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Wednesday, September 09, 2020

They All Knew

Of course Trump knew. Did anyone really need Bob Woodward to sit on that amazing revelation for seven months to come to that realization?

(I hope every meal Woodward eats for the rest of his life, food purchased with the royalty checks from these courtier journals, tastes like blood. Because it's fuckin' blood money, pure and simple. Shame on him, and shame on anyone paying a red cent for his goddamned book.)

People are going to focus on the raw moral perversion of Trump knowing back in January that the virus was real, and dangerous, and could kill a lot of people. And that's true, as far as that goes.

But here are some other things he knew, and that everyone close to him knew right from the start:
  • There would be multiple opportunities to cash in along the way -- stocks for companies producing various necessities.
  • The procurement system could be gamed heavily, not only for profit, but for leverage. So bootlickers like Ron DeSantis got more PPE than he needed in the first place, while Robert Kraft literally had to fly supplies in on his private jet -- in a state with a Republican governor -- so that the feds wouldn't hijack them like the cheap Goodfellas knock-offs they are.
  • Every dime of aid that has gone out has been with the condition that employees forced back to illness and death have no recourse against the fiends who sent them in to die. How's that chicken taste now?
  • Every key Republicon senator and house member was in on it, right from the start, cashing in every step of the way. Kelly Loeffler, Richard Burr, those are just the ones you may have heard about. Wait till someone audits Matt Gaetz's transactions, or Ted Cruz's. You just watch.
  • The billionaires' club has collectively gained nearly a trillion dollars over the summer, while tens of millions of working schlubs are still out of work, facing eviction, watching the world burn around them, watching loved ones die on a remote Zoom feed.
  • All of it was preventable, but it just wasn't profitable. So you cash in on the crash, then you cash in again on whatever recovery is to be had (or allowed).
Good thing the mediots are still showing up for Kayleigh's Hour of Lyin' fer Jebus. So helpful. You guys are really preserving democracy there. Try not to pull any muscles patting yourselves on the back. Remember, folks, MagaNinny came directly from CNN. Keep that in mind next time you're watching Tapper or Lemon or whoever. Zucker's shop is Satan's boiler room, period.

Good thing the Democrats are utilizing every single procedural power at their disposal  to respond to all this. Let's see -- Chuck Schumer lamented that Trump lied. Yeah, I think I saw that on the cover of No Shit, Sherlock magazine back in the fuckin' Nineties, bro-ham.

So Chuck, are you calling out your scumbag colleagues for not stopping this fucker before he killed two hundred thousand Americans? Rep. Pelosi, are we drawing up articles of impeachment for, shit, any of probably two dozen various things over the past six months? Are we impeaching Bill Barr for finally dropping any remaining pretense about being Trump's personal lawyer?

No, they're "not worth it," according to Madame Speaker. You got that? We'll be over a quarter-million dead by Thanksgiving, and they got him on tape confessing to knowing, but Trump's not worth it. Oh, and he's a rapist, and the attorney general of the country is openly bending the law to prevent his accountability, but Barr's not worth it either.

I wonder, but am reluctant to ask, just what awful deeds these would have to do in order to be worth upholding the law. I think that the day after this election, regardless of how it turns out, Democratic and liberal voters should start asking that very question of Democratic politicians. Because while they may have plausible deniability of knowing what Trump knew back when he first knew it, they've known it since then. They absolutely know now what the fuck he's capable of, and still they choose to wring their hands and chant about waiting for November.

Whether or not you know someone who's been directly affected by the #TrumpPlague (and by now, odds are that you do, at least secondarily), everyone's been affected by it. An entire year of everyone's life has been essentially wasted on this -- on top of all the needless deaths and waste and economic destruction. Trump's fuckery and incompetence are the wellspring whence all this comes, but he doesn't operate alone.

Primo Levi said that it wasn't the monsters you had to worry about -- they're easy to spot. It's the ordinary minions willing to do the dirty work, or just willing to look the other way. Think about all the individuals who could have done and said something, who still could say and do something, anything. The leading newspapers and politicians who should have been calling for his resignation months ago. The people who work in the White House -- from the custodial staff to the paper-pushers -- who could walk out in protest. The congress-weasels who could call out their faithless colleagues for their support of this vainglorious would-be despot. Hell, John Kelly, who literally let Trump talk shit about Kelly's son's service and sacrifice at Robert Kelly's grave in Arlington. Doesn't get more in-the-tank than that.

At the current rate, another thirty thousand Americans will die unnecessarily, waiting for November. That's on them as much as it's on him now. Too bad it's not "worth it" to do anything about it, or at least try.

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