Icarus, Donald Trump, and a Horse…
We’re all familiar with the idiom “crash and burn”, right? You’re not likely to get a confused look from anyone if you use the term. I can’t say how broadly it has penetrated the languages on the planet, but I assume it is understood everywhere.
Thinking about it, I began to wonder about its origin. I knew what it referred to. It describes the process that takes place when a gas fueled aircraft crashes. Often, they catch fire and burn. The idiom means catastrophic failure. When your aircraft crashes, and is destroyed, if the crash didn’t kill you, the burning fuel probably will. You’re in a pretty bad situation. As it turns out, the idiom originated in the 1970s. That surprised me a little, but seems about right. It could not have been too much earlier. In the Wright Brothers era it might have been crash and cry…or crash and break. While crashing at any time wasn’t pleasant, (sorry, Dave Matthews), in the Wright Brothers time, crashing and burning wasn’t necessarily catastrophic.
From the 1970s to 2020. A leap year. An Olympic year. A presidential election year. Barely more than one month into 2020, Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early end to Winter. Buckeye Chuck in Marion Ohio delivered the same prediction. Today is March 12th, and Spring seems to be coming along. Maybe Chuck and Phil were right. I find it fascinating that neither one of those ‘whistle pigs’ managed to predict the real stories for the early part of 2020.
Since our two rodent oracles waxed prognosticatious about the weather, quite a few big things have happened. All of these big things, for which you can make your own comprehensive list, all stem from one global event. We on planet Earth are in the grips of a pandemic. Discussions of the pandemic are everywhere you turn. I turned on sports radio today and the talk was all about Covid-19. By the end of the business day on the East coast, all of the major sporting events have been canceled. Broadway shows have been postponed. Universities are closing. The subject has gone positively “viral.”
So, Bitey, you say…what does all of this have to do with “crash and burn”? To explain that, I’ll start with a joke. Icarus, Donald Trump, and a horse walked into a bar. The bartender asked, why the long face? Then Trump answered, I turned the GOP into a cult, and Icarus said, and it became too successful as a cult. The horse followed the discussion, then looked back at the bartender without speaking. Then the bartender asked, why do you say the GOP is a cult? Icarus answered, well, Republicans will repeat and do whatever Trump says, devoid of all reason.
Recently, as the Covid-19 pandemic…went viral, news outlets sympathetic to the GOP were calling this a “hoax”. Opinion personalities like Sean Hannity were accusing the Democrats of concocting the viral story as a way to weaken Donald Trump. Donald Trump’s own son, Orange Nero II, claimed that the Democrats want people to die because…(by then I had tuned him out). This cultish lack of concern seemed to take flight, like Icarus himself. One congressman who attended the CPAC convention was exposed to the virus and flew back from the conference to Washington with Trump aboard Air Force One. He was notified about the flight that he had been in contact with someone who had the virus, and temporarily retreated to an area of the plane alone. Just a bit prior to the flight, the same congressman, Gaetz, wore a gas mask on the floor of the Congress, mocking the idea of Covid-19 as a threat.
By today, Ohio is in a state of emergency, as are about 30 other states. MLB has suspended Spring training, and essentially delayed the start of the baseball season. March Madness has been canceled. The NHL season has been suspended. Travel from Europe to the U.S. has been curtailed…excepting the U.K., Ireland, and Croatia, of course. By the close of the stock market today, Republicans must be feeling the effects of reality trying to de-program the cultish notions that have taken hold. Trump’s Oval Office speech last night was a catastrophic failure. His affect was that of a hostage in a hostage video, being held hostage by himself.
This crisis should do it for Trump’s prospects in the coming election. This catastrophe should do it for the GOP cult. Like Icarus , the GOP has failed. Crash and burn, sort of. This time it is really a burn and crash. Republicans failed to grasp the seriousness of this crisis and publicly mocked it. Doing so, they have shown that they lack the good sense that God gave a groundhog. The horse stood by silently, but his long face showed his concern. Even the horse gets it.
03/12/2020 @ 11:05 pm
I’ve also been thinking about the political consequences. As a result of ignoring science, which Trump always does, and avoiding inconvenient truths, which he always does, people will die and the economy is going to tank for at least a while, in an election year, which means he pisses off his financial base big time. The private sector realizes the risk and severity in a way that Trump is preventing the federal public sector from doing. So do some of the state governments, like here in NY.
This is a horrible way to win an election and teach a portion of the population that those people who have been talking about Fake News have been lying to them, though it is likely to be an effective one. There’s also another good consequence that I haven’t read about but will inevitably be true: This will reduce fossil fuel emissions appreciably for at least a while. Travel will be drastically curtailed, commuting will be heavily curtailed, local errands will be drastically curtailed, and it’s quite possible that industrial production will be significantly curtailed and with it power generation to feed industrial production.
Politically, this could turn into a terrible mess. What we will see shortly is at least a few people dying of Fake News, killed by a Myth. When Republicans lose family, how are they going to react? Fox and the President were telling them not to worry about it. They’re all about to find out that running the country by “fuck the people who bug us” has its drawbacks.
03/13/2020 @ 5:57 am
Every drop of your comment is true. I have been saying for years that, at the very least, the prospect of pandemic makes the case for universal healthcare because their health becomes your health. We wont be separated by income in the event of pandemic. I said that just a few weeks ago to someone.
03/13/2020 @ 7:53 pm
If “Orange Nero ll” isn’t the funniest phrase I’ve seen in recent memory then I just made a big snort in the living room for some other reason.
12/20/2020 @ 6:50 am
USS Token (AM-126)
God fearing yet flummoxed. No doubt my soles will squeak at mask. Mast. MASS
Now the other shoe slo-mo drops.
Changing times of interest. Finally I afford a golden hen. Next my gravity, stroke of pen.
Ethnocentrism, 3 BIG SuperPowered delusional stooges.
Bingeing and cringing our bell kept ringing. If fiction is dead reality is how far off. Watch for songs, enhanced inner ears, dancing bears meme fields. I am including subtle astringent drops in my dishwasher failsafe mask and possibly will continue to coinword combos like as I rush to judgment fractured how-now this terror.
Shewolf out lair. Brittle the limb, snowshoe vantage, eyelashes snowed so cold.
Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia?
Putin pussyfootprints permafrost pristine.
Can’t find my Khrushchev’s Heel. That MACH 1’s frame bent yet selfmended. We cornered
Geary & Jones ….Good golly you’re prolific jolly GOOD….I’m no Brando yet fence a point.
Snake bit sure sure last in line down at NASA.
Missed the game albeit rested my back.
Near the eternal flame.
(621-n=MA) nekoT SSU)