Please do not read this. This is the rant of a really fucking angry libtard American. I ask my friends of the right political leaning to know that one on one/friends with friends, who gives a shit? A couple of cocktails and a hearty Hail, Satan will remind us of our love. In the meantime, nothing I can say will convince you of my position and NOTHING you say will alter mine. Actually this rant is really for people who will never read it, not because I asked them not to, but because, evidently, the majority of Americans are positively too stupid to read anything at all. See? Something I know we all agree on. Sadly that is going to end here. Forewarned and all that.
Y~
I have lived through a bunch of administrations. Each time it is led someone I don't approve of I , naturally, think the president is nuts. I have even thought, a few times, that whomever is in office may be the worst president ever.
I didn't know nuts, and what I thought was the worst can't hold a candle to what is in office today.
Part of it is because the laziness of people regarding mid-term and local elections. By ignoring these campaigns the system of checks and balances is not working. Ridiculously this allows the press and the administration to call even the most weak win "a mandate." Another element is the laziness of the voting populace who have all the education and intelligence one would assume for a country that lags behind such academic legends as Poland and Estonia. For years certain conventions, the Supreme Court, and an established protocol have protected us from our own stupidity. Evidently we have been so unstrung by a black president, so completely terrified of estrogen running the show that we chose a fucking dangerous, sociopath asshole instead.
"Why do we always play the cop to the world? " Well, gee. let me think. Maybe because that is what makes a super power more than just their arsenal. To have all our global standing wiped away because of the rhetoric being fed to the masses, a rhetoric the feeder cannot appreciate or comprehend beyond using it to bilk the rubes is pretty fucking disgusting. "Putting America first " is not a battle cry to embolden the working folks. It is a signal to the corporate 1% that they are going to benefit contractually, Trickle down economics? Yeah, that works, NOT. No rich fucker makes a higher profit and then generously increases wages below second tier management. Moreover, and how the Hell do these people not know this, Trump the mega-dick created his empire by employing the working poor at the lowest wages possible, or, worse, he was busy putting America first by out-sourcing overseas (never mind Daddy's co-signing some 45 million in loans and leaving the rude fuck $70 million.)
This complete lack of understanding of the most basic human rights is demonstrated repeatedly. It may even seem like Trump is planning for his exodus by changing policies that protect workers. As a for instance, why is his budget attempting to gut the Department of Labor's ability to police child labor? Why is that backed by of all people our education secretary? Answer? Well, aside from the obvious fact that he doesn't give a fuck about any children he can't talk about wanting to bang, he isn't going to leave this White House without everything set in stone to continue his incredibly dirty empire. His education secretary is, just like his EPA appointee, a joke. If you had told any American with half a brain that in 1/2 a year the people who have the most to lose by regulation would be put in charge of the things they are supposed to regulate, some Pollyanna (well, ok, me) would have said "Have no fear! Checks and balances! The system will right itself.."
No. They aren't. The stupid are utterly unaware how their actions will hurt them. They think words translate to deeds. They have no comprehension of history or civics. They vote for who they want to be rather than who has understood their plight. They believe that despite never giving one goddamn fuck about them before Trump is suddenly their champion, and worse they believe all the smoke and mirrors about "fake news" and "liberal media." That is not to say bias doesn't exist, but for fucksakes, a thinking person can hear and determine validity regardless. Want to know my idea of Hell? Being stuck in the doctor's waiting room while the overhead plasma shrieks the shrill staccato venom from Fox News. I don't care about them being conservative. I have a list of conservative politicians that I support based on their voting records. No, it is Hell because they are stupidly and brazenly lying through their teeth....and their fashion sense negatively affects me.
As every campaigning politician says "...you are choosing the kind of country you want to live in." We chose to pick a dangerous man who has offended our allies, wants to regress to the Industrial Revolution replete with black lung disease, child labor, and zero regulation. So when I ask how this makes America great, how it assists the very people who put Trump in office, the only logical answer is that it doesn't. Look, as my Dad once said "it isn't that I feel a responsibility for the homeless, it is just that they are aesthetically displeasing to my world view." Caring about others is not automatically altruistic, egalitarian, or soft. Caring about others is, in the bigger picture, caring about yourself and your environs.
