However, what remains a taboo subject everywhere except out here in
disreputable wilds of whatever is left of the Liberal blogosphere is
how exactly the Republican base came to be such a aggregation of
unsalvageable garbage people that they would nominate this degenerate monster
for president three times and elect him twice.
How is it that no one but us dirty hippies noticed or cared about the monstrous cancer that was growing in plain sight at the heart of the GOP until it was far too late to stop it?
"The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it." -- Frank Herbert, Dune
In 2016, voters were offered a choice between a competent, capable, dedicated public servant with a track record of success, and a lying, racist sexual predator. And 62,984,825 of our fellow citizens stared into the lying, racist abyss that is Donald Trump and said, "Hell yes!"
In 2020, voters were once again offered a choice between a competent, capable, dedicated public servant with a track record of success, and that very same lying, racist, openly-fascist sexual predator who had just finished nearly wrecked the country with his corruption, incompetence and unprecedented, non-stop lying. This time 74,224,319 of our fellow citizens stared into the lying, corrupt, racist, predatory abyss that is Donald Trump and said, "Hell yes!"
In 2024, voters were yet again offered a choice between a competent, capable, dedicated public servant with a track record of success, and that very same lying, racist, openly-fascist sexual predator who had now led a violent coup against the government of the United States, who promised to pardon the traitors who had tried to overthrow the government, who had been impeached twice, was credibly accused of serious federal and state crimes in multiple jurisdictions and was now a multiply-convicted felon. This time 77,302,580 of our fellow citizens stared into the lying, corrupt, racist, predatory abyss that is Donald Trump and said, "Hell yes!"
And in handing him absolute control over this country, they gave him the power to destroy it. Which he and his henchmen are, right now, in the process of doing.
G.O.P. Bill Has $1.1 Trillion in Health Cuts and 11.8 Million Losing Care, C.B.O. Says
Analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that Republicans’ new version of the legislation would make far deeper cuts and lead to more people becoming uninsured than previous proposals.
According to a report published late Saturday night, the legislation would mean 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034. Federal spending on Medicaid, Medicare and Obamacare would be reduced by more than $1.1 trillion over that period — with more than $1 trillion of those cuts coming from Medicaid alone.
The fresh estimates make official what many analysts had already predicted and some Republican lawmakers had feared. The size and scope of the health care cuts in the bill, particularly from Medicaid, have been hotly debated, with fiscal hawks pressing for bigger reductions and other Republicans resisting them as they consider the impact on their constituents and health providers in their districts and states.
They are also at odds with President Trump’s vow not to touch Medicaid except to do away with waste and fraud.
The scale of the proposed reductions in Medicaid is unprecedented in the history of the program, which has tended to expand coverage over time since its creation in 1965.
USAID cuts could lead to 14 million deaths over the next five years, researchers say
An analysis published Monday in the medical journal The Lancet projects that cuts to the agency will lead to more deaths from diseases like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
Analysis: Senate GOP’s Updated Megabill is Still a Disaster for Affordability, Jobs, and Clean Energy
It’s official: Republican Senate Leadership has released an updated version of their tax megabill, which will likely be the version that goes to the floor for a final vote. And somehow, it’s even worse than before. Senate Republicans are proposing passing legislation that will lock in higher household energy bills, kill American jobs, sell out the health of working and frontline communities, harm Medicaid, jeopardize food assistance, and torch our future.
If this bill passes, Republicans would be responsible for the loss of over 800,000 jobs, raising the average American’s electricity bills by 10 percent, and in a time of intense heat and grid demand, they’ll be reducing new energy capacity installed on the grid by at least 50 percent. All this—simply to line the pockets of billionaires, fossil fuel executives, and their top corporate backers with massive tax cuts.
All of this and all that is to come aren't the actions of a single monster, or even that monster and his pet Republican cowards and quislings and fanatics in congress.
All of this and all that is to come are the result of a premeditated act of democracide by 77,302,580 of our fellow citizens, and of all their enablers who stayed home or otherwise threw their vote away because they just couldn't bring themselves to vote for the black lady, or because, y'know, Both Sides.
If 77,302,580 feels like too big and too abstract a number for you to get your head around, remember that among all of those tens of millions who affirmatively decided to bind our country hand and foot and turn it over to rapacious degenerate parasites are...
