Les Nuits Blanches
What we think about when sleep is elusive, and Donald Trump is still braying.
Sunrise, Colombia (Kathy d’Adesky), August 2022.
9.6.22 I’m still in Medellin, waking up too early and already in search of a very good coffee, which is something found everywhere in this land of fertile green soil. I order a double latte on the spot every morning, knowing one won’t do, and a third may be in order later. I’ve had a second unwelcome nuit blanche, or white night, as the French call a sleepless night. In truth, my nuits blanches are never whole nights of insomnia, but little fits and starts of sleep-to-wakefulness, where I engage in any number of tricks to restore quiet to my brain and body. Unfortunately, checking the latest news these days remains more of mild roller coaster journey, because all of us—I’m including you here, reader, whether American progressive or not—knows our republic is imperiled. It threatens our ability to sleep soundly and dream.
That’s one of the sources of last night’s inquietud, as Colombias refer broadly to the daily problems that trouble our peace. Our future feels newly under threat. Ever since Trump’s election, the ship feels like it’s sinking. Even though his GOP base represented a minority, the rise of MAGA and extremist rightwing ideology has taken up so much political bandwidth and media attention. When Biden was elected, we felt like the ship was being righted, though the waters remained choppy. We’d survived a full sinking into would-be autocracy, which is the greater Trump goal. For the first two years of the Biden presidency, we felt such relief that the braying flimflam ex-president had been reduced to background noise. Then he came flooding back into view with the January 6 hearings, reminding us of just how corrupt and criminal his administration was, and how bad it could become if he is allowed to run for a second term.
Among my friends, one question dominates our days, one we ask with fresh dismay: What more does this man have to do to get put in jail? Anyone else would be in jail tens time over already for calling for a coup, lying baldy at ever corner, stealing and hiding state secrets at Mar A Lago, holding court with enemies of America, we lament. We feel betrayed in our collective belief that the rule of law should be applied equally to all, even though we’re all fully aware that America’s justice is a myth and broken thing, that it’s the promise, not the practice, of equality that we often encounter, that money still buys justice in America and people of color and the poor rarely get an equal day in court. Still, we’ve been raised to believe in the project of American justice. The effort to bring Trump & Co. to justice feels like death by a thousand cuts, a little daily bloodletting with each fresh lie. Here, the body in question is the American corpus: democracy.
When I can’t sleep, I try to find the very latest news about the legal back-and-forth of the ongoing Jan. 6 inquiry, or, more recently, the FBI/National Archives/Dept. of Justice joint attempt to recover our national secrets from Trump’s greedy hands. Mar A Lago, we see, is a modern corrupt court of Versailles with Trump as the fallen amoral would-be absolute ruler still seeking to dole out favors to his fawning minions.
The possibility of his corruption staggers the brain. Has he traded our nuclear secrets to Putin? To the Saudis? Is that how Jared pushed through his Middle East deal? Is that why we were so silent about the bold assassination of Saudi WaPo journalist Jamal Khashoggi? What about the latest Russian oil CEO to get pushed out the window? Where is America’s response? Has Trump made so many deals-with-the-devils, trading our US secrets for the support of the autocrats he openly admires, like Putin?
We’re all out here shouting in the dark, inside our heads, or via text, or on Twitter, agreeing with our political frenemy, GOP’s Rep. Liz Cheney, the emperor has no clothes. Worse, the emperor is a naked major criminal and his every utterance and action convinces us of how big a threat he seeks to be. Trump, we shout at all who listen, is more like the exposed little man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. He’s all fake. He’s the biggest con man, and he’s a damn high criminal. What will it take to put this man in jail?
Yesterday’s news was a fresh low dip in the roller coaster ride toward future jail for Trump. To our fresh, howling dismay, a federal judge he appointed in November, after he was already formally out of office — got that? — agreed to appoint a Special Master to review the 13,000 – underscore my incredulity here — documents he took from the White House. In a word, a Trumpy Magaland federal judge — one of many he managed to appoint– stepped in to help delay justice.
