It’s gross and disgusting, so we all like to move on from it after briefly taking note, if we pause to take note at all.

It’s an established pattern. After they’re embarrassed from seeing their “joke” reach the wrong audience, they excuse it by insisting that’s all it was, and there’s something wrong with anyone who noticed it at the time, or remembers noticing. The liberals who are above making such jokes, join in on this ritual of scolding anyone who notices/remembers. They may agree this is subhuman behavior and the joke isn’t funny, but after all, these are just edge cases that don’t signify anything meaningful about liberals in general. And hey! What about conservatives? Here’s an example or two of some of them who’ve said something equivalently nasty…judged by the liberals, of course. A little bit of “Only our side gets to do Whataboutism” with a side dish of “You have to see things my way but I don’t have to see anything anybody else’s way” washed down with a sip of “Stop watching what I tell you to stop watching and forget what I tell you to forget.”

Well…after seeing as many iterations as I’ve seen, having mulled it over awhile, I’m inclined to concede they have a point. Only one, and a small one at that. It’s not accurate to sweep these aside as exceptional cases; we keep seeing them after all. They’re predictable. But at the same time maybe it’s a mistake to assume we know what’s going on there, that the same thing happens when liberals wish death on people as when ordinary people do the same thing.

Liberals, I have noticed, have an unhealthy fixation on the Butterfly Effect. You see they launch into this special, years long white hot hatred against people who have altered the course of events in some way that they don’t like. Reagan, both Presidents Bush, Trump, Dick Cheney. As Ann Coulter pointed out ,”There’s no website called ‘Stop Lamar Alexander before it’s too late’!”

They only hated John McCain for a little while. When he was a threat. For that reason they hated Sarah Palin much longer and with a much greater intensity.

I think they deny cause and effect with regard to appeasing tyrants and taxing the most effective and efficient capitalists, and they know that’s wrong. We say “If you tax honest and productive business, what effect does that have over time and what does that do to your tax base?” They pretend not to understand, but I think they get it on some level. If they want to tax tobacco and use the proceeds to fund school programs, again we say “What effect on behavior does your new tax have, and what happens to your revenue when people smoke less?” — again, they pretend not to understand, but I think they do in fact understand. But their ideology doesn’t permit them to understand it audibly, and this drives their frenzied fascination with serendipity. I remember one found out the older George Bush ditched an aircraft during WWII, years before conception of the younger Bush, and so made some “jokes” about going back in time and telling the Navy rescuers to put him back in the drink. Haw, haw.

It bears repeating, in finding legitimacy in their defenses, I’m finding diamonds in the rough. Most of the defense is all bullshit. “Jokes?” No. No joke worth telling has exactly the same punchline as a long menagerie of “jokes” that came before. Everyone over seven years old gets that.

Anyway, that’s my point. They’re not wishing ill fate to befall someone. They’re after the ultimate result. They’re signalling to their comrades, not that they lack compassion for their fellow man, but that they’re devoted to the cause.

I think the lack of compassion is already understood among them. But it’s just passive, not active. It’s a shared understanding that when they show the rest of us how compassionate they are, it’s fake. But that doesn’t mean they would go out of their way to hurt people, like the Terminator coming after Sarah Connor.

After all. That would be kind of like having a job.

So I’m staying in hotels again a tiny bit. Which means I get to look at this special “news” outlet, spewing its stuff to the weary business traveler. This unique medium. The elephant being squeezed through a garden hose.

The alarm goes off at three and I’m showered & out the door by four. Rather typical timeline. Maybe some are getting their day started a bit later, but have the idiot box tuned into the “news” for the same number of minutes. Maybe a few more, if they go down to the hotel lobby to meet someone.

Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump…

You all are saying something about too much coverage of the dead queen? Not seeing it.

He incited unrest on January 6, 2021.

He took classified documents to his home.

He inflated the value of his real estate holdings.

There are reasons why Trump supporters, and non-Trump supporters as well, think all this is bullshit but let’s dispense with that because the arguments go back & forth and get quite involved. Trump-haters think they got ‘im. To get ‘im, they have to dispense with the concept of innocent until proven guilty, on all three, which is something I don’t see happening with any of the three.

