Sunday, October 28, 2018

Troll Flag

The conventional wisdom holds that the midterm election is a referendum on that fucking thing currently defiling the White House. This is only partially true -- it is a referendum on us, and what kind of country we intend to be. Do enough of us want to move forward into what will most assuredly be a transitional decade on many fronts (political, economic, environmental, cultural), or are we going to continue slouching back to the 1930s?

This must be what life is like in a particle accelerator -- countless atoms propelled at impossible velocities into observed collisions. Each week moves faster than the last, with more and more and more crazy things. It tells you what kind of week it's been when the Saudis' admission -- after weeks of denial and almost defiant dog-ate-our-homework excuses -- that they planned the murder of a dissident journalist and carried it out in their Turkish consulate, that such a thing doesn't even register in the top three things of the past seven days.

The attempted pipe bombings and now yesterday's massacre at a synagogue serve to bring us all into sharp relief. We already know what sort of diseased soul he is; what will now be revealed is what sort of people we are collectively. Either we are fine with insane losers being egged on by the chief executive at hate rally after hate rally, or we've had enough. Either we're okay with one of our "allies" holding a journalist to a table and dismembering him alive, or we're not.

Either we see the connection or we choose not to, between said chief executive spending years going town to town, city to city, night after night, openly calling for the imprisonment without charges of his political opponents, and having audiences of angry losers chanting along. They can try to bullshit onlooker with the bullshit evasion of It's just a joke!, but it is clearly not a joke, and when unbalanced loners and losers take that shit both literally and seriously, either you address your role in that situation, or you're fine with it all.

Make no mistake -- they are fine with it. All of it.

Think back for a second to just a couple of interminable weeks ago, after the pond scum in the Republicon senate finally railroaded Rapebro McGambledrunk into the Supreme Court, in return for his services as a party apparatchik all these years. What did the trolls do? They went to their nearest bar, hoisted a beer, and hashtagged #BeersForBrett or some such.

Because it's funny, right? Never mind that these are the exact same types who routinely post "Rules for Dating My Daughter" memes on Facebook, promising violence upon the gropey teenager that dares violate the virgin sanctity of their teenaged daughter. Never mind that there is a strong possibility that Christine Blasey Ford was telling the truth, that it was McGambledrunk and not some other interchangeable prep-school shitbag, that liars and fabulists don't typically beg the FBI for a thorough investigation.

But the bottom line is that this is who they are, what they are. It wasn't enough for them that they won, that their boy got the job even though he's unqualified for it, that brute power once again stomped the weak and powerless. They had to rub everyone's nose in it one last time, and they had to do it with a joke about drunken date rape. Because fuck you, that's why.

This sort of shit is direct from the head of the rotted fish. Think back even further, when just a few days into his late-term abortion of a candidacy, Clownstick mocked John McCain's torture in Vietnam. Break that down a bit and recall the context -- McCain had said something to the effect that Clownstick's candidacy would stir up "the crazies," and (to play devil's advocate for a second) Clownstick decided to defend his base.

But he could have done so in any number of constructive ways, really. He could have called out McCain as a bullshit artist stuck in perpetual "maverick" pose. He could have slammed McCain's record as an establishment hack, made all the more off-putting by said pose. He could have tweaked McCain on the Keating Five scandal. Anyone with as long a career in politics as John McCain has a number of legitimate angles that an opponent can rhetorically exploit and gain the high ground.

Fuckface Von Clownstick deliberately made the choice not to try any of those tacks, opting instead to take the cheapest, lowest, ugliest route possible. That is what he is, a fucking lowlife. It makes sense that he empowers and encourages other lowlife types.

That doesn't mean that every single supporter is a fucking lowlife. No doubt a lot of them are legitimately annoyed with what he says and does, as well as with the more recent events that are corrosive to any reasonable person's concept of self-governance. But they are supporting him all the same, and their assent, no matter how reluctant, is rapidly becoming complicity. Their excuses are his excuses, and become increasingly lame as the violence mounts. The pipe bombs and the shooting are not directly his fault, no, but he still has a responsibility to correct his behavior and rhetoric, to curb the baser tendencies of the idiot mob. Words mean things, and lamely pretending they mean something else, dependent on a situation, only encourages the worst.

This country used to stand for something, however imperfectly; if we can't even get angry about a journalist being dismembered alive, and the chief executive's clear vested personal interests with the murderers, if we can't get worked up about the attempted assassination of most of the leadership of one of the two major political parties, then we're just about done as a functioning society.

