Question: what’s worse, the mindless cruelty of The Fascist Mango, or the malicious cruelty of Ron DeSantis?
And practically, does it matter?
I’m scared out of my fuckin’ gourd that Trump will run and win the next Presidential election. The only thing that scares me more is that Ron DeSantis will beat him. I’m consuming pepperoni and summer sausage at an alarming rate, just trying to deploy sulfites against my rising anxiety.
I know I should be concentrating on the mid-terms — they’re coming up soon, and might change the disposition of the House or Senate. But honestly, as long as we have a Presidential bulwark, we can survive. Do I *want* to see a Biden Impeachment Advent Calendar? No. And yeah, that’s what we’ll get.
But honestly, since the GOP doesn’t want to see President Kamala Harris, they won’t go there. Sure, we might see actual articles of impeachment pass the House, but there won’t be a conviction from the Senate. I mean, as long as they don’t think they *totally* control the polls.
While I still wake up at night in full tubular-meat-sweats, I take respite in the sage words of an 18-month old Axios article:
1. Don’t let the radical right take control of militant authority, and
2. De-program Fox News Listeners.
Sure, not their exact words, but close enough.*
I went digging for advice on what to do in our current escalating partisan environment, and I swear this is the best advice I found. Yes, it was only less than two minutes of Google searching. Okay, less than a minute. OK, OK, it was the first page of results, so less than three seconds.
But do you think anyone else is going to look further?
We’re fucked. All those clever ways of reaching out to the “other side,” the “listening to what they have to say,” will end up the exact same way every time: they will try to excuse why they can’t accept another person as an actual human with actual freedoms, and go to great lengths to explain why accepting that person and agreeing they have freedoms actually infringes on *their* freedoms. And so can’t be tolerated.
They *really* want to go after The Libs.
And to be clear on antecedents, “Their” refers to the person trying to deny freedoms for someone else.
They can’t be deprogrammed. They are too intent on “owning the left,” even if they have no positive policies. The radical right is the party of white victimhood.
Doesn’t matter whether is the right to marry the one you love, or the freedom of bodily autonomy. They will find ways to frame it so that *they* are the victim.
So, what does that have to do with Trump (or worse, DeSantis) in ‘24?
If the worst-case scenario happens in ‘22, and Republicans take the House and Senate, then everything grinds to a halt. Yeah, I know, how is that different? Practically, quite a bit changes — despite the common rhetoric, the Biden administration has accomplished a *lot* to help most families. And I’m not just talking about shipments of baby formula. If you want to know, look it up. Just know the rate of inflation in the US isn’t nearly as bad as the rest of the developed nations. So if the President has anything to do with inflation, Biden has helped curb it.
So, GOP majority in ‘22. Any progress stops. Expect *MANY* impeachment trials, all with ridiculous titles like, “Biden insisted on $15 gasoline,” and “Hunter Biden ate babies,” and shit like that. So, progress grinds to a halt, and spectacle sets in.
But if the GOP claims both the executive and the legislative branches in 2024, we’re fucked.
They already have a template for voiding future elections. That’s assumed, since absolute-shit seems to be the legal responsibility for the last coup attempt. Which means they won’t feel responsible for doing anything even vaguely in the public interest, like certain kinds of gun control (55%-70% of the population support the recent milque-toast proposed regulations).
We can see their plans moving at state-levels in Texas and Florida (just as examples, not as an exhaustive list — Ohio is following close behind) in both lack of gun control and continued imposition of the state into the uterus. They’ve already let us know they’re moving on a Federal level.
Here’s the problem: polls show an even split.
Those who choose evil (the fucking-over of others for their own gain) vs. those who don’t seems to consistently churn out even odds. Even with an obviously-lying grifter irrefutably intent on his own gain over those who support him, almost half the population is willing to say, “Meh?”
The problem isn’t with TFG or DeSantis. The problem is with the electorate, and the endemic acceptance of evil, as long as that evil swears to go after The Libs.
The midterms frighten me.
The next Presidential election fuckin’ *terrifies* me.
* www.axios.com/...