Listen, I know it looks bleak just now, lost as we are amid the towering trees. Forest? Buddy, we can’t even see the sky. There’s got to be a Sun up there somewhere, I guess, but beats the hell out of me where the damned thing is. Denmark, maybe. Maybe it shines over Denmark. Not here. Here, the toxic tide of revanchist Republican authoritarianism just keeps on rising, doesn’t it? If you’re at all paying attention, you can recite a litany of abominations off the top of your head. SCOTUS is rotten to its core, a new revelation about rampant corruption arriving almost daily, and nobody can do anything about it. The lower courts, likewise stacked with dim-bulb MAGA extremists after four years of the Donny and Mitch show, keep doing their thing; when they aren’t slapping nation-wide bans on abortion medications in Texas, they’re endorsing overt partisan gerrymandering in North Carolina. The GOP is still threatening to tank the global economy if they don’t get their way on budget cuts, a crisis that has to reach some kind of climax soon. Meanwhile, all across the country, Republican State legislatures are suppressing the vote, eradicating female reproductive autonomy – birth control will be next, mark me on that – making sure that military grade weapons are easier to acquire than the books they’re trying to ban, demonizing helpless transgender kids, and generally doing everything they can to rile up the white folk while consolidating their minority rule, the better to weather the apocalyptic demographic storms to come. For the love of Christ, they’re talking about teaching the Ten Commandments in school (so much for that church/state separation thing). In Florida, DeSantis just passed a law allowing 12-member juries to impose the death penalty with only eight votes – not enough sinners are getting strapped into Old Sparky, I guess, so let’s change “unanimous” to “special majority”. They’re rolling back child labour laws. No, seriously – they’re bringing back child labour. You think I’m making that up? Nyuh-uh! Here:
Everywhere you look, it’s people getting shot for knocking on the wrong door, and women being sent home from hospital with instructions to come back when they’re good and septic and standing on death’s door, when maybe something can be done for them, you know, if the lawyers say it’s OK. Just a couple of nights ago, a guy asked his neighbour if he could please lay off with the late night gunfire on his front lawn, since all the racket was frightening the women and children, and Mr. Second Amendment responded by grabbing his handy AR-15 and executing almost his whole frigging family, five people, including an eight year old kid. That’s just the latest. It’s happening every day, seems like; in today’s America, you can get blasted right out of your penny loafers for pulling in to the wrong driveway, as happened to a young woman in upstate New York not long ago. She and her friends were lost. She was backing up to leave when buddy gave her the gun. Christ. Can you imagine being a pizza delivery guy in, say, Lubbock?
So yeah, it’s really, truly, horrifically bad.
Don’t you think I know that?
However – and I know this may sound like I’ve been kidnapped and some usurper has taken over this blog – there is a bit of a bright side coming into view. There is! Honest, and for true! Let’s look at it!
OK, we’ll bite, so what the hell is looking so bright these days, smartass?
Well, I’ll tell you. For starters, there’s this:
Tell me you didn’t feel all warm and fuzzy when you learned that Tucker got the unceremonious boot with about ten minutes’ warning. Go on, tell me that didn’t do your heart all sorts of good. There he was on Friday night, still smirking at his desk. Laughing at us. Monday morning, he gets it right where the Rhino got the javelin. He didn’t even see it coming. Who’s yukking it up now, smirky-boy?
Now, it’s not the perfect comeuppance, in that everybody’s favourite taunting frat boy wasn’t shown the door on account of his campaign to destroy American democracy, his constant on-air racism and misogyny, or even for costing the Evil Empire close to 800 million bucks, all of which was already baked in. Instead, apparently, it’s because there was stuff he said privately involving race, or gender, or some other hypersensitive “third rail” topic, stuff he was dumb enough to put into writing in emails or texts, that was even more vile than anything we’ve already heard (and we’ve already heard he was happy texting that his female boss was a c*#t, so the mind boggles). That, and he ran a toxic shop in which women were demeaned and harassed, which is just par for the course over there at Fox, and more or less the standard, ho-hum reason why guys like him get canned, from Bill O’Reilly to Roger Aisles himself (we’d be hearing more about that in lawsuits to come, but they’ll probably settle and extract an NDA, which ought to be unenforceable as being contrary to public policy, but whatever). So this doesn’t signal any particular disapproval of Carlson’s breathtakingly cynical war on the common good, or any change to Fox’s policy of feeding its mouth-breathing brain stem viewers the lies they’re so desperate to hear. Maybe the next guy in the 8PM slot will be even worse. Still. It won’t be that asshole Tucker.
I was grinning ear to ear for about 36 hours, and so were you.
Then there’s this:
That’s right! Ron F’ing DeSantis, King of the Smug, Master of Bullying Cruelty, Defender of White Folks’ Tender Feelings, Banner of Books, Suppressor of Speech, Mother of Dragons, in my estimation an even more dangerous demagogue than Fat Donny himself and an awful meathead to boot, is tanking everywhere all at once. YAY! His nasty little battle with Disney has made him look small, petty, vindictive, and really kind of dumb, and that was before Mickey Mouse started cleaning his clock. Now Disney’s launched a lawsuit that’s almost certain to succeed, which is just the sort of humiliation that undoes tin-plated little pricks like him. Meanwhile, his furtive, as yet undeclared campaign for the GOP nomination hasn’t just failed to get airborne, it’s blown up on the frickin’ runway. People have begun to realize he’s a maladjusted, socially awkward, brittle, generally unpleasant little turd of a man, unable to think on his feet, and unfit for high office. In other words, despite doing everything he can to out-Donald Donald, it turns out that only Trump can pull off being Trump, which is why Donald now leads him in the polls by anything up to 40 points. Of course that means that Orange Mussolini will probably get the nod again, but you know, that might not be all bad either, since it looks to me like he can’t possibly win a general election. Sure, a hard core of about 30% of the voting public still loves him more than deep fried food and Jesus, but everybody else thinks he’s a lying criminal creep, and with all that’s going on I don’t see him expanding his base back into the mushy middle. His whiny schtick is tired, and folks aren’t buying it any more.
