I may have spoken about this before, but with Election Day coming up in ... wow, nine days, I'm going to reiterate my stance that the evil is not just in the White House, nor is it just in the Republican Party. The perpetuation of the evil and the rottenness in this country is held by a lot of Americans, too.
This was triggered on my way home from work on Friday. I listened to National Public Radio. They were doing a story about revisiting people they met in Pueblo, Colo. News organizations do these types of "continuation" stories where they talk to people they met months or even years ago. They do this when checking back on disasters, and they also do this when talking to voters. These voters are Latinx who NPR met either a couple years ago seeing what the Trump economy is doing to the local economy or around the last presidential election. Of the three NPR revisited, two of them voted for Trump.
Those two who voted for Trump planned on voting for Trump again. When talking about the pandemic, one of those voters said something to the effect of, "Trump did as good as he could."
Bullshit. Fucking bullshit. He could have taken the pandemic operations manual Barack Obama gave him and used it. He could exercise his powers and invoke the National Emergencies Act and force companies to make masks, ventilators, testing supplies and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). He could impose a national mask mandate. He could lobby for and sign bills giving more money to people who have lost their jobs, and to small business that are being hit hard by the economic effects of the pandemic. At the very least he could not go fucking golfing every goddamn weekend.
But nope, this guy thinks he "did as good as he could." This bigotry of low expectations is fast becoming a hallmark of lazy Republican governing. But what really bugs me about this statement is that this dumbass doesn't know the facts. He isn't thinking. He really is just vomiting up talking points spewed by Fux News Channel and Republican radio. If he actually sought out the news, if he actually thought for himself, he would know that Trump can do a hell of a lot more than he's doing now, and that a combination of hatred and incompetence is behind why he isn't doing more.
This is lizard brain thinking that I know a lot of voters, a lot of Americans, believe. And they are going to vote for him and Republicans -- in droves, if they haven't done so already. I shudder to think that the gut punch we got in 2016 is going to happen in 2020. With the way people on the correct side are afraid that our hearts will get ripped out of our chests once again (and I might be stepping out on a ledge here, but I think it's accurate), right now it feels as though we are gaslighting ourselves. Never forget that Hilary Clinton should be president right now but wasn't due to a toxic brew of illegal Russian interference and voter suppression. I think we've wised up to the extent Republicans are willing to ratfuck this election. But there are people who haven't, and in fact have drunk the Kool-Aid and want Republicans to suppress votes and welcome Russian interference just so they can win elections.
Which leads me to a statement that really grinds my gears -- not to the extent of the "Trump did as good as he could" dumbass. It is an utterance made by the third person in this story, the only one who did not vote for Trump then and won't now. That's fantastic; he is smart and he knows what reality looks like. However, to the two Republican zombies who support Trump through his "efforts" in fighting the disease, he said, "I don't see it that way." No, sir, sorry. We are beyond pleasantries. We cannot politely disagree now -- not at this perilous state, not where American democracy is hurtling toward the event horizon. We need to shout back at these stupid people. We need to call these people stupid. They are not innocents. They are voters, and they will vote to keep in power an authoritarian who we, on the correct side, know will plunder the national coffers for his financial gain, rubber-stamp any Republican policy that oppresses women and people of color, and will allow this country to go to shit because he doesn't give a fuck about this country.
Republican voters are dangerous people. They need to be beaten back in the polls, and then they need to be dealt with after Election Day -- in government meetings, state Capitols, and on the streets if need be. There truly are Enemies Among Us, and I hope we will seize and use power to defeat Trump, Republicans, and the stupid people who want to plunge this country into darkness and hate.
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