When It Isn't Worth It

 

Mitt Romney said he was stepping aside to make room for the next generation. But here’s the real reason he isn’t running for re-election — and it’s a sad one…

Romney feels he no longer fits in the Republican party and he is physically afraid of his party’s base. pic.twitter.com/OvRprw9LIF

— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) September 14, 2023

I'm not going to be misty-eyed over what the Republican party has lost or make over-effusive praise of Mitt Romney because both things would be both highly disingenuous and out of character for me. I don't think it can escape one that in the course of his 2012 presidential campaign and in trying to maintain ties with the GOP's newly-crowned leader in 2016, Romney wasn't above the kinds of comments and sacrifices of his dignity that we associate with the Trump era of politics. If anything, his realization that Trump was a disaster that his party was all too willing to follow seems too late because Trump isn't that new--his is just the most-recent incarnation of where the party has been headed for the entirety of Romney's career. 

Of course, it's easy to view Romney as one of the "good ones" and appreciate his intelligent and dishy commentary on the perfidy, fakeness and fears of his Senate colleagues, but the reason he seems like such a stand-out is precisely because the GOP has become so bad that criticism of his own party and its members and taking a stand in favor of facts as if it were his job have become acts of courage and never should have been. Such behavior should have been commonplace. More members of his party could have tried it over the years and simply...never did.

What we've experienced instead over the years from right-wing media and Republican politicians alike is an extremism, ideation of violence and oppositionalism for its own sake from the conservative wing because a kind of positive feedback loop has existed that exacerbated the inherent paranoid tendencies extant on the right for ages. 

So, when Romney (or John McCain or Liz Cheney) buck that trend, even marginally, they earn some liberal admiration--and the enmity of their party. I can't like Mitt Romney more than a true MAGA might hate him for being insufficiently loyal. 

Being physically afraid of one's base is a horrific thought. There's something to be said too, for what one might have to lose of oneself to be the person who doesn't have to be afraid of or in opposition to that mass of armed maniacs. It seems that it requires a kind of moral lobotomy. When a Mitt Romney looks with disdain on the younger characters of this scene, the J. D. Vance's and Josh Hawley's, maybe it's with some recognition and rue:

It isn't worth it.

Klanned Karenhood and Their Fellow Travelers

 

I saw this on Twitter, and wanted to talk about why this particularly bothers me as (extreme Quark from Deep Space Nine voice) a "biological female"--there is a thing we don't really address much: toxic femininity. We can talk about abusive men, men who think with their fists, masculinity in the form of right-fighting and DARVO--but not these women. The ones who wouldn't do violence themselves but would cheer their men on for doing it. (They are also sister shafters--they would sell out any number of women in an instant to gain points with the patriarchy.)

Now maybe the above screencap of a freedom mommy calling for Biden's execution is unfair: she was mad because she thought US military service dogs were left behind, and while that wasn't exactly the case, I also hate to see animals potentially harmed and could get good and fighting mad about it. But I'd have checked the story, and not gone right to talking about execution because I'm not one of these ol' gals.  

But the freedom mommies don't need good reasons to want violence--it avenges them. Or at least satisfies them that their loyalty to the patriarchy has a payoff. See how they love when the daddies get in on the action? Think of a woman goading her significant other to go fight that man who has been looking at her. (Think about the history of white women and lynching, and TERFS and violence against trans people.) They don't get to rock the block of someone they don't like, but they do get told that the one who rocks the cradle rules the world. 

I'm not blaming William Ross Wallace for it--that was the era. We just aren't in the 19th century anymore. And my real problem is--WE AREN'T GOING BACK TO IT, EITHER!

Shiny Happy People

 

I cannot recommend this Amazon Prime documentary enough, because the reality of the IBLP and the legacy of Bill Gothard has a real impact on politics today. The "Evangelical vote" in this country is about, to some degree, this anti-science and abusive cult of kept-sweet femininity and abusive masculine authority. It's about deadening children's creativity and independence.  It's about reinforcing gender stereotypes and blaming victims for their abuse. It's about taking away the voices of the abused. 

