Behold, He Is In The Desert! (American Revelation XV, Two.)

 (In direct homage to a rule I had in effect the last time I wrote about the ravening idiocy that is the Iowa Caucuses, here's a picture of a ferret. If you can't deal with the rant that's about to follow, move along.)

Behold, I have told you before.

Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and puts forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:

So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.

Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

~Matthew 24:25-34

...

Soup Sandwich (Noun, occasionally used as a verb) A US military term denoting something extremely useless, poorly executed or seriously goddamned unsatisfactory. Descriptively noting that the subject is about as useless as two hot, wet, soggy pieces of bread that had a ladle full of soup dumped between them. Ex: "That uniform is about as tore up as a soup sandwich."

...

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride." ~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

So...as pretty much anybody with a brain in their heads expected, Donald Trump absolutely waddled away with the Iowa Republican Caucuses last night.

And the media has positively worked itself up into a frenzy over this fucking bullshit, or at least had done so last night while I was working. I mean, come on, did you fuckers really expect anything else was going to happen??

And the goddamn media treats a...widely expected primary win...as a coronation. I'm tired of this horseshit.

I'm really tired of the media's bad-faith insistence on jerking off the narcissist for fun and profit. Not to sound that way, but it's Iowa, for fuck's sake. If you thought Nikki Haley or Vivek RamaRamaDingDing had a chance there, or at least did with Republicans, you New York Times people are dumber than I thought.

And I have to admit, I thought you were really fucking dumb. You fuckers will do anything to create a political horserace, including tie yourselves to Donald Trump...a singularly ungrateful man who's basically promised his base he's going to have your asses boiled in oil if he wins...in spite of, or perhaps even because of, the fact that you're dumb enough to help him. The man has a personality disorder, do not expect anything but the worst of him.

And then you post...this?? 

Make that shit make sense.

I mean, I get it, Democrats are doing mail-in voting in Iowa until Super Tuesday and that's not very exciting or much fun to cover...but I don't really care if it's fun or makes you money. My investment in our nation was about the furthest thing from a desire to be entertained, and our political system was not actually designed primarily to benefit corporate third-party entities if you go by the Constitution.

Acknowledging that is one thing, treating the situation like Republicans are the only one who exist and then launching into a feeding frenzy over it like sharks on a bleeding Blue Whale is something altogether different.

Something doesn't add up here, and we need to get the money and the media-profit motive out of politics.

And that's before we get to the fact that Republican primary voters have pretty much gone insane. Like, what the fuck is wrong with you people? They're nuts, you don't need to keep covering it ad nauseum. Drooling mental illness isn't all that much fun for the people who have it. 

Trust me on this one, and there's simply not much else to understand. There comes a point, after awhile, where you're just meeting Trump Supporters in dirty small-town diners because that's your kink or you want to or something, you don't really need to inflict your bullshit on the rest of us.

Most of us are actually tired of these fucking people, and tired of Trump. 

And we're even more tired of the endless rehashing of 2020. It's over. I get it, the media made bank that year, did you idiots forget that something like a million people around the world died in the process??

Why is this hard??

There comes a point where you have to turn off the bright lights, realize it's all fake bullshit backed by people who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire, and take Donald Trump's dick out of your mouth

At the heart of it, the real backers of this whole thing are basically a bunch of people who'd really like Trump to wreck America so they can chop-shop it, claim there little fiefdoms and then sell the rest to the Russians for five seconds of "Owning The Libs" (whatever the hell that even means) ideological kick, some drugs and Vladimir Putin's pocket change, mostly because they think they'll just get to BUY the "Free Market" and buy off other people's freedom when they're done.

Or in the case of the Tankies, something something gazpacho about Bringing Back The Soviet Union or some shit. For the love of God why? It didn't work the first time! 

These fucking people don't care about making a better world. In fact, they don't care about maintaining an adequate world. They could, for the most part, give a shit about anybody else including their own family or friends...so long as they get to profit from the destruction of America, the Russian invasion of the rest of Europe and the end of the West as a coherent entity.

And then these same assholes insist on being the ones to act in the kinds of debased ways that the Russians are using to justify this shit! They act like all they have to do is give the West a good swift kick and it all comes tumbling down. 

On one hand that's obviously wrong and the Ukrainians have basically proven that by now. A Russian invasion of Europe would probably lead to next year's May Day parade in Moscow being conducted with Leopard 2 tanks with the EU flag flying from the Kremlin.

On the other hand, the American Right collectively and the media in general have started with open, ecstatic worship of Donald Trump and the European far-right is doing its level best to serve the whims of Vladimir Putin, so there's clearly some rot afflicting this tree. The Russians see that and think they can exploit it or make it worse, and we're going to need to deal with that if we want this whole Russian problem to go away or even be contained on any serious level.

I'm old enough to remember the Cold War the first time around, it sucked and I was glad when it was over.

But during the Cold War we didn't have an internal political cult that was willing to bow down before the Hammer and Sickle if it'd make their mostly-imagined political enemies upset, either.

Shit, I'm old enough to remember when I was the guy arguing in 2015-2016 that Christians following after a philandering New York City fat-cat con artist would not make America more "Christian."