...people who are in the pews with you on Sunday, if you are a church-goer.
...people who are in line with you at the grocery store.
...people who are on the staff of your local school districts
...people who own local businesses.
...retirees living on pensions dining a couple of tables over from you at a local diner.
All of this and all that is to come is their fault.
It is our job to make sure they can never, ever live it down.
If you have eyes to see with and ears to hear, you have no doubt noticed the
media making a big deal of the 10 year anniversary of Donald Trump's June
16, 2015 journey down an escalator and into the hearts of the Republican
base.
Trump Has Us On His Golden Escalator to Hell—But There is a Way Off
Fox News:
Flashback: 10 years since Trump's golden escalator ride
‘The Five’ co-hosts recount President Donald Trump’s first election,
his game-changing rise in politics and already ‘fascinating’ second
term.
The Washington Examiner:
A decade of MAGA: How Trump’s golden escalator ride changed America
At the time, right down the line, all the Very Serious People and every
Republican who would go on to be a Never Trumpers regarded the whole idea of
Trump running for president as a goof. A joke. A jape. A
stunt. Burlesque. The notion of this jumped-up real estate
buffoon and reality teevee guy running for, well, anything was seen as a
clown on his way to the inevitable banana peel.
But there was a tiny contingent of us dirty hippies (who had long since been dispatched to media Coventry for the unforgivable sin of being right about the Right when everyone else had been wrong) who looked at Trump and saw the genuine threat he represented.
It's not that I had any special, inside dope about the way Trump had operated in the New York real estate market, or in the New York media market, or on reality teevee. I didn't. What I did have was a lifetime of up-close-and-personal exposure the Republican base, and could see with my own two eyes the terrible trajectory they had already been on for decades: a trajectory which both the legacy media and elite Conservative media categorically refused to believe existed at all.
And so, on June 18, 2015 -- two days after Trump announced -- I wrote this, which you are encouraged to send along to your favorite Never Trumper who still insists that no one could possibly have seen Trump coming, or what geniuses they are because they and only they caught wind of what a colossal ass-ache Trump might develop into. You are especially encouraged to send this along to your favorite Never Trump who is constantly moaning that we Liberals are potty-mouthed idiots who have no inkling what's really going on, or what is at stake.
From me, June 18, 2015:
The Premium Leads
In case you missed it, Squint and the Meat Puppet handed the MSNBC camera over to Donald Trump this morning for a relaxing, 30-minute handjob. While Trump rambled lazily from one pinnacle of bullshit and narcissism to the next, Morning Joe crack house regulars Mark Halperin (Glenn Beck's favorite mainstream media enabler) and the pickled remains of Mike Barnacle looked on, smirking and giggling. All that it lacked to complete the creepy, peep-show effect were trench-coats and bad lighting.
But of course, the story of the Trump candidacy has very little to do with Donald Trump.
As I wrote a few years ago, the brain-caste of the GOP spent a 40 years and billions of dollars carefully breeding an army of reliably angry, paranoid, racists chumps. And they have been so successful at completely re-engineering the Right's ideological digestive system that they can no longer process any information which does not come to them in the form of Fox-approved Benghaaaazi goo.
In other words, in order to win elections and rake in vast fortunes, the Conservative brain caste has painstakingly created the perfect feeding-ground for con men and demagogues like Trump, the louder and more bombastic the better. And from David Brooks and the Wall Street Journal and "Meet the Press", to Ann Coulter and the Washington Free Beacon and the Breitbart Collective, in one way or another, virtually everyone in the media makes bank by flattering Conservative meatheads and pandering to their delusions.
They are the GOP's premium leads, but however abundant and renewable a resource the Conservative meatheads may be, come Presidential election time, there is never enough room at the trough for every rapacious Republican hog. This is why every few years we have these Little Red State Fundy moments; that delicate time when the knives come out and the various species of Conservative con men start cutting each other's balls over who gets to pluck the wingnut pigeons...
...while trying desperately not to call attention to the fact that their entire political system depends on pandering to the army of reliably angry, paranoid, racists chumps which the GOP has worked so long and hard to cultivate.
Fortunately for the Right, now that the "respectable" media has as much to lose by cracking out of turn as Hate Radio and Fox News, we can all look forward to another campaign season of the American mainstream media looking stoically the other way.
