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GELFAND’S WORLD - It's the 4th anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol by armed thugs trying to prevent the lawful succession of the president. It was a disgrace then, and what is about to happen will be an even worse disgrace. That's because Donald Trump promises to pardon the people who were so treasonous on that day.
The list of dead in law enforcement includes a stroke victim and 4 suicides. But beyond the dead, there is the record of law enforcement officers being beaten physically and attacked with chemicals. And all this in service of the Big Lie that the 2020 elections were rigged against Trump, in spite of the fact that the 2016 and 2024 elections were just fine and that exhaustive investigations showed that no such rigging happened in 2020 either.
What's disappointing about this prospect is that, so far, the Democrats in the United States Senate have failed to protest the proposed pardons in an adequate way. Adam Schiff and Chuck Schumer and Amy Klobuchar should be shouting it to the rooftops. They should be reading off the names of the police who were injured and the police who died as a result of the attack. They should be reciting the names of the guilty along with their criminal convictions. They should be reciting the crimes and published statements of the insurrectionist leadership, including the Proud Boys and the president elect.
A tax increase on the middle class and the poor
We hear that Trump is asking the congress to pass one giant bill that will take care of everything -- tax cuts for the rich, border enforcement, and tariffs. The rumor, or explanation, is that the tariffs will cover the costs of everything else. This is both an admission and a terrible lesson. When he was running for president, Trump didn't seem to understand that tariffs have to be paid by the importer, which means Walmart and Home Depot and Harbor Freight and every other big box that sells to you and me. And it includes every mom-and-pop store and every manufacturer which uses some amount of foreign-made parts.
And since every one of these wholesalers and retailers will suffer from higher costs due to those tariffs, the overall cost to our market economy will go up proportionately. And that means that costs to you and me will go up proportionately.
So if Trump stays stubborn and fails to admit what the effects of tariffs really will be, then the effect will be obvious: Tariffs will be, in effect, a broadscale sales tax that will be borne by all consumers. And the predictable effect will be inflation and ultimately an economic slowdown.
In other words, the effect of tariffs will be to damage the economy. And it's all on Trump and his whiney supporters in the congress.
It's all on them
The year 2025 began with a couple of terrorist attacks. For some reason, they were carried out by U.S. military men. The one thing that wasn't all that surprising was that Donald Trump, forever shooting from the lip, complained about the New Orleans attack in terms of illegal immigration and Biden's failures, although the terrorist was American born and Army trained. This would have been a serious gaffe for any other politician, but for Trump it is par for the course.
The suggestion that everyone take a deep breath and ignore Trump's nonsensical rantings whenever he loses his temper turns out to be good advice. Whether it is terrorist attacks blamed on the wrong nationality or the flag flying at half mast during the January 20 inauguration, Trump is always going to be furious about something. The correct response is to laugh at him as the clown he is, if not necessarily at whatever he threatens.
In fact, a pretty good summary of the next 2 years might be the clown face from the movie Killer Klowns from Outer Space. It fits well.
Football -- Professional and even more Professional
The new college football playoff system turned out to be both boring and somewhat invisible, at least if you don't subscribe to cable TV. The first round -- also called the quarterfinals -- was not presented on broadcast television. As one of the last living Americans who does not subscribe to cable (although I hear that our numbers are growing), I wandered down to the local coffee house to watch the Rose Bowl. In the old days, this would have been a classic, what with an undefeated, number one ranked, west coast team representing the Pac 12. And there was a typically dominating Big 10 team from you-know-where. But times have changed, and somehow we ended up with two Big 10 teams playing each other in the Rose Bowl on New Years Day.
It still would have been fun except for the fact that the mighty Oregon Ducks played like baby ducks and Ohio State was dominant in the way that Big 10 teams dominated Pac 8 teams in the 1950s.
As for the rest, the teams that have come through to the semifinals are all teams that I have rooted against in the past, largely because they were in some game against a west coast representative. Either that or they were the SEC.
One note in this first year of the 12 team playoffs: The SEC used to be dominant, what with Alabama and then Georgia winning national titles again and again. If you consider the entire southeastern US, then Clemson adds to the once-hegemony. So far, this is the season for the midwest and Texas. (I see Texas as an SEC team about like I see Oregon as a Big 10 team.)
One other point that was supposed to be illustrated by the above heading: College teams may wear jerseys that identify some academic institution, but they have become professional football teams in almost every possible way. It turns out that the top-ranking quarterbacks are taking down well in excess of a million dollars when you count their various deals. That's the effect of the new rules referred to as NIL, which stands for name, image, likeness. In other words, a college football player can merchandise himself to a shoe manufacturer or to a breakfast cereal. Rumor has it that one college player is making something closer to five million this year.
So far, the reality doesn't seem to be having much effect on the sizes of the crowds, at least when it comes to big games between rivals. On the other hand, all those secondary bowls have been showing pretty substantial patches of empty seats. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that the official playoff system now takes up 12 teams and that means lots of games.
To Change the Subject: An Excellent Idea to Save us Money
The Washington Monthly used to be referred to as the most influential publication that nobody had ever heard of. It is still around and still training some of the best of America's journalists. Just for fun, here is a proposal that, if adopted, would save us a huge amount on the overall cost of our health care bills. Instead of explaining, I'll just provide a link here. The idea is to lower the cost of your employer-provided health to the cost of Medicare.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
