The Post-Election 2020 Super Conniption Blues

(Update: Many thanks to Infidel753 adding me to Crooks&Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up this morning! I'm a little busy working on NaNo today so... good luck writers!)

While the Presidential election is still getting counted out in the final states, with everything literally on the line for 270 Electoral Votes, there are a few things I wanna get off my chest tonight.

Ahem.

WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK IS WRONG WITH MOST OF YOU?

I'm not even yelling at the trump voters from 2016 who voted again for the WORST SHITGIBBON ON THE PLANET, because they have been lost to us since even before 2016 2010 2000 1992. They're gleefully showing up for a man who will infect them with the Coronavirus at rallies and still vote as though he's their Personal Jesus Reagan.

No, I'm talking to a number of you Independent or centrist voters who didn't care to vote or voted differently in 2016, only to show up this election cycle to vote for a man in trump who spent the last four years objectively being the WORST POSSIBLE PERSON TO EVER SERVE IN THE WHITE HOUSE AND THIS IS GOING ALL THE WAY BACK TO JOHN ADAMS FOR GOD'S SAKE AND EVEN ADAMS HAD FCKING INTEGRITY, HELL EVEN GRANT AND HARDING WERE NEVER THIS BAD, ONLY JOHN TYLER AND ANDREW JOHNSON WOULD GIVE THIS SHITGIBBON A RUN FOR HIS MONEY SO WHY THE HELL DID YOU VOTE trump THIS TIME?!?!

Ahem.

Here, I tweeted this earlier today:

trump has 66 million voters so far. short of Biden's 68 million but an improvement on the 63 million he got in 2016.
WHERE THE FCK DID trump FIND 3 MILLION MORE VOTERS WHEN HE WAS BEING SO FCKING DIVISIVE???

— Witty Librarian In a Mask (@PaulWartenberg) November 4, 2020

I'd been noting for four years how trump never moved to the center of the political spectrum, never made himself more appealing to moderate voters to broaden his base, that he kept pandering to the 42-44 percent of the population that would have never guaranteed a popular vote win.

And the SOB still garnered more votes to him.

This was after constant and well-documented violations of the Emoluments Clause, revelations about bribing mistresses and porn actresses, case after case after case of him sexually assaulting women as proof of the vulgarity he revealed before the 2016 election. This was after trump's taxes went public this year, highlighting tax dodges and questionable claims that demonstrated trump wasn't just a failed businessman but arguably a tax fraud.

It was as though a massive plurality of Americans, maybe not a majority of us, just didn't give a fuck about ethical and honest leadership after all.

This was after a near year-long failure of leadership by trump and his administration in combatting and managing a global pandemic that was manageable if someone competent and caring set federal mandates for public safety (masks and social distancing) and fought hard to get Congress to fund for state aid and expanded benefits for the citizenry. trump refused to lead, even mocked the COVID-19 pandemic even as it spiraled out of control, even after he contracted the damn thing himself he never acknowledged the severity of it all. trump has a goddamn body count of 230,000 preventable deaths (and growing by the day) far worse than most wars other Presidents had overseen, and at least those leaders held themselves to account in some form or another. trump's failure on this matter made the United States one of the worst nations to handle the pandemic, likely prolonging it far longer in ways to make our recovery longer and more painful than what our counterpart Western European nations will do once we can get a safe vaccine going.

And the SOB still garnered more votes to him.

And the most obvious problem of all: How this openly race-baiting, rage-inducing tinpot encouraged the very worst in America, through appeals to violence, through the insults and denigration of Blacks, Latinos, Women. trump never appealed to the better angels, he always took the opportunity to summon the worst demons and historic wrongs that haunts our nation to this day. It's the one thing constant about trump that his fanbase will always fall for, always love him for. Allowing them to be as vulgar and hateful as he is.

And the SOB still garnered more votes to him.

I know we are living in a nation where there are far too many people being assholes than we had realized until 2016. I know. I can't understand it, but I know - like Rude Pundit in 2014 and Ed at Gin and Tacos in 2018 both pointed out - that the partisan divide in the United States created by the Far Right exists and can never be fixed. What I'm railing about now is how somehow, with all the bad shit trump served us for the last four years, even more Americans decided - against the availability of a reasonable, relatively normal political figure in Biden - to go with the SOB.

