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Banging My Head Against America.

At some point, surely thinking about politics becomes a detriment. It hurts your head.

It hurts. A lot. I keep trying to think through the gordian knot that is latter-day American politics. I keep groping for scissors. Maybe to cut the knot, maybe because holding something tangible would be reassuring. It wouldn’t have to be scissors. A hunk of pigiron, perhaps a piece of a collapsed, neglected bridge or perhaps the cornerstone of the Washington Monument after Donald John Trump’s thugs topple it in a second wave, the door left open by most Senate Republicans, more interested in power than duty.

But they aren’t alone. There’s the majority of House Republicans. And plenty of the state ones. And their base of electors, who prop them up. And their donors, who call the shots. And they’re all doing the same tired drama they’ve been doing for a dozen years in its latest incarnation. Since the Tea Party. And that was just an off-Broadway tour of the 1990s Gingrichite cult of madness, which was itself a badly done remake of the 1980s Reaganite B-movie based on a 1960s Goldwater pulp novel.

But the modern telling always comes back to Obama. Were they really so disgusted to have a Black president?! He did a decent job, not that they could know. Their media couldn’t ever say that.

They’ve gotten worse. Their voters don’t seem to mind. But there has to be some limit. There is no natural infinity in politics. When the oceans rise, the wells dry up, the wet-bulb bursts, and everyone scatters into new demographic fractals, perhaps. Or sooner? What could be that sooner, to avoid those dead forests, to skip a mass extinction? Bang. Bang. Bang.

It hurts because you end up chasing your tail, catching it, interrogating it. Are you following me, tail? Who sent you? It hurts because it all comes back to their media, which is built on selling them little capsules of dried dog piss that will give them superpowers. That’s the entire empire of modern Republicanism: you’re up all night with insomnia, buy a new pillow.

But not all Republicans. Some good ones exist—in terms of not wanting to see America go to pot. But most of that cream still doesn’t believe in taxation or in any real progress. They aren’t willing to stand up for voting. They aren’t able to say why we shouldn’t ban gerrymandering, but they won’t vote to ban it.

The Republican media feeds lies to the voters, after midnight. It gets them wet. And it keeps them in the dark. If the lies were true, their actions would make sense enough. If people you know believe orange things are hot, and someone tosses you a tangerine, you drop it and blow on your hands. That’s the level. But cracking it?

American propaganda. Poisoning the minds of our brothers and sisters. Making them believe all kinds of crackpot things. Bang bang. Bang.

What do Republicans believe? I’d have to write at least four lists:

  • What the voters believe.
  • What the Republican media believes.
  • What the politicians believe.
  • What the donors believe.

The voters believe, as I’ve said before, in some single-issues such as guns or abortion. But many also believe in the sort of posturing and freewheeling feelgood lying that their politicians employ (they’re job creators for fact checkers, after all). They like to be pandered to, to be told they’re downtrodden, but they also like to see the vulnerable beaten up by their leaders.

The Republican media believes in making money by delivering a gullible audience to advertisers. They believe in helping to make that audience more gullible by bending or fabricating narratives to mislead. (The media in general does this, more or less, but few do it as cynically or radically as Republican media does.) They don’t really care about the politics, but see that as their way to an audience.

The Republican politicians are about like the media, with the caveat that many have one or more dear policy preferences (like the single-issue voters) or buy some version of what amounts to a philosophy (and, again, most politicians are on the spectrum, but while most are green, maybe blue, Republicans are ultraviolet (and sometimes ultraviolent)). Some of their policy preferences are about power rather than principle. They care about judges for the sake of power. It’s unclear if they would bother to run a serious presidential candidate but for the president nominating judges.

Finally, the donors. Like voters, some have a pet issue, except they all have a pet issue: keeping Uncle Sam’s greasy hands off their precious. So some have two, whether the second is guns or cigars or punishing groups they dislike.

