Apathy and the end of America, Part One.

The American way of life is not up for negotiation, period.
~George H.W. Bush

There comes a point in history, sometimes, where the outcome of a thing ceases to be in doubt.

From the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989 until the fall of the Soviet Union at Christmas time in 1991, I remember watching and wondering what would become of it, or if the Soviet Union might simply emerge leaner and meaner at the other end of the tunnel. Of course, it turns out that much of what we thought we knew about the Soviet Union was bullshit put out by the Soviets themselves, their economy was a Potemkin village, their military spending excessive, but quantity didn't translate to quality, and post-Soviet Russia was basically revealed to be not much more than a third world country with a nuclear arsenal.

The moment where the decline became irreversible, where I think the world saw the writing on the wall was the August Coup (August 19th-22nd) against Mikhail Gorbachev, when the Soviet conservatives and hardliners rallied to try to save their idea of civilization, and were defeated not by soldiers and tanks, but by ordinary people. This, even though the military and political elements of the coup had basically achieved every objective they had set themselves to accomplish, including holding Gorbachev himself prisoner.

I think this Impeachment thing is a similar inflection point for us.

The republic, at least as a unitary entity, ends not with goose-stepping soldiers and tanks in the streets, but with one side of our political system completely uninterested in Democracy or even its own perpetuation or political or even personal survival. Republican Senators getting up and wandering off, or even going on Fox News when they're supposed to be in the Senate chambers? Fidget Spinners, reading books in Senate chambers, and sweet and salty snacks?

The Democrats have done a hell of a job here, and a majority of Americans are right pissed off, and rightly so. Republicans are going to find themselves trapped between an angry public and Trump, and they know it.

They just don't care.

There's essentially no way that Trump's "revenge" won't hit them as well, or that their heads wouldn't end up being the very first ones on the pikes because there's no feasible way for any of these people to give Trump a pass fast enough for him or his followers.

They. Just. Don't. Care.

Christ, you'd think a threat like that would guarantee impeachment and removal from office based on survival instinct alone.

But it doesn't, not with these boot licking cowardly shits.

And the worst part is, damn near every Trump Supporter up to and including the Republican Senators themselves will agree with such, and think it necessary. Far from "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country" now it's "I regret that I have only one head for you to put on a pike, Mr. President."

So, eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die? That's not what I was taught conservatism was.

The Republic ends not with a bang, a whimper, or a thunderous civil war...but with ads for Viagra, fund-raising E-mails, and Tucker Carlson's sneering, smarmy mug. It's like fully one third of Americans have completely lost the plot, if they ever had it in the first place.

The Republic as we know it collapses not because some Hard Right faction fights to the death to save Gingrich-esque or warmed over McCarthyite Conservatism or some such thing, but because insecure dickbags value their graft, greed, homophobia and racism more than their own freedom and lives, or even the entire basis of the Christian religion?

I guess it's par for the course with these fucking people.

Just as with those Russians in Moscow in August of 1991, nobody else is going to save us. We The People have to save ourselves.

They're losing the argument on Impeachment and Trump, so they're literally trying to ignore the facts or the will of the American people and in so doing, turning the election itself into a referendum on Trump.

And when they ignore the election results they don't like and simply try to push on through and ignore them, or Trump tries to label democracy and elections themselves as a coup against his power and says "I'm the legitimate government, follow me" the trouble is that some entire states will do just that, and others will fall into conflict, while still others are wholly or in part against these people.

And as with the fall of the Soviet Union, this is going to go kinetic somewhere.

And whatever survives of the United States, or whatever of its successor states is willing to take up things as simple as UN Security Council duties, will be much harder pressed to maintain its power or place in the world...

But the Republicans? They don't care about that, and they'll piss all over the legacies of Reagan and Bush the Elder to prove it.

But first, hey, could you send me a $10 tax-deductible campaign contribution so I can fight the Commies and the Liberals and prevent socialism from coming to America?

Here's a hint, Comrade. When you've got buildings upon buildings full of luxury condos that nobody can afford to live in and there's not enough rich people to rent, while the people who lived in the city sleep in homeless shelters or the streets, THAT is how you end up with socialism.

When 53 old conservative assholes, 50 of whom are both white and supposedly Christian, can flout the will of two thirds of the population of a country of 330 million people, that's how you end up with some kind of a revolution.

But when the gulf between one out of three of us and the other two is this damned wide, and at least a quarter of us will throw in with the oligarchs and Republicans just for a chance to shoot their neighbors, forgive me for thinking we're not going to survive this mess as a united nation, but more likely as at least two nations, which will be in conflict for decades.

Republicans don't care.

In fact, they seem to be counting on it.

And nobody else is going to stop them, but us.

Part 2