I may live in Florida, I may be half-mad myself. But Jesus Christ, even I know where the line shouldn't be crossed. trump shouldn't have even gotten 63 million voters this year, he didn't do anything to deserve getting 50 million voters this year. 

And the ETERNAL SHITGIBBON THAT IS trump is still one bad state turnout against Biden away from stealing off with another goddamned Electoral College theft.

This is unforgivable shit here, America. What the hell.

This ain't the end of my ranting. I am still royally pissed and will add more thoughts about all this.

I Already Hate My New Neighbor

This is the last person we need to turn himself into a Florida Man. NOOOOOoooooooooooo.

Via Elliott Hannon at Slate:

Donald Trump has always been a Florida Man at heart, but the president has now put his allegiance in writing , officially submitting a “declaration of domicile” to move his primary residence from New York to the absurd state of Florida. Donald and Melania Trump both filed documents at the Palm Beach County Circuit Court in late September to relocate their primary residence from Trump Tower in Manhattan, where the president has been a resident since 1983, to Mar-a-Lago. Please welcome: Donald Trump, Florida Man.

NO. NEVAH! A TRUE Florida Man has genuine style and elan when it comes to pulling off batshit crazy stunts. With trump, there's no grace, no truth, no wit to his actions, just pure malice and denigration.

Can you picture that Shitgibbon riding a 15-foot alligator to the nearest Wendy's to try and order twelve Baconators and throwing a live possum through the Drive Thru window as payment? No.

Can you picture that Shitgibbon raiding Disney World at night while dressed as a Power Ranger wielding a Nerf gun? No.

Can you picture that Shitgibbon getting caught in a sex scandal involving an ex-Sheriff, an entire strip club of dancers all named Bambi, two former U of Miami players as henchmen, 5 million dollars of drug money, and an abandoned Deerfield Beach condo tower? Well, yeah he could, but trump could do that in ANY state with beach property!

trump can NEVER be a True Florida Man.

So why the fck he gotta move down here to make things worse?

If we go with what Ed McCaffrey is saying at CNN's website:

Trump's legal move to Florida may indeed be about taxes, as Trump himself suggests, but just not about paying taxes, which Trump doesn't do. Instead, the move seems inspired by attempts to disclose Trump's taxes, which the President also very much does not like to do.

New York has been aggressive on the front of trying to shed light on Trump's taxes: The state legislature passed a law facilitating Congress's access to Trump's state-level returns, and the Manhattan district attorney, Cy Vance, has been pressing the case for access to Trump's returns in court.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James has also proven to be a talented and persistent thorn in Trump's side, specifically on the tax disclosure issue...

Thing is, I doubt this move can stop an ongoing investigation into trump's prior returns. There remain serious questions about property valuation, violations of non-profit filings for his now-defunct Foundation that need answering, and other acts that point to state-level charges of fraud. This move won't stop New York from disclosing his state income taxes, it might even hasten it.

I'm personally convinced trump is doing this NOW - rather than having done this in 2016 when it became clear his tax returns would be a serious topic of legal investigations - because of how it will relate to 2020 and his re-election campaign.

The conspiracy nut in me - the X-Files fan who played the Who Shot JFK parlor game - is afraid trump is doing this to plan ahead for a Presidential ticket move of - yeah, this sounds crazy but hear me out - dumping Mike Pence at Veep and replacing him with Ivanka (and not donnie junior).

Hold on, seriously. The rules of running for President are limited by the Constitution by these rules: 1) Must be over 35 years of age, 2) Must be a natural-born citizen, and 3) Must have lived in the states for 14-plus years. The only other restriction is from the 12th Amendment: that the President and Vice-President cannot reside in the same state (this hails back to when the Founders wanted to keep one state from dominating all the others).

This is why Dick Cheney in 2000 switched his residency from Texas (where he was working as a CEO) to Wyoming: Dubya was from Texas and Cheney's self-appointment to the VP slot conflicted with that Residency rule.

That's it. There's no other restrictions. Nepotism laws at the federal level doesn't cover sharing of election tickets. trump can't nominate his kids for the Cabinet posts but he could run one of them on the Presidential ticket...

There's been rumors for a long time that trump - fearing Pence can betray him at any moment - wants to get one of his kids to serve as Vice President. trump's also considering the possibility of winning cheating at getting a second term, and wants to get one of the younguns' set up to inherit the throne he's desperate to make.

