I breathed a little easier yesterday. I took the day and spun a lot of wool for yarn. This is one of my favorite hobbies and keeps me from going over the edge. I’ve spun a LOT of yarn over the last week or two.
But I took a rest yesterday and then got up this morning with the plan to continue the fight. The next battle is for the Senate, which will play out in the two Georgia run-offs. I have already made a financial contribution to both campaigns and to Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight. And I am getting ready to write postcards and letters like I did during the General Election. Links to votefwd.org and postcardstoswingstates.com will be in the comments. I have also shared voter registration information on my social media platforms. Please join me in the effort to get Rev. Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff elected to the US Senate!
Not surprisingly, there are already those across the political spectrum already telling us on the left need to reach out to Trump supporters with compassion because we should know how they feel after our 2016 loss to Trump. They are trying to play into the stereotype of the soft-hearted liberal and expecting us to be all forgiveness and forgetfulness. But in 2016, when we were grieving, we liberals were told us to just suck it up… in the vein of “fuck your feelings, snowflakes,” or things even more vulgar. Now we are told to create safe spaces for the real snowflakes? I emphatically answer NO!
In 2016, those us who were crushed by Hillary’s defeat weren’t just upset because our candidate lost. We were devastated because we *listened* to Trump and his ugly rhetoric, we saw what was happening at his rallies and how hecklers and others with disagreements were beat up and thrown out. We saw how he ridiculed a disabled reporter. We saw how he treated women and heard the names he called them. We heard his not-even-thinly-veiled racism & his really bad history with it, see The Central Park 5 and the lawsuit he and his father lost in the 1970s for refusing to rent to blacks. We heard his disparaging remarks about immigrants, how Mexicans are all rapist and murderers. Many of us also read the stories of the women who credibly accused him of raping and assaulting them. We also paid attention to the stories of him not paying contractors and his numerous bankruptcies. We didn’t let his promises of “JOBS JOBS JOBS” fool us into supporting him. From his words and deeds, he showed us who he was over and over… and yet he was apparently a buffoon, and too many Democrats were resting on their flabby laurels, thinking there was no way that he could win. However, Trump, with his animal cunning, was able to tap into a deep vein of racism and misogyny and disillusion among whites… and for that and many other reasons, he won.
In the four years he has been in office, his cruelty has become even more obvious to those of us who saw it earlier. He revels in chaos and cruelty and has no moral compass. He uses people for what they can give him and then he discards them like used condoms. And for Trump, and his cronies, the cruelty is the point. So when I’m asked to reach out to hurting Trump supporters, I’m like “Not just no! Hell NO!”
These aren’t “forgive and forget” or “agree to disagree” things. These issues mean life and death to large swaths of American citizens. Trump is trying to kill us by destroying the ACA and letting COVID run rampant, we are soon going to be at a quarter million dead. His support of “rough” police tactics is tacit support of law enforcement remaining unaccountable. His support for white supremacists has gotten many killed all over the country, in El Paso, in Kenosha, in Portland, etc. He is a terrorist, he may technically keep his hands clean, but his words incite violence at the hands of his minions. He also hates Muslims, LGTBQ folks, and disabled people, and has made that clear, as well. He doesn’t care about anyone, unless they are useful to him.
Disagreements are for how you take your coffee, or whether you like pineapple on your pizza. But this refusal to reach out boils down to morality, and the value of human life, even if they are different than you.
Along the same vein as those who are saying Joe Biden needs to pardon everyone in the Trump Regime who have broken laws, including Trump himself, ala Gerald Ford & Richard Nixon.
The answer to this MUST BE an emphatic “Fuck NO!”
Prosecutions must happen for transparency, so we know exactly what happened and how deep the corruption goes. We must send the message that this cannot happen again. If we don’t, there will be no deterrent.
Ford’s pardon of Nixon, allowed a bunch of his cronies to walk free. Many of these same figures have resurfaced repeatedly, in Iran-Contra under Reagan, and again they went unpunished. They crimed again under GW Bush and went unpunished… AGAIN… And now they are back criming for Trump.
The next 73 days are bound to be even more unhinged than the preceding 5 years have been. I don’t believe he even has any hinges left, and as he spirals further down, we really don’t know the depths to which he will go. We should all know by now that he has no bottom. The mental illness of this man has made us all sick, families with a member suffering from mental illness tend to pick up symptoms. Trump has been in our eyes, ears, and psyches for 4 solid years… we have been his captive audience with little escape. The days since Biden’s win and minimal media exposure for Trump have been like seeing the sun after weeks of rain and heavy clouds.
Trump’s psychopathy is a toxic stew: at baseline he’s a bully & con man with animal cunning, plus malignant narcissism, overlaid with severe dementia. He also has been, per his niece Mary Trump, “institutionalized” for his entire life… never allowed fail, always coddled, never having had to do anything for himself. His biggest gamble has also turned out to be his biggest and first real loss. This is likely to trigger a worsening in his downward spiral. He continues to need relevance and adulation, so he plans continuing rallies to spew his lies and vitriol from his detached fantasy world. His brainwashed followers continue to receive a steady stream of disinformation from Fox, OANN, Breitbart, Facebook, and other Right-Wing sources. As I mentioned in a previous podcast, they are authoritarians looking for a father figure they can believe in and submit to.
I believe we have entered the most dangerous time since Trump took the reins of power in 2017. We managed to get through the election with minimal issues. But the GOP still widely parrots and supports his assertions about the election being stolen or corrupted. This includes prominent figures such as Graham, Cruz, & Rubio. Ironically this is while the GOP continues to try to steal the election from the American people.
Trump plans to start presenting obituaries of people who have died and accusing them of having voted. Remember, there is no bottom. He can bring up dead people when it’s convenient and useful to him, but he intentionally refuses to do shit about the 1000+ dying daily of COVID. That takes real work.
Trump’s Regime is also working to hamstring the transition in any way possible. His appointed GSA head is refusing to release any transition funding to the Biden team, perhaps waiting until the results are certified by the Electoral College. But, in addition to his 0 for 10 lawsuits, and reasonable expectations of more to come, there is rumored plan to challenge the Electoral College process and results in court. Most likely as a backup should their plan to pressure to enough electors to flip to Trump fail. The Republican Pennsylvania legislature may even attempt to override the voters in their own state & decide who “really” won the election.
We need to buckle up, because as Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project says, “Everything Trump Touches Dies”… and until January 20th, we are all aboard the USS Trumptanic and we are all locked in steerage.