End of sobering sojourn into the twilight of the Before Time.
In defense of American democracy, if a lie, or 100 lies, or 1,000, would knock
the Undecided and the Independents off the fences they're eternally straddling or smoke
them out of their smug, hermetically sealed "Both Siderist" panic rooms,
you're damn right I would.
Without hesitation, I would lie my ass off all week and twice on
Sundays.
If you have a minute, let me explain why this is something Democrats need to
start seriously considering. And just to make the point that, if called upon,
some of us can hang with the Joe Rogan and the Barstool Sports crowd I'll do
it in language they would understand.
This is about winning, and in the here and now, winning is ugly, because in
the here and now, politics is not lofty or idealistic. We have our base
of people who, broadly, care about the same things, and they have their base
of reprogrammable meatbags who want to burn our democracy down and dance on
its grave. And so "winning" is about getting the laziest, stupidest
people in America to take your side, stop thinking of politics as a philosophy
class or an ethics panel or a TED talk.
It's not. It's a bar. Specifically, a dive bar. And it’s
getting near closing time and your goal is to get laid. Period.
There are belligerent assholes at the end of the bar shouting nonsense that
you find really offensive. Do you engage? You do not. Why? Because
your goal is to get laid. Period.
There’s a bored bartender, who is starting to wipe down the bar and close out
tabs. Can he be of any help? No he cannot. He is the letter
of the law. He is your ticking clock. When the clock strikes 2:00
AM, the lights go on and the patrons will be shown the door whether you’ve
hooked up or not.
There are a few other patrons nursing their drinks, and one of them is an
unaccompanied woman. She is the undecided or Centrist or independent
voter. And at this moment, your goal is to get her to go home with
you. To get electorally laid.
Not to get married. Not to start a family. Not to pick out
adjoining plots in the cemetery. Just laid.
So how can this be accomplished?
Well, let's make a quick list of the advice that highly paid consultants and
pundits are currently screaming at Democratic politicians.
Don’t talk about policy. Voters hate policy!
Don’t talk about facts. Facts confuse voters.
Be authentic, but not too authentic.
Be a fighter, but don’t be confrontational.
Never challenge anyone’s stupid, bigoted opinion. It doesn't matter if
the economy is improving. If they, personally, are not feeling better
then all of your charts and graphs won't mean shit.
Use plain, clear language, but don’t offend anyone. Conversely, you must never
take offense at being called a corrupt, baby-killing commie.
And above all, remember that no matter how wrong they are, voters are never
wrong because they have the final say. So you must respect the
voters, no matter how stupid or bigoted they are, and how very clear they make
it that they will never vote for you. Which is why you should be
authentic, but also stick to vibes.
Vibes and sports and farts and tit jokes.
That’s what the consultants and pundits say.
I favor a different strategy. A bolder strategy. And to explain
that strategy, let us turn now to “Better Call Saul”.
In the politics of here and now, be Kevin Costner.
Tell them what they want to hear.
Lie your ass off.
And before you start to feel bad about it, ask yourself this. Whatever
beef you have with Democrats, is it true or not true that, on his worst day,
Joe Biden is 100 times better, more decent and more focused on the problems of
real Americans than Donald Trump? Is it true or not true that, on her
worst day, Kamala Harris would have been 100 times better, more decent and
more focused on the problems of real Americans than Donald Trump?
To any sane person, this is obvious, right? Blindingly
obvious.
And yet…
And then we had that debate where Kamala Harris blew Trump out of the
water. And what difference did that make?
Kamala Harris was widely seen as dominating Tuesday's presidential debate
against Republican former president Donald Trump, but a group of undecided
voters remained unconvinced that the Democratic vice president was the
better candidate.
Reuters interviewed 10 people who were still unsure how they were going to
vote in the Nov. 5 election before they watched the debate. Six said
afterward they would now either vote for Trump or were leaning toward
backing him. Three said they would now back Harris and one was still
unsure how he would vote.
Felicity voted for Trump in 2020 but has yet to decide if
she'll back the former president a second time.
I have no freaking clue man. It's so hard. When I voted for Trump, it came
down to who would I trust with my kid alone and it wasn't [President Joe]
Biden.
I'm still undecided.
All of my family is voting for Kamala and my friends are voting for
Trump.
