Republicans in 2016 promised to “Make America Great Again.” They won the White House that year despite losing the election by millions of votes. Now, mission accomplished, they’re running on their promise to Keep America Great.
How great is it to be “Great Again?” Well, the Pentagon announced this week it’s planning to release explosive secret files on decades of UFO research and it barely rated a few lines in the back pages of the newspaper. We’ll have to time to review those alien autopsies after the secret government kidnapping vans finish rounding up dissidents, virus deaths drop below two 9/11’s a week, and we’re allowed the leave the country again. Being great again is taking a toll, a death toll.
They warned me if I voted for Hillary the government would close the churches and block us from escaping the country. National debt would skyrocket and the economy would collapse. We would depend on government handouts to survive, criminals would run the government, a gang of global pedophiles would operate above the law, and secret police would kidnap people off the streets. Feds would create concentration camps in empty Wal-Marts, and Black Lives Matter would infiltrate NASCAR. Damnit, they were right.
Lots of folks imagined the worst on election night back in 2016. No one imagined this.
There are concentration camps on the border to store children we kidnapped from the families of asylum seekers. The camps have been cobbled together in the most American way possible, out of abandoned Wal-Marts or other impromptu sites. They are managed by private companies making millions off the business. We’re doing this to punish their parents for seeking asylum and threaten others who might do the same. That’s not a guess or an accusation. That’s what government lawyers claimed in court while defending the practice. As one might expect, courts have repeatedly ruled this practice illegal, but no has been able to make them stop or get the kids released.
When their children are kidnapped, the asylum seekers are given a phone number to call to check on their kids. The number goes to a call center with no information on their kids. Parents are being deported without their kids, and the government can’t reliably find them. In 2018 the government lost track of more than 1500 detained migrant kids. Oops. Welcome to America, where We’re Great Again.
What’s it like to live in America after we’ve been made Great Again? You can’t go out in public safely without wearing a mask. We’re stacking up corpses from this avoidable disaster at the rate of more two 9/11s a week, and the death toll is accelerating. Republicans have suddenly discovered an interest in education, insisting now that kids should go back to school because only a modest percentage of them will die. Welcome to an America that’s Great Again, where only a small percentage of public-school children will be killed by an uncontrolled pandemic.
At least they found a way to stop all those school shootings.
Our inept pandemic response caused new unemployment claims to spike so high it broke the chart. We’re bracing for GDP to decline by roughly a third for Q2, a dive more extreme than we’ve ever recorded. Six months into this catastrophe a mind-boggling 30 million Americans are collecting unemployment benefits. Essentially the entire economy has been nationalized to stave off utter disaster. Socialism isn’t a problem once you’re Great Again.
But if this disaster was caused by a global pandemic then everyone else should be suffering too, right. Nope. This pandemic is virtually over in the civilized world while in the shithole countries there’s still no end in sight. China already shook off the disease and its impact, returning to economic growth. Same for most of the Pacific Rim. Europe is right behind them. No one else in the civilized world experienced anything remotely like the job losses in the US, because they had capable governments to manage the disaster.
Want to go to the movies? You’ll need to travel to a civilized country to do that. Interested in going to a baseball game? Only if you’re lucky enough to live in South Korea, Taiwan or Japan. Sorry, you won’t be attending a football game, unless you mean the kind of football where they only use their feet. To do that you’d have travel overseas, but you can’t do anymore because civilized countries don’t want Americans and their MAGAFlu cooties.
If you live in one of those states governed by Republican sociopaths you can still go out to dinner at a restaurant, but a meal isn’t all you might get.
Conservatives used to worry that China was taking over Hollywood. That process is on its way to completion as China and Europe are now the only major markets with functioning cinemas. If you can’t draw an audience in Beijing or Berlin, then you can’t draw an audience at all.
The President promised to build a wall on the border. He didn’t tell us it would keep us in. If you joked about fleeing to Canada, the joke’s on you. Canada won’t take us anymore. Mexico closed its land border with us and air travelers to the country have to quarantine to avoid spreading their disease. Flights to Europe from the US are now almost exclusively limited to repatriation of EU citizens and diplomatic or official travel.
Republicans were worried about illegal immigrants. Now that we’re great again immigration isn’t a problem anymore. Nobody wants to come here. Demand for US visas is so low that the Immigration Service is planning massive layoffs. That’s ok. Border Patrol could probably use those fired workers now that they’ve taken on responsibility for kidnapping dissidents in American cities. Yeah, that’s a thing that’s happening.
