After nearly having a rage-induced stroke last night from the performance of the hideous child installed in the White House by Russia, I would like to reiterate now that my primary interest in politics stems from my absolute hatred of bullies. If, in some crazy bizzaro world, it was the Democrats running around screaming at republicans, threatening violence if they lose, and being brazenly corrupt liars as a matter of policy I would be equally angry at that party. But they aren't. Joe Biden tried to play by the rules, tried to use his time to connect with voters and explain why he would be a good president and why doughfacedonny is not and has not been worthy of the presidency. Trump shouted personal insults at the former Vice President and interrupted him constantly. We all saw the same dumpster fire (h/t Driftglass) from Chris Wallace and the orange usurper, there should be no undecided voters. The battle lines are set in stone now, the only excuse for being undecided now is that you want to vote for the hatred, corruption, and authoritarianism of trump but have a tiny sense of shame.
It would not surprise me in the least to learn that these trump voters, or republicans as they should be indelibly known as, have some normal people in their lives and cannot openly indulge in fascist renunciations of reason and rejection of everything America has strived to become. Or they are just pathetic attention seekers absolutely committed to voting for doughfacedonny and operating in bad faith.
There was a point last night where trump was hurling insults at Biden about socialist medicine. It was nonsense of course but I thought the Vice President took an interesting position when he stated "I am the Democratic Party". It meant of course that all of the competing ideas and plans for Medicare for All, etc. lie with him now. And was meant to put a dagger in trump's delusions that somehow Biden is "far-left" or that he is "controlled" by the far-left, which he screeched constantly while interrupting the Democratic Candidate. I saw several tweets arguing that Biden should have walked out, but that would have inspired titanic gloating from republicans. As Drew Westen pointed out years ago, to surrender or take the high road and not fight back only cements in place republican domination. Biden telling trump to shut up was the best point of the night because it showed that Joe Biden is not going to roll over and let himself be bullied.
The opposite is also true, Doughfacedonny is the republican party. This is their final iteration, what movement conservatives started in the 1970s with their think tanks and endowing professorships for stripping away civics from American life through unfettered capitalist profit that allowed them to engineer the Reagan insurrection. The final socially-engineered conditioning of (weak) human minds into reflexive right wing authoritarian followers that Newt Gingrich and Roger Ailes dreamed of and brought into reality. The party is trump and trump is the party, a sizable minority that is utterly dependent on fox news and authoritarian propaganda for stimulation, and is completely irredeemable. From the lowest fox news watching zombie that spouts republican talking points at Thanksgiving dinner or among his coworkers, to every republican office holder right up to the president no republican can ever be trusted with power. They have decided, freely, to accept this conditioning, to put party over country, to reject democracy, to laugh at rules and law as a suckers' game, and always, always be on the attack against any dissent.
To quote Driftglass again, this is not the fourth year of the trump administration, it is year forty of the Reagan revolution. And it will never stop on its own, there is no breaking point. Republicans will believe in their divine right to rule until their dying breath. Sure, we can sort of forcibly prevent them from doing more harm but bullies are incurable until they have been bested on their own terms.
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