I'm going to vote for one of them. I've got no idea which one.
I'm still super-duper undecided. I think I'm leaning toward Kamala over
Trump, if I think about who I would trust alone in a room with my
daughter.
I'm going to make up my mind when I go into the ballot booth...
Jessi voted for Biden in 2020 but this year, she was leaning toward a
third party candidate. She's now also going to vote for Jill Stein.
My mind would have been changed to maybe vote for Harris if I had heard
more from her that was substantial.
Nothing she said, I felt, throughout the campaign really sounded like it
had any substance, and there were some key issues I don't support her
position on.
I would say the same for Trump, so I'm
going to stick with third party.
If enough voters in swing states decided to go third party, Democrats and
Republicans would have to realise they have to choose candidates who we
can support....
In September, Mat told the BBC that Harris "very likely" had his
vote. He's since left his ballot for president blank.
I ended up casting an empty ballot for president. It was tough but I felt
like no candidate really offered any policy that resonated with me.
It didn't feel like any candidate offered anything that was very
substantial. ...
Tracy was impressed with Harris after her TV debate with Trump,
but remained undecided. Now, she's still not sure - so she's not voting
for either Harris or Trump.
I have definite plans of who I'm going to vote for, but I can't tell you
the candidate's name because I don't know the candidate's name. I'm voting
for a third party.
Hopefully that [candidate] is an adult. I'm not happy with either of our
[major] presidential candidates.
I know the third-party candidate doesn't stand a chance to get in. It's
just to send a signal to Washington that I'm not playing their game and if
they want me to vote Democratic or Republican, they better put somebody in
there with brains.
One of them is a bully who wants to own the country and the other one
wants to give the whole thing away...
Vanessa was impressed with Harris earlier in the campaign but is
throwing her support behind Trump.
I believe Trump has surrounded himself with competent leaders such as
Tulsi [Gabbard], RFK, and [JD] Vance...
Now, taking all of that into consideration – the overwhelming evidence that
Trump was and is completely unfit to hold any political office anywhere,
versus the basic decency and competence of both Biden and Harris – what is it
that undecided and independent voters really want? (And remember,
pundits and consultants are adamant that, however crazy or stupid the voter’s
issues and priorities may be, you as a candidate are bound to respect them.)
What do undecided and independent voters really want?
They want to be lied to. It's no more complicated than that.
By now, the undecideds who voted 3rd party or voted for Jill Stein
or stayed home or filled out "None of the above" for president must have figured out that this kind of performative “sending a message” voting is
ridiculous and never works, because the only message it sends is “I
am ridiculous”. And it sends a message to all the third-party/Third Way/Forward Party/No Labels grifters out there that
maybe they can hit you up for a donation. But they want to believe a
lie, and Jill Stein gives them what they ask for.
At some level, the woman Jimmy McGill hooked up with for the night back in
Chicago knew he wasn’t Kevin Costner, but she wanted him to be.
She was willing to be lied to, and he was willing to provide.
As painful as it is, think about the two presidential campaigns in 2024. One was
more than substantive and detailed enough for anyone who bothered to
look. But undecideds are lazy. They’re always on the verge of
“doing their own research” when the truth is, they don’t wanna do even the
minimal amount of homework necessary to make an informed decision.
Instead many of them soak up what little they think they know about politics
from hanging around gamer sites and Joe Rogan and Barstool Sports.
Y’know, for the vibes and the farts and the tit jokes.
So, if the Democrats were offering boring substance and detail, what was Trump
offering?
They are begging to be lied to. Demanding it.
Don’t insult them by refusing.
So, until the rest of the country sobers up and starts acting like adults, be Kevin Costner.
"Fun Fact: The word 'tariff' comes from an old Ottoman Turkish word which, loosely translated, means 'I can't believe these fucking meatheads keep falling for this grifter's bullshit'. " -- driftglass
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The Trump administration, seeking to stamp out federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, is calling on government employees to snitch on any colleagues that continue to follow such policies.
This question is actually a lot more complex than you might imagine, because
it is not in the Conservative nature to ever under any circumstances admit to
being wrong. In fact, for decades the only permissible way to own up to
being wrong on the Right was to confess that your opinions or tactics or
whatever just weren't Conservative enough.