Bang, bang bang bang bang bang bang. Hurts! the noggin, it does. Why do I have to think about all these people who won’t think for themselves?! Cruel and unusual punishment, without due process of law! I’m duty-bound as a citizen to care, but I didn’t sign up for these kinds of problems. Teach did not say this would be on the test.

What kind of world are they living in?! A constructed world, made to sell cheap scams to them, made to push their buttons to keep them coming back. A world where they believe the lies are true, where Donald John Trump can outgolf Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-Sung put together (I’m not clear if Kim Jong-un golfs).

They don’t care if the lie is false. They care more about the pretend result: them in power. They don’t realize it won’t happen, that Donald John Trump and other devils won’t share their power. They want to be the chosen ones. They love that about Donald John Trump: that he always wants to be the big shit, even as he does it poorly and to no useful end. They love it, the idea of being on top of the world, of eating all the cake, of being able to break things, to throw them aside.

I think that (bang bang) is part of why it’s so hard (bang) to understand who we’re really dealing (bang bang bang) with here. They want to be able to wave a magic wand, to make people bow before them. That’s so foreign to most peoples’ ideas of a good life. It’s the GOD complex. Straight out of the power-pervert’s Bible, where the whole point isn’t about making humanity function, it’s about God’s power over man.

Are we really held hostage by the poor mental health of our fellow citizens, so insecure in the blessings of liberty that they will continue to elect and support these villains to derail any real coherence in our national destiny?! Are they bouncing between pixelation and hangover, under the addict’s spell of confusion, paranoia, and self-debasement, in their junkie’s quest for final and unadulterated power? Heh. Could be.

Reasons for Donald John Trump.

Trying to understand potential motivations of people who support Donald John Trump.

Daddy figure

Lots of people had fathers in their lives, and lots of those fathers were imperfect and believed dumb things and acted like entitled asses and so forth. In that respect, one of the archetypes Trump embodies is that sort of father figure to a lot of Americans.

Reluctant Astronaut

There’s an old Don Knotts film called The Reluctant Astronaut (also includes Leslie Nielsen in a straight role) where Knotts gets sent to space to prove America’s space systems are so damn simple that a janitor could run them (after the Soviets announce they’ll send a dentist up).

Trump is a despicable loser, and the fact America has fared as well as it has proves our system isn’t entirely dependent on good leadership. Take that, Soviets! The problem with this motivation is that a good many Republicans now seem pro-Russia (if not pro-Soviet), on the basis of Trump’s own failure to once rebuke or say anything negative about that dictatorial slum of a regime in Moscow.

Variety pack or Doorstop

Different supporters get different things out of it. Most of them like that he was a doorstop against legislation that they falsely believe, based on false conservative media reports, would curtail their way of life now or in the distant future. For some it’s guns, others religious freedom, and others still business practices like pollution or employee treatment.

Placebo and Convenient excuse

Some supporters have no good reason other than the Trump presidency offered a chance, after eight years of Obama, to simply pretend the world was different even if there was no material improvement to anything specific in their lives or in how the government operated toward them. In that respect, a placebo.

A Fad for Those Who Miss Fads

When was the last big fad? Beanie Babies, 20 years ago? The Internet has changed Faddom. Most fads die swiftly as the next one comes along. There are a ton of tiny microfads. Sure, we’ve had the occasional dance fad, or things like the ice bucket challenge, but they weren’t full-blown, multi-year fads. Obama had some fad-like qualities in the early years, as did the Tea Party, but neither were really that faddy.

Donald John Trump was the biggest fad we’ve seen in a long time. The caps. The cheesy slogans. The dumb-guy personas Republicans all adopted. The hateful, repetitive rallies.

The crossover of fads and Republicans may warrant more study. I seem to recall the obsessions over George W. Bush during his tenure in the office having their own fad-like aspects. Reagan had his fanatical supporters. And so on.

You also have their policy obsessions over time, including the crusade against healthcare, refusing to make a deal on immigration, continually cutting taxes and regulation (none of which are ever enough). Some of that is borne on their denial of reality, some on their cult-like media bubble, but some of it may be a general desire to whine a lot about something or other.