It's about taking away scientific facts, and inserting one's own religious bias.  You know how they do. It's about wisdom books that have no wisdom in them. It's about elevating positive thinking and shutting down critical thinking. It's about denying reality and smiling when the camera is on. It's about little kids being made emissaries of their parents' religion and not being compensated. It's about Jim Bob Duggar being a stingy controlling SOB. It's about Mike Huckabee helping whitewash child abuse. 

When you look at Josh Hawley and his weird kvetching about masculinity, or the Liberty Mommies astroturf bullshit--you are seeing something that stems from this movement. They want to be the umbrella over you to prevent Satan doing his closet boogeyman stuff to your life. It's kind of really well-funded and super-sad. Because it is rooted in patriarchy and ignorance and weirdos who want to spank little kids. 

Josh Hawley and the A-Gender

 

🤔
JOSH HAWLEY wants to stop schools from teaching "transgender propaganda," like that "there is more than one gender." pic.twitter.com/KdKSQzqeew

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) September 21, 2022

I think it's a really bold step forward for Josh Hawley. proponent of masculinity, to embrace the idea that as a species with low sexual dimorphism and an astonishing cultural versatility over history in expressing sexual roles, it is more accurate to describe the human species as having one gender (which is: "yas") and expressing it through a vast continuum of individual expressions. All of which are personally valid and should be culturally recognized. 

Or it's just that after making a to-do over the definition of what a "woman" is, he promptly forgot about that. Which could happen to anyone, right?

Right?  

Public Lion, Private Mutton

 

The side-by-side comparison of Josh Hawley showing a power fist to the 1/6 protesters and later his madcap, long-legged flight from the same folks, is perhaps as genius a representation of the performative "tough guy" attitude of Trump World as you could want to see. It shouldn't be forgotten that Hawley was the first US Senator out of the gate indicating that he would protest the certification of Biden's election, which at the time struck me as a pure cynical stunt bound for tears. 

But it also struck me that Hawley was far from the only one who would have been likely to do such a thing, because being a massive troll is the rage (literally) in GOP politics. Whether it's dressing up one's finest Army/Navy store gear to go watch immigrants at the border and take a goofy little boat ride or taking holiday family photographs with everyone from the pater familias on down kitted out for a replay of Ruby Ridge or the Waco stand-off, signifying militancy and even the desire to overthrow the government is treated as quite normal. 

It's what they've pulled the discourse down to. Take the endless 2nd Amendment signifying about citizens taking up arms against their own government (you know, the government that our elected officials are representatives of) that Rep. Jamie Raskin had to patiently explain was...well, horseshit. 

And of course, a lot of these gunslingers just want to get strapped up so they can feel safe at the Chipotle or to menace random POCs or as a form of conspicuous consumption. Overthrowing the government might be something they vaguely support, but not in a whole life-disruption kind of way.

Hawley's shameless dash from the violent insurrectionists he definitely was insisting shortly thereafter were no such thing* can be compared to Steve Bannon's desire to "go medieval" regarding his "misdemeanor from Hell". Other than as a possible personal hygiene pledge, I'm not sure what he meant by that, but other than running his mouth after the hearing (where he was found guilty on both counts), it's hard to say what he means to do, other than possible appeal. 

But what's funny is his claim that it's the members of the 1/6 Committee that are "gutless" for not coming to his contempt hearing when he was the one who couldn't even be bothered to go to them, even to take the Fifth or flip them off or whatever actual confrontation could have been made. It's political theater--he's being performatively defiant, but it boils down to name-calling. 