Which is why George W. Bush's serial fuckuppery culminating the Iraq War
debacle coup de grace broke a lot of Conservative brains.
When it comes to the simple act of forming their mouths to say the words "I
was wrong" they go all Arthur Fonzarelli:
Even today, leading legacy media Cons can be found either manufacturing
excuses for why they weren't really, really, for real wrong to back Bush's
farrago of lies that put us into Iraq.
From Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, March, 2023
I Supported the Invasion of Iraq
But a just cause doesn’t make for a just war.
Twenty years after the United States led a coalition to overthrow Saddam
Hussein, the conventional wisdom is now that the postwar fiasco proved
that the war was a mistake from its inception. The war, as it was
executed, was indeed a disaster, but there was ample cause for launching
it.
Or strike a truculent, fuck-you-libtard pose and declare that Bush's
clusterfuck was a great idea.
From Bret Stephens, The New York Times, March 21, 2023:
20 Years On, I Don’t Regret Supporting the Iraq War
If you lived through those times you will no doubt remember the ferocious and,
for a time, entirely successful Conservative media campaign to paint the war
as a rousing success even as evidence of everything falling apart kept piling
up.
On the tony side of town, every Sunday Show seemed to be stacked
three-deep with administration stooges and legacy media hacks assuring
everyone that it was all going to plan. On the rougher side of town, the
Conservative bloggers and Hate Radio goofs were out in force, tagging anyone
who whispered a discouraging word as a terrorist-loving, Murrica-hating
commie.
And if there were some rough spots, well, let's give it another six months
before we start to worry.
The Friedman Unit, or simply Friedman,[1]
is a
tongue-in-cheekneologism. One Friedman
Unit is equal to six months,[2]
specifically the "next six months", a period repeatedly declared by
New York Times
columnist
Thomas Friedman to
be the most critical of the then-ongoing
Iraq War[3]
even though such pronouncements extended back over two and a half years.
And it all worked...for a while. Until, eventually, the cost in blood and
treasure of the catastrophe unfolding in Iraq became impossible to cover up any
more. Then came the torture revelations. And Teri Schiavo. And
Katrina. And the collapse of the global economy. And, hey, where did
this gargantuan deficit come from? What the hell happened to our budget
surplus?
So, what happened when the unmovable object of a party base that is
congenitally incapable of admitting mistakes collided with the irresistible
force of a clusterfucked war, a drowned American city and a collapsing global
economy? Well, suddenly, like a fart in a cyclotron, the Republican base
was gone, baby, gone. Body-swapped almost one-for-one, for a huge
crop of brand-new "independents".
Like German soldiers after the fall of Berlin, they have stopped running
away from the catastrophe they created only long enough to burn their
uniforms.
-- about which so much laudatory ink was spilled by a lying and
complicit legacy media who very definitely also did not want to dwell
on who had been right and who had been disastrously wrong during the Age of
Bush.
Revisiting this same Republican base 16 years later and we find -- surprise!
-- they never actually gave a shit about Iraq or New Orleans or torture or
Teri Schiavo or the deficit or, well, any of it. All they have ever
cared about was being right in a way that let them feel superior to us
stoopid, know-it-all Liberals.
Owning the Libs. Drinking Liberal tears.
Which is why they went all-in on a dry-drunk halfwit like Dubya Bush --
twice!. It was a giant "Fuck Your Feeling" to Democrats, who had just
finished paying off the deficits that Reagan and Bush Sr. had run up,
balancing the budget and creating 20 million new jobs.
Because -- again, surprise! -- delivering on all of that stuff and more --
things Republicans had said were the most important things in the
world but had never once delivered on -- did not make Republicans feel all
warm 'n fuzzy inside. Quite the contrary: they fucking
hated Bill Clinton for it. They hated him so much they
"lawfared" his ass. Impeached him and tried to remove him from office over a
blowjob.
And then, after they had given their slavering loyalty to Dubya, they
weren't just shown to be utterly and humiliatingly wrong. They were
shown to be utterly and humiliatingly wrong
in front of the Liberals.
The agonies of 1,000 demons being given holy water enemas could not have
felt worse.
But stop and consider for a moment how they were shown to be
utterly and humiliatingly wrong. By what means? Through what
lens? Because as we all know, these people have no problem just
wishing away anything they do not want to believe. The J6 attempted
coup? Obviously that was Antifa!
