Less Is Not More

 It will be such a relief to have science and math back.

Maybe we should have paid a lot more attention to the "count" of the crowd back at the 2017 inauguration of the former game show host, now twice-impeached "president." He and his minions seemed to struggle with the concept of "more than" and "less than." It could be that those symbols, "Which way is the alligator pointing?" They were saying that there were more people at their guy's inauguration, but it was pretty obvious they meant less. A couple things here: It could be that these people really were bad at math. Or it could be that they figured that if they just kept talking about it, everyone would start to believe it. Like so many things, the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. But there were not more people at his inauguration. The truth was not in the middle on that one. 

It could be that they got stuck on the somewhat obscure factoid that Donald Trump received more votes than any incumbent president before him. Latching on to this piece of information stoked the fires of ignorance however, and ignored the other little piece that came right next to it: Joe Biden received more votes than any candidate in American history. Listening to full sentences has never been a strong point for that crowd, so maybe they couldn't stick around for the truth. 

Maybe they were just late. Telling time and calendars is another strand of math that may have escaped the grasp of the fans of the former game-show host. They all showed up about a year too late. Then they proceeded to storm the Capitol. Two weeks before the inauguration of the next president. 

Perhaps it's not a math thing at all. Maybe it's just terrorism. Like the way that terrorist tried to light a fuse on his sneakers to blow up a plane back in December 2001 and we are all still taking our shoes off before we get on board our flights. Since those idjits showed up a couple weeks ago, the National Guard and assorted and asserted law enforcement have cordoned off the Mall in Washington D.C. ensuring that the crowds attending Joe Biden's will not only be smaller than four years ago but virtually non-existent. Now that crowds have become mobs, bracing for violence and screening our elected representatives for weapons, the celebration is muted. Diminished by the idjits who showed up late. Late for the inauguration. Late for the election of their leader's successor. 

Late. 

Less. 

Lost. 

And now the work to restore what has been torn apart for the past four years begins.