Weird (American Revelation XVII, Ten.)

Joe: For the last time, I'm pretty sure what's killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.

Attorney General: "So wait a minute. What you're saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.

Joe: Yes.

Attorney General: Water. Like out the toilet?

Joe: Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that's the idea.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Attorney General: It's got electrolytes.

Joe: Okay, look. The plants aren't growing, so I'm pretty sure that the Brawndo's not working. Now, I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.

Secretary of Energy: Well, I've never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.

Secretary of State: Hey, that's good. You sure you ain't the smartest guy in the world?

Joe: Okay, look. You want to solve this problem. I want to get my pardon. So why don't we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?

Attorney General: Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Secretary of Energy: Yeah, it's got electrolytes.

Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?

Secretary of State: It's what they use to make Brawndo.

~From the film Idiocracy.

...

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

So, all these Republicans are big-time offended by the Democratic plan of simply...pointing out that they're weird??

Well, they are.

I'm sorry, guys, but if the horned hat and Braveheart makeup fit, you fuckers have to wear that shit. I mean, you were all gung ho to strap up looking like Bozo the Clown when you thought it was gonna "Own The Libs," correct?? 

I remember 1/6, hell I even wrote about it. A lot of weird shit happened that day. It took me a week to get my thoughts together enough to even write about it...there was such a blizzard of weird shit afterwards, and no, there is no kinder word for it.

This crap doesn't deserve any better than that.

Nobody made all these motherfuckers dress up like third-string Extras in Idiocracy to do this, nor think they were gonna score the Che Guevara Beret photo of the 21st Century for doing so. I mean, I still think my favorite was Enrique Tarrio giving a speech with a can of White Claw sticking out of one of the pockets in his plate carrier. Pull something like that as a cop or a soldier, and you're gonna be looking for a new career right quick. 

Note: This is also not a good move for any insurgent that aspires to actually be effective. Information Warfare and Public Image, and what the Press says about you are as much a part of effective insurgency as IED's, Kalashnikovs and Toyota Hilux technical trucks.

And yes, "What the fuck is wrong with you" is absolutely a valid counterinsurgency strategy, given that (If people like Che Guevara and Fidel Castro are to be considered) the self-image created by things like Che's beret or Fidel's Army fatigues is just as important of a part of an insurgent's bit as anything else. (And yes, they've tried to do this with Trump's "look" too.) If you can make them doubt the "Popular Will" and think "Hey, maybe I look like an idiot?" the fight's half over already. Equating their goals in the public mind with miserable bastardy for its own sake gets you most of the rest of the way there. Nobody wants to live like that.

These are the people performatively mad about that bit from the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics, but goddamn, their own idea of a Glorious Revolution was literally a Bacchanalia of bad behavior, religiosity and stupid weird shit with a side order of "Look, Mom, I'm overthrowing the government!" Any attempted right-wing insurgency that these fuckers pull now, is just gonna be 1/6 on a national scale but probably with fewer cold-blooded professionals under the radar carrying zip-ties.

It's real hard to turn on a dime from Idiocracy to seriousness.

All the more so, when your political movement has worked overtime to quash any attempt by serious people to do...well, basically anything in a serious fashion...because it distracts from the Glorious Leader's floor show. And don't tell me "Mainstream" Republicans (or at least what passed for them by 2017) haven't got in on the act, because when the Trump tax cuts got passed, somebody ordered up a beer truck and all the allegedly serious Republicans acted like a bunch of frat boys.

And seven years later, because even a lot of the Tea Party Republicans who brought that fiasco about have been run out of the party or otherwise sidelined, quit, or switched sides...and along the way the culture of the Republican Party switched (yet again, remember Bush 43 neoconservatism was less than a decade in the past in 2017) from Tea Party Libertarianism to MAGA racism and stupidity. All Stephen Miller's job is, is to try and sell that garbage to people who wear suits and go to meetings for a living.

Ya know, it's no wonder that the old guys like Chuck Grassley and Mitch McConnell look like they don't know if they're coming or going, or that serious Republicans like Mitt Romney are getting out completely. 

I follow politics, not least as a measure of self-defense considering that I (being a disabled veteran and a non-Christian) have a lot to lose if Project 2025 goes into effect.

Not to mention, I don't have kids, I don't have a lot of money, and I'm not the sort of White person whose "Whiteness" these motherfuckers want to promote, either.

I changed my voter registration to Independent in 2008 and to Democratic in 2016 and it's not that I don't even recognize the Republican Party anymore so much as there's nothing there that even interests me, or would have done so 20 years ago either. That alone makes me an inconvenience to these clowns.

And the fact that I'm not ever going to debase myself by even pretending to support this bullshit makes me a threat. 

I've hated Trump as long as I've been aware of him, the man is a scumbag.

No amount of guns or political power or anything else is ever going to get me to change that view, nor to shut up about it. 

Nothing is going to prevent me from pointing out that he surrounds himself with sycophants and toadies and women who make themselves look like Star Wars aliens to try and attract his debased attentions (not to mention all the other weird shit.)

And the fact is, these motherfuckers forgot a long time ago that some things are not for sale, nor should they be. These fools couldn't buy my allegiance either. Like, it's not even what other people might say about me...it's that I have to brush my teeth and all that every morning, and shave at least once or twice a week and that gets harder if I can't look at myself in the bathroom mirror. That's a morning conversation I can't avoid, and I don't know how the hell Republicans do it.

But if I had to guess, I think that tolerance for all this kind of crap is starting to run out, and not just here, either. Continuing Ukrainian resistance, and the support for it, protests in Venezuela over an election where Maduro just simply declared victory...And I think that explains the massive upwelling of support for Kamala Harris, too. It also explains why Republicans are suddenly on the defensive after all this time...and losing, because MAGA doesn't do defense very well.

And there is no Republican Party anymore, apart from MAGA and Trump. The few left who haven't at least acquiesced to all that shit are on their way out. After all this crap, Mitt Romney's chances of a continued political career would probably be better if he switched parties.

And Republicans are running out of options that fall within the normal American political spectrum, too. That's a thing we're going to need to be aware of.

Republicans also need to be aware, MAGA hates them, too.

If anything, I expect the weird shit to get weirder because the audience they're playing to now...and that they need to have amped up beyond all current parameters for what I suspect will be their next move...doesn't really do reality and deals mostly in conspiracy theories and hokey religious bullshit that simply won't make sense to anybody who hasn't already been exposed to that kind of crap.

Time's coming where you're going to have to ante up and kick in and be a Better Citizen.

Because yes, it's absolutely that or let these fucking people and their obsessions with misery and petty power games and weird bullshit run your life.

You either believe in freedom, or you don't.

So get after it.

Because this time we can't afford to lose.

Слава Україна!

Captain Mandrake: General Ripper, sir, as an officer in Her Majesty's Air Force, it is my clear duty, under the present circumstances, to issue the recall code, upon my own authority, and bring back the wing. If you'll excuse me sir. [Mandrake tries all exits and finds them locked] I'm afraid sir, I must ask you for the key and the recall code. Have you got them handy sir?

General Ripper: I told you to take it easy, Group Captain. There's nothing anybody can do about this thing now. I'm the only person who knows the three letter code group.

Capt. Mandrake: Then I must insist, sir, that you give them to me.

[Ripper lifts a folder off of his desk, revealing a pistol]

Capt. Mandrake: Do I take it, sir, that you are threatening a brother officer with a gun?

Gen. Ripper: Mandrake, I suppose it never occurred to you that while we're chatting here so enjoyably, a decision is being made by the President and the Joint Chiefs in the war room at the Pentagon. And when they realize there is no possibility of recalling the wing, there will be only one course of action open: total commitment. Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war?

Capt. Mandrake: No. I don't think I do sir, no.

Gen. Ripper: He said war was too important to be left to the Generals. When he said that, fifty years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Nine

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