The other day a friend was telling me about a co-worker who was a Trump supporter but not rabid about it, was reasonably intelligent and that they’d been able to talk for about 4 minutes before hitting their point of departure: bounties on the troops in Afghanistan. That simply didn’t happen at the other guy’s house.
I said “Imagine if you could talk with someone like that for a whole hour and they couldn’t run away. Someone who didn’t lie or say ‘Fake News’ all the time. Who was intelligent and made some valid points… maybe had an angle on things you hadn’t considered...”
My mind was running some old black and white William F. Buckley footage with a background that kept shifting between a 60’s talk show set and a boxing ring.
Friend says “Oh yeah — and there’s a fact-checker -- I’d pay money for that. Good money.”
“And no Imaginary Friends. The guy can’t say “Because God or Jesus or babies… just stuck to the real-world... ”
Unable to get a fix on the 60’s format, my mind switched to color and present day. In the corner of a boxing ring surrounded by darkness a strikingly good-looking younger man is relaxing in an overstuffed chair. He’s dressed like a boxer, with red silk shorts and an elaborate silk jacket, more like a smoking jacket than boxing. He looks like JFK Jr, curly hair, cleft chin. He smiles. I know him.
Friend says “Make it a TV show — Pay Per View — umm.. ‘Debate 2020: Smart, Honest Person Talks About Donald Trump...’ or maybe ‘Defends Donald Trump.’”
“Just ‘Smart Honest Person Gives You One Good Reason Why Anybody Would Vote For Donald Fucking Trump.’”
The young boxer is my friend Jim from the 90s: ridiculously good-looking-in-that-Greek-God-kind-of-way guy. Now with an attendant — one of the women from that night at Vesuvio’s… And I think Oh my God… the idea of being able to have an honest discussion about Donald J. Trump is so tantalizing I’ve started eroticizing it. And my friend’s imagining some televised blockbuster event.
This is us Madame Speaker, your constituents, the people in the blue states: the quiet ones in masks, still gamely sheltering in place, watching in silent horror as our fellow citizens run rampant and mask-less, egged on by their President, Preachers and Partisans, trying hard to pretend what we’re seeing isn’t actually happening and that there’s still a future here for us and our children.
But as the numbers keep climbing and we start losing friends and family it’s hard to avoid thinking that we may very well die from this. Many, many thousands of us already have. Maybe you know someone who’s been there — maybe you’ve even been there yourself — but if you think you’re about to die, the most important thing short of survival is the comfort of thinking a good reason why. And we don’t have one yet.
For 5 years we’ve heard Donald Trump defended, promoted, apologized for and explained thousands of times: either by smart people being paid to lie to us or the stupid people who believed them. The closest to anything like a reason to even like him have been platitudes like “he tells it like it is” or “he’s Making America Great Again” which is at least something but doesn’t hold up for long against the withering fire of embarrassing crap that comes spewing out of his mouth or flying out of his nose.
More than half of what’s offered in Trump’s defense has nothing to do with him at all: it’s Hillary’s e-mails, or Benghazi, or Hunter Biden’s laptop. Republicans aren’t even bothering to accuse us of crimes anymore - just nouns. And some, like “Obamagate” don’t even rise to the level of “noun.”
And lately I’ve started hearing political arguments that would’ve normally never been heard outside the walls of an asylum. I’ve been told that Tom Hanks and Hillary Clinton are leaders of a satanic cabal of sex-trafficking celebrities and Democrats that engage in pedo-cannibalistic orgies, but they’re about to be exposed and destroyed by Donald Trump, JFK Jr, Mike Flynn and an army of celestial Republican warriors. This person who told me this was an adult who believed it to be literally true... and then he went on to accuse ME of being a victim of propaganda.
You’re faced with a decision whether or not to seat the 126 Representatives and state attorneys general who recently turned their backs on 244 years of America for a shot at 4 more years of Donald Trump. While you have every right not to seat them, we’re all assuming you will. You’re trying to hold together a country they seem fixed on tearing apart, and going by the letter of the law in this instance would give them both the excuse and mantle of victimhood they’re craving to make things worse. But if you’re thinking of just seating them without a word, as if nothing had ever happened, please think of us and think again.