But let’s just sidestep all that. You all realize he’s not President anymore?

There are those who think he’ll be back. I am among those. The Trump haters who think the walls really are closing in, best I can figure, don’t think he’s coming back again ever. And yet they’re the ones who act like he is. Without that indictment coming, which they think surely is coming, he’ll access those “levers of power” again and then we’ll have some kind of disaster.

As opposed to what we have now.

So there’s a logical wrinkle here. Trump, supposedly, has come and gone; it’s the MAGA voters who are crying in their beers, have yet to gel with reality and accept this. Everybody hates Trump. His defenders are few and far between and he hasn’t got the popularity to win an election again, not even close. Our elections — of COURSE — are beyond reproach, you can trust them to the moon and back. We have to do something extraordinary, like indict him, to make sure he never gets elected again.

Trump-phobes are a hundred percent sure of all three of those. But all three cannot be true. You can have two.

Let’s walk through it.

If everyone hates Trump and you can trust our elections, we don’t need to do anything to make sure he stays out of power. The voters will do what’s right.

If everyone hates Trump and we have to indict him to make sure he never is elected again, that would have to mean you can’t trust our elections.

If you can trust our elections, and it’s necessary to indict him to keep him from ever being elected again…that would have to mean not everyone hates Trump, and he’s a force with which to be reckoned. This would have to do with denying the “MAGA Republicans,” who still carry enough numbers and enthusiasm to elect a candidate of our choice, the opportunity to do that. All this Trump coverage has to do with distrusting the electorate. It, not Trump, is the affront to “democracy.”

I think it’s the last of those. Well I don’t trust our elections. I think the Trump phobes trust our elections as long as the elections give them a result they happen to like, and they’re not feeling that frisky or confident about the next two of ’em. They cheat, but they can only cheat up to a certain magnitude, and in 2020 they had to push it to the max to make sure Trump lost, so it got awkward. Now they’re memory-holing all the details and “fact checking” to keep us from remembering too much about it.

But for the weary business traveler consuming his or her twenty or so minutes of “news” before heading out the door, that’s not really necessary.

Suppose I’m wrong, though. Suppose they really got him. Trump-ism, or Trump at least, is genuinely over. What happens then?

Well…I guess that will really show us people out here in flyover country. Or Manhattan, for that matter, if we’re talking about a well connected celebrity who’s been “red pilled” and thinking of shaking things up in Washington. Don’t try it. Leave the “revolutionary” stuff to the fifty-year beltway blowhards. Or face jail.

But at least we, the citizens, will benefit from…

…a better foreign policy situation around the world? Hmmm.

…a stronger economy? Hmmm.

…a better, stronger, more robust, less laughable pandemic response? Hmmm.

…a more dignified, less vengeful, aura of cool, competent authority being given off by the occupant of the Oval Office? Hmmm.

…cheaper gas at least? Hmmm.

Here we come to the sobering conclusion: No matter how you feel about Trump, or about Biden for that matter, we have slowly but surely, bit by bit, sacrificed everything positive about what we used to call “news” for this mystery package, and when we inspect the contents of the box we see there’s really no upside to it. The booby prize at the end of it all is just a rush of euphoria, for just a few among us, those who don’t think things through all the way and just want to do some cheering. United by a common hatred focused on a common target, they’re cheering on something that isn’t good for them, or any of the rest of us. They’re piggies applauding the bacon factory. Meanwhile, we can’t have any real news because it’s all Trump, adorable pit bulls wearing Halloween costumes, hurricane advisories, and don’t forget to wear your mask.

Trump is a lightning rod. And not in a good way.

Those who seek to manipulate, say to everyone else “Look at Trump. Look how wrong that is.” And those who are easily manipulated — or have a desire to be manipulated — look at Trump…and look no further. Oh yes! How awful! He hasn’t got the temperament for the job…that…he doesn’t have anymore. He is unfit for the job that…according to our narrative…he will never, ever hold again, no matter what. And somehow this is a huge crisis.