Or Nancy Pelosi!
Or FBI infiltrators!
Or, hey, wait a minute? Maybe J6 was
actually a good thing!
Maybe the 2020 election was actually stolen and the coup plotters are
actually martyrs and political prisoners!
The difference between the Before Time and now is that, back then, it was
still possible for a tiny bit of light from the outside world to leak into
their ideological bunker. Republicans could still see the
failures in Iraq and Bush's criminally incompetent response to Hurricane
Katrina through a small, cracked legacy media window on the wider world.
So, what lesson did they take from being humiliated by Bush's lies and
incompetence? The lesson that, those holes and leaks needed to be
boarded up and spackled over right now!
Next time, they needed to hire an even bigger, louder liar telling even
bigger, louder lies. One who would never back down in the face of
potentially humiliating reality, but would unflinchingly live out this
lesson from "A Guide For The Married Man".
Deny. Deny. Deny.
The base would demand that their Conservative media be completely aligned
with the will of their new Dear Leader. That the last vestiges of
"news" be purged from their "news media", and that all talking heads lie
about everything without apology. From now on it was to be all
propaganda all the time, and Republican elected officials had damn well
better sing out their enthusiastic support for the party's new Stalinist
direction.
So, in response to the question,
"How quickly will the bootlickers turn on Trump and the broligarchy once
they fuck up?"
I would answer that the question itself reflects a pre-Trump understanding
of how the GOP works now.
To misquote an old communist excuse for why communism never worked,
"Trumpism cannot fail. Trumpism can only be failed." The
violent, brainwashed zombie Republican base
will not tolerate being humiliated in front of the Liberal again. So
all failures, disasters, bloodshed and corruption will be January
Sixth-ed.
Sure, a tiny handful of Trump ass-kissers may finally reach their gag-reflex
limit and slink off to pretend that they were part of the resistance all
along, but for the other 99% whatever shit blows up in their faces
will be chalked up to Fake News.
Or it was all part of the Giant Liberal Conspiracy.
Republicans reject spending bill, under pressure from Trump and Musk
Unless Congress acts, a government shutdown deadline looms just past
midnight Saturday.
Republicans rejected House Speaker Mike Johnson’s bipartisan plan to
avert a government shutdown, as President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk
joined a broad swath of the House GOP on Wednesday to condemn a compromise
bill full of Democratic policy priorities.
The rebuke, which built steadily through the day and culminated with a
long written statement from Trump in the late afternoon, has forced
Johnson back to the drawing board on a plan to prevent a Christmastime
shutdown — and maintain the support of his chaotic conference to be
reelected as speaker early next year.
“Your elected representatives have heard you and now the terrible bill is
dead,” Musk boasted on X, the social media site he owns, after he spent
the day blasting the legislation. “The voice of the people has
triumphed!”
Johnson has not outlined a backup plan, and multiple people familiar with
the real-time conversations said the next step remains unclear, as leaders
would need significant support from both parties — and Trump — to pass a
funding extension. If Congress doesn’t extend the deadline, most federal
operations would shut down at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, though the effects of a
shutdown wouldn’t fully kick in until Monday...
Wow, so there really is a War on Christmas. And its the Republicans who
are trying to blow old St. Nick out of the sky.
Well Feliz Navidad, kids, and a Happy FAFO New Year to all the meatbags who
voted for this clusterfuck.
“We want retribution and we’re going to get retribution. You have to.
It’s not personal, it’s not personal,” Bannon said to the raucous room.
“They need to learn what populist, nationalist power is on the receiving
end.
“I need investigations, trials and then incarceration. And I’m just
talking about the media. Should the media be included in the vast criminal
conspiracy against President Trump? Should Andrew Weissmann on MSNBC and
Rachel Maddow and all of them?
“We want all your emails, all your text messages, everything you did. You
colluded in a conspiracy with Merrick Garland, Nancy Pelosi, Lisa Monaco
and Jack Smith,” Bannon said, name-checking the attorney general, former
Democratic House speaker, the deputy attorney general and the Trump
special counsel.
The threatening rhetoric, and especially the concept of using a criminal
conspiracy statute against Trump’s political enemies, has been permeating
through Bannon’s orbit for some time since the election. But Sunday
night’s gala was the first time it was floated outside of the Maga
ecosystem...