It's possible that it's Bannon who has the best grasp of this ethos in his grubby way--after all, he made a bit of money off of homo ludens, He knows very well that people will pay real money for fake things because they love the thrill of sport and the sense of getting over. They will pay money for a wall that doesn't materialize. They'll wear tricorn hats and knickers and talk up a game about how they want to storm the castle. Shit. they will even sit in a medieval monastery (maybe) and train to be New World Order Knights.  It's all an amazing LARP--

It's just one where people can die. Trump World people have been living a fantasy. They still want to run away from the real world results. They swarmed behind Trump like sheep--but it's beginning to smell like mutton in here. 

*UPDATE: Oh my word, I totally forgot this chiclet-head had written in favor of Timothy McVeigh and the militia movement when he was a little 15-year-old spud. He learned exactly not one grown-up thing in the interim. Not one. 

Necessary Roughness in the Senate

 

If you've not yet seen Sen Brian Schatz' evisceration of hypocritical dickhead Josh Hawley on the Senate floor, here it is. This is worth the watch. pic.twitter.com/yQycXh5FKB

— Duty To Warn 🔉 (@duty2warn) April 8, 2022

Hoss Jawley has two faces and both of them are weasels. The thing of beauty here is what Sen. Schatz calls out is 100% factual and reveals Hawley's lack of any moral core or convictions, just his pure political maneuvering. And Hawley is by no means the only Republican who needs a faceful of exactly this kind of call out.

They Couldn't Spoil It--Almost

 

I think I could take a moment to acknowledge something really good and historic happened yesterday and really leave it at that...

But I would be a whole other person if I did not take note of the churlish, contemptuous behavior of the GOP jackaloons that still wanted to be sullen and snitty about the smears that they actually made up. The reason I can't leave it alone is that it was unnecessary for them to try and damage someone's reputation with that kind of calumny, but also the nature of it ("She's a friend tto sex fiends!") is a conspiracy theory classic from the same text as blood libel--a kissing cousin, so to speak, of QAnon.

You can't get a whole bunch of people to believe a cabal of baby-eaters is running the world--but depicting a group as deviant is not as hard a lift and can be just as dangerous. They did this to make her unpalatable by pre-smearing the people who would vote for her confirmation with a kind of guilt by association, vide MTG's despicable Tweet:

She says "Any Senator voting to confirm #KJB (sic) is pro-pedophile just like she is." Right out there for the kids who are slow on the uptake and need it spelled all the way out for them. And of course, Marginal Traitor Greed is a vicious lying extremist, but...no. I guess that really is all I have to say about that. But she has definitely articulated, baldly, what Senator Hawley tried to set in motion/ 

In any case, I'd like to think that only the far-right, already Q-enmired types would think this plausible, but I can't help but notice how neatly it folds into the new claim that people opposing the dangerous and dumb "Don't Say Gay" bills are "groomers". This tactic isn't pure politics--it's eliminationist. It uses fear to silence people and wage terror on those who don't stay silent. 

So while I want to embrace this history-making moment, I am disgusted by the antics of those who decided now was a great time to play a dangerous and stupid game with the process. 

You Won't Steal Our Joy

The Senate confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson got super emotional when Sen. Cory Booker brought Jackson to tears with his touching testimony on racial progression. https://t.co/imXiGk6ZeS

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) March 23, 2022

Where Republicans mugging for the camera and showing every willingness to swim in the sewer to drag an exceptionally qualified Black woman through the mud for the dopamine hit of a Fox News spot exist, I am refreshed to focus on the only US Senator who brought Judge Jackson to tears, Senator Cory Booker, because he supported and respected and showed his joy for this glass-ceiling shattering woman. 

If the calumny and slander of the mugging mental mites, the political parasites, the social media self-checkers like Cruz and the drama-queens like Lindsey Graham, the unapologetic militant police state loving fuckfaces like Tom Cotton and the weasel-headed insurrectionist sumbitches like Josh Hawley made anyone ever want to take a long Silkwood-style shower, he gave us this refreshing moment, this shower of love, to study how Judge Jackson has borne up during an onslaught intended to rattle her and shake her faith. 

