”

Rock Ridge survived, too. It was a struggle. And I laughed about it.

My view is insignificant for obvious reasons but also because my mind is made up. I’ve opposed the President Formerly Known as Twitter since before he was elected. The root is that I don’t like him. I think he is an asshole. Apparently, millions of Americans love assholes so much that they will give up their previously professed beliefs in the Constitution, responsible spending, foreign policy, trade and God (not in that order) to bow to the will of a man who would be king. They believe his lies and love him enough to abandon all principle as previously expressed.

God forbid that an athlete take a knee with the anthem playing.

Law and order. Love it or leave it.

I respect the right to an opinion. I don’t respect the opinion.

The president sent his ragged army off to overthrow the government. Inexplicably, the invaders had the element of surprise. Apparently, no one actually thought the president would go through with it, although he had tipped off his pitches from the very first batter. No one thought he was that evil.

He’s still looming, dropping hints of more violence while washing his hands of it by invoking free will.

This has to stop. He has to be stopped.