If you meet the Buddha on the road (Killing the Buddha, Part 2, Michael Cohen edition)

He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God? ~Micah 6:8

I've been following the Michael Cohen testimony via Twitter, because my roommate's TV is in the other room and the ferrets have to have their time out to play.

Thus far, the Republican lines of defense have been procedural moves to try to get the hearing canceled, and since that didn't work, a whole lot of aggressive posturing and yelling.

Meanwhile Democrats and Michael Cohen are calm, cool and collected and forging ahead anyway.

I said awhile back that it was all over but the shouting, didn't I?

Well, there's going to be a lot of that. If you don't mind (and even if you do) I'm going to dip back into my own church background here for a minute to tell you why I think that is.

Of course, the default response of reprobate, sinful Man is to get angry when confronted with his iniquity.

These people always think that the truth, or at least those who speak it, can be intimidated into silence...or threatened (Looking at you here, Representative Gaetz) or if all else fails, killed. Yes, that's an important step to bring up. To people who don't honestly believe in some sort of God or afterlife (and yes, I know a lot of these Republicans claim to be Christians or would even be identified as religious fanatics by some people) the ultimate power is to end another human's life. This is why the Bible says not to fear those who can only destroy the body, but rather to fear He who can destroy both body and soul in hell.

And I say that, as somebody who has been an Agnostic Theist for over a decade.

The moral code I was taught when I was a Christian was fairly simple, and could in part be summed up by the Bible verse at the top of the article.

Of course, the same could be said for modern Republicans and all too many of these Evangelicals. Where we parted company back in 2008, though, is that where my basic credo is "Do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God" prior to the rise of Trump...theirs could have been described as "Don't be gay, don't have an abortion, and don't vote Democrat."

That leaves one hell of a lot of other stuff up for grabs, if you think about it. Too much, really. These people's Christianity, their Evangelicalism, often seems to me to be nothing more than a form of self-worship. They're White, they think Jesus was White, so they must be good, right?

And of course, even that's all out the window now, because they have a new god and Trump doesn't actually care about any of that stuff.

The three rules of Trumpist Republicanism could best be described as "Fuck you, I've got mine!" and "OMG! OMG! PROTECT TEH MAXIMUM LEADER AT ALL COSTS!" with a side dish of "ABASE YOURSELF BEFORE YOUR GOD!!" And no, they ain't talking about Jesus and there's no limit to the amount of self-abasing that must be done, so start abasing, peasant. Also, there is no amount of setting themselves on fire for Trump that these people can do that will ever be good enough. Not to mention there's a million conditions just to be in the club, the rules can change without warning, and in fact without reason, and one must somehow be able to infer what said rules are at all times.

If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him! But I digress.

This was what they wanted. This was what they desired. Well, they got it, good and hard.

Meanwhile, I'm glad I'm not a Republican anymore and I don't have to put up with all that crap.

It's funny that for all the power they ascribe to him, Trump comes off exactly like the small, petty, vengeful, weak God of the average Fundamentalist nut who really does seem to think that the all the power of the Creator of the Infinite Universe will be undone the moment their ex-husband sleeps with his new Pagan girlfriend.

The difference, of course, is that the Creator of the Almighty Tax Cut certainly can be undone by the new Democratic House Majority, but I digress.

I have to wonder if all these Republicans and rich people are wondering if the tax cut was worth all this other crap.

It wouldn't be if I were in their position, the balance sheet I see tells me they've set basically everything they had before, philosophically and religiously...not to mention the vast body of work that defined what conservatism stood for... on fire for racism, tax cuts and Donald Fucking Trump?

Pardon me if I don't really see an upside here. What are they going to have when this mess is all over? The culture and demographics of America are still changing, and not in a direction favorable to old conservative white men. If that was the ultimate goal of all this? Well, It's very hard from my perspective, not to just conclude that all the conservative and religious talk was all crap and it has always been so all along.

The money doesn't seem worth it. The loss of integrity and reputation and respect doesn't seem worth it. The loss of international standing and the threat to our national sovereignty really doesn't seem worth it. What are they getting out of this, really?

Personal power and profit doesn't seem worth it either, not when you create anew the conditions for your own downfall every damned day.

The longer this goes on, the more petty and venal and stupid it seems. It's not just that every last one of these motherfuckers apparently could be bought, it's just how low the price was, that's the really astounding part.

And the worst part is, before Trump came along, a majority of these people, Evangelical, Republican or otherwise, would have agreed with the rest of us that all this crap was wrong.

We'll all be sorry that it didn't stay that way, but none will be more so than the Evangelicals.

I hope the golden idol and a few years of sacralized cruelty was worth it, you assholes. Things always come back around. The jackboot will always be on the other foot eventually, and I hope you motherfuckers have fun with that. I'm not saying it's right. What I'm saying is it's what will happen.

Socialism in America was not seriously up for discussion before Trump and the Right striving for oligarchy (even at the expense of capitalism) made it that way.

It seems like it would've been easier to have actually believed in the things you said you did.

Just sayin' what God asks of us is pretty simple. Man makes it complicated because he does not want to obey.

Thing is, whether it's God or the gods or the Universe or whatever, at the end there's always something that knows what you've done and you're always going to be judged and have to pay, in the end.

You'd think all these old motherfuckers would get that. Nobody gets to live forever.

Part 1.