Before I started this blog, I’d come across the excellent nightly reflections on America, history and law by Heather Cox Richardson. She’s become a balm against political insomnia. I save her nightly blog for reading just before I turn in, because her take on the day’s politics tends to soothe me, even though she sugarcoats nothing when it comes to Trump and his merde.
At midnight, I read Richardson’s words like an addict needing a fix. Regarding the special master decision, she wrote, Legal analysts appear to be appalled by the poor quality of the opinion. Former U.S. acting solicitor general Neal Katyal called it “so bad it’s hard to know where to begin.”
Thank Gawd, I thought. I’m not alone.
Others legal scholars used words like simply untenable and laughably bad to describe the legal validity of the federal judge’s decision. True, except, I think, we’re not laughing, not at all. Richardson also cited political scientist Brendan Nyhan for pointing out, bad-faith attacks on our democratic processes open the door for changing those processes. She added, The neutrality of law is central to democracy. When it’s jettisoned, as happened yesterday, political dismay and near-despair are appropriate responses. None of it fosters peaceful dreams.
Tintin in Colombia (Gabriel Ortega)
To calm my roiling brain, I looked at some of the art I came across in a local gallery here in Poblado, the richy-rich tourist draw of Medellin. By chance, I came across a non-typical Botero, the most globally famous Colombian artist, best known for his trademark “voluminous” subjects. I knocked on the door of a gallery at lunch; the owners were eating lunch in the office, and welcomed me in, this Botero casually in view on the floor by the door. I learned it’s a famous painting.
El Nino de Vallecas (Botero)
I appreciated a Colombian artist, Gabriel Ortega, who lives mostly in Italy now, and works in mixed media. He grew up with comic books, and uses superheroes, including Tintin, as subjects of his artistic narratives. To many of us, Tintin is a flawed boy-hero who represents the clueless colonial white French explorer seeking adventure around the world. I thought Ortega’s sculpture of Tintin in colonial dress was a social commentary on Colombia’s colonial past. At least that’s how I viewed it. It’s a fun piece, regardless.
From there, I looked at Afro-Colombian artists, especially women, who have provided a sharp political and social commentary on their country’s history and future. They include Ana Mercedes Hoyos, whose large sculptures of women in markets and the street are collected in major museums.
Artist: Ana Mercedes Hoyas
I also dove into the current political situation for Afro-Colombians, who make up about a quarter of the population of the country, a greater percentage than in much of Latin and South America. Then I researched indigenous citizens, who come from some 120 or so groups, or “comunidades” and make up four percent. Many inidigenos live in the Amazonas region of the country, which makes up a large part of the overall enormous regional Amazon basin.
I then sunk myself into reading about climate change, and how cattle robber barons continue to exploit the Amazon and drive out indigenous groups. (See links below) On the positive side, the new lefty president, Gustavo Petro and his dynamic female VP, Francia Marquez, have made the fate of the Amazon and the future of indigenous Colombians a political priority. Marquez famously organized and led the 2014 Marcha de los Turbantes against the exploitation of indigenous communities in the Amazon and elsewhere in 2014, and received death threats afterward. Her activist movement was called Soy Porques Somos (I am because we are). Marquez was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2018 for her leadership in Toma, raising her global profile. Others describe her as fearless.
For me, like Richarson, facts are soothing. They provide ballast for legal arguments that can help advance the needle of fairness and equality, even with corrupt Trumpy judges who betray their oath of impartiality. Political intentions help, too. Biden’s historic big speech this week, billed as a battle for the soul of the nation, was good to hear. I’m not alone-we are not alone, I thought again last night, as the edge of dawn arrived. We are the majority. We must, we will prevail. We have to stay awake and vigilant. On the positive side, the January 6 hearings are due to resume. More crimes will surely be revealed, and with them, more evidence to help secure the prosecution of Donald Trump and his ilk. Nothing feels certain, but the case is strong. None of it is likely to help me sleep better, but, already, the sun is up. It’s a new day.
The question persists: What will it take to put that man in jail?
tps://www.cnn.com/2022/09/06/politics/joe-biden-donald-trump-maga-republican/index.html
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-document-search-judge-c9d93a3a90e5ab35fed7f4eb00e94edb
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/09/06/politics/bill-barr-special-master-doj-trump/index.html