The rest of us try to tell them: What about the guy who has that job now? And they accuse us of “Whataboutism.”

Meanwhile, there is something terribly broken, and it hasn’t got anything to do with Trump. It hasn’t even got anything to do with conservatives & liberals. Twenty-one years ago today, radicalized Muslims who hate the U.S., launched an attack against our country and killed three thousand people. Now, we elect them to Congress.

The guy who has Trump’s old job, is inept.

The Vice President who fills in for him if something happens to him, is inept.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, who steps in if something happens to those two, is inept.

Parents are supposed to teach their kids to be dignified and respectable in all that they do, and whatever position or stature they earn in life, will depend on that. How are they supposed to make that stick? We’ve allowed crap to rise to the top three slots in our national bucket. The kids can see the crap floats. That’s three chances they have to see it, and we’re three-for-three.

Marriage is no longer between one man and one woman. That was supposed to be a harmless change. It was supposed to stop there. Well…now no one can define what a “woman” is. Marriage is a joke now. Everything that has anything to do with men and women, is a joke now. Even these pledges to “Put a woman on the Supreme Court,” are jokes. The job has to go to a woman, and that’s what…uh…er…ah…whatever someone says it is.

A “beautiful woman” is even harder to define! Now someone has decided a fit, strong, healthy woman is out of fashion. Obese, gross, chubby women who sit on the couch, and it shows, they do nothing to get in shape or stay in shape…that’s our “new standard of beauty” and they’re all over the fashion magazines.

We’re going through a terrible mental health crisis now. It’s a little hard to miss, really. Crime is up. Violent crime is up. Murders are up. The border is out of control and illegal aliens are invading by the hundreds of thousands. Texas ships a few dozen of them off to “sanctuary cities” and the mayors of those cities have an apoplectic meltdown, so we know those mayors are strutting around acting like they have a solution, when they don’t. They just want other people to deal with the problems they’re making and growing.

All the service branches of our military are running into extreme problems with recruitment, and why shouldn’t they? Have you been paying attention to what the young people are being taught about their own country? You’re expecting a sizeable chunk of that generation should be enticed to sign up, and put their lives on the line to defend…what? A good country or a bad country? But they don’t see the United States the same way previous generations did. They haven’t been taught to see it that way, they’ve been taught to see it another way.

You’re in trouble if you refer to someone by something besides their “preferred pronouns.” But they can change their minds about what those are, day to day. It’s obvious now that’s just a way to screw with people, and we keep putting up with it.

Your problem is not Trump.

You don’t look smart or clever when you carry on as if he’s the problem. It takes just a little bit of critical thinking to realize there are other problems. You only have to watch things a little bit. Might be good to stay quiet if you’re not up to the task. Like the old saying goes, “Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to bitch about Donald Trump and remove all doubt.”

The California liberal is a very special kind of liberal. If you had to pick a picture to put next to “Intransigence” in the dictionary, you could do far worse than to simply insert a picture of a California liberal.

It’s a one-party state, but it’s their party and they see nothing wrong with it. So their bosses can tell them…the wildfires are climate change…the power outages are climate change…the budget shortfalls are due to climate change…crime is out of control because of climate change…we’re just forcing you to suck up smaller sodas through these paper straws, and use these grocery bags, and buy an electric car you can’t charge, because of climate change. And they’ll buy all of it. There are no signs of possibly incompetent management. None are needed. It’s their guys running things.

Constant oppression requires a constant oppressor, so they have lots of bad guys picked out ready to be isolated and excoriated. That these bad guys run exactly nothing in California, doesn’t concern them in the slightest. They have their scapegoats. Tucker Carlson gives them nightmares. They can’t function if they see the letters T-R-U-M-P written on a sidewalk.

They’re full of criticism for the rest of us if we let our passports expire, because wisdom supposedly begins with visiting other countries. If only they visited other states within this country, they’d see it’s possible to turn down a thermostat to keep a room cool on a hot day, without setting the whole state on fire. But they won’t.