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.

And Now He Is Accusing Obama of Terrorism

He is essentially accusing our President - someone who has been leading our nation and allies in a long, bloody conflict against these terrorists - of literally being co-founder (with Hillary!) of the Islamic State (ISIL, Daesh, what have you).

/headdesk

Considering all of the things Trump has accused our President of doing - lacking any evidence to back his claims, and in fact going against all evidence we DO have - out and out Treason is a new low.

This is the standard attack plan of the con artist demagogue, since even before the days of Tailgunner Joe. Just accuse your opponent of anything and everything, including the aid and comfort of our nation's enemies, and never mind any consequence because you can claim First Amendment right as you campaign for public office. Never mind the outright lies, never mind the libel and defamation, never mind the distortion of history and reality. As long as your people eat it up, you'll keep serving it.

At some point, what Trump is doing is so obviously criminal that SOMEONE has to fucking arrest him for this. Force him to bring these charges to a grand jury, have him under oath, see him squirm then. Put him in jail for perjury, lying to a grand jury, lying to everybody. DO SOMETHING.

We should have ended all this crap back in the last century.

Missing the GOP Queue For the Lifeboats

I've been seeing the other bloggers listing this as "too little too late," such as Rude Pundit:

In a display of too-little-too-late-ism that ranks up there with "Flowers from a cheating husband," John Kasich and Ted Cruz have agreed on a kind of alliance of f-ckery, a Megazord of fail, if you will. Said a spokesturd for Cruz, "To ensure that we nominate a Republican who can unify the Republican Party and win in November, our campaign will focus its time and resources in Indiana and in turn clear the path for Gov. Kasich to compete in Oregon and New Mexico..."

...And after Trump wrecks both of them in Pennsylvania and mocks them relentlessly for this strategy (which he's already doing), it's gonna be pathetic watching those campaigns limp around until they finally have the sense to just lay down and fade away...

I can see the intent by Cruz and Kasich to try and generate enough delegates for themselves - and not trip over each other to do so - to prevent Trump from winning outright, but this sort of move is almost impossible to coordinate because voters are going to make up their own damn minds in these primaries and they may not want to play this game.

It gets more interesting when Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post considers the ramifications:

...It emphasizes the degree to which the most likely alternative to Trump — Cruz — has failed to unite the GOP. He can either work hard at crafting an agenda and message directed at “somewhat conservative” voters, or he can make the case that Republicans are not going to win Oregon, New Mexico, Maryland and the like in November, so it shouldn’t matter...

...Cruz’s perceived weakness in turn leads to another unintended consequence of the deal: It will heighten interest in a third candidate. It is now evident that neither Cruz nor Kasich is a sterling candidate. The odds of a Trump nomination are high, so shouldn’t backers of a third candidate get cracking...?

The argument for there being a Third Party candidate that can SAVE the Republican Party from itself is getting more dire: and it turns out there ARE deadlines for a Third Party to file that are due BEFORE the July convention in Cleveland. From what I'm reading here on the Ballotpedia page, it looks like you have to file as an Independent in Texas by MAY 9th! That's two weeks away.

Before all this, there was the fear among Republicans that Trump would go Third Party on them out of spite and ruin their chances to secure any Electoral College AND Popular Vote wins. NOW the fear among Republicans is that they're going to have to run a Third Party candidate because having Trump run at the top of their ticket will (not could) ruin the entire ballot for them. Even though if they do this Third Party move, the Republicans run the very real risk that Trump will - again out of spite - tell his voters at the least to refuse to vote for ANY Republican down-ballot.

Very much a Lose-Lose situation at the moment. Time to remind the readership about the phrase involving the deck chairs of the Titanic.

The only thing the Republicans can hope for now is out-and-out voter suppression, and even THAT can blow up in their faces.

The Derogatory Nickname We Should Be Using To Describe Trump Voters Is...

TRUMPSHIRTS

I had 25 people vote on my Survey Monkey poll, and the winner was Trumpshirts with six responses. Ignorant Hater Bastards of an Emotionally Stunted Demographic was in second place with four votes. There were 11 Other options that ended up in the Comments, but I didn't have a common offering there. There were some inventive ones like Trumpaccia (Italian for horrid Trump) and Trumpenproletariat, but I wasn't too keen on Trumpaphiles because the use of -philia in the name is too positive a connotation, eh?

I'm sorry, Infidel, but Trumpolines just wasn't winning anybody over. :( I didn't think Gateway Pundit's Trumpkins stood much of a chance, IMHO...

I'll let Driftglass know he won. He will receive a firm handshake and friendly pat on the back for his victory.

In the demographic breakdowns, I didn't get many self-identifying Republicans to partake of the poll - funny, I'd figure the pro-Rubio people I know would want to vent a little - but I did get one Green and five NPAs to balance out the 19 Democrats who showed. I'm personally disappointed my older brother Eric didn't show up to be the lone Libertarian polled: dude, that hurts.

The chart for ethnic demographics showed very little diversity: a lot of White voters, one Asian, one Middle Eastern, and not enough Middle Earthers. How did I get two Extraterrestrials from doomed planets, I ask you...

The remaining question - "Will you vote this election cycle" - was a unanimous YES. I got good readers to this blog. THANK YOU! GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT.