Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

Joe: Why me? Every time Metzler says, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way," I get out of the way.

Sgt. Keller: Yeah, when he says that, you're not supposed to choose "get out of the way." It's supposed to embarrass you into leading, or at least following.

Joe: That doesn't embarrass me. ~Idiocracy.

Okay, now just a goddamned minute, here, what the fuck did I just see?

Apparently, Trump associates, including Lev Parmas, Rudy Giuliani and Congressional candidate Robert Hyde, among others, were stalking and plotting to murder U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.

Hold on, didn't we just go through a whole big deal of violent embassy protests, assassinating an Iranian General and taking a missile strike right in the teeth that, thankfully, we had the sense not to escalate any further than we already did?

And now we're effectively plotting acts of terrorism, indeed acts of war, against ourselves?

Yovanovitch is, like it or not, a Trump appointee. She's one of their people (and this happened before her testimony) so effectively, these idiots want to kill their own now, too?

If that leaves you any illusions where you stand, concerning these people, I can't help you.

These motherfuckers wanted to kill...plotted to kill and kept under surveillance...an American ambassador. If another country did that, Congressional Republicans and various conservative TV pundits would be lighting up Fox News, demanding war against that country.

But what do we do, when that country...is us?

SHRUG...just another day in Trump's America, I guess. As long as he doesn't come for me...

Why do we support him, or conversely on the other side, lack the guts to do anything about him and spend all our time attacking each other?

When polled, a bunch of Trump Supporters in Ohio couldn't say why they supported Trump, only that they did. My guess is, they know why, they just know their real reasons aren't socially acceptable so they don't want to say them on TV.

It's the racism, stupid.

It's the racism and the fact that Trump and some of his people talk bad about Brown people, liberals, women and various non-Christians and suck the Evangelicals' collective golf ball through a garden hose. That's what revs the engines of people like MAGA-hat Beavis here, and the worst part really is that they don't even have the guts to admit it.

It's that one hell of a lot of white conservatives, and no small percentage of white "Progressives" either, think it won't happen to them. It won't happen to them by dint of the color of their skin or their politics or their money or the amount of Facebook and Twitter "Likes" they get or something something Bourgeoisie White Folks.

Ya know, I bet Lisa Page and Marie Yovanovitch and a whole bunch of other people didn't think it was gonna happen to them, either.

And some of them actually had damned good reason to think that.

This kind of bullshit comes for everybody in the end, and if we don't start coming together and tell these people "No" and fucking mean it, this crap is going to end with Americans shooting at each other. If that happens, the only people who will profit will be the weapons manufacturers and the coffin makers. What part of "These people want to kill Americans" don't you get? The whole Iran thing was nothing but a Kabuki dance, a play sword-fight to distract from Impeachment, and then this crap comes out?! On the same day, I might add, as Speaker Pelosi names Impeachment managers. It's not an accident that the pressure and the temperature keep being ramped up. A pipe can only have so much water put through it before it bursts, and the longer this goes on the more I think that's Republicans' basic strategy.

They know they won't get the whole country, or even a lot of the good parts of it, and maybe not even much of the government or the military, but they don't care. 'Tis better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven, and that is exactly what every last one of these sons of bitches is thinking right now, at this point. And the Republican base doesn't care, because they'd rather all be peasants or slaves, so long as they get to be of a higher class of peasant or slave than somebody that they don't like.

It's funny to me that these people equate the "Far Left" with Afghanistan, or think that the underlying cause of all the stuff wrong with that country is "Communism." I mean, the fact that Communists spent almost a decade bombing the fuck out of Afghanistan didn't help, but it was post-Communist governmental collapse, the end of Russian/Soviet aid and warlord-ism that led to so many people thinking the radical Islam of the Taliban was an off ramp that was viable for so many, but I suppose when you've been getting beaten and raped and robbed and shot at for years on end, any port in a storm...and considering what I recall about the Taliban's treatment of women and children and those who kept on fighting against them before we got involved...I find it telling and all too typical of these people's willful ignorance that they'd think any of this was "Far Left." I WAS a conservative in the 1990's, and one hell of a lot of the people who even noticed what was going on over there were people like me.

So what changed?

Racism.

Fox News.

And endless, nonsensical march ever-rightward into fascism, primitive tribalism and ultimate destruction on the part of Republicans.

Constant outrage and hate being ginned up, mostly for money, but also translating into politics and internet or social media presence.

Also, if you think it's just "Conservatives" I humbly invite you to take a look at the Bernie Bro vs. Warren follower flame war on Twitter the last couple days.

And if we don't wise up and stop falling for this bullshit, it's going to destroy us, and it's really that simple.

If we want a better nation, we have to be better citizens and stop thinking somebody else will do the hard stuff and take responsibility, because they fucking won't unless they are made to do it.

And if you think being some kind of upper-class white person or voting the right way or whatever will save you, go ahead and ask Marie Yovanovitch how that worked out.

We have to stop this shit. It's on us.