Republicans are trying to kill you.

Marcus Aurelius: And what is Rome, Maximus?

Maximus: I've seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal and cruel and dark, Rome is the light.

Marcus Aurelius: Yet you have never been there. You have not seen what it has become. I am dying, Maximus. When a man sees his end... he wants to know there was some purpose to his life. How will the world speak my name in years to come? Will I be known as the philosopher? The warrior? The tyrant...? Or will I be the emperor who gave Rome back her true self? There was once a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish... it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the winter. ~From the film Gladiator

Last night, Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office. Obviously lying, issuing three policies that were immediately walked back by his own administration, and sniffling like a goddamned Cocaine addict after a binge.

The stock market immediately imploded, and despite an injection of capital from the Federal Reserve, it continues to do exactly that.

This dumb jackass sought to reassure the country, to convince us that "something is being done" and instead, he might as well have just flipped us the bird and told us we could all kiss our asses goodbye.

This morning, Republicans are holding up a package of emergency measures that passed the House, and Moscow Mitch wants to recess the Senate for a couple weeks.

What the hell more evidence do you need, that Republicans are trying to kill you?

Instead of trying to protect the people, Republicans have been trying to protect their profit margins and the stock market...an effort that seems to be failing, mostly because Trump is a dumb shit.

Any democratic nation survives because the people have faith in their government and their leaders...all the people, not just a bamboozled few, not just a cult of personality. Or at least, you have to have a cult of personality that's bigger than 25% to 30% of the population, and ideally to make it work, you have to expand even that because otherwise you don't have the numbers to stay in power.

And at this point, who has faith in Trump? Let me tell you, after watching Sniffles The Clown murder yet another Teleprompter speech last night, I sure as hell don't. I mean, I've never liked Trump and I've always thought he was garbage and doubted his competence. But he seems to have an almost magical hold over a certain type of person...I've just never been one of those people. Trump has always disgusted me. When somebody comes into your awareness by news of their bankruptcy and divorce being splattered all over the news when you're a kid...well, I've just never bought into the idea that Trump was some kind of a genius or even good at business.

But even that base support, which seems to have a hard floor of around 30% is starting to slip. The corporations and the Republicans alike appear to be switching gears to simply try and steal as much as they can on the way out the door...because even some of the sycophants have realized Trump is incompetent and that they backed the wrong horse...and that they're likely going to pay for it.

Denying, conspiracy theorizing and hoping this Coronavirus shit would just go away appears to have been a hell of a bad strategy. As everything from the Kaaba in Mecca to the streets of Washington D.C. empty out, and all the major U.S. sports leagues cancel their seasons...the talking points that this thing is a conspiracy or some kind of hoax perpetrated by the Democratic Party become harder to believe and more farcical.

My general feeling is that Republicans and their benefactors alike are just looking to see who or what they can take down with them, right now. Earlier I saw some dumb shit of a Trump Supporter giving one of my friends a hard time on Facebook, and out of curiosity I followed the link to their page, only to see, two or three memes down "Cancel the 2020 election, that'll cure your Corona Virus."

Except, yeah, dipshit, there's no Constitutional or legal mechanism for doing that...and if we don't have elections, we don't have America. Given the fractured and polarized state of things, any attempt to cancel elections would likely lead to a civil war sooner, rather than later. Anybody want to consider the odds of surviving a war that's going on while a pandemic is raging? I sure don't.

The Trump administration is flailing...and failing...because they've finally hit a crisis where they can'd buy, bully, bullshit, intimidate or lie their way out of it. We're going to find out what these people are made of, and reality is going to find them wanting. You can't "Shock and Awe" a virus. It doesn't give a damn who you vote for or what you look like or where your parents came from. It simply is...and in the case of one this widespread it's a force of Nature.

And if we're not careful, this is going to be what takes us down and leaves two or three countries on the map where this one used to be.

As far as I'm concerned, most if not all of the current political climate has Republicans to blame for it. The only rational, or reasonable response to a Republican at this point is simply "Fuck you."

If they wanted anything else, they should have done the work to be worthy of the power they were given by the people.

That's what democracy is. No wonder Republicans hate and fear it.

If you want a better country, YOU have to be a better citizen.

If YOU want there to be progress, or even an eventual return to normalcy...the best thing we can do, hell the only thing...is to vote the bastards out.

Republicans are now actively trying to kill you.

So it's either "Get involved" or "Vote them out" or lie down in the road and fucking let them.

Republicans are trying to kill you. At least some of them seem to think they're somehow immune to this disease. They won't be.

It's really that damned simple.