United States transitions to the Law of the Jungle on Jan. 20

Canada, Mexico, even war-torn Ukraine and adversarial Iran offer support, firefighters to contain Los Angeles wildfires, President-elect Trump sends misinformation

by Vijaya Chandrasoma

Mother Nature provided the most appropriately tragic backdrop to the imminent end of the Great Experiment of Democracy in the United States of America, the nation that has long been considered the Cradle of Democracy and the Leader of the Free World. The ongoing wildfires in California could well be the worst natural disaster the US has faced in history, a tragedy diminished only by the Second Coming of the Orange Jesus.

California, the most beautiful and populous state in the Union, has been, over the years, ravaged by natural disasters like earthquakes, wildfires, winter storms and droughts. Due to climate change, these disasters keep growing in size, frequency and intensity, with wildfire seasons growing longer in duration.

The current wildfires have now been brought under a certain degree of control in most areas. Residents who were forced to evacuate have been allowed to return to their homes, those which had not been totally destroyed. Wildfires in the most affluent and humble areas alike have devastated entire communities. Beautiful and wealthy homes and buildings in prestigious Los Angeles communities like the Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Pasadena now resemble bomb-stricken areas on the Gaza strip, with entire neighborhoods turned into rubble and ash.

The ferocity of these wildfires has also shown the resiliency of the human spirit. Devastated communities are pulling together, neighbors risking their lives to help neighbors. There was an outpouring of sympathy and assistance from all parts of the nation and the world. Mexico and Canada, among other nations, amazingly even war-torn Ukraine, a country which has been the victims of relentless bombing for three years, have sent their first responders to help in California’s disaster.

Of course, this compassion hardly touched the man who was going to be the president of the country in a few days. Trump has already started the blame game, accusing California Governor Newsom (or to use his kindergarten nickname, New-scum) for mismanagement of the proliferation of wildfires in California.

As these devastating fires continue to burn through Los Angeles, Donald Trump, self-proclaimed climate change scientist, continues with his theory that climate change is a hoax. His latest idiocy is that the current California fires were not caused by severe Santa Ana winds. Nor the unusually dry weather. Nor the possibilities of arson and negligence.

No, they were caused by a fish. A tiny bony fish, called a “smelt” that Trump alleges California’s Democratic Governor, Gavin Newsom, used precious water to protect, rather than conserving the water for the wildfires. As always, a monstrous lie. Trump states that one of his first duties after inauguration, after mass deportation of illegal immigrants and immediate drilling for oil, would be to deregulate non-existent water restoration plans, approved by Governor Newsom to protect an “essentially worthless fish”. Promises that will all meet the fate of the famous 2016 promise of the 3,000-mile border wall paid by Mexico.

The world’s real climate change scientists believe that we have already “passed the tipping point where the earth’s climate has crossed into a different system leading to potentially irreversible, catastrophic events”. Yet we remain complacent, take no serious action to mitigate these disasters.

On a lighter note, this year’s ongoing transition of power has thrown up a few cringeworthy “firsts” in the nation’s history.

This is the first time a president-elect has continued to sell, publicly and on TV, various products, like “golden” sneakers, Inauguration edition Bibles, wristwatches, boots, even autographed guitars. A more classless and tacky enterprise to disgrace the institution of the presidency would be hard to find. But once a snake-oil salesman, always a snake-oil salesman.

At a press conference after the November election, Trump claimed that the terror group, Hezbollah was responsible for the January 6, 2021 insurrection. A little later, at the same conference, he said he was going to pardon the “patriots” who carried out the same January 6 insurrection. Hezbollah will be so happy at being called patriots by the United States President-elect.

The year 2025 marks the first time a convicted felon has ever been the president-elect of the United States in its history. It is also the first time that the convicted felon president-elect has nominated another convicted felon, his son-in-law Jared’s father, Charles Kushner, as the US Ambassador to France.

Also the first time a president-elect has threatened to annex, by military force, if necessary, two sovereign nations, Panama and Greenland, an island owned by NATO ally, Denmark.

Trump has also claimed that Canada is really the 51st state of the United States of America, and he will annex that sovereign nation by economic force. His argument: that the American-Canadian border is an artificially drawn line and Canada is really a part of the United States.

