Excuse me very much, but I’M the one who started this thread! :mad:
And yes, a couple of us were right, and persisted in predicting disaster even when people told us to simmer down, get a grip, cool it, blahblahblah. I wish to god those dire predictions had been way off. Remember back when even some of the early Cabinet members (now long gone) were sure he would start being Presidential “any day now”? :smack:
I will confess, however, that THUMP has turned out to be much, much worse than I imagined in my wildest, most crazed, hysterical dreams. Sigh.
And the utter indifference of the Republican party (which I’ve never admired but used to have a morsel of respect for) to his lunacy and destructiveness is possibly more astounding. I mean, trump has just [del]evolved[/del] deteriorated into more (less?) of what he always was. New Yorkers knew this about him, having seen him in action his whole life. But to lead the whole column of rats behind him scurrying along to the tune of his magic flute… didn’t see that one coming.
The issue isn’t whether most of could see this coming. The issue is that nobody has been able to stop it for 4 years and there have been no meaningful consequences to all the Trump fuckery.
That surprises me too. There were many harsh and accurate attacks on Trump by Republicans during the primaries by people who now suck up to him. I know that in the abstract that’s not uncommon, but in this particular situation, the attacks went way beyond disagreements about character or policy.
Best reply comes from Arnold Schwarzenegger in California:
[Picture of Ahnold with a mask with “We’ll be back” text in front of the Walt Disney Concert Hall]
The caption IMHO should had been: **Hear me now you huge girly man! Wearing masks is not a political statement, ****you only show how scared you are if others see you showing concern for others. **
Sorry, but it doesn’t surprise me at all that once it was found out that there were no real repercussions to being a self-serving bigoted asshole their true selves would be exposed for all to see.
I knew we were in real trouble when the Republican party tolerated the birther bullshit. They should have been pushing back on Fox “News” and everywhere else for all they were worth against that racist, easily-disproved garbage. To let Trump smear a sitting US president in such a disrespectful way was all the proof I needed to understand how far off the bubble we’d drifted as a society.
Throughout these ghastly 3 1/2 years, Republicans have pretended to be “afraid” of Trump’s base as a reason to endorse his inexcusable, illegal behaviors. In fact, they’d have tolerated anything he said or did so long as they could use the cover to steal more tax money for themselves and their investors/donors, gut protections for workers and the environment, and to pack the courts with Federalist Society-approved judges. To excuse active coercion of another sovereign government (Ukraine) to undermine a political opponent… words fail me. It wasn’t just a basis for impeachment/removal. It was the basis for impeachment/removal.
The mainstream media helped them along with their pathetic meme of being a’skaired. By pretending to be cowed, Republicans amplified the power of the racist nationalist troglodytes who support them and enriched themselves to a staggering degree.
Another dangerous precedent is the extent to which Republicans have delegitimized Democrats/independents as “real” Americans. They no longer feel compelled to represent anyone who does not espouse their point of view. They don’t even try to hide it. If you are not with Republicans, you don’t have the same rights as they do, so far as they are concerned.
ETA: With Rick Kitchen’s post, I rest my case.
The depth of the corruption now embedded within the Republican “leadership” is hard to grasp and accept. But there it is. This, coupled with the troubling ignorance of our populace to understand how their government is meant to work, makes for a frightening future in the good ol’ US of A.
Even if power is successfully wrenched from them this November, the seeds of chaos are already deeply planted. We have a very tough road ahead.
The quote is from the article, not Arnold, and references an experiment dispersing the virus in a test environment using a “muffin fan”, which turns out to be the name of a certain type of small fan.