And she has persevered throughout questioning that has more to do with right-wing axe-grinding and the next election cycle than her own nomination. She is being accused because less qualified candidates than her were rightly challenged, but a party that no longer has a grip on right and wrong can only see tit for tat. 

I've raged, because I can, watching this, and she cannot, because she is living this and has to be professional. When Sen. Cotton accuses her of loving terrorists because of her service as a public defender, I want to intimately introduce him to the concept of due process that actually is a cornerstone of the Constitution he himself swore an oath to and is pretending now not to know about by shoving said document down his narrow throat. Also, I think GWB and company actually are guilty of war crimes and I've been saying so for years. 

When Josh Hawley accuses her, a woman and mother of daughters, of being soft on sex criminals, I want to throw out the discussion of whether he was slow as MO AG to investigate Gov. Eric Greitens' crimes until it was politically convenient to do so. His silence on Roy Moore. And the general disapprobation he is rightly receiving for this slander. 

As a woman, I cringe at the contempt and condescension thrown her way, the interruptions by men who think they are great because the Fox News camera is going to love them. I can only imagine what it would be to be a Black woman seeing this appalling display of white men in power, trying to disempower a woman every bit their equal in education and dignity, and their superior in mastery of herself. 

I have no doubt she will be seated on the highest bench, but I am appalled at this display by such obvious political maneuvers by pure partisan shitheads. Have they no shame? Of course not. Can their shame-glands be kickstarted by anything at all? I don't even know, but I have feet and time. 

Fascists Like Gosar Don't Really Joke

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Republican Paul Gosar will probably "face no consequences" for his disgusting tweet in which he's depicted, in an altered, animated video, killing her because Kevin McCarthy "cheers him on with excuses."https://t.co/v0v6gAKqbU

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 9, 2021

Of course, we've seen another political figure Tweet a video with figurative violence for the LULZ: remember Trump pointing us to an "amusing" video of mass violence against liberal politicians? Why, that was just Trump being Trump, after all! Joking! Why, how was that different from the photoshopped CNN-logo video he posted just a couple years ago?

Well, it was no different, and they were both incitement. One of Trump's merry little fan club sent apparent pipe bombs to multiple public figures, including CNN on-air journalists and politicians. And then, of course, January 6th happened. But that wasn't at all the entire story of the violence wrought in the wake of Trump's apparent endorsement of it--not at all! It is still in fact, ongoing. Quite ordinary people have become motivated to issuing death threats to people just doing their jobs for perceived slights or infractions against the MAGA cult. 

Thirteen Republican representatives voted for the infrastructure bill. Rep. Fred Upton, who was one of them, shared a death threat he had received. Death threats for votes one disagrees with should simply not be acceptable in a free and democratic society. But I drive past a house in the suburbs of PA which has, over the past year, had signs posted up: "Trump Won", "Biden Lied", "Save our Schools". And this week: "Fitzgerald = Traitor". Rep. Fitzgerald was considering the needs of Bucks County residents with his vote, not handing Joe Biden a "win"--who the hell thinks like this? A congressional vote isn't about "wins" for a President, it's about making laws--the actual business of doing a job in congress. (I definitely wonder how the neighbors feel about this house.)

And yet, it's the thirteen GOP House members who decided that childcare and drinking water and transportation and high-speed internet might actually benefit their constituents, who are in actual threat of some kind of censure. For doing what they reckoned to be their actual jobs in Congress, as opposed to just being partisan signifiers. 

Josh Hawley Tries So Durn Hard

Josh Hawley says more men today are watching porn and playing video games because their masculinity has been criticized. pic.twitter.com/R0eXdRSYNT

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) November 1, 2021

More women are also watching porn and playing video games because these things are increasingly available due to technological advancements like getting wifi on your phone. It isn't deep. Porn is literally ancient. People play games for fun. It's the point. People do things they find fun. It's not a male thing. It's not a retreat from the cold cruel world. It's not the sturm und drang of opprobrium from the eternal and infernal female. It's just extremely convenient. And kind of fun.