“This maybe the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves;
finally just lay back and say it—that we are really just a nation of 220
million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no
qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us
uncomfortable.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange
Time
Remember how, after the Nazis used tanks, bombers and submarines in their war
of global conquest, the Allies decided not to use tanks or bombers or
submarines or any of that stuff because using the weapons of the enemy to
defeat the enemy was, y'know, rude and uncivilized?
Yeah.
Me neither.
Remember how, after Eisenhower and friends stomped the shit out of the Nazis,
and Naziism was outlawed in Germany and we put the judges who enabled the
Nazis on trial and we rewrote the German constitution to put unions on an
equal footing with management, Americans were so appalled at his behavior that
they sent Eisenhower packing the minute he retired from the military?
Yeah.
Me neither.
So here's my one suggestion for Democrats running for office, past present and
future.
Ready?
For fuck's sake stop promising to "unite" the country.
Not only is this is completely impossible, but you look like an idiot when you
try because it gives other people --
people who hate you and want to destroy you -- the power force
you to fail.
It's like...promising you won't let me shoot my own dick off. Then --
haha! -- I shoot my own dick off just to fucking spite you. Sure, now
I'm dickless and bleeding, but no matter. The question the media
won't be asking is,"Jesus, man, why did you shoot your own dick off?"
Oh my no.
The only questions the media will be asking over and over again is why
you didn't stop me. And if I do get any legacy media
play at all, I'll just stand there, dickless, bleeding, pretending to look forlorn,
looking into the camera, saying tearfully,
"But he promised he wouldn't let this happen! He promised!!!"
Once the trap is sprung you are free to bitch and complain all you want about
how this was all a setup, and how they did it deliberately. And guess
what? The media will laugh at you as a trifling amature, because
of course it was all a setup. Of course it was deliberate. They wanted to destroy you.
They made it very, very clear that this was their goal, our loud and in public
many times. And by giving your enemies the power to make you break your
promise, you hand them the means to do it, while you're forced stand by. Impotent. Powerless to stop it.
Who's dickless now?
So you succumb. Maybe you can salvage this situation and still Unite The
People if you just offer compromise after compromise, all in good faith of course.
Breaking off bigger and bigger pieces of the promises you made to the people
who actually support you, and feeding those pieces to the ghouls who hate
you. You try to appeal to their innate sense of decadency. Remind
them that we're all here to solve our common problems and serve the American
people.
This is madness.
They have no sense of decency, and neither do the bigots and imbeciles who
elected them. Their only "common problem" is you, ya' baby-killing
commie bastard. And the only thing they want to "serve" is your ass up
on a silver platter with a side order of Liberal tears to the shrieking,
capering mob of meatheads who voted them into office in the first
place.
And the icing on the cake? The more you talk of all the noble plans you
have to make their lives better, the louder they'll mock and condemn you as a condescending
college soy-boy Death Paneler talking down to the regular folk. Just who the hell do
you think you are?
Hey dum-dum, you don't win elections running on hope and joy and a bright
shared future. If you're very lucky, that might keep you the voters
you've already got. And you also don't win elections by paying the
Lincoln Project tens of millions of dollars to cut ads which are nothing but
political PornHub for credulous progressives because -- Hell Ya! -- it's finally telling "the
people" what a monster Trump is! Duh!
Of course he's a monster. Republican voters
know he's a monster. That's why they love him. That's why
they vote for them.
Because do you know what you never hear Republicans talking about? Our
bright, shared future. You don't hear them running their mouths about
hope and joy. Fuck no. They talk exclusively about fear and
paranoia and enemies. Foreign enemies and the enemies within.
About how you and your hordes of foreigner rapists and trannies and smug,
sinister college-educated bureaucrats have stolen the future of all
right-thinking Murricans, and how they're going to kick some ass, break some
heads and take Murrica's future back for all right-thinking
Murricans.
If Democrats want to win, they're going to have learn how to scare the living shit
out of the millions of stupids who are forever meandering around in the
political "center" waiting for someone to tell them what to think. I
have some thoughts of the subject for anyone who'd like to pay me an unholy
amount of money for my insights, but for now I'd recommend watching
Moneyball 10 or 12 times and taking to heart the lessons it
teaches.