Being a super-power means having super responsibility. Being a super-power means wanting to be so great that every underprivileged person on the planet sees your country as a beacon of hope. Remaining one means holding up your leadership role with your allies. Remaining one means supporting the development of the newest technologies, the best educational opportunities, and a reasonable amount of equitable distribution of the tax based resources. None of this is happening. We are becoming increasingly nationalistic at the same time our reasons for pride are flushed down the proverbial toilet. Bill Maher pointed out during the campaign that America is still great. This bullshit about high unemployment due to regulation is nonsense. Even more, if Obama kept crying about making America great again the right would have screamed him down with accusations of him not loving his country.
Which leads me to one of my few, um, right of center views. The dear Doctor is often quoted that stupidity should be painful. I would add the caveat "excruciatingly." Since the bulk of these red state fuckers wouldn't know a Monet from a monologue, I will take the elitist liberal stance that they are, in fact. deplorable, along with conservative view that they are not even people, and my own conviction that in a perfect world they should be Soylent Green candidates. You see, my caring has stopped now that their shit brains have fucked up my country. Now, after the Georgia special election, giving Trump the ability to toss around the word "mandate" some more, I want every struggling mess in the USA to reap what they sow.
Don't want a living minimum wage? Well, since traditionally corporations are known for their generosity, if we eradicate or refuse to increase the minimum wage, low skill, high labor workers will be fighting for jobs by low bidding. Now there's a plan! That will motivate the wealthy business owners to pay less, maybe hire more at less, and then we can fudge those unemployment numbers so they mean as long as you earn third world coin, you are considered a success for the administration. It doesn't matter that they can't afford to rent and eat...well ok, it matters because the same folks wanting this also want to eliminate healthy school lunches, food stamps, and cut HUD to the point of potentially ending Section 8 housing.
During the Reagan 80's, which was one of the last times I thought we had an idiot in office, and I still cringe when driving Florida's renamed turnpike (Ronald Reagan Parkway,) and would move before sending a kid to Ronald Reagan High, I was a drama student/actress/singer in New York. During the supposed genius of trickle down economics and a hatred of entitlements I watched families of 6 living in tiny, dirty $1500 a month hotel rooms in lieu of giving them much less to do much more. I watched the debt sign move ever upward. Junkies were everywhere. Crime was substantial. It wasn't a shining moment in New York history. So excuse me if I have a seriously bad taste in my mouth for the lie that is trickle down.
In the real world there are all kinds of adages about getting what you pay for. Those who have bought this administration's bullshit for a nifty bumper sticker and the belief that a wealthy, entitled piece of shit actually has their best interests at heart, deserve the socio-economic raping they are going to get. The rest of us, sadly, either are far too rare or lazy to fix it. These mid-term 2018 elections are the only hope of minimizing the damage. Yet the last 6 months have been so completely odious that by the time we re-establish checks and balances there is no telling how pervasive the Trump damage will be.
Is there anything we can do that isn't a felony? Not much, I admit. All I can say is that if you have a hardcore Trump lackey in your congressional district or the Senate make that person know that if they support Trump's ridiculous agenda they are on their last term. Make it impossible for your representatives to vote for Trump's "mandate" if they like their jobs. Support businesses that support your political stances and shun those that don't--money ALWAYS talks. And, not the least, call out stupidity when you see it interfering with your life. I don't care if it is the cashier at the grocery store, the teacher at your kid's school, or the drunk down the street who's Trump bumper stickers are matched in number only by his arrests for domestic abuse. My suggestion? Carry a bag of condoms and magnanimously hand them out to stupid folk with the (obviously inflammatory) statement "It is time to remove yourself from the gene pool. You are just too stupid to breed. Let me help." Then praise the Second Amendment and make sure you aren't followed.