A state of exception
By 
The pump don’t work cause the vandals took the handle:
That Trump’s cabinet is going to be full of losers cheaters six-time users (I could do this all day) is 100% a classic fascist/authoritarian flex. In The Perils of Presidentialism Juan Linz notes that presidential systems are prone to destabilization because both the executive and the legislature have plausible claims to democratic sovereignty. But in a situation like this one, where the legislature (and for that matter the courts) is going to be controlled by the party that itself is now under the more or less complete control of the Leader, there isn’t going to be any meaningful resistance to full-on authoritarianism/fascism.
In that light I’m getting a certain amount of grim amusement from various comments about the GOP should treat Trump as the lame duck that he is, because of the 22nd amendment, which says Trump can only be president for four more years.. 22 times four is 88.
One through nine, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can’t travel in space, you can’t go out into space, you know, without, like, you know, uh, with fractions – what are you going to land on – one-quarter, three-eighths? What are you going to do when you go from here to Venus or something? That’s dialectic physics.
I’m not sure what to say or even think about the farcical and pathetic spectacle at the White House yesterday, in which Biden symbolically handed over the premises to a man who has never recognized the legitimacy of Biden’s election or subsequent presidency, and who made perfectly clear beforehand that he would take the same attitude toward Kamala Harris. That the system allowed a man who fundamentally rejects all the most basic rules of the system to take it over is pretty much a perfect illustration of how not to solve the paradox of tolerance.
I’m sure Marcy Wheeler et al. have a very eloquent explanation of how all that could possibly have been done was done, and in the best possible way, but if that’s the good news I don’t want to hear the bad.