Trump does not seem to understand that the borders of most countries in the world are artificial lines drawn by whichever colonial power had been in occupation at the time. Trump is using the exact same argument for annexation of independent, sovereign nations that Putin is using to invade Ukraine, that Xi Jinping is using to threaten Taiwan.

The confirmation hearings of Trump’s nominations for his cabinet are currently in progress. There is little doubt that the 53/47 majority Republican Senate will confirm Trump’s spectacularly unqualified, dangerously extremist cabinet choices, whose only qualification is lickspittle loyalty to the Fuhrer. In fact, the confirmation hearings at the Senate were a performance played out for an audience of one, with one Republican Senator tripping over another to display whose nose was browner.

During the hearings, just one of Trump’s nominations, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, his choice for Secretary of State, showed some semblance of independence, when he spoke of the value of the NATO alliance and the importance of resisting Russia’s geopolitical ambitions. His days are surely numbered.

The others who have so far been interviewed by the Senate refused to answer one simple question; whether they would resist obeying an unconstitutional or illegal order issued by Trump.

Defense Secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth refused to answer if he would remain faithful to international laws and the Geneva Convention if Trump instructed him to go against them. He also implied that torture, like waterboarding, would be justified under certain circumstances.

Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi refused to confirm that Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. She denied that she intends, as she has said on TV on numerous occasions, “to prosecute the prosecutors”, an obvious reference to taking legal action against those who headed the prosecutions of the 91 felonies committed by Trump. Liz Cheney, Jack Smith, Adam Schiff are three names that immediately come to mind.

On January 6, 2025, the US Congress constitutionally counted the electoral votes already certified by Congress the previous December. A feature of American democracy, this tradition, which was fractured in 2021, was resurrected in its constitutional form probably for the last time this year, when the President of the Senate, Vice-President Kamala Harris, acted according to the constitution and certified Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States.

No objections, no accusations of fraud, no violence resulting in murder and mayhem, no threats of the gallows or assassination of the President of the Senate and members of Congress. Just a tedious count of Electoral College votes and a 30-minute constitutionally boring speech by Vice-President Kamala Harris, certifying the presidency of Donald Trump. Thank the Lord we have seen these mind-numbing, boring, legal, constitutional procedures for the last time.

Instead, we saw the birth of a new tradition gaining ground in the political arenas of the United States and many other hitherto liberal nations in the world. Future presidential elections in these nations will be organized in the style of elections in oligarchies like Russia and North Korea, where war criminals like Putin and Kim il Sung, Trump’s erstwhile mentor and lover, respectively, are elected with overwhelmingly manufactured majorities and maximum fanfare.

In his 19-minute farewell speech from the Oval Office last Thursday, President Biden said that he is immensely proud of the achievements he leaves behind, suggesting that “it will take time to feel the full impact of what we’ve done together. But the seeds are planted, and they’ll grow and they’ll bloom for decades to come”.

Of course, the credit for the achievements of the Biden/Harris administration will be claimed by Trump, that they were created by him on the first day of his presidency. Just as he claimed the credit for the 75 months of consecutive economic development he inherited from President Obama in January 2017.

Trump will also claim the credit for the ceasefire-hostage deal which is close to agreement between the Israelis and Hamas, after months of difficult negotiations. Though Hamas agreed to the deal last Thursday, Netanyahu’s office is delaying it, alleging that “Hamas is reneging on parts of the agreement and trying to extort last-minute concessions”. However, it is likely that the Israel cabinet will vote in favor of Phase 1 of the ceasefire-hostage deal on Saturday, which will result in the initial release of 33 hostages.

Like climate change has taken the planet past the point of no return, the election of Donald Trump’s billionaire-backed Republican Party indicates that the United States has also passed the ideological tipping point and has crossed into a political system leading to a potentially irreversible oligarchic kleptocracy.

The rule of the oligarchs will be publicly displayed at Trump’s inauguration on Monday, when the richest men in the world, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and several other billionaires will be honored with the most prestigious seats, alongside senior members of Trump’s cabinet.

As President Joe Biden emphasized in his farewell speech, “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead”.