We should have turned Saudi Arabia into a fucking parking lot after 9/11, but chose not to because oil and money. Now we have to decide whether we support yet another monster. Maybe we really are just like all the others now. There is nothing special about this country anymore, if we let this persist, if we allow these despicable fucks to operate with impunity.

The "studied hypocrisies" of the 20th century, however awful, had at least material consequences one could point to. There is a price to be paid for hegemonic pre-eminence, and the politicians of that time figured that to be the price, the propping up of this or that dictator. But we don't get anything at all from coddling Kim Jong Un, or Rodrigo Duterte, or Prince Mohammed Bone Saw (seriously, fuck that guy in the heart with a pork chop). Selling one's soul is bad enough, but giving it away?

We are rapidly approaching a very real abyss; if these animals manage to retain a House majority, it will instantly be seen as an overwhelming mandate for everything they want to do. And neither the Democrats nor the media are putting up much of a fight.

But what are the Democrats standing for, where do you see them taking a stand on anything? The only one who has managed to get any coverage since Feinstein slowed down the McGambledrunk SCOTUS hearings is Elizabeth Warren, and for all the wrong reasons.

Seriously, what's wrong with these people? Their default setting is when your opponent is shooting himself in the foot, don't interrupt him. Which is fine, as far as that goes, but at some point you do have to stand for something, especially when you're characterizing your opponent as an unrepentant authoritarian. Either there is an existential crisis, and you act accordingly, or not.

It's not enough to bleat that the Republicons are just "better" somehow at flooding the proverbial zone. We all get that in a rational world, an unrepentant piece of shit like Newt Gingrich could never get within fifty yards of a teevee camera, much less be consulted for his opinion on anything. Our media sucks, there's no doubt about that. They fucking suck filthy hobo cock in a shit-crusted back alley festooned with AIDS-ridden heroin needles. And yet, when the Democrats do get on the air, it is always this bloodless, dickless incrementalism, the preservation of empty norms and cast-aside rules.

Like I said before, they will bury you with your dignity. Fucking stir it up already, or die on your knees. Whatever floats your boat. But stop with this nonsense about how just can't figure out how to get one over on that wily Chuck Todd. Say what you want about the showboating and grandstanding of Michael Avenatti, but the guy takes no shit from anyone. You want to know why they really voted for Clownstick? That's why. Avenatti does not fart around with mealy-mouthed words like "falsehood" or "inaccurate" -- he fucking well calls a LIAR precisely what they are. When you lie, you're a goddamned LIAR. Pretty fucking simple.

Or you can spend a week in the heat of the most important election EVAR debating whether Elizabeth Warren's 1/1024th Native heritage counts enough to get that fat fuck to pay up.

Spoiler alert:  HES A FUCKING LIAR. ALL THE TIME. THIS HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED MANY TIMES, MANY YEARS AGO.

Even if Warren had proven conclusively that both her parents were full-blood Cherokee or whatever, he wouldn't pay up and no one would care. Her video was clever and well-made, grant her that. But you know what would have made it better, or (dare I say it) meaningful? If it was the opening volley of a coordinated strategy. Maybe some follow-up videos talking to all the contractors he's burned over the years. Surely some of them would be willing to talk on camera, and get righteously angry. But this bullshit? Barely even qualified as a distraction.

If there's a reason why people might be reluctant to "come back" or "switch over" to the Democratic Party, that would be very high on the list, this simpering ineptitude. Frankly, if the alternative wasn't sheer gawping madness, I'd be looking for some third-party alternative, just as a "fuck you" to the Democrats. I like the new breed of folks running for House seats, your Ocasio-Cortez types and such like. But I'm done with what Schumer has done to the party. They have no balls. He needs to go.

(That is not sexist, by the way; Nancy Pelosi has balls. Dianne Feinstein has 'em, though at eighty-five years of age she's a bit long in the tooth and it's time for her to retire, despite her bravura performance in the SCOTUS fiasco. Kamala Harris also has balls. Mazie Hirono has a big swinging pair of balls. But Charles Ellis Schumer is the Droopy Dog of the political realm. And he has no fucking balls.)