I couldn't have been more right if I'd tried, and I take no joy in that. It's made our world a measurably worse place! Hell, most of the people I knew who were Christians...people I did the Church thing with and smoked Weed with and talked about the Lord's Word with on levels a lot of these Trump supporters just wouldn't even get...are not Christians anymore and nearly to a person it's because of this crap!

I know people whose lifelong dreams of pastoring a Church were outright wrecked by this Trump crap because some other people just couldn't stand not to bring their shitty politics into it, almost to the total exclusion of anything Jesus ever had to say about anything.

But neither CNN nor Evangelicals themselves give a fuck who else's faith...or for that matter, lives they trash, so long as they get their money.

And, never mind the Election, however that turns out (and I think Trump is going to lose, again) on at least one level, it doesn't even matter.

Trump is cruising towards Deification, and sooner or later somebody is going to get stuck having to live with that on a stress level that far surpasses who the American President is or isn't. I already had my life turned upside down by religious fanatics once...and guess what?? 

They didn't worship Donald Trump. I shudder to think what it would've been like for me if they had, I got assaulted, I got death threats...and sometimes carried a weapon...as it was. Violent harassment for Jesus, yo. And this was in 2001-2003, long before being armed in public outside of hunting season was considered cool or even in a lot of ways socially acceptable. I'm a gun owner and a veteran and I've carried a rifle in the field and did peacekeeping in Bosnia and frankly I found the whole situation terrifying.

This Trump shit has put people through that, and worse, many times over, and repeatedly. I was only dealing with one kooky church sicked on me by my ex-wife, and only for a few months before somebody got arrested and they got the message. This asshole has millions of people who'll bully and harass and threaten and torment others on his behalf, and they've been doing it for years.

The thing with this Authoritarianism, Inc. bit, this global far-right bullshit...is that it somehow convinces every fucking loser and leftover political extremist and religious fanatic under the sun that when it's over They're going to be king...or queen. Of course it never works out that way, and such a mentality can only lead to more violence because the nature of the Beast is "There can be only one."

If we don't stop it now, while it's still in the early stages most places, it'll never stop. How the hell do you not see a problem with this?

I don't think America or anywhere else has yet reckoned with what'll happen when you give Evil People an actual Evil God to worship...and being a gamer I'm the kind of person who writes screwed up stuff for entertainment but the prospect of combining that shit with Conspiracy Theories and Evangelical fanaticism scares the shit out of me. Also, don't tell me Trump wouldn't relish that label.

I mean, those fucking people wouldn't even have to rationalize or twist scripture to reach the theological outcomes they want, to back up their horrifying bullshit. No, they'd only have to repeat what Trump actually said, and said publicly, in that droning singsong monotone of his with that stupid smirk on his face, while showing nothing but contempt for his own voters.

I know I've said this before, but there comes a point where you can't appease that, profit from it, rationalize it or reason with it, not if you really want to keep your own life. All you really can do is fight against it, and the sooner you start fighting against it, the fewer people will die and the better off everyone (including you) will be.

Anything else is UnSat, you know, Unsatisfactory, subpar performance, this will not suffice, you failed your FitRep.

And if you don't understand why that's a problem, I can't help you and I'm not sure I want to try.

A lot of these assholes seem to think they want to live in the Empire from Star Wars.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

If you do, get with the fucking program.

Слава Україна!

One

Hess: So what shall we toast to, boys? I can blather on about “To health” or “To success,” but I’d like to do somethin’ a little less rote. Where you from, Brown Eyes?

Migs Mayfield: How ’bout a toast to Operation Cinder?

Hess: Now there’s a man who knows his history.

Mayfield: No, I don’t just know it. I lived it. I was in Burnin Konn.

Hess: Burnin Konn?

Mayfield: Mmm.

Hess: That was a hard day. I had to make many unpleasant decisions.

Mayfield: Yes, you did. Entire city gone in moments, along with everybody in it. We lost our whole division that day. Man, that was like 5-10,000 people.

Hess: Yep. All heroes of the Empire.

Mayfield: Yeah. And all dead.

Hess: Well, it’s a small sacrifice for the greater good, son.

Mayfield: Depends on who you ask, don’t you think?

Hess: [irritated] What you gettin’ at, trooper?

Mayfield: All those people, the ones who died, was it good for them? Hmm? Their families? The guys I served with? Civilians, those poor mud scuffers, died defending their homes, fighting for freedom. Was it good for them?

Hess: But we’ve outlasted them, son. They’re eating themselves alive. The New Republic is in complete disarray, and we grow stronger. You see, with the rhydonium you’ve delivered, we can create havoc that’s gonna make Burnin Konn pale by comparison. And then they’re gonna turn to us once again. You see, boys, everybody thinks they want freedom, but what they really want is order. And when they realize that, they’re gonna welcome us back with open arms. Ah. To the Empire.

[Mayfield chuckles, then fires a blaster at Hess' chest, killing him instantly. He and Mando then shoot their way out of the mess hall] ~From The Mandalorian, Season 2, Ep. 7 "The Believer"

Also; My Iowa Caucuses 2020 Post.