Of course, I can be wrong. I'm not a legal scholar, and my understanding of the Constitution is college-level at best. But it might happen. There's no law about it because in theory this sort of thing was unthinkable: an open act of monarchism defying the very republican democratic institutions the Founding Fathers wanted for this nation.

But trump doesn't play by the rules, does he. The norms of politics don't apply to him.

Gods help us if this is his endgame.

This Place Has Gotten The Better of Me: November 20, 2017

So I've been dealing with THIS particular bullshit since morning:

Appearing on a CNN panel of Trump voters Monday morning, (pest control company owner) Mark Lee claimed that the president is standing up for the "little guy" and that no amount of negative press will change his mind.

"If Jesus Christ gets down off the cross and told me Trump is with Russia, I would tell him, 'Hold on a second. I need to check with the president if it's true,'" Lee said as his fellow panelists reacted with shock.

I've been in a goddamn rage since seeing this.

I know how bad it is. How the trump voter sees the world in a Fox-Not-News induced haze of ignorance that flips reality on its head. That the ill-informed GOP base - buying into the lies of the culture war, selling out for tax cuts to the rich that will kill their own jobs just because they've bought into the trickle-down hype - accept every statement from a confirmed liar as Gospel while the fact-checkers and reporters are demeaned as "fake".

But I've never seen it THIS bad before.

We're at the point the Far Right voters are so into the goddamn Kool Aid that they'll accept the word of a con artist over the WORD OF JESUS (straight off the Cross, for God's sake).

It has come to this.

For 47 years of my life. Me: Sober. Never wanting a drop of alcohol. Barely trying stuff like rum to see what it was like and shaking my head at it. Never understanding the urge or need to get a buzz going with booze in my system.

Well, you broke me, trump voters. You've driven me over the edge. You've FINALLY REALLY DID IT. You got me to say this in all seriousness.

OH GOD I NEED A DRINK.

Now I'm not crazy enough (always sober never sane was my motto. WAS) to go jumping straight into the super-heavy stuff. But I think apple cider has an alcoholic content of five percent, right?

I checked the local Publix. There were several brands but one stood out. ANGRY ORCHARD. Perfect. I WAS IN THAT KIND OF MOOD.

So a toast, to you damn muthafuckas who voted a lying bankrupt con artist into the White House.

Bottoms up.

This is all your fault, trump voters. You blew it up. Damn You. Damn you ALL TO HELL.

I Had to RageQuit a Debate Watch Party Last Night

The local organized Hillary office was hosting a watch party for the town-hall format debate this Sunday night, so I decided to be sociable.

I brought an apple pie.

Sat around with about 20 people to watch the Internet stream of CNN. Sat solemnly while the debate organizers spent about half an hour explaining the rules and need for decorum. A lot of attention was paid toward showcasing how these debates "demonstrate to the whole world how a democracy operates."

And then they let Trump out to show how he'll tear it all down.

Dear F-CKING God. Trump could not answer the questions straight. He'd go off on tangents, jumping to talking points that didn't relate, and ending up pointing at Hillary going "she's worse, people. She'll wreck all of it, believe me."

The opening question on campaign decorum turned into Trump attacking Obamacare. It went downhill from there.

And he lied, sonofabitch did Trump lie during this town hall. He couldn't even keep the number of "deleted e-mails" straight.

When it got to the part where Trump went off on his taxes "Oh I pay millions in taxes" I was thisclose to dropping every F-bomb I had and punching out the walls. It was either that or walking out of the watch party in a rage.

So for that, I apologize to my fellow watchers.

It was just... GOD DAMN TRUMP.

Here's the biggest takeaway I got from last night:

If he's elected, Trump is going to jail Hillary. He openly declared this on the debate floor. I think this is a first in all of American History. Granted, we haven't had many years of head-to-head debates - we really started with Nixon vs. JFK in 1960, and didn't make these debates official until 1976 - but I can't recall in my studies ANY other Presidential candidate threatening to arrest his political opponents as a campaign pledge.

That's something dictators do. That's not at all representative of the Democracy Experience we're supposed to be displaying to the world.

Damn Trump. And Damn US if enough of us voters back this con artist into the White House. We're getting every warning red flag possible about the damage Trump can do if he's in power, and he's STILL getting 40 percent support?!

/ragequit