A big part of how Clownstick took over the Republicons so quickly and thoroughly is their craven complicity, obviously. As long as he gives them their fucking precious billionaire tax breaks, they can round up all the illegals and leave them in a fucking boxcar in the Sonoran desert, as far as they're concerned.

But another big part of it is that the establishment weasels were caught completely unawares by the public sentiments the clown-emperor was able to weaponize. The man is dumber than a bag of dog shit freshly squeezed onto your neighbor's lawn, but he knows his audience. A lot of people have been ignored by both parties for generations, and they've had it, and neither party knows how to address it. Heaven forfend they do anything that might upset the donor/owner class that really owns and operates this country.

You watch:  the Dummycrats will fulfill predictions and take the House by about forty seats, good but not a landslide, but enough to start investigations and slow down these scumbags. Which is something.

But they won't take the Senate, they'll probably end up with roughly the same 52-48 split they have now, losing a couple and winning a couple. And what passes for party leadership will then determine that the best way to win back the presidency in 2020 is to -- wait for it -- shit on their base and tack right, like they always do. And they'll nominate some worthless DNC-approved asshole, and the clown will squeak by once again thanks to the Electoral College and some foreign shenanigans. There's no secret to how this works.

Many of the librul bloggerses and twitterses have been writing lately about their efforts to canvass and get out the vote. Certainly a noble endeavor, right?

Maybe not. Look, if there's one thing that people across the political spectrum can agree on, it's that this election is critical to the direction of the country. It's either fuck-or-walk time. On that we can all agree.

So it is fucking annoying to think that there are actually people out there who have to be cajoled and prodded to get off their fucking asses and pay attention, to by Christ stand up and be counted for once. You never hear about Republicons canvassing. They're good at dirty-trick phone calls and bogus fliers and the like, but they don't go door-to-door. They don't need to. They show up.

It is one of life's more bizarre ironies that the most vulnerable segments of this society seem to be the ones that have to be convinced by strangers to take a few minutes every couple of years and do this thing. Maybe someday someone can explain that one, without lapsing into social-justice-warrior sentimentalities about how these downtrodden souls have just given up.

I'm pretty sure I've picked on this individual before, but just as Mother Jones thought her story was a prime example of voter suppression, I felt that it was every bit as much an example of the lack of responsibility underpinning the actions of many of these folks. You know it sucks that more and more states are requiring voter ID cards, but they generally cost twenty bucks or less. It sucks that grown-ass people have to live out of a goddamned motel. It really does.

But anyone can pull twenty bucks together, and as far as the adults in the motel, it seemed like the most telling anecdotal point in the story was that all three adults managed to lose their fucking driver's licenses, in a motel room that was probably less than eight hundred square feet, close enough to the election that they couldn't get a replacement ID in time.

Look, I'm sorry about your luck in life, I really am. But get your fucking shit together already. We can make fun of the MAGAts and their questionable fashion choices and their die-uh-beet-us and their high-larry-us disdain for logic, reason, facts. Those bozos you see at the rallies are just the worst fucking human beings. But you never hear about them missing out on voting because they lost their fucking driver's license, right?

Maybe it's another if it ain't white, it ain't right thing. It would be no surprise if all those voter ID states, especially in the south, give a wink and a nod when a white voter shows up empty-handed. All the more reason to be prepared, to have one's shit dialed in, to show up, so that you can get the bastards out and get some decent humans in. It will never happen any other way.

At least Andrea Anthony wanted to vote. At least she was willing and engaged. That's something. Again, it is completely baffling that someone would be too disengaged to want to bother with it at all. We all know people like that though -- they don't read books or newspapers, they have no clue what's going on anywhere, they have no knowledge of any issue of importance. They don't want to burden their beautiful minds with all that ugliness.

Well, okay. Maybe we're better off without such fools voting. Maybe they're doing us a favor by staying out of it. Maybe they know their limitations. I dunno. It's above my pay grade, as the kids say.

What I do know is that inspiring leaders inspire, they motivate, they present a goal. Again, the new crop running for the House has some interesting, inspiring voices, but when was the last time you heard a leading Democrat currently in office get up there and bring the pain, even empty sloganeering?

Say what you will about Fuckface Von Clownstick, but he has put it out there like the classic infomercial huckster that he is:  here is the value proposition, here is the call to action, here is the closing pitch, here is why my competitors suck shit. It's all lies, but it's something. The Democrats' bench is so empty, they have to call Obama out of retirement to appeal to our better angels, who have long flown away.

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