Thursday, December 12, 2019

Preparing ...


It's getting dangerous. Mike Huckabee is claiming that trump should get a 3rd term "due to the illegal attempts by Comey, Dems, and media , et al attempting to oust him as @POTUS so that's why I was named to head up the 2024 re-election." Republicans are referring to impeachment as "an attempted coup." Given this, what are the odds that trump will go quietly?

I'm willing to bet they are almost nil.

This in itself wouldn't be much to worry about. It wouldn't be the first time someone had to be "persuaded" to leave. The problem here is that he has institutional backing for this move.

The 22nd Amendment limits presidents to two terms. This amendment was introduced, and ratified, after FDR was elected for a fourth term, attempting to address the possibility that we could end up with a dictator in all but name. donald trump has demonstrated time and again that, in his opinion, rules don't apply to him ...and the Republican Party is doing everything they can to further this view. Consider that, in 1996, Susan MacDougall was sentenced to 18 months in prison for contempt of court for refusing to answer questions in a grand jury during the Clinton investigation. Yet dozens of trump associates -- from Mick Mulvaney and John Bolton on down -- have refused to honor a Congressional subpoena with apparent impunity.

It is becoming more and more plain each day that trump in particular and the Republican Party in general have become -- shall we say, "dismissive" -- of the will of the people they so piously cite -- when it suits them. They blocked a Supreme Court nominee for nearly a year on the grounds that "the American people need to be heard" despite that fact that American people had spoken very clearly in the 2012 election. Mitch McConnell, aka Mitchsky McConnellovich, has flatly stated that he will not allow any Democrat-sponsored legislation to a Senate vote. In the current impeachment imbroglio, Republican members of the House of Representatives are spending all of their time yelling about how unfair it is that we hold the president accountable for trying to get a hostile foreign power to meddle in our election and it wasn't Russia it was Ukraine and he didn't really do it and if he did it's okay because that's what presidents are supposed to do and what about Burisma and Hunter Biden and omigod HILLARY CLINTON?

The Republican Party is no longer an American party. They have become stooges of Russia and the wealthy elite, concerned only with lining their own pockets and the rest of the American people can go screw themselves. And if trump wins in 2020, they will have all the proof they need that they don't even have to pretend any longer.

If he wins in 2020, I predict there will be motions to repeal the 22nd Amendment. When these fail (and they inevitably will), things will become more serious. We've already seen some things: demonization of immigrants (which, not coincidentally, represent a major voting bloc for the Democrats) and minorities ("good people on both sides"). trump offering to pardon people ahead of time, giving them license to do whatever ("just beat the crap out of them. I'll cover your legal bills.") However, with a successful re-election under his belt and no need to butter people up for the next election, he will do everything in his power -- which, if the Republicans have their way, will be almost absolute -- to either remove impediments to a third term, or to simply declare himself king.

If this happens, then people like me are screwed, and we are going to have to get out of Dodge, and quick. Under the reign of emperor trump, dissension will be punishable by death. Loyalty will be rewarded with what amounts to table scraps ... just enough to keep the ants coming back for more. The national treasury will become his personal account. Tax revenues will be spent on making his life better.

Meanwhile, roads will crumble, bridges will rust away. Our education system, or what's left of it, will be re-purposed to indoctrinate, rather than educate. There will be a national religion, with all the major ones (at least, all the major ones for white people; the rest of them don't count) lining up to kiss the ring in the hopes of being given the rose. Jim Crow, always lurking in the dark corners, will re-emerge in the light in all its seedy, shit stained glory.

Legislation will be written and enacted by trump and/or his cronies, with Congress' sole role to be a rubber stamp. The Constitution will be discarded, possibly used as a bib by trump during a feast of hamberders and diet coke. The Supreme Court will become less the ultimate arbiter of law more of an inquisition into loyalty to the king.

Elections will start to resemble the "elections" in North Korea, where Kim Jong Il once claimed that, having won 100% of the vote in an election, this was proof of how loved he was. The fact that a) he was the only one on the ballot, and b) people were literally forced to vote for him at gunpoint ... well, those were just coincidences.

Power will become hereditary. donald trump Jr. will inherit the crown from his father. eric "bad Gary Busey impersonator" trump will inherit from Junior when the animals he is so fond of killing start fighting back. Jared will be ousted and Ivanka will be installed as empress, with an order to produce as many greedy, inbred babies as possible.

Oddly enough, Melania's role as the court concubine won't change that much.

I realize this article has been full of hyperbole, and very few -- if any -- of the things mentioned here are likely to happen. However, there remains a possibility, however slight, that they could happen if trump escapes conviction and is re-elected in 2020. This is why it is vitally important that you contact your representatives in the House and Senate and tell them that, if they vote to acquit, they are losing your vote in the next election. And if that doesn't work (and let's face it, with Moscow Mitch running things, that is highly likely), then fer pete's sake get out there and vote blue.

It doesn't matter if it's Biden, or Warren, or Sanders, or Castro, or any of the current crop of Democratic contenders. Any one of them would be at least ten times better than trump.

Hell, a rotted cantaloupe would be a better president than trump. Say what you will about the guy, over the decades he has shown himself to be a rousing success at lowering the bar.

I gotta lie down.

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