Now, what manly men are supposed to do is become successful and find a good wife to occupy their definitely not porn and video game lifestyles. I guess. As if husbands time out of mind haven't fucked off to play pool or bowl or hang out at titty bars or catch a skin flick or whatever.  It passes the time. It's not some new obsession. It's really pretty trad--just the delivery medium has changed. Not all men are into these things, some always are. But that isn't a male-exclusive thing. (And it can be empowering, to women, but also sometimes doesn't feel that way.) Surprise--we're people. 

TWGB: We Said He Wasn't Right

 

President Biden threw his support behind the top U.S. military officer, Mark Milley, a day after a new book said he went around civilian leaders to place secret calls to his Chinese counterpart over concerns about then-President Donald Trump https://t.co/mgr8I1Rd7T pic.twitter.com/0PNUDrO7rx

— Reuters (@Reuters) September 16, 2021

Pause to consider for an instant what happened in a brief span--a leak from Woodward's latest book reveals that post-1/6, Trump was so out-of-bounds that Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley wanted to see to it that there were additional guardrails in place to prevent an international catastrophe from occurring.  The reality seems to be that Milley's actions weren't quite as "mavericky" as the book depicts. And I'm not privileging the insights from one view of his actions over the other, I wasn't there and am no military expert. 

What's fascinating to me is people who seized on whether Milley trying to mitigate the apparent volatility of the CinC was wrong (if not treasonous!) instead of noting that the outgoing president was, in fact, acting as if out of his goddamn mind. After all, it's not a secret that Trump made decisions after his loss that weren't really "America First" but seem like a tantrum made manifest in abrupt foreign policy dictates.  And, as I've regularly indicated here in the blog--the man is not well. Trump has boasted that he is a "stable genius" at regular intervals, and believe me, no one does that unless their intellect and stability were both seriously under question.

But Senator Marco Rubio roared out of the gate to demand that Milley be fired for his temerity.  Which is something that would just mean Biden appoints a new one (although for crying out loud--I guess GOP senators would make a "thing" out of the "advise and consent" deal. After all, blocking State Department picks, or State Department and DOD picks for insincere counterproductive reasons (for a value of counterproductive that includes national security but does not include self-promotion) is apparently the new trifling stunt from the clown shoes brigade that triflingly stunted over the Biden election confirmation. 

I could point out, as I have before, so what good does it do us that someone is telling us this--NOW? But to be clear, any corroboration that TrumpWorld has operated and still does operate around the damaged psyche of a spoiled brat with neither empathy nor loyalty is necessary to keep in view in a world where this guy is still considered a GOP 2024 presidential frontrunner, and not an epically disgraced has-been. It is also good to remind people that the current administration is coping with fall-out of irresponsible choices made by the previous administration.

And it serves to tell us who is still a deluded dupe paddling in The Former Guy's wake, incapable of committing the sin of ever holding Trump accountable for anything.  You can tell who they are, because they blame Trump's failures on the people who tried to curb his foolishness, because in a world where expertise is demonized, mere competence itself is considered suspect. 

Although, IMHO, not too many current GOP officeholders need to be overwhelmingly concerned about being considered "suspect".

Of Course, They Were Trump Supporters

FBI Director Wray knocks down a conspiracy theory that January 6 rioters were "fake Trump protesters" https://t.co/y5r8yH3GCC

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) March 3, 2021

While Fox News and other right-wing media fell over themselves yesterday discussing whether Dr. Suess Enterprises was cancelling itself for no longer publishing somewhat racist children's books and discussing the metaphorical pee parts of plastic tubers, the main story yesterday should have been that the conspiracy theories that they (and Republican senators) wanted to push about whether the January 6 insurrection was antifa (of course not ) and whether there was any wide-scale voter fraud that impacted the election, were totally busted.

