Justice might be done, given sufficient time -- but the problem is that we're dealing with creatures who have no loyalty to this country or its people, and are utterly devoid of shame. They got their big payout, screwing the rubes with the usual happy horseshit, and now the emperor is getting pissy, and stepping up the assault on all these institutions of law we've taken for granted for so long.
So what are we going to do about it? The good news is that it looks like a blue wave coming in the midterms; the bad news is that they will do everything to cheat their way out of it, from stealing citizens' franchise from them, to simply tossing ballot boxes into the nearest body of water.
And we're all to blame, in some respect -- Emperor Snowflake, complaisant congress-critters, feckless political opposition, a shitty media, and all of us, including you 'n' me, folks. We didn't take the 'tard insurgency seriously until it was far too late.
The damage they've done in two-and-a-half years (going back to the start of Snowflake's campaign) may never be undone -- to the highest office in the land, to how people were previously expected at least to conduct themselves in a respectable fashion, to repeated media affirmations of epistemic closure and toxic idiocy, to a continued and accelerating inability of political opponents to at least have a commonly shared well of facts whence opinions are drawn.
We've allowed it to happen and we've done it to ourselves, by becoming decadent -- greedy, insular, stupid, lazy, and weak. Too many people have decided to (as Taibbi once memorably put it) live the intellectual lives of farm animals, and the instant virality of our social comms web enables the dumb and the cruel and the toxic to share equal footing -- or even better footing, given our collective predisposition to seek out crap for entertainment -- with competence and honesty.
And we've allowed it in our political choices, as "Republicans" and "conservatives" now simply pick the wingiest of nuts, whatever they think will rub the durned libruls' noses in shit, and "Democrats" and "liberals" are bullied or cowed into picking dickless incrementalists and pelf-grubbing technocrats, as some sort of slow-leaking bulwark against the fanaticism on the other side. Very few of the people in Congress -- on either side -- actually belong there.
This has all happened before, and it has never ended well. The obvious one to read is Gibbon, but if you haven't quite got the time for that, read Michael Psellos' Chronographia, which is not only much shorter, but was written contemporaneously with the events it describes. The problem is the same: it takes a decadent citizenry to support a decadent emperor and decadent senators. Understanding that the emperor is a symptom and not the disease clarifies the situation -- merely getting rid of the tumor does not mean the cancer has been extricated.
This is why compromise cannot be sought, not if we wish to keep what's left of our rapidly disintegrating country. Too many people are content to believe lies; they're like ancient Sicilian widows with a rosary, clicking each bead one by one as they recite the steps of the Clownstick catechism. There is no getting through to the Branch Clownstickians, they are in it to the bitter end.
Fortunately, there is still a majority in this country that sees things for what they are, but we need to all be on the same page regarding how to wage this battle. Again, forget the cultists and their dotard leader; they will either come around on their own or go down with him. Be more demanding of "Democratic" and "liberal" and "moderate" politicians. Remind Doug Jones and Ralph Northam who really got them there in their upset victories. Be more demanding of corporations. Remind AT&T that their support of the emperor and his works will cost them, every time (see "reminding your politicians").
Be more demanding of the supposedly liberal mainstream media. Tell them to shitcan the endless horserace coverage. Tell them to knock it off with the fucktarded Cletus safaris or you'll drop your subscription. Tell their advertisers you'll stop buying their products.
Half of Puerto Rico is celebrating Christmas in the dark, three months after Hurricane Maria (and we'll probably never know how many people died from the storm and its aftereffects). Alabama just elected its first Democratic senator in twenty-five years. Yet the supposedly liberal Washington Post instead saw fit to head to some dipshit village in Fuckknuckle, Tennessee to stoke the War(t) on Christmas lie.
The battle extends beyond your sworn enemies, to the people who simply pretend to be your friends in order to screw you out of your vote and your money. Season's Beatings, motherfuckers!
So what are we going to do about it? The good news is that it looks like a blue wave coming in the midterms; the bad news is that they will do everything to cheat their way out of it, from stealing citizens' franchise from them, to simply tossing ballot boxes into the nearest body of water.
And we're all to blame, in some respect -- Emperor Snowflake, complaisant congress-critters, feckless political opposition, a shitty media, and all of us, including you 'n' me, folks. We didn't take the 'tard insurgency seriously until it was far too late.
The damage they've done in two-and-a-half years (going back to the start of Snowflake's campaign) may never be undone -- to the highest office in the land, to how people were previously expected at least to conduct themselves in a respectable fashion, to repeated media affirmations of epistemic closure and toxic idiocy, to a continued and accelerating inability of political opponents to at least have a commonly shared well of facts whence opinions are drawn.
We've allowed it to happen and we've done it to ourselves, by becoming decadent -- greedy, insular, stupid, lazy, and weak. Too many people have decided to (as Taibbi once memorably put it) live the intellectual lives of farm animals, and the instant virality of our social comms web enables the dumb and the cruel and the toxic to share equal footing -- or even better footing, given our collective predisposition to seek out crap for entertainment -- with competence and honesty.
And we've allowed it in our political choices, as "Republicans" and "conservatives" now simply pick the wingiest of nuts, whatever they think will rub the durned libruls' noses in shit, and "Democrats" and "liberals" are bullied or cowed into picking dickless incrementalists and pelf-grubbing technocrats, as some sort of slow-leaking bulwark against the fanaticism on the other side. Very few of the people in Congress -- on either side -- actually belong there.
This has all happened before, and it has never ended well. The obvious one to read is Gibbon, but if you haven't quite got the time for that, read Michael Psellos' Chronographia, which is not only much shorter, but was written contemporaneously with the events it describes. The problem is the same: it takes a decadent citizenry to support a decadent emperor and decadent senators. Understanding that the emperor is a symptom and not the disease clarifies the situation -- merely getting rid of the tumor does not mean the cancer has been extricated.
This is why compromise cannot be sought, not if we wish to keep what's left of our rapidly disintegrating country. Too many people are content to believe lies; they're like ancient Sicilian widows with a rosary, clicking each bead one by one as they recite the steps of the Clownstick catechism. There is no getting through to the Branch Clownstickians, they are in it to the bitter end.
Fortunately, there is still a majority in this country that sees things for what they are, but we need to all be on the same page regarding how to wage this battle. Again, forget the cultists and their dotard leader; they will either come around on their own or go down with him. Be more demanding of "Democratic" and "liberal" and "moderate" politicians. Remind Doug Jones and Ralph Northam who really got them there in their upset victories. Be more demanding of corporations. Remind AT&T that their support of the emperor and his works will cost them, every time (see "reminding your politicians").
Be more demanding of the supposedly liberal mainstream media. Tell them to shitcan the endless horserace coverage. Tell them to knock it off with the fucktarded Cletus safaris or you'll drop your subscription. Tell their advertisers you'll stop buying their products.
Half of Puerto Rico is celebrating Christmas in the dark, three months after Hurricane Maria (and we'll probably never know how many people died from the storm and its aftereffects). Alabama just elected its first Democratic senator in twenty-five years. Yet the supposedly liberal Washington Post instead saw fit to head to some dipshit village in Fuckknuckle, Tennessee to stoke the War(t) on Christmas lie.
The battle extends beyond your sworn enemies, to the people who simply pretend to be your friends in order to screw you out of your vote and your money. Season's Beatings, motherfuckers!
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