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If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! ~Patrick Henry
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If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan
I saw this last night.
Trump's not just losing it, he's done lost it already.
And I think the voters know it, too.
More to the point, I think a lot of people are just done with this fucking bullshit.
That's the vibe I've been getting for awhile.
I'm going to be honest, I'm just tired of hearing Trump's stupid Chloroform voice and seeing his stupid face all over the goddamned place. Honestly it'd be nice to be able to write about something else.
I think they're done with the crazy shit, and with the cult. I mean, it's not just that Republicans For Harris is a thing...it's that every time he has a freaking rally, there's people leaving well before it's even over.
It's that the most fanatically pro-Trump motherfuckers out there aren't even Americans, but South African-born billionaires who never even got what the whole damn point of America was to start with.
(And when Trump is over, those guys will move on to blowing Vladimir Putin, you watch.)
It's that in my town, which was basically Whitey-ville for most of my life, a slight majority of the political signs are for Harris/Walz and I'm serious, you don't see people with near the Trump swag that you did even a year ago.
I mean, certainly, a lot of these fucking people will just crawl back under their rocks, or get bored and wander off. I see that starting to happen already.
Certainly, some of them will get worse...most likely the Medieval Catholics and the Project 2025 CHUD's will be the main driver of that category...especially if Harris even comes close to starting to clean out the Judiciary or expand the Supreme Court, or if anybody leans on Clarence and Sam to get them to retire. JD Vance is the future of this bullshit, not Donald Trump, but he has all the charisma of a cardboard cutout. These fucking people aren't going to try to persuade anybody, eventually, they're just going to make a move, seize whatever they can, and then try to start a conflict of some sort with the rest of Christianity in general and the majority of global Catholicism in particular.
Throw in a side of legacy Far-rightists, John Birch Society types, weird Incels, a few whack-a-nut Pentecostals and the odd Russian agent here and there...but most of those people won't do much of anything, unless goaded into it.
And speaking of, I'll bet you money if Trump goes to prison, he converts to this radical Catholic shit (or at least pretends to) cuz they all find the Lord in jail...and this would be (at least in terms of the cult) politically advantageous for him in the terms of keeping someone's interest.
That's Category A.
Next up is the opportunistic shit-bag Republicans, you know, the people just getting around to calling Trump a fascist now.
Most of those people, the John Kelly and Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney types (for example) aren't going to do anything to actively help Trump, same with Jeff Bezos, they're just going about covering their bases
We'll call them Category B, they're not going to help Trump, but unless it's self-defense for themselves (and it'll likely come to that) they won't be much help to the rest of us either.
The only ones of those who are a threat are the gun nuts and the idiots who can be gulled into acting out by the first group...although I'd suspect there's a lot of overlap between those two subgroups involved, that's category C.
But there's a fourth group, MAGA's Fourth Estate of weird agitators and grifters that seem driven in equal parts by fear and greed. They might fall into any of the other categories also...and they might do something stupid, or they might not.
The thing about MAGA is a lot of these motherfuckers are just there because they're trying to scam all the others. My feeling is a lot of these guys will find a new scam and move on to whatever that is, although some will definitely be recruited into the first group (A few, like Candace Owens, already have been.)
And the thing is, some of the third category of losers might move into the first group also, because their fear, desire for hierarchy and willingness to tolerate pretty much anything will push them in that kind of direction.
That's the fruit of a Spirit Of Fear, to use Biblical terminology.
You know, there's a reason the Bible harps on uncontrolled fear, or fear of anything other than God being a bad thing as much as it does, just sayin.'
Until we break that, until we find a way to get these fucking people to stop being afraid of every new or different thing, these kind of problems are going to continue.
(And trust me, it'll get even worse as they start being targeted by the other fanatics for insufficient loyalty.)
Also, any of the other groups will also be targets for the first group of fanatics. Like I said yesterday, the Republican Party is and will remain an autocracy in and of itself no matter what. If Trump dies of bad health and dementia or gets locked up, they'll just anoint JD Vance or whoever is loudest about promising to pardon Trump.
In the short term, this crap might well get worse, with the caveat that this time Trump doesn't have any control over the government this time.
But, if trends continue as they are, I'm more worried about a particularly dumb right-wing insurgency than I am about an actual Civil War that they won't get enough people for. It's not a huge improvement but it's something. Among other things, fighting a civil war requires courage, vs. the fact that anybody can be a cowardly terrorist.
And whatever sad-sack, tiny-ass Banana Republic these fucking people can break off for themselves just gets smaller the longer the whole Kamala Harris era goes on, until it dwindles to nothing and an Army National Guard patrol or a bunch of dudes from (just to steal from actual recent history here in looking for a name) the Alabama Awakening find a hut full of garbage and sheep shit with "Trump-Land military headquarters" spray-painted on one of the walls.
Like I said when Harris took over, the vibe has changed.
And now it's changing again, for the better.
Act like it.
You either believe in freedom or you don't.
Vote Republicans out, drive Trump into obscurity and hopefully jail. Yeah, we'll probably have to fight some of these motherfuckers off, but the thing is as hard as these Republicans have made themselves in their lockstep March Ever Rightward to try and immanentize some kind of right-wing Eschaton, they've also made themselves very brittle.
They're the ones who are afraid.
You don't have to be.
Remember that.
Yes We Can.
Слава Україна!
And so tomorrow, as we take the campaign South and West, as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas; that the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A.; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people, we are one nation. And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes, we can. ~Barack Obama
And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.
And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comes into thy kingdom.
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. ~Luke 23:39-43
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