A Nation Of Sociopaths

What has become of us? Only scant few hours of daylight remain until the electoral college, that undemocratic firewall of aristocratic statesmanship that was supposed to guard against populist demagogues, unqualified hacks, and agents of foreign hostile powers, propels that very thing into the presidency. This is clearly insane. And what holds us back? The fear of reprisals? Any violence the republican traitors and neo-nazis could do would be tiddly winks compared to when the short-fingered vulgarian has the power of the state at his command. The fear of being called sore losers? We've been called everything, including that, for years. Why would resisting tyranny provoke any harsher language? In the end, it is fear of being impolite. Or of breaking with tradition. In the face of unrestrained anti-American sociopaths, we fold without even trying.

The scope of this failure is truly remarkable. The basis of our republican form of government is single district plurality with one person's vote being equal to everyone else's. The Democratic party, for all its faults, respects this basis and simply sighs and shrugs that it is the "will of the people" that we lost. The Republican party however, pisses on the very notion of following rules as a sucker's game and plays to win at all cost, especially when they can break the rules and make libruls cry. And now, every faction of the children of darkness is getting what they want. Corporate fat cats get an evisceration of any regulation on their actions. The very rich get their tax cuts, especially the complete repeal of the estate tax to codify the de facto aristocracy. Christian supremacists will get to inflict their narrow and vicious interpretation of scripture that conveniently lets them discriminate and oppress anyone they don't like. White supremacists will run wild, free from accountability or even the thin veneer of decency that previously restrained them.

Don't think so? The SPLC reports that 1,094 bias-related incidents have been committed since election day. Many are racist graffiti and trump's name used in an intimidating manner... for now. What happens when trump is running the Justice Department? How about when trump republicans start taking over or asserting control in precincts and sheriff's departments they already are employed in? The basis of authoritarian aggression is the belief that authorities will back them, or at least look the other way, when they attack members of out-groups. The hate crimes occurring now are just testing the waters, how will authorities react? How will the press react? 

How about playing to win at all costs? North Carolina is instructive. After refusing to concede for almost a month after the election, Pat McCrory signed a bill passed by his republican pet legislature to gut the powers of the governor. This comes after the fascist republicans in the state went further than almost any of their brethren in other states to restrict voting by Democrats. The reaction to all this? Barely reported on whisper protests by Democrats. On the other hand, a lively discussion on my friend's facebook page concerned with the prospect of the electoral college refusing to make trump president yielded this as the first comment:

 I've been thinking about this a lot recently. This situation seems to be exactly one of those for which they instituted the Electoral College in the first place. The American public has elected someone who may be crazy...he's certainly shown issues with behavior control and temper.

That said...which scenario is worse?

a) four years of Trump
b) the immediate riots, and long-term fallout, that are 100% sure to occur if Trump is not voted in by the Electoral College

To even a remotely objective observer, Hillary Clinton won. About 50,000 votes in three previously blue states swung through a combination of voter suppression, republicans rigging the voting, the Russians rigging the voting, these awful digital no-paper trail voting machines screwing up, and good old dirty tricks. The result is that Hillary Clinton did not lose, the presidency was stolen from her by people who just do not give a damn about fair play and this time did not get caught. It would not have mattered if it was trump, Jeb Bush, Rubio, Cruz or any of the other dwarves, the trap was set before trump even came down the escalator.

Which brings us to the point, year after year the corporations that supply us with crap entertainment have crafted continuously media that dehumanize, atomize, and demonize everyone. It does not matter that a majority has hung on to their humanity, a sizable swath of Americans are effectively brainwashed sociopaths simply because of the culture of absolute competition and dearth of empathy in the public sphere. It may start small, "hey let's watch this movie where people get tortured" or "let's play this game where we can steal cars and kill any people we feel like" but when other people are no longer seen as sentient equals, the ball starts rolling away from humanity. Soon, those who fall victim to this passive conditioning discover the right wing hate machine and are further programmed to hate all sorts of out-groups.

As I said, not all, not even a majority but enough people are part of the problem. It would take only a nudge to make them a tyrant's willing executioners. In any case, the time to stop a tyrant is before he takes power. Politically inspired violence and vigilantism are coming no matter what, that can't be put back in the bottle, but do we want to face violent lone wolves or organized state sanctioned death squads? They exist, go to any political website or social media page and peruse the comment sections. It is only a matter of time before they grow bored with simply destroying people in cyber space. And in the short-fingered vulgarian they have found a focal point for their engineered rage, in the white house or not. Let's try to keep them on the outside looking in.

Electors, do your job as prescribed by the intent of your creator. Keep trump on the outside looking in as well. Anything that follows, well, we'll just have to hope that the system is not as completely rotten as it looks.

And I hope I'm wrong, I really do.