As one might expect, not everyone is excited about being Great Again. Protests that started months ago over another round of police murders have caught fire, turning into a summer of rage. As the protests started to wane the administration decided to stir them up again to shoot some campaign ads. The military refused to cooperate, so Republicans sent in the racist goons from Border Patrol who are operating now without insignia or identification. They started rounding up random “suspects” and trundling into them unmarked rental vans. Predictably, this move has fanned more violent protests all over the country and the campaign ads people are seeing aren’t quite what Republicans had planned.
If you own a Dollar General or a pawn shop in a “troubled” neighborhood these aren’t the best of times. But interestingly enough, the stock market is booming, in case you wondered where the greatest was hiding in this “Great Again” project.
Who’s still excited about all this greatness? Fewer and fewer people are drinking the Kool-Aid. Now that we’re Great Again there are only three kinds of people left in the Republican Party, racists, religious nuts and grifters. Turns out that’s a lot more people than we might once have believed, but not nearly enough to win a fair election. Might not stop them.
Being Great Again means not having to count the votes. Republicans are pulling out the stops to avoid having all this greatness ruined by how much people hate them. They’ve tried to purge voter rolls and force people to risk a deadly disease to vote. Their campaign will probably fail, just like everything else they attempt. This much you can count on, if Republicans manage to steal this election, there will be a lot fewer Americans around to bask in the resulting greatness.
At least we don’t have a President who once did a thing about some emails or something. Imagine how terrible that would have been.
Chris, I saw your post and comment about that Vanity Fair article. I read that article last night. For those that still fantasize about the u.s. not being in a civil war NOW, with the enemy not only willing but happy to kill you, the statement in that article should disabuse even the most naive of that idea.
Eliminating the enemy should be first and foremost on all agendas.
Dinsdale, where is that post? Thx!
So looks like Trump is cancelling the Republican convention in Jacksonville. I imagine it’s because a bunch of donors and party activists privately told the RNC that hell no they won’t be coming to Jax to hang out shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of covid-infested mouth breathing lunatics. Those lunatics are good for votes but the party fundraisers like to stay safely ensconced in the very liberal hellholes they decry, like NYC, DC, and LA. Losing your body weight in sweat by spending August in Jacksonville wasn’t high on their list even before covid blowback became an issue.
I only wish the party faithful find these elder — very elder — statesmen of their party, wherever they’re hiding, to personally thank them for the freedom they’ve been granted to breath (and cough) free of any restraint. A handshake, some spittle-strewn words, and a selfie standing cheek-to-jowl with their heroes is the least they deserve for their steadfast worship at the feet of Cheeto Jesus. With any luck, they’ll do their part to ensure the Republican party has room for newer, younger leadership by the time the 2022 cycle rolls around.
Previously, Chris wrote:
Silicon valley was “the only place in our politics or economy that is still solving difficult problems”
I feel sorry for him that he believes this.
I offer this report on DARPA from The Guardian:
“Crowe said he and his colleagues laughed when DARPA put out its request in 2017 for a system that could produce a human-ready antibody from a convalescent blood sample in 60 days.
“Somehow, in setting that aspirational goal, after the first brainstem reaction of, ‘That’s ridiculous,’ the next step is, ‘Well, how close could we get?’ ” Crowe said. “Then, you start buying in to the belief that it could be possible.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/how-a-secretive-pentagon-agency-seeded-the-ground-for-a-rapid-coronavirus-cure/2020/07/30/ad1853c4-c778-11ea-a9d3-74640f25b953_story.html
Busy news day and it’s still morning in most of the US.
I think 45’s election postponement statement (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53597975) was meant to keep the news busy so as not to talk about the US’s historic 32% quarterly GDP drop (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/30/us-gdp-q2-2020-first-reading.html) or crossing the 150,000 death threshold (https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-latest-news-07-29-2020-11596011647) but then Herman Cain threw us the only solid he’s ever done in his life by, ironically, dying of coronavirus (https://abcnews.go.com/US/coronavirus-updates-global-cases-covid-19-surge-million/story) .
I won’t make jokes about Cain, but I won’t offer up false sympathy either. The man is dead because of his poor choices- that is the harsh but unvarnished truth. Also Bill Montgomery, the co-founder of TPUSA, has died of this “hoax”. Will some of these conservatives get the hint now that the virus is taking out people in their ranks? Maybe. The “it could affect you” argument that has worked with other issues doesn’t have the same traction here so far. The loss of these 2 allies isn’t going to sway Trump. We are seeing Jonestown in slow motion
Side note that it’s meaningful that one of the only top GOP representatives / leadership, if you account Cain for that, to die of COVID-19 was one of the very few black people.