Fear

The final result may not give Republicans enough credit. They may actually know climate change is real, but their framework for governance cannot cope. The contradiction has broken them, like HAL 9000. They are afraid of the very real future. They truly believe the solutions will cause negative results, but don’t see any alternative, so they simply try to stop the inevitable. Even if it means going along with an insane twit like Donald John Trump. They fear America becoming responsible more than they fear it becoming a dictatorship run by a kleptocratic dipshit. Or, they still believe they can control him enough that it won’t come to the worst while, apparently, reducing carbon emissions would be like digging their own graves.


Happy New Year! Biden gets sworn in in about two weeks.

Why Witnesses?

The failure to vote for a full trial is a fatal mistake for Republicans.

The question is moot now, the Senate having voted against entertaining motions for specific witnesses. It’s worth noting that every other Senate impeachment trial included witnesses.

Particularly in this Senate trial, when nobody believed we could see anything approaching real justice—given the majority of Republican Senators spiritually-entangled with Donald John Trump, what could witnesses have added?

If the Republicans are to acquit no matter the evidence, why would they have witnesses? If Donald John Trump is to be let off the hook, again, for known and proven crimes, what would witnesses add?

Purgation, for one. Not for Donald John Trump, of course, but at least for the Senate Republicans. A full airing of the facts that they turn a blind eye to, would serve to place the record upon the table. It would allow them to point backwards and say, “We knew, but we were paralyzed with fear and hate, we could not act upon the truth!”

Instead, they will always be haunted. They will, for the rest of their time, be confronted by the witnesses they have failed to call. Everyone who ever sees them will recall and associate them with John Bolton and Mickey Mulvaney. What would have been said? (We’ll find out over the years.) Why couldn’t they bring themselves to have had it said then, despite all the calls for them to do so? (Did they hate themselves that much?) What went so wrong with this sad being before me? (It used to be a thing of stature, but look at how it oozes around now.)

The innocent employees of the executive would be cleared, for another. Anyone seeking to do business with former associates of this administration will now have to ask, “Can I trust they didn’t have a hand in that Ukraine scheme?” Any firm with a laywer would receive advice against hiring those with potential involvement—the blackmail risk is too high for any of them to hold a position of trust! But had the full record been developed, those who hope for carreers beyond this administration would not have it hanging over their head.

For the same reason, it would have protected the nation’s security. There are those still in the administration who helped further this corrupt scheme, and they are subject to blackmail or other kinds of manipulation. They have not been rooted out, and the rot continues.


We’re at a point where it again seems futile to try to explain the daylight to the blind fools in the Republican caucus. Maybe so, maybe not, but it sure feels pointless. If they care not for the nation, which appearances again suggest, one wonders why they bother to remain. Why not take a cruise to one of the four corners of the earth?

Alas, there is something sick in them, and science has no known cure. They are betting against the United States of America, the place that invented telling naysayers where to stick it. They have placed their chips with corruption and coverup. It’s a bad bet, and it won’t pay. (And their donors will move on, leaving them with the debt.)

To be clear, the election of Donald John Trump was a major and lasting blow to any claim to credibility or sanity the Republican party could make. It was a bleeding wound in their caucus. But it was survivable. Get to a doctor. Fight for your life.

No. Given every opportunity, with the Democrats and others urging and rushing them to the surgical suite, they have now called off surgery. They are choosing to bleed themselves to death. Pro-life? Indeed. The Republicans in the Senate have fled the hospital and intentionally thrown themselves upon a clearly marked landmine. They’ve pissed away at least a couple of Senate seats on that vote alone! (Ask me which.)

It happens, sometimes. Institutions that know they have grown sick, that they are beyond redemption. Like those spots in strip malls that keep opening and closing and opening and closing. Permanent dead zones. One hates to believe it, that some can slip so far that they are beyond reprieve. But it does pass, in this universe of odds.