The Flight 967 Election

 
You all remember the "Flight 93 Election" panic being peddled by Conservative media outlets in America four years ago, right?  

The story that American fascists told themselves was that the election of Hillary Clinton would spell the OMFG! Doom! Western! Civilization! and therefor, despite the fact that Donald Trump was clearly a pathological liar, malignant narcissist, con man, sexual predator and unabashed racist, it was every Republicans sacred duty to "rush the cockpit" and install him in the White House whatever the cost.     

From Vox in September of 2016:

Yearning for Trumpocalypse: what's behind a viral conservative essay

Comparing America to Flight 93, Trumpists argue that maybe we must be broken to be saved.

In the past week, thousands of conservatives have heard and heeded a warning: America has been hijacked — and electing Donald Trump is their last chance to storm the cockpit before it crashes.

The warning came from the website of the Claremont Review of Books, an anti-establishment but intellectual conservative publication. It’s called “The Flight 93 Election” — a reference to the only plane hijacked on 9/11 that didn’t make it to the hijackers’ destination.

It begins:

2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees.

Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain.

The author of the Claremont essay — who goes by the pseudonym Publius Decius Mus — is somewhat less hostile to Trump than many other conservatives, or at least he likes the message more than the messenger. Trump, he says, has “identified the right stance on today’s most salient issues.”

And of course, being a horde of reprogrammable meatbags, Republicans stampede to the polls to comply.  

And with the help of Russians and Comey and Third Party spoilers and a legion of Very Serious mainstream Both Siderist hacks who, believing Hillary could not possibly lose, felt liberated to beat on her like a piñata filled with career advancement candy and preach about the need for all good men and women to Disrupt The K'Rupt Duopoly.

All of that taken together was enough for Donald Trump to slide into the White House despite losing to popular vote by three million, and thus began four years of mayhem, madness, economic ruins and mass death...none of which has shaken the faith of the  reprogrammable Republicans meatbags in their Dear Orange Leader one iota. 

And so, four years later, we find ourselves slogging through, not a Flight 93 election, but a Flight 967 election.  A normal flight, a little bumpy and somewhat overbooked, which one unhinged asshole has decided to make unbearable for everyone else.

From Wikipedia:

American Airlines Flight 967: On the January 15 flight from Los Angeles to Chicago O'Hare, an intoxicated passenger caused the flight to divert to the Albuquerque Sunport after he began kicking seats, assaulting a flight attendant, and taking off his clothes. The man also began spitting gum at the passenger who was filming him and threatening to kill everybody. The plane diverted safely and police at Sunport arrested the suspect and charged him with assault, disorderly conduct, threatening passengers and crew, and intoxication. Other passengers complained that they missed their connecting flights at O'Hare Airport due to the incident.

My kingdom for a handy airlock.

No Half Measures