Yeah Fly, you should go and look at the Twitter posts put up by Cain’s staff on his account the past 6 or 7 days, and quickly, before they are scrubbed. He deserved to die. Simple as that.
One visible cog in the fascist death cult machine down, at least another 100,000 to go. And yes, as with many cults, there is only one way to stop them.
“Gohmert confirmed the news from his Capitol Hill office, raising further concerns that he returned there infected while both chambers of Congress are in session.”
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/07/29/896703068/texas-republican-rep-gohmert-tests-positive-for-covid-19-after-rebuffing-masks
Idiotas.
The health of all of congress depends upon idiots.
Here’s what this E. TX political luminary had to say about testing positive for covid (asymptomatic, unfortunately):
“I can’t help but wonder if by keeping a mask on and keeping it in place, if I might have put some… of the virus on the mask and breathed it in… But the reports of my demise are very premature.”
REP. LOUIE GOHMERT
Oh, what might have been. From a CNN article:
“Gohmert learned he was positive because he was slated to travel to Texas with Trump on Air Force One, so he received a test as part of that protocol.”
Think how wonderful it could have been if he had managed to get on that plane. Nature might have done what people clearly are not willing or cannot do.
My thoughts and prayers go out to Rep. Gohmert. I hope his doctors are wise and follow the expert medical advice of our stable genius and put him on a regime of hydroxychloroquine and bleach injections.
A developing story that is interesting and infuriating, but also not surprising:
https://mobile.twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1288847011001913345
People were warned that going to work for this cruel and corrupt administration could be poison to your reputation, but if this thing about masks is true, it’s also literal poison to your health. I am gobsmacked at the inability of a substantial subset of my fellow Americans to repudiate this nonsense. I think Aaron is right in that those of us who know better need to maintain discipline so that we survive all the fools.
yes, this is the goal:
so that we survive all the fools.
They sold their souls a long time ago. Now they’re surprised the Devil’s collecting their bodies too…
Fly, It was announced tonight on MSNBC that Tuesday, the Senate Sargeant-at- Arms sent out a notice to all Hill staffers. It stated that federal Hill employees were exempt from the DC Mayor’s mandatory mask order by virtue of their federal employment status.
I wonder who authorized this memo?
https://mobile.twitter.com/elielcruz/status/1288252079220428800?s=21
Sorry, just trying to help:
We’re doing this to punish them (their) parents for seeking asylum
and the government can’t reliable (reliably) find them.
Much appreciated.
I remember not long ago how many on this forum talked about how the Dem’s just had to beat the fascists at the polls, and it was laughable to think that voter suppression and outright voter fraud would occur enough to actually impact the election.
Now, the theme is “vote because we have to beat them by an overwhelming amount to overcome the inevitable voter suppression and voter fraud”.
Those people who clung to the dream of a fair election have finally rid themselves of that, yet still cling to the dream that “an overwhelming turnout and results will stop the tyranny”.
That dream will be shattered soon enough. And then, those people will fall back on the last fantasy: The military will ride to a last minute rescue and impose order and democracy.
History shows time and time again, there is only one way to remove a tyrant and his regime. But nope, the loser party just can’t accept that the U.S. is at that point. The fascists know this, and are banking on it.
The futility is watching so much being destroyed while the system of checks and balances fails to keep it from happening. Republican supporters have been long gone from my increasingly small but meaningful circle of remaining friends and family. It’s more difficult when some of these are members of your own family – children and siblings, but, they too, occupy less of my time and thoughts. I am grateful for the few courts that appear to be beyond Barr’s control – a mean, devious man who has a lot to atone for. I am grateful for those who continue to protest, frustrated by those who ruin peaceful protests, and angered by the paramilitary aggression in targeted Democratic cities. I am angered by the silence of republicans who see what is happening and say nothing, and are so shallow and self-serving in their understanding of the needs of people seeking basic justice and equality. I am afraid of the looming economic calamity that is being propped up artificially by the Federal Reserve and will hurt my children and grandchildren. I am saddened to see our agencies – intelligence, justice, health, environment – sabotaged and denuded when we need them most. I worry about lost alliances that have taken decades of painstaking work to attain. I abhor the spoiled psychopath in the White House and the Republican establishment that enables him at the expense of Democracy and a great nation.
