Intro

It's time for a reality check ...

Maybe we’ve reached the point of diminishing astonishment.

But I suspect that much of what we’re hammered with every day really doesn’t make much of an impact on most of us anymore. We’ve heard the same stories too often. We’ve been exposed to the same issues for so long without any meaningful resolution. We recognize that reality is rapidly becoming malleable, primarily in the hands of whoever has the biggest microphone. How else can we explain a society where myth asserts itself as reality, based entirely how many hits it gets online?

We know that many of the “issues” as defined are pure crapola, hyped by politicians on both sides pandering to “the will of the people,” which is still more crapola. Inevitably, it’s not the will of all the people they reflect, but the will of relatively small groups of people with disproportionate political influence.

Nobody wants to face up to the realities of the issues. Nobody wants to say what’s right or wrong – even when it’s obvious and there are numbers to back it up. Most of us are afraid to bring up the realities for fear of being accused of being insensitive or downright mean.

So we say nothing. Until now.

It’s time for a reality check on the fundamentals – much of which is common knowledge to many of us, already. But it might be comforting to know you are not alone …

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Providing the predicate for a reign of terror ...

We can all thank Donald Trump for this. 

He provided just what the left and wannabe tyrants needed.  He reinforced what the most extreme people in the media and the Democrat Party couldn’t prove for years.  At the same time, he managed, in a matter of days, to set up his loyal and overwhelmingly innocent supporters for derision and discrimination that may last for years. Whatever good he accomplished in his term – and he did much good – he pissed away because he refused to accept defeat and move on.
 
He also cost Republicans control of the Senate by suppressing the vote of many of his usual supporters in Georgia; he made them doubt whether their vote would count at all.  He did go to Georgia to rally for the Republican candidates, but only the night before the election, and even then spent much of his time alleging that Georgia Republican officials let him down. 
 
In essence, as always, it was all about him.  The Republican candidates lost as a result.
 
Now he is about to be impeached for the second time. Only this time, sad to say, he may be convicted in the Senate. This could happen partly because he tried to coerce his dwindling number of Republican allies into falling on their swords for him in a fruitless and ill-advised attempt to overturn the last election. When they hesitated, he called them spineless and worse. 
 
Then he called for his supporters to descend on DC on January 6 to show their support for his claims that the election was stolen from him.  They did that by the thousands.  Mixed in with the normal Trump supporters were extremists spoiling for a fight; some of them sporting tactical gear and helmets, backpacks, police-style zip-tie handcuffs, pepper spray, gas masks, knives, and firearms, and, apparently discovered later, some explosives.
 
Whether they were all Trump supporters is still an open question, yet with a little provocation from Trump and Giuliani to “fight like hell” to “stop the steal” of the election they stormed the Capitol. They overwhelmed the Capitol police and ran through the halls of Congress, taking trophies, posing for selfies in legislative offices, hunting key Congressional leaders and even Mike Pence, and generally sending any Representatives and Senators running for cover. 
 
Five people died from the riot, including a Trump supporter shot by Capitol Police. 
 
It was an unprecedented mob attack on our government.  It was a complete disgrace. There is no way to justify what happened. Spare me the “Trump never told them to riot,” or Trump told them to be “peaceful.” Trump brought thousands to DC for the express purpose of intimidating Congress. He provoked them by telling them Congress was in the process of validating a fraudulent election.  He blamed Congress for not stopping this travesty. 

What did he expect to happen? 
 
He claims he bears no responsibility for what happened. He recently said officials have reviewed what he said and found nothing that incited the rioting. In fact, he condemned the violence.  He said he would never tell his supporters to attack the Capitol.  He didn’t need to say it out loud; they were there, he fired them up, and provided just enough spark to set off the crazies. 
 
I’m done with Trump.  I am so furious about how he’s managed to embarrass us all – and set off a reign of terror against anyone who ever supported him – because he’s too small of a man, too self-centered, and too egotistical to step up and recognize that more people voted against him than for Joe Biden. Here’s the proof: while Biden won at the top of the ticket, Republicans won the down ballot races practically everywhere.  Trump lost in the same states Republicans picked up seats in the House.
 
Was the election stolen from him, as he claims? I don’t think so. Was there widespread voter fraud? There’s always voter fraud but I don’t believe it alone cost him the election.
 
So was it rigged against him? I believe it was. Net/net though, he still lost.  It’s over. 
 
Much worse things are about to happen to the country as a whole, and to Trump supporters in particular.  The political establishment – and especially the left – are using what happened in the last days of Trump’s term to settle old scores, real or imaginary.  

Democrats in Congress, their friends in the media and career bureaucrats are positively giddy over the gift Trump has delivered.  
 
Never-Trumpers in the Republican Party and big business want to use this moment to wipe out all vestiges of Trump’s populist movement and get back to business as usual. Siding with them are the social media platforms and tech giants who are using what happened as a pretext to censor anyone with whom they disagree. Multinational corporations and their lobbyists are thrilled to be back in control of Congress and the legislative agenda. 
 
China is thrilled to have an old ally like Joe as President.  The intelligence community and Justice Department are ecstatic to be charged with cracking down on “dangerous extremist” groups, such as the NRA and the Tea Party, and anyone who thinks the Bill of Rights supersedes the views of career bureaucrats and politicians – like many Trump supporters.  Democrats are happy they can now stop any further investigations into corruption by Biden and his family; instead, they can now use their new-found majorities to punish Trump, his family, and his donors for at least two years.
 
I mention two years because that’s really all the time they have. Once Trump is out, and his supporters get over the past two months of Trump-fostered craziness, they aren’t going to disappear and go away. They’ll remember how the Democrats and the media treated them before and even more so after Trump. If anything, the left’s promised purge of Trump supporters from social media platforms, employment, and elected office will backfire. 
 
And in two years there will be another Congressional election. 
 
People will remember.  There will be hell to pay, then. 

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