Republican Sodom (American Revelation, Reloaded, Part One.)

And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;
I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.
And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the Lord. And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?
Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. ~Genesis 18:20-26

There's this scene laid out in Genesis 18 that has always stuck with me, wherein Abraham pleads with the Lord to spare the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, if but fifty righteous people can be found within the cities, Abraham bargains God down to just ten people, before they part ways and God goes off to see this mess for Himself and Abraham returns home.

Why did this thought cross my mind last night? Oh, well, just ten House Republicans crossed over to vote with the Democrats to impeach Donald Trump for a second time in response to the assault on the Capitol.

Ten. Not fifty, not forty-five, not forty, not thirty, not twenty...just TEN. It almost seems Biblical in terms of the amount of irony involved, or maybe it's just my weird thought process and I smoked too much weed at some point, or something.

But will that be enough to spare Republican Sodom?

Put me down for a "No" in the betting pool, please. I've seen enough over the last five years, and I rather suspect that God has as well.

The Christian in me is inclined to believe that God's mercy will not be forthcoming. The part of me that remembers what Bosnia was like dreads the place that the vast majority of Republicans have brought us near to, and would lead us closer still, were their actions not checked.

But they were, weren't they, if only just...

Is you takin' notes, on a criminal fuckin' conspiracy? What's wrong with you, man?

(Yes, these people really are that stupid.)

And here's the kicker, for the fact that a majority of us voted against them in a democratic nation in a free and fair election in accordance with the Constitution and the law, Republicans are calling themselves "Censored" and "Marginalized" and "Oppressed."

I think those words don't mean what Republicans think they mean.

I used to be a Republican and I'm not impressed with this. I'm so old that I can remember when "Speech is oppression" and other statements of performative victimhood used to be a liberal thing, and conservatives loathed the idea. But, hey, I also remember when conservatives hated things like moral relativism and situational ethics.

Now they're the main practitioners.

In lieu of leadership from the Federal government, citizens, acting on their own initiative and corporations, acting within the broad legal framework given them by conservatives, have acted to defend our shit. Sure, there appears to be a pretty solid, if largely below the radar operation to arrest and charge the Capitol insurgents, Army National Guard troops have been deployed in D.C. and in general, people are using their power to protect the country and the system is finally acting to save itself.

Granted, I never thought that in my lifetime I'd see Army National Guard troops, with weapons and all, sleeping on the floor in the hallways of the Capitol building.

So that's been a bit of a shock, this is America, this isn't supposed to be happening here.

But lest we ourselves underestimate the level of madness and stupidity we're dealing with here, the people who stormed the Capitol thought that the cops and the troops would be joining them.

That didn't...couldn't...happen.

And since none of this stuff has gone their way and now they lack the power to compel others to their sides, they're being cut off by campaign donors and social media, and losing power and profits and most of all, a metric shit-ton of easy money. It's not hard to see that these fuckers believe it's the End Times, or even the end of the End Times...without the Middle East having been turned into a slaughterhouse. They already thought the virus was the Apocalypse...and they got caught trying to use it to kill the rest of us.

Oops.

Kind of puts the lie to all of these fucking people's claims of Evangelical piety, doesn't it? I mean, along with their threats lately to kill basically everybody.

Whatever happened to "Thou Shalt Not Kill" anyway?

And I'm serious in asking that, because lately it seems all that Trump Supporters want to do is kill anybody they see as opposed to them, never mind how improbable or impossible it may be that they might succeed.

In fact, these fucking people seem to think that the rest of us not just should, but will lay down and die because they say so.

They are enraged by the fact that there's any resistance at all to them.

Even though logic dictates there would have to be, if you think about it.

They're even more enraged to find out that a majority of people don't secretly agree with them, even though the evidence that we don't has been in plain sight for literally decades.

It's almost as if they built an entire philosophy, an entire movement, on cheating and hate and lies and lack of hospitality to one's neighbors. You know, the real stuff God was talking about when He said of Israel "These are the sins of your sister Sodom..." I used to be a Republican and I can't say there's any more basis to modern Republicanism than hate, racism and tax cuts for the wealthy. If there is, I sure can't find any.

What basis has Republicanism, that it should even be saved?

Where will you stand, O Sinner, where will you stand?

You did this to yourselves, Republicans, when you made the entire basis of your party hatred for one man, then love of another.

Was it worth it? I think not.

And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake. ~Genesis 18:32