I am both fascinated by and repelled by current events. I am unable to contribute much personal effort to the campaigns that matter to me except through donations and outreach, and this is a new and limited experience. Yet, I am alive, the world still turns, the sun rises and sets, and I know there are good people still. This sustains me even when there is so much darkness.
I was up late last night, again. Not sleeping is becoming the norm around this household. I have dreams about each and everyone of your points, Chris. Or should I call them nightmares? And, the scariest bit is the looming disaster of a stolen election.
I am afraid of the fallout of all the disinformation, but a more larger alarm is ringing in my head: long lines of voters waiting hours to vote, mailed in ballots never being delivered, polling places as battle stations. The picture that was in my mind after the 2016 election night was dire, but it never got close to the actual madness we are experiencing now.
I am very afraid. I have always relied on getting out the vote, but what if those votes really don’t count?
There are many ways to steal an election: Refusing to allow mail in ballots in states where refrigerated morgues are increasingly more visible, eviction of people – mostly poor and minority- who become ensnared by residency changes at the polls (no proof of address? No vote!)
Who knows what else is coming our way. The only possible way to thwart the GOP from stealing the election is to have an overwhelming vote for the Democratic nominee. Will the people of America turn out and wait for the hours and hours it will take because republicans have closed voting precincts in selected areas?
On fear and hatred:
I try to manage the emotional burden of this experience by maintaining an awareness of where I am, understanding the things which are within my reach and the things we are beyond me. Within my reach I try to focus on being as kind and supportive as possible to those around me. Almost all of the Trump supporters have been pruned away from my life, an essential step in maintaining some equilibrium.
Beyond my reach I generally let things go. I write about wider issues, donate time and money, etc, but without having some sense of here and there everything blurs into an uncontrolled and unmanageable mess. I’ve never been more aware of politics right here on my block and in my town. There’s enough work to do right here to absorb my energy.
All of this has helped, but only so much. I suspect that a lot of people will be permanently scarred by this experience. Not sure I’m not one of them.
I don’t have any fear or hatred.
I spent a decade and a half of my life doing what I could to improve the human condition for all Americans and was literally told by many of them that they despised me talking down to them. Now they’re choosing their hills to die on and who am I to stand in their way or lecture them about another path? Americans would literally rather die than let themselves admit they are wrong, so… I’m letting them.
My main recommendation for everyone else is, avoid those hill they’re choosing to die on so as not to be a collateral casualty. Find who ‘your community’ is, like literally write down who is important to you and worth saving, reach out to them, build your local infrastructure, and figure out with them how to keep the forest fire from taking your homes.
Americans are literally so stupid that they’re not worth getting upset over before. It’s worth getting upset when someone who should know better does something wrong. Americans don’t fit those parameters, they don’t just ‘should know better’, their intellectually incapable of it anymore.
“I am very afraid. I have always relied on getting out the vote, but what if those votes really don’t count?”
Good ol’ fashioned incompetence is more concerning than Russian-esque malfeasance for November. Case in point, uber blue NYC is *still* counting votes more than a month after the primary.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/07/new-york-election-failure-mail-in-voting/614446/
I’m honestly not terribly worried about votes being thrown out. If WI Republicans, arguably the single most power-hungry and shameless state party in the entire country, couldn’t rig their state’s Supreme Court race, safe to say all the rest aren’t any better.
Of course none of that is reason for complacency and we all still have to do our damndest to get every last vote out. That said, if we do our job right, the sheer overwhelming numbers should make our victory apparent; hopefully even on Election Night.
Looking forward to your responses in a few months, or sooner, Ryan.
BTW, you are aware the tyrant has already filed suit a month ago in Penn to reign in mail-in ballots. The suit is being “expedited” and the case will be heard in Sept 22. though the judge will hear arguments to dismiss the case next week. If this thing goes to trial, even if the fascists lose, they ultimately win, as no way no how Penn can get their act together in the time left after this trial.
Best case, it will take at least a week for all ballots to be counted, and this is just one state.
Specifically, the lawsuit you reference is one that the Trump campaign and Republicans are filing to try and put a stop to mail ballot drop boxes.
Think for a moment about how desperate these people are to fight over such small potatoes, particularly when it’s *their own voters* that have traditionally benefited from absentee voting. It’s more than likely not what’s given Republicans their winning margin here in Florida (a state that’s otherwise divided right down the middle) for decades.
This isn’t a strategy by any stretch of the imagination. It’s nothing more than premature whining by people readying every excuse in the book for why they’re going to get their asses handed to them in November.