Also in important news--white supremacist violence is real and the threat is growing. It's a real thing, unlike cancel culture which is....just stupid. 

In a bit of an interesting aside, Senators Lee and Hawley were awfully interested in what Wray had to say about cell phone data regarding the investigation, weren't they?

Accidentally On Purpose?

 

I get that CPAC is about right-wing signifying, but the CPAC stage being laid out to resemble the Odal rune once used by the SS Waffen and preferred by some neo-Nazis over the swastika is a little bit....much, right? I mean, surely it's a dumb coincidence. 

Nope, we've been here before. The argument over "accident" vs. "on purpose" is partially about fucking with the libs, partially about letting the white supremacists (who would know what it looks like, even if regular folks don't) feel included. The way some fash or fash-adjacent person might flash white power hand gestures and then pretend they are just feeling A-OK. At some point, there is no benefit of the doubt left.

I mean, when Josh Hawley explicitly says he is paraphrasing a quote by Daniel Webster ("Union now, union forever") but changes it to "America now, America first, America forever", it's that little detail of three clauses that might make you hear echoes of George Wallace at first, but the insertion of "America first" is what drives it home for people with long memories.

But you know. Josh Hawley was just talking about our God-given rights not to be silenced when trying to argue about throwing out the votes of African American people, is all. Why are people so tense? It's like they think his kind of charisma-free use of that line of bullshit led to a pretty divisive um....domestic terrorist attack on our Capitol or something. 

You know who was also signaling pretty hard? Fellow scumbag insurrection-lover Ted Cruz, who when he wasn't joking about going to Cancun while his fellow Texans froze like the fun-loving chap he is, implied that white folks in Texas owning guns is why BLM didn't riot in Houston because he is the kind of guy who definitely loves Kyle Rittenhouse, I guess. 

Look, it could, very possibly, could, have been an accident that the stage took that shape. But when you stop and listen to the speakers, you can't mistake what they are. And if you were of a mind to forget, just think of Rep. Paul Gosar, Republican, insurrection enthusiast, CPAC attendee, and also an attendee at AFPAC down the road, which is a bit more explicit about the white nationalism. 

You don't have to know what an odal rune is to know what they're about anymore.

UPDATE:  Apparently, the Odal rune was an accident. The other fascist stuff was still on purpose.

Maybe You Just Bite

It's time to stand up against the muzzling of America https://t.co/rrTrtfrYZn via @nypost

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 25, 2021

Is there anything conservatives love more than pretending they are being free-speech martyrs and being depicted with their mouths all duct-taped? It's a fetish. But no, Josh, "America" is not being "muzzled", anymore than, say, when Trump is impeached, all of his voters are being impeached. It's called personal responsibility. Conservatives could look into it, if they wanted to.

First of all, Josh Hawley represents Josh Hawley, not "America". The little stunt of trying to throw out my vote here in Pennsylvania was pure ambition, even if he wants to pretend that all of his Missouri constituents are so, so concerned about the constitution of our commonwealth. Josh Hawley needs to shut up, but that's not "cancel culture". That's shunning, because he fucked up. Dozens of police officers were injured and people died because Josh Hawley is an ambitious little liar. He shares this ignominy with other conservatives like Ted Cruz, but they are not being muzzled, even if they are a bit like mad dogs.

So no, America doesn't have a "social credit" problem. Hawley has a "He shit the bed and wants to sit here and polish the shit" problem. But it still smells.

Little Noted, But Long Remembered

 

It strikes me as no small thing that the actions yesterday by supporters of the Republican president resulted in a Confederate banner being carried in the halls of the US capitol, because this nation found itself once again under a test: whether a nation conceived in liberty under the proposition that all men are created equal, could long endure. And that president told his supporters, basically, "You are more equal than them sons of bitches, so let's go fuck shit up." 

