Presidential elections are always historic and presidential years are years when the entire country tunes into politics. The rest of the time only political afficionados follow every vote and every development in both chambers of Congress, not to mention local politics. But once every four years, a sleeping giant is stirred to life, to vote for the next president of the United States.
Every election cycle is memorable for something. Mitt Romney’s legacy will be the 47% crack, that I’m sure he regrets to this day. Twenty years later people still know about John Kerry and swiftboating. But when history comes to record Donald Trump there will be, once again, an unprecedented situation: which one of his many thousands of lies and gaffes do you identify him by? Here’s just this weekend’s entries. In days of yore any one of these missteps would have been enough to hang a politician but for Trump this is standard operating procedure. This is normal.
— Rob Johnson (@llccar1) February 26, 2024
Now if you’re shaking your head for the nth time, or even banging it on the floor, saying, “How, how?!?” until things start to go black, this is the answer. Right here. This is what I’m calling the MAGA Rosetta Stone.
Donald Trump is not the problem, it's the people that blindly follow him.
— Jim Goodloe (@jgoodloejapan) February 25, 2024
That is the answer right there. It’s tragic but it’s true. Trump represents a certain something to these people and that’s why they cover for him. That’s why they will throw our way of life away. He promises to squash people that they fear and/or dislike for some reason, be they POCs, gays, uppity women, immigrants, you name it, they feel Trump will protect their interests.
What they fail to realize is that while he might protect the interests of a few right-wing extremists, America as we know it will cease. And you cannot convince them otherwise. They cannot be reasoned with on these matters. There is a blind spot that cannot be overcome. That tape proved it.
Judge Luttig has a commentary showing just how 2024 is an existential, sink or swim year for democracy.
.@judgeluttig: "Donald Trump has tested America's democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law beyond the breaking point over the past four years…America's democracy and the rule of law have never been tested like this before." pic.twitter.com/6JwbzWbrtb
— Principles First (@Principles_1st) February 25, 2024
2024 is a definitional year. This time next year we will know if the democratic experiment survived or if we are now a third world country. It’s never been this black and white before, or even close. Prior to Trump it was a question of Democrat v. Republican, of liberal v. conservative, of policy differences within the framework of a constitutional republic.
But there was never, and I mean never, a plan to just blow up the republic until now. The Era of Trump has been about just that. We managed to dodge the bullet four years ago. Let’s hope that this cancer on our body politic can be excised for good now.
Unfortunately it’s not a cancer that can be excised. Like the Klan, which has at times been driven underground for periods of time there’s enough “cells” that lay dormant but ready to emerge and multiply to the point of flourishing given the right conditions. I think of what we’re seeing as more like some viruses that go dormant only to re-emerge. The best example I can think of is for anyone who had chicken pox earlier in life. It subsides and we forget about it, unless/until decades later as an adult it for reasons we can’t usually account for comes out of dormancy and manifests as shingles.
I had a whopper of a case of shingles a couple of decades ago. My dad was only 57 when he died but his sister, my aunt outlived him by decades. (most from my dad’s side of the family have live to ninety or longer) She went through multiple bouts of shingles starting in her fifties and one breakout on her face threatened to leave her blind in one eye. My own outbreak was an almost foot square patch on my back that wrapped under my armpit and into a blotch on my right pectoral. It was painful and miserable. I’d moved to WV and this medical issue was when I learned (thankfully) I qualified for care from the VA. Once the paperwork was done and I was in an exam room and described the sequence of symptoms before “this whatever the hell my skin has turned into let me show you” caused the PA to say of course he wanted me to take my shirt off but I had shingles. So I burned that weeks worth of warning signs before the outbreak (believe me I tried several over the counter items before the “fish scales” appeared) and for years after was scared shitless every time I thought it might be happening again, either there or somewhere else on my body.
When a vaccine was developed I immediately contact my doc at the Durham VA to get it. I had to wait a while until they were approved to receive and administer it but as soon as I could get it I did. It was two shots six weeks apart and those suckers caused some real pain. Being left-handed I take shots in my right bicep unless I’m getting multiple shots and they have to use both arms like last fall. Good thing because I sleep on my left side and for a week after that first shot my right bicep hurt like hell. I’d have never been able to sleep laying on that side! Regardless, then knowing what I was in for I made damn sure to get that second shot! And if at some point a booster is recommended I’ll get it despite knowing it will hurt, even when just sitting and watching TV for a week.
My point is that the best we can hope for is to find and administer a “vaccine” to the MAGA virus that Trump caused to flourish in all it’s varied mutations from Oath Keepers and Proud Boys to the White Power Nazi assholes to the “Christian Nationalists.” I fear like the flu vaccine our country will need regular boosters to minimize chances of some new strain appearing or an old one that had gone dormant re-appearing.
That is some war story, Denis. My mother had dreadful bouts with shingles. I also worked with a guy who had shingles and they laid him low. That is one malady I’ve escaped in this life, thank God.
Just as we will likely have to wait until dingleberry dies to start repairing our politics, etc., we will also have to wait until these people with less than stellar intellect, character, etc. to expire. I retain some hope our country will survive (only some) because the ‘pube base/magats are generally older therefore they will die off in a timely manner. I just do not see educating them, persuading them, or in any way changing their minds. They are in their very own stupidity bubbles and these particular s. bubbles are resistant to the very things that would bring these folks’ I.Q.’s up to maybe 80-90.
That “… DONALD TRUMP IS NOT THE PROBLEM, IT’S THE PEOPLE THAT BLINDLY FOLLOW HIM…” is loud and clear. They – and Don Don – still carry on delusional Dunning Kruger style in their irrational assertive echo chamber, being:
👏🤢 I’m starting to believe that I’m the demented one. Because I gotta admit that while I am disgusted by the South Carolina trumpers mocked by Jimmy Kimmel, I am hugely impressed by their ability to pivot so hard without falling down!! “Mah Daddy was a faithless husband cheatin’ on mah dear Mommy several times and I respect that!” Maybe they don’t get dizzy ’cause they were dizzy goin’ in! 🤪
My husband, career Navy, calls Trump the 8th grade bully who shakes down smaller kids for their lunch. I agree, but I would add “who grows up to be the jock who rapes cheerleaders.”
My husband, career Navy, calls Trump the 8th grade bully who shakes down smaller kids for their lunch. I agree, but I would add “who grows up to be the jock who rapes cheerleaders.”
They WANT America as we know it to fail. Actually they would likely prefer the antebellum South,,I suspect. Most of them don’t grasp that the average farmer didn’t own a huge plantation with 100 slaves, but some semi literate white guy with 40 acres,and a mule whose family picked cotton alongside the slaves he rented from the plantation owner.