As we march into the new year, I'm looking forward to Trump's inauguration with a mixture of fascination and fear. The rational part of my brain tells me that Trump just cannot be as bad as I imagine him to be. At the same time, the fearful part descends into some sort of morbid contemplation of Trump as a Hitlerian character from my nightmares. Only time will tell which of these will be the reality and probably it will be neither so I suspect that I will continue to be fascinated as the reality is revealed.
But one vignette is worthy or note and that was the confirmation hearings relating to Trump's nominee for Attorney General, Senator Jeff Sessions. I only watched 10 minutes of the broadcast and the questioning that I saw seemed to focus on Sen. Sessions relationship with various white supremacist organisations. The conduct of the questioning was quite surreal in that Sen. Sessions' response to the questions was, in simplistic terms, that he received so many awards from so many organisations that he simply couldn't keep track of them and the fact that he received the awards didn't mean that he either knew the organisation in question or agreed with its sentiments.
What I found most strange was that members of the committee then indulged in a bit of 'Good Ole Boy' back slapping about how they all have the same problem with awards and not a day or a minute goes by when they don't get another one.
In closing, I did read a comment attributed to Sen. Sessions, a long time opponent of relaxation of marijuana regulations. Sen. Sessions is reported to have said that he "didn't have a problem with the Klu Klux Klan until he found out that they smoked pot". Roll on the 22nd January.