So Trump, a little man standing in the shadow of history, who ginned up his supporters with tales of the vast disrespect done to our flag when anti-racist protestors took a humble knee, sent his folks over in broad daylight to the capitol, where they broke glass in the halls were great statemen have walked and they carried not only the Confederate stars and bars banner*, but tried to replace our flag, the US flag, with one bearing the name of a single man: Trump. They did this in great umbrage that the Vice President and members of congress were gathered to do what the Constitution to which they pledged themselves to do required, and no more.

And they called themselves patriots, then, and even took selfies while being egged on by comrades on social media, where insurrectionist language has been used for ages, since even before Trump began his run for office.

Once these people, these barbarians inside the gate, had terrorized our lawmakers, their apologists trotted out a lie that had been pre-planned: "Blame the Comintern Antifa."

Nice try. We know very well who these people are. We don't forget the faces of Traditionalist Workers Party and Q-Anon and Proud Boys folks who have been to Trump rallies and who Trump weakly damned with faint praise after Charlottesville. We won't forget what happened, or who is responsible. 

We have a republic, if we can keep it, but the price of it is eternal vigilance and its defense must be married with a long memory for what has been sacrificed to protect and defend it from its enemies. We can not and must not forget.

*See comments re: "stars and bars" below.

11,780

In a recorded call released by media outlets, President Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to ‘find 11,780 votes’ to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden in the state https://t.co/GeDaX7XDKK pic.twitter.com/WkEM5fCIyM

— Reuters (@Reuters) January 4, 2021

Find them, but like, where? Under the rug? Or maybe "find" them by throwing out an equivalent number of Biden votes?

Georgia's electoral votes alone wouldn't take Trump over 270, so it stands to reason (I think) that similar calls have taken place with other states. In the hour long call, the president sounded delusional, repeating voter fraud conspiracy theories popular on the fringes that he has no proof for, and really, he sounds desperate. 

The deal is--Trump lost despite voter suppression in Georgia. How much help does the guy deserve? He claims Senate Republicans were helped by him in their elections, but since he lost, that doesn't sound right, does it? Some of these folks may want to reconsider what Trump sounds like on that tape and ask themselves whether that's a position of strength, or a fucking liability.

They had an opportunity this time last year to kiss this guy off and failed. The last thing they should be doing now is helping him, because he only knows how to help himself. This attempt to overthrow a valid election is sedition. It must fail.

UPDATE: So, so desperate:

The WH made 18 attempts to call GA sec of state Raffensperger before Trump’s attempted shakedown over the phone Saturday, a GA state official confirms to CNN.

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) January 4, 2021

Bold Strategy....Hawley?

 

Somebody has to stand up. 74 million Americans are not going to be told their voices don’t matter pic.twitter.com/DMa7sRyoAh

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) December 31, 2020

Of all the crunchy frosted fascist fucknuts that I thought might leap to arguing Trump's side in the Senate, you know, there was "life support system for an adam's apple" Tom Cotton, newcomer Coach Taterhead, and everyone's favorite Speedbag Face Ted Cruz, but okay, player. Let the senator from Missouri with the Virginia home address talk about all the gee golly gosh voter fraud out there. He claims he isn't running for president (he has claimed he wasn't a "ladder climber" before) but I have my doubts--this looks like a way to get his profile raised with the Trump base. It's just....

You know, the problem with a move like this isn't "Hah, this will fail but in the meanwhile, you score points." The problem is, "Will it fail--enough?" Because encouraging the myth of the "Once and Future God Emperor Trump" (Jeez Louise, yes, this is a thing the cultists represent in their "art") is all very well and good, but what if they stay wanting the original article in 2024 and you, smart guy, kept feeding them? If you go along for the ride most of the way and then try to get your own campaign going why! It looks like, a, WELL! stab in the back, right?

Cynical and hackish as anyone might be tempted to be about this, is our man Josh being cynical enough? I mean the size of his hackishness is apparent from space. But threatening democracy to appeal to the voters is....something else, entirely.