In [stderr] I hypothesized that the republicans are “all in” on taking over the US government and mooting any remaining shreds of American democracy – thin and compromised as they are.
If you had asked me, after I posted that, whether that was as cynical as I can get, I’d have responded with an unequivocal “yes.” Wasn’t I cute?
I don’t need to go into extensive analysis on this one – it says it all, quite briefly:
Don’t think this one has fully sunk in yet: A member of Congress suggested that GOP-controlled states anoint Trump electors **before those states were even called.**
This wasn’t overturning the election. This was scrapping democracy before the votes were even counted. pic.twitter.com/gzf89U52jD
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) December 15, 2021
In other words, the Republicans knew they had lost (which was not a surprise to any of them; the polling for Trump was apparently pretty grim) and they knew which states they were going to lose and which states they needed to push to overturn the election in.
As Cheney says, the intent was to disenfranchise millions of voters by overturning their votes. That “election fraud” thing. All the other crap was just window-dressing for and by the stupid. This is what the next presidential election is going to be like, too, except maybe the coup won’t be planned and executed by the Keystone Kops with the help of low-wattage clowns like Rudi Giuliani. If you step back and look at it, the republicans’ strategy in 2020 was “throw all the shit at the wall and see what sticks” – the Giuliani Ukraine nonsense, the physical assault on the capitol followed by martial law – whoops, they missed the last part, just barely – and the endless re-counts. The entire republican apparatus was “all in” and they’re going to be “all in” on the next one. It’s going to be DeSantis or some crazy asshole who doesn’t drool on his shirt, and it’s going to work because the democrats basically don’t have an effective response.
Claudius becomes emperor, by Alma Tadema [walters] – The praetorians have just killed Caligula and Claudius is revealed to be hiding behind a curtain. “The king is dead, long live the king!”
What scares me is that the only positive outcome going forward is a military coup in which the US starts to act like Egypt or Malaysia: run by the army, pretending great reluctance, but increasingly unwilling to release its control on power. Think Rome, when the praetorian guard was running things because letting the imperials run things was getting bad for business.
If there’s any good news, it’s that the republicans aren’t really organized and are not really ideologically aligned except for in their love of power and privilege. If they manage to cement power, they will, I predict, immediately fall upon eachother in massive waves of purges and backstabbings as they try to decide who is the nastiest piece of shit – and the survivor will be our emperor.
If you want to have some fun (hah! I make a funny!) look up the police and nationality laws they are passing under the radar in the UK, that’s some straight up fascist takeover shit.
Quick summary to whet your appetite for further research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOSpKymVbDY
Lets hope one of Trumps failsons meets the same fate as Elagabalus.
Tbh the Generals taking over doesn’t seem like the worst outcome. At least they are college educated and some of them seem like reasonable people who are somewhat comitted to the country and it’s people. Unlike most elected officials who seem comitted to their self interest (and by extension to their donors).
Given that their function between 2016 and 2020 seemed partially to be persuading the President why he should NOT initiate a nuclear war, then terrifyingly, I agree.
Then the polling was shit. Trump got more votes than ANY previous candidate, winning or losing, in any election in the US ever. Apart from one person, that person being Biden, that year, obvs. So any poll indicating his prospects were “pretty grim” can’t have been accurately representing the enormous number of people who turned out for him, MORE than turned out for him in 2016.
This is not to minimise the appallingness of that message or what followed, but still – I’ve not seen it seriously suggested that fewer than 74 million Americans voted Trump (more than the total population of the UK, men, women, children the lot), on a 66% turnout.
Well, yes, obviously. The Tories in the UK are turning on Alexander Johnson as we speak. This does not make life better for anyone – it makes it worse. They gain power, and once they’ve feathered theirs and their friends’ nests, they fall to infighting and fuck everyone else. That’s not good news.
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On an unrelated note, I’m enormously amused to see various SJW types getting all snowflaky over the effrontery of Time magazine giving their “Person of the Year” to Elon Musk. Such people appear to be (a) not paying attention and (b) too lazy or stupid to use Wikipedia. For those who can’t be bothered: Elon Musk thus joins an elite group of former winners whose names include (but are not limited to) Mohammed Mossadegh, Nikita Kruschev, Ayatollah Khomeini, Adolph motherfucking HITLER and Joseph Stalin, the latter TWICE. Making out that “person of the year” is like the Nobel peace prize or something and giving it to tax-dodging techbro billionaire scum like Musk is an affront just makes the objector look stupid and uninformed, especially since previous winners include Bezos (22 years ago!) and Zuckerberg. Musk absolutely belongs on the list with all those other people – to have it otherwise is to pretend/wish he didn’t have the influence he definitely does.
the Generals taking over doesn’t seem like the worst outcome
Mike Flynn, David Petraeus, Stan McCrystal, Colin Powell… We’d be lucky to get a Douglas MacArthur, and that’s what worries me.
Note: we did almost wind up with Douglas MacArthur, he just never had the opportunity.
“Person of the Year” is often misinterpreted. Time says it is a person or group which “for better or for worse… has done the most to influence the events of the year”.
Hence Hitler and Stalin.