Lindsey Graham and Other Naughty Would-Be Autocrats
Greetings from the purgatorial asylum we are calling...the Transition. All this mad, wacky, falling action is interesting enough, I suppose, in a Seriously Fiction Just Fucking TRY to Top This Shit sort of way, but if we could skip to the part where we all get to jump on a ship bound for the Grey Havens, that’d be wonderful, thanks.
(Get this post, in living color, with them links, here: http://showercapblog.com/lindsey-graham-and-other-naughty-would-be-autocrats/)
Republican politics right now is quite like that one Twilight Zone episode where the whole town lives in terror of the extremely powerful, extremely shitty kid who took them all hostage. From McConnell on down, they smile blankly and nod along as Fat Q*Bert belches up a never-ending cascade of deranged conspiracy theories, and if doing so only further radicalizes the Children of the Candy Corn into a frothy, anti-democracy rage mob, well, we’ve known for some time now this party was only ever going to learn the Frankenstein lesson the hard way.
And so, for now, America remains trapped in this grotesque limbo, the vital work of the transition of power placed on indefinite hold. I guess we all have to sit through the Manchurian Manchild’s crappy backyard talent show and politely clap at the end, because humoring this defeated assclown is apparently more important than gaining control of the pandemic that did not, contrary to the smug prognostications of wingnut “thought leaders,” disappear on November 4th.
Meanwhile, when she’s not busy singlehandedly obstructing the effort to combat the coronavirus, Emily W. Murphy spends her time browsing the want ads in search of her post-attempted coup gig. What’s it like, I wonder, in a job market like this, knowing you’re the one human being least deserving of employment? What does Emily’s resumé even look like? “Won the coveted Bloodiest Hands in the Federal Bureaucracy award, November 2020?”
The weekend’s Million MAGA March fell just a rounding error shy of a million marchers short of the promised turnout, giving Kaleigh McEnany the opportunity to test drive her Sean Spicer impersonation. She very nearly nailed it, though she wasn’t quite able to capture Spicey’s unconcealable shame. The Shart House learned to weed out such traits over the years, so thank God we prevented a second term, sparing the nation the fruits of those fumblingly fascistic first-term experiments.
The Velveeta Vulgarian is, of course, handling his defeat with all the grace and class of a teenaged Veruca Salt discovering she didn’t get the part she wanted in the school musical*, retweeting a spittle-soaked rant proclaiming Biden voters, aka the Vast Majority of the American Electorate, to be “ignorant, anti-American, and anti-Christian.” Not to get ahead of the biographers or anything, but I don’t believe Donald Trump is going to grow into the presidency.
A federal judge ruled that Giddy Goose-Stepper Chad Wolf was illegally appointed, meaning he was acting beyond his authority when he added DHS to the Confedrate train set in Stephen Miller’s basement. So can we maybe lock him out of his office now? Please? Somebody?
Down in the Georgia Senate runoffs, David Perdue is still too deathly afraid of Jon Ossoff to attend a debate, and I mean, I get it; Jamie Lee Curtis learned to keep a respectful distance from Michael Myers whenever possible, right? Whatever happens on January 5th, Dave’s gonna periodically wake up in a cold sweat, shouting PLEASE JON NO MORE, for the rest of his life.
A state-level Republican Party concealed a coronavirus outbreak within their ranks from their Democratic colleagues, endangering their lives. “Now hang on a minute Cap,” you’re thinking, “ Like the checkout lane Archie Comics digests of yore, you’re padding your page count by reprinting old stories!” and that’s a perfectly reasonable response, but you see, this was the Minnesota GOP, and you’re thinking of back in May, when the Pennsylvania GOP pulled this shit. Same murderous sociopathy; slightly different longitude and latitude.
“Trump Derangement Syndrome” is not, as some would have you believe, a fever that afflicts liberals; no, it’s a strictly conservative ailment, and it appears the condition is chronic. Why else would Republican Senators like Dan Sullivan and Ted Cruz throw petty little shitfits over mask-wearing at this late date? Election’s over, boys, there’s no need to keep playing along with the gaslighting, especially the parts that’ve been, y’know, killing thousands and thousands and thousands of us.
Oh, and just as a quick lil’ postscript here, I see Chuck Grassley caught COVID-19, HOWE’ER DID SUCH A THING OCCUR?
The scorecard I purchased to keep track of the Marmalade Shartcannon’s laughable attempts to overturn the 2020 election in court quickly became an illegible mess, but I can still make out a fuckton of Ls. In addition to the Cleveland Brownsian success rate, Fuckhead’s lawyers are now quitting in droves; I guess getting disbarred for participating in the dumbest of all possible coups while fully understanding you’re never ever ever ever getting paid saps the whole “President’s lawyer” gig of its prestige in a hurry.
Now I see Rudy Giuliani, hot off his smash hit residency at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, is bringing his trademark blend of gibbering incompetence and batshit disinformation to Hairplug Himmler’s legal team, all for the low low price of $20,000 daily. The tonal transition of the last couple weeks, from Václav Havel-esque absurdist nightmare to Will Ferrell Did This One For Money low comedy has been jarring, but, I must admit, welcome.
The intersection of Trumpism and the coronavirus outbreak is, dear lord, a gaping maw of cosmic horror that would make H.P. Lovecraft turn on the lights and cry out for his mother. We’ve somehow arrived at the Hospitals Are Overflowing With Patients Who Still Think Covid is a Hoax Even While Dying From Covid stage, and I truly never imagined I’d live to see madness on such scale.
Young Lindsepher Graham has a zany last-minute plan to destroy American democracy once and for all, and it’s so crazy, it just might work! Ok, I lied, there’s no chance of it working, but let’s sit for a moment with the information that a sitting United States Senator appears to have pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to simply dispose of all those meddlesome Democratic votes. Lindsey my lad, if there’s any sort of afterlife, you are now officially bound for that dusty table in a shunned corner of the great Senate in the sky where Joe McCarthy and John C. Calhoun while away eternity playing silent, bitter rounds of pinochle.
Look, principles are for all you peons, who’ve never known the exquisite thrill of wielding the power of the American presidency as easily as feeding a quivering narcissist’s ego on the golf course every now and then. “Tiger Woods couldn’t have done any better, Mr. President,” and suddenly you’re targeting missile strikes. I get it. I mean, you’re still one of our nation’s greatest traitors, Linds, and future generations will spit when they say your name, but I understand, power corrupts, and you’re a very weak man.
Whether by withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan against the advice of, well, damn near everybody, or even pursuing a reckless lame duck military strike against Iran, the Bonespur Buttplug seems intent on breaking anything he can get his tiny, inadequate, little mitts around, looking to leave as large a mess as possible for his successor. I don’t think we’ve ever explicitly attempted a petulance-based foreign policy, but I bet this doesn’t work either.
And now I see Michigan Republicans played around with refusing to certify the election results from Detroit, citing the controversial We Don’t REALLY Have to Let Black People Vote Do We theory. Meanwhile, Nevada Republicans are asking courts to either reverse or annul their state’s results, and Gameshow Göring just fired the nation’s leading cybersecurity official for publicly stating the 2020 election was free and fair. Is it just me, or is it getting a little fashy in here?
These are the days of our lives, folks, and the days of our lives are absolutely fucking cray-cray. Well shit, drinking got me through the election, and drinking’ll get me through this, too. Probably.
*Too autobiographical? Too autobiographical.
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