In the spirit of compromise and reinstating a national dialogue or at least some scrap of common ground we can build on, you have every right to make seating contingent on an entrance interview. Ask whatever you like, but think of those of us who are going to lose our parents, spouses, friends, children or lives because a man who’d spent every single day for three straight years showing us how dangerously ignorant and unfit he was, was somehow still allowed to unilaterally set and maintain a policy that was clear from the start would cost hundreds of thousands of lives. And that’s simply not a very good reason to die. If there’s a better one surely these, his most stalwart supporters, can say what it is. There’s 126 of them and we just need one.
And those of us who hopefully aren’t going to die but instead will go on living here could use a little help on this too. Because when I look at Trump all I see is a Virus-Spreading, Bounty-Ignoring, Soldier-Insulting, Foul-mouthed, Pussy-Grabbing, Dictator-coddling, Draft-dodging, Pageant-Peeping, Odious, Soulless, Ignorant, Racist, Criminal Pervert who was impeached for blackmailing an ally at war by withholding military aid until they promised to announce an investigation to set-up his opponent’s son for no other reason than to help him cheat in an election, which under normal circumstances we’d recognize as one of the as one of the biggest geopolitical dick moves in history and the reason we don’t is because we’ve become so inured to the fact that the guy’s literally one of the biggest assholes who’s ever stepped onto the world stage, which is rare but happens from time to time but only in cases where the asshole gets shit done! This asshole hasn’t done fuck-all for Four Goddam Years except divide us, openly embezzle, alienate our allies, destroy our institutions, lie to us 22,000 times, and willfully and knowingly sacrifice over 320,000 of us - so far - because he thought achieving herd immunity through mass infection would be a good idea without understanding one key principle that practically every scientist, epidemiologist, nurse, doctor and hospital worker still alive today knows by heart, which is that Donald J. Trump is a fucking idiot.
So when 126 people are willing to betray their oaths to a 244 year old institution for another four years of what I just described, there must be a damn good reason for it. For this to work the answers need to be spontaneous, so no advance descriptions or communication between pre- and post-interviewees. There should be a fact-checker and cameraman maintaining two or three cameras as discreetly as possible. The room should be large with lots of windows, air and light, likewise the tone of the interview itself should be welcoming and curious and as little like an interrogation as possible.
Have Joe there. He’s a big-hearted guy: he can set the tone by saying he’s impressed by their loyalty to President Trump and if they can make a compelling case for him and the appointing of alternative electors, why hell... he’ll sign off on it too! Because we’re all on the same side after all, right?
This is a golden opportunity. You’re the one who speaks for us Ms. Pelosi and all we’re asking for is just one syllable.
• Rep. Ralph Abraham (R-La.)
• Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.)
• Rep. Rick W. Allen (R-Ga.)
• Rep. James R. Baird (R-Ind.)
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• Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.)
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• Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.)
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• Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.)
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• Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)
• Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.)
• Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.)
• Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.)
• Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-Texas)
• Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.)
• Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.)
• Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-La.)
• Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.)
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• Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.)
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• Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.)
• Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.)
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• Rep. A. Drew Ferguson, IV (R-Ga.)
• Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.)
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• Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.)
• Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.)
• Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho)
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• Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.)
• Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio)
• Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)
• Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas)
• Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.)
• Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.)
• Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.)
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• Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.)
• Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.)
• Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio)
• Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.)
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• Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.)
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• Rep. Trent Kelly (R-Miss.)
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• Rep. David Kustoff (R-Tenn.)
• Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.)
• Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.)
• Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.)
• Rep. Robert E. Latta (R-Ohio)
• Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.)
• Rep. Blaine Leutkemeyer (R-Mo.)
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• Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-Wash.)
• Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.)
• Rep. Carol D. Miller (R-W.V.)
• Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.)
• Rep. Alex X. Mooney (R-W.V.)
• Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.)
• Rep. Gregory Murphy (R-N.C.)
• Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.)
• Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.)
• Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.)
• Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.)
• Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.)
• Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.)
• Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.)
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• Rep. Ross Spano (R-Fla.)
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• Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.)
• Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Pa.)
• Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisc.)
• Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.)
• Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.)
• Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.)
• Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.)
• Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.)
• Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas)
• Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.)
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• Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.)
• Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas)
• Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.)
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• Rep. Ron Wright (R-Texas)
• Rep. Ted S. Yoho (R-Fla.)
• Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.)
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• Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas)
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• Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.)
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• Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.)
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• Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.)
• Rep. W. Gregory Steube (R-N.J.)
• Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.)
• Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.)