Plus, Donald’s in big trouble. Really big. I know, it’s always been impossible to believe that Trump would ever get his – haven’t I warned all of you time and again to abandon all hope on that score? – but you know what, lately it’s getting just about as hard to believe that he won’t. Think of all the shit he’s in! He’s in it up to his saggy orange wattle! He’s already indicted in New York on the Stormy Daniels shenanigans. Down in Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis has him dead-to-rights on election fraud (they have him on tape, for crying out loud), and she’s just made it clear that she’s going to indict him too. Over at Justice, Special Counsel Jack Smith has him just as cornered on the Mar-a-Lago classified documents beef, an absolutely rock-solid case, and look who just testified to the grand jury about all that occurred on and around January 6: none other than Mike Pence, who has more beans to spill than anybody besides Mark Meadows. If Pence was candid, and his five hours of testimony sure make it seem like he was, Donald is toast, so long as Smith has the cajones to indict. You think maybe he doesn’t? Oh yeah? Look at this face:
Is that a face that says “golly and gee willikers, I’m too timid to take such a precipitous step”? Or is it more like fuck around and find out ? Listen, this guy has prosecuted war criminals. Does anybody think he’s not going to roast Donald on a spit?
On top of all that – yes, there’s more! – E. Jean Carroll is in the process of handing Donny’s head to him in her New York defamation case. It’s only a civil trial, so it’ll mean damages, not a dark little room at San Q., but still, for her to win – and she’s going to win – the jury will have to pronounce that yes, Trump really did rape her in a changing room at Bergdorf’s. It’s only a matter of time, then, before Donald is, in effect, convicted of sexual assault in a court of law, and that’s not usually the sort of press clipping you tout when you’re running for office. I’m sure this will do nothing to rattle his existing cult of True Believers, but it ought to take the shine off the raping monster for everybody else, even if he’s not simultaneously fighting multiple criminal indictments in three separate jurisdictions. Which he will be.
Let him run again. In fact, I hope he does. He’s going to get creamed.
Tucker down the crapper. DeSantis dead on arrival and about to get spanked by the Little Mermaid. Trump in deepening doo-doo. Fox getting its ass sued off. That ought to be enough to put a spring in your step, but if not, there’s even more. Think about what’s going on in the House of Representatives. When the Republicans took back control, they vowed to bring Biden to his knees with a whole slew of investigations, show trials really, that would make endless hay out of getting to the bottom of all sorts of fictitious scandals. How’s that working out? Summary: not well. Right out of the gate, the various ham-fisted inquiries proved to be great big embarrassing nothing burgers. I almost snorted Coke out my nose when the first big “whistleblower” trotted out before the Weaponization of Government sub-committee turned out to be tired old Chuck Grassley – Jesus Christ, they’re calling each other as witnesses. In the result, Jim Jordan looks like the incompetent blockhead he is, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, having extorted her way on to various committees, is putting everybody off whenever she opens her pig-ignorant mouth. She’s the new face of the GOP, and practically runs the joint, which isn’t a good look for neutered Speaker McCarthy, or the party as a whole.
Think about what’s happening in the country at large. What the Republicans are doing is not at all popular. A solid majority disapproves of their abortion extremism, gun-nuttery, gerrymandering, and imperious abuse of ill-gotten legislative power. Every time people have a chance to vote, whether it’s electing judges or casting their ballots in referendums, they vote the Republicans down, and generally show every sign that they’re sick to death of abusive GOP overreach. Look at what happened when they tossed those two young black representatives out of the Tennessee legislature. Their constituents immediately sent them right back. Look at what happened to all of those Trump-supported MAGA maniacs in the mid-terms. Every one of them went down, from Doctor Oz in the East to Kari Lake in the West. Donald’s endorsement proved poisonous.
It’s already the case that the GOP can’t win a fair electoral fight, not nationally, and it only gets worse when their ridiculous antediluvian policy choices lead to the inevitable disasters. Every mass shooting, every woman denied necessary medical care, every book that gets banned, every library they close, every anti-LGBTQ law they pass, every ludicrous decision of their stacked judiciary, every school curriculum whitewashed, every damned thing they do, actually, makes it worse for them. It’s untenable, and they know it. They know they can’t win a stand-up fight. That’s why they’re so keen to suppress the vote and gerrymander the living bejesus out of every state they control. They’re desperate, and trying to rig the game before it’s too late, and yes, they’ll keep their minority rule for a while. I’m not saying their world comes crashing down in the next election cycle. But long term? Long term they’re screwed. We’re witnessing the last flailing gasp of a dying white male oligarchy. It’s not just the demographics of race that are going south on them, either. It’s generational. Gen Z is coming into its own, and the kids have no time for the Republicans’ white nationalist, tyrannically evangelical faux-Christian hate agenda. Gen Z is going to save us. Maybe sooner than any of us thinks.
I know how it looks, but the worm is turning. We’re winning this godawful culture war. The GOP is fighting against the future, and soon enough, as sure as the sunrise, the future is going to beat them to a greasy, whimpering pulp.
the needlefish 