How To Do A Coup

Look, Donald. Ya gotta stop all the legal pussyfooting—it’s just pissing off the judges, even those traitorous finks you appointed. Just yank on your big boy dictator suit and bite the bullet and cross the Rose Garden Rubicon and whip out your sharpie and sign an executive order declaring the Constitution to be unconstitutional and suspending it until Jared Kushner can get it fixed. That’s the slickest (and probably only) way for you to stay in the oval office until you pop your clogs from metastasized bone spurs. Nice sunglasses, BTW. 

P.S.: you might need a teensy bit of help from those army dudes you call losers and suckers. And why not throw a little party for the boogaloo boys—they really like you and might be willing to die for you if you serve ‘em cheeseburgers stuck with little American flags on toothpicks.

America: Know-Nothings and Nincompoops

As we try to make sense of the fact that (apparently) millions of Americans cling to a totally fantastical belief that the reality of Trump’s defeat is not the REAL reality, we should probably remember that one of our country’s foundational “freedoms” was—and remains—religious/ideological nincompoopery: a determination by diverse groups of “true believers” to believe whatever they damned well WANT to believe, in spite of what they perceive as vast, (albeit often evidence-based), “conspiracies” that insist that they (the nincompoops) are quite simply “nuts.” America is the quintessential Loony Bin—in which, periodically at least—a gang of inmates gains control. But only, of course, after vicious squabbling among the asylum’s diverse factions about which is the most “qualified” to govern by virtue of, er, superior know-nothing nincompoopery.

The Trump Apostles’ Creed

I believe in Oh My God (OMG),
the Father almighty,
Creator of money and property ,
and in Donald Trump, his Instrument, our Lord,
who was conceived by Fox News,
born of Twitter,
suffered under Joseph Biden,
was defeated, lost, and humiliated by nasty people;
he descended into CNN,
on Inauguration Day, he stomped out of the House;
he ascended into Mar-a-Lago
and is seated at the right hand of his toady Lindsey Graham;
from thence he will attempt to overthrow the election results and Make America Grate Again.
I believe in Holy Hyperbole, 
the holy GOP,
the collusion of conmen, 
the forgiveness of cheating, 
the resurrection of the Proud Boys,
and lying everlasting.
Amen.

Secret Trump Voters

Remember Jerry Lundegaard in “Fargo”? If he were voting in this election, I suspect that he would be a “secret Trumpster”—someone who would tell a poll-taker that (like any “good” used-car salesman) he loved decency and compassion and would, of course, vote for Biden. But, in the privacy of the voting booth, he would practically break his pencil in his enthusiasm to release all his hatreds and put an X in the Trump box: blacks, gays, Jews, Mexicans, Muslims, feminists, atheists—not to mention inconvenient wives—all consigned to the Trump woodchipper. In my neck of the woods, these “nice” guys with plodding reptilian brains are much more worrisome—because they are undoubtedly more numerous—than the unapologetically “tough-guy” MAGA-hatters.

Excise Trump, Then Eradicate The Disease

Some diseases are latent, dormant, (some types of TB, for instance) and never manifest themselves unless the body’s immune system becomes too weak to control them. I think something like this is happening to America. Since our very childhood as a nation, we have been infected with racism, xenophobia, religious bigotry, know-nothingism. Our immune system (constitutional structures, judicial conventions, general apathy) has mostly contained the worst flareups, with the notable exception of the Civil War. But now, the constitutional T-cells seem truly worn out. So the infections are taking over. Trump is simply the most prominent carbuncle produced by the current resurgence of the systemic illnesses. I hope we will soon lance this particularly disgusting boil. But, even if Trump is excised, a boil is just a symptom. The deeper question is: can the immune system itself ever recover? And can it ever succeed, as it has never before done, in completely eradicating the sometimes dormant, but hitherto always lurking, American Dumbness Disorder?

 

Why Debate?

Apparently good ol’ Uncle Joe is conscientiously preparing for the final debate, whereas stable genius Trump is blithely ranting at super-spreader rallies. It’s logical, I guess. The general public EXPECTS Biden to manage facts and make sense. No one, however, especially his votaries, has even the remotest expectation that Trump will make sense or utter anything other than whatever addlepated bullshit pops into his head at the moment. The base will roar with approval, even if he does nothing more than belch. And if he shoots himself on Fifth Avenue, well, they will STILL vote for him. So it goes.

Be Afraid.

This is Donald.

Donald is very brave. 

He is not afraid of Covid.

He is not afraid of oxygen masks.

He is not afraid of helicopter rides to hospitals.

He is not afraid of needles and tubes.

He is not afraid of pricey experimental drugs.

Donald will not let Covid dominate his life.

He will continue to take joyrides in hermetically sealed SUVs

    for photo ops.

He will continue to sign blank executive orders

    for photo ops.

He will continue to make ridiculous military salutes on the Truman Balcony 

    for photo ops.

He will not wear a mask. 

He is not afraid.

He is very brave.

He is very delusional.

Don’t be like Donald.

Be afraid.