Shocking Troops (Bottomless V.)

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.  We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream.  The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same.  And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free. ~Ronald Reagan

I saw this earlier this evening.

Shock troops.

Shock troops?

Really?

Matt Gaetz and Steve Bannon talking about replacing the government with 4,000 "Shock troops" if the Republicans win in 2024.

4,000 people.

Now for comparison, just as a way of showing the scale of this country, I pulled this bit off of Google.

The United States total includes 3,006 counties; 14 boroughs and 11 census areas in Alaska; the District of Columbia; 64 parishes in Louisiana; Baltimore city, Maryland; St. Louis city, Missouri; that part of Yellowstone National Park in Montana; Carson City, Nevada; and 41 independent cities in Virginia.

And these idiots think they're going to, not govern, but rule America with 4,000 people?

Far more likely, the government would cease to function, basic services would grind to a halt and the United States Of America would simply fragment, like Afghanistan did in the face of Taliban offensive and US withdrawal. Which is of course the point and exactly what these goons are hoping for.

The truth is we're far more likely to face those "Shock Troops" as right-wing insurgents eventually than anything else, because conflict and war is what they want either way.

But it's worse than that, too.

What they really want is for each of these 4,000 "Shock Troops" plus presumably every member of the Republican Party, to have some shitty little fiefdom that they rule as Lord. 

Yeah, fuck that. No way. Kiss my ass. These people have already shown they can't lead a kid to the crapper, what the fuck makes anybody think they should have power ever again?

And of course none of them is thinking that other people have guns, other people have plans, liberals and libertarians and moderates and various religious groups would be organizing too and that's not even starting to consider that all those government agents, cops, employees, and the military have some extremely useful skills and also have a need to put food on the table. And since money wouldn't be worth much for very long, people are going to take your shit.

I mean, I get that anarchy is the goal of people like Steve Bannon.

I'm just saying, Republicans, in such a scenario you're more likely to end up on the dinner table than sitting at the Round Table with the Knights.

But a Florida Ambulance Chaser whose chief areas of expertise are fucking teenage girls and saying dumb shit isn't going to last five minutes. And if you don't think a wannabe-Rasputin like Bannon sees Gaetz as completely expendable, you have another thing coming.

And I hate to tell you this, but on the scale of Warlord vs. Catamite...a lot of these Republicans would end up being the latter rather than the former, for reasons that should be entirely obvious. The average Republican is not Rambo style muscles lugging around an M-60 and hundreds of rounds of ammo with a keen tactical mind and deep reserves of physical stamina. No, these chumps are fat butterballs in suits who do their PT 12 ounces at a time and who are habituated to a system where most of them have had everything handed to them their entire lives.

As an example here, Lauren Boebert doesn't realize that nobody thinks she's tough, nobody cares about her guns, if you've paid attention since she's been in the public eye you know she's dumb as a box of rocks and that all her sexy Gunbunny schtick does is give fat, hairy, sweaty rednecks a boner. Whatever reverses she's had in life, whatever she's accomplished, she clearly didn't learn a damn thing.

I hate to tell you this, Lauren, but you're far more likely to be chained to the dais of some fat, slug-like Republican in a desert palace, surrounded by his retinue of criminals and forced to dance for his entertainment than you are to end up in charge of anything if these people succeed in burning down civilization. These Republican dudes put up with you because they want to fuck you, that's all. None of these dudes are impressed by your puerile antics, either. They don't have time, they're all stylin' for their homies just like you are.

And this shit doesn't really impress anybody else. "Let's Go Brandon" wasn't funny the first time. This is America, if you want to say "Fuck the President" just say it!

I said the same for four years while Trump was in office, and only a few people even noticed, much less cared. When you're in office in America you have to accept that 50% of people will hate you automatically, and probably some on your own side, too.

And I really hate to tell you this, but if you remove the civilization and government and laws that give you freedom and protections and rights...not to mention a job you don't really do...all those guns aren't going to help you for very long. There's a lot of bad guys in the world, and most of them won't care who you are, unless who you are gives them some kind of bragging rights, which makes your situation worse, not better.

If you don't have the guts to say "Fuck the President" I doubt you'll last five minutes in the post-apocalypse, post-civilization wasteland you think you want to live in.

And when bottle caps or cigarettes replace the dollar as currency all that extra cash you made selling hats and T-shirts to morons won't mean a damn thing, unless it's still there when the toilet paper runs out...but I digress.

And if any of y'all think that the KGB and Russian Mafia overlords you think you want to have would tolerate such a thing as "Let's Go Brandon" directed at any of their own...well an awful lot of you are going to be surprised when you get poisoned or sent to gulags or shot.

A thing that the Americans you think you hate so much will merely laugh at you for...the Russians will kill people over. 

We have a longstanding culture of freedom of expression complete with enshrined Constitutional protections.

They. Don't.

Think about that before you idiots start cozying up to Russia like the Vichy French bowing before the fucking Nazis. And hell, while you're at it, you might do well to consider how all that worked out for the Vichyites...or for the ones that didn't switch sides to the allies before it was over, at least. A lot of the ones who made it to trial in the Epuration Legale got executed or sent to prison. Petain died in exile, raving and senile. A hell of a lot of them didn't even get that far, because the people's Epuration Sauvage eliminated them first, or shamed them right out of public life.

And remember not only did the Vichyites not get shit, they also got the figure around whom resistance solidified as not so much a national leader in Charles De Gaulle, but a political god who defined France for half a century and continues to do so even today.

While Petain didn't even get put in the tomb prepared for him at Verdun...but was left buried on the island of his final exile.

And yet again, Republicans, fucking Republicans...repeating the talking points of or sucking up to a foreign dictator and a KGB spy?!?!?

Ronald Reagan and a lot of the rest of the old Cold Warriors must be rolling over in their graves.

And the funny part is, the only thing most of you fucks would get in an authoritarian neo-Communist dictatorship like Putin's...is dead. Maybe a shitty apartment in an outlying city so long as you say all the correct things to Pravda and RT, at best.

And ya know what? Nobody gives a shit about Edward Snowden these days except for those who still want to put his ass on trial.

And even the Ecuadorians eventually washed their hands of Julian Assange.

The same will come for all the rest of these shitty anti-American traitors.

Acting like an internet troll in real honest to god meatspace life has its limits, apparently.

Bannon, the wannabe-Rasputin, would do quite well I think, to consider what happened to the original one. He who was the courtier and mystic to the Russian nobility...was ganked by the Russian nobles the second they felt his influence became a threat to the empire.

He didn't even have to wait for the Communists to get around to killing him.

And on that note, it's like I said earlier today, most of these fucking people wouldn't know what Communism was if it Sky-wrote the entire Communist Manifesto and Che Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries in the sky over their heads with two Mig-29 Fulcrum fighter jets.

A lot of these people are just plain stupid.

Republicans never fail to act as if their hatefulness and shitty, shocking behavior is cute, funny, revolutionary or some kind of Avant Garde thing. They don't seem to understand that the rest of us aren't laughing with them, we're laughing at them. But it's increasingly with the tone of "Just wait until I get my hands on that little prick" more than just laughing at their stupid behavior.

They're not the shock troops of some new, global authoritarian order. They're the shocking degenerate bastard offspring of old orders that people got tired of 50 years ago. And across the pond in the UK, the Tories seek to double if not triple that span of time.

It's not cool, it's not funny, it's sure as hell not revolutionary and we, the People, are getting tired of this garbage.

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

And this ain't it.

Part IV