Let's play a game. Doesn't matter what — checkers, chess, heck it could be a coin toss. Let's go with that, for simplicity's sake.
A game needs rules. So here's how we'll play. We toss a coin — let's make it a Morgan silver dollar. They're beautiful. If it's heads, I win, and you give me $20. If it's tails, I still win, because you must have cheated. You give me $20. I don't have to provide any evidence of cheating, though I can air some theories: The coin wasn't flipped properly. The wind affected the throw. The coin was loaded. Doesn't matter. You still give me $20.
And if for some reason you balk at handing over the money, insisting the game was indeed fair, I reserve the right to punch you in the mouth and take your $20. Violence is always an option. For me. Not for you.
Would you play under those conditions? Would anybody? Why not? Because my coin toss scenario is the essence of the dire situation the United States of America finds itself heading into the presidential election of 2024. With far, far more at stake than $20.
What amazes me is how transparent this all is. Nothing is hidden. The putative Republican candidate, Donald Trump has a long, well-publicized history of loudly declaring that any contest he might enter into is rigged against him, ahead of time, as insurance in case he loses. Fluffing the pillows in case he needs to swoon into them.
The Emmys were "all politics" because Trump's TV show, "The Apprentice" didn't win one "many times over."
When he ran in 2016, he declared that the caucuses were rigged. When he cut through a field of Republican mediocrities to face Hillary Clinton, he saw cheating everywhere.
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Watching The Cowardly Liar's Congressional cohort last night, standing in line, with their blue suits and red ties , an old image flashed by. The Manson girls, arm in arm, marching into the courtroom. Later with shaved heads and ultimately with X's carved into their foreheads. Young, stupid and drug addled could be their excuses, but history has consistently reviled them. What will Time have to say about Mike Johnson, Tommy Tuberville et al?
ReplyDeletethe winners get to write the history, and sadly, i think that Time will record them as heroes
DeleteThis is what happens with narcissistic sociopaths. Everything is about them, they believe they are the most important being on earth, their shit don't stink & the world must revolve around him!
ReplyDeleteHe will sell out anyone to get what he wants, he's been coddled his entire life, no one ever said no to him, no matter what he did.
His rotten father gave him $400 million when he was young & he could've just invested it in an S&P index fund & have an actual $10 billion now, but he had to outdo his father & went into Manhattan real estate & now has a negative net worth due to the staggering amount of debt he owes everyone.
He has never told the truth about anything in his rotten life.
He cheat on everyone, his wives, his girlfriends, his employees, his contractors & now the US government.
He gave or sold our secrets away to foreigners, maybe even our enemies.
He violates every rule in the Bibles he so brazenly sells to his gullible cult members, yet they still support him, despite their religious beliefs!
He's not merely the worst president ever, but also the worst person ever to be president.
All because he couldn't stand the fact that Obama & Seth Meyers made fun of him at a banquet & the booboisie couldn't vote for Hillary!
He has dementia along with being totally deranged, calling Hannibal Lecter a great man in a speech at one of his Hitler like rallies, only an outright lunatic would do that!
Every day I wake up, hoping to see headlines that he's had a massive heart attack & stroke & is now dead!
Well said, Clark. Except for the last sentence. His followers would start another conspiracy theory on why he died and make him a martyr.
DeleteHeads I win, tails you lose. I have rights, you don't. What an unbelievable mess we are in.
ReplyDeleteWhat with the Dems hemorrhaging young voters who have anointed Hamas as their new darlings and losing minorities for inexplicable reasons (to me), November is looking bleak. Mix in the supreme (?) court and electoral college inequalities and it's hard to see otherwise.
ReplyDeletetrump is a modern day snake oil salesman. The patent medicine he is selling is himself. The ailment it treats is dissatisfaction with the entrenched political system Biden represents with his ethical pharmaceutical drugs . Trump depends on the free advertisement he receives from traditional and social media. Its not just less educated people that find him to be appealing its also people who are fed up with the con game political parties have been running on them for centuries. To a degree the system is rigged. by gerrymandering, big money and special interests.
ReplyDeleteHe takes his medicine show on the road and gives people a diversion that makes them feel excited and empowered. We've only ourselves to blame for accepting the dictates of the DNC and RNC that only present and support candidates that will kowtow to the system in place where moneyed interest get the twenty every flip of the coin and the average American gets the shaft.
Working people are fed up with this outcome which in effect is "rigged" , many well educated and successful people who find themselves frozen out of the highest levels of power also look towards trump as the third way. Hoping to benefit from his coattails .
I know what's going to happen in November . Far fewer people are going to vote this time around and it will be a coin flip for who wins. It will get decided in the electoral college and the loser will complain . The American people will get screwed cause snake oil doesn't cure anything and big Pharma's got one hand on the til and the other in your pocket
For the love of all things holy, vote.
ReplyDeleteRegister to vote. Help others register. Educate the electorate. help people get to voting. VOTE.
vote blue, the whole way down.
be a patriot.
As a lifelong Chicagoan, my vote doesn't help. I always vote, but Illinois always goes blue. You must be very young and obviously you are very idealistic as I was in my youth. The red states are a lost cause. I had a friend who was of the opposite political persuasion, Alabama born. One day as we were talking, he asked me, out of the blue, why I read so much.
DeleteThat, in a nutshell, is the problem we have here, in the declining days of the USA
NV
Good column, NS.
ReplyDeleteThe Jan. 6 Capitol attack was definitely the societal version of a punch in the mouth after the coin toss loss. And like you, Mr. S, I also fear worse in 2024. Probably even before the coin toss...maybe as early as this summer. And even if he wins...all bets are off (sorry) for 2025, and beyond.
ReplyDeleteThe Orange Guy reserves the right to punch you in the mouth and take your $20. Violence is always an option. For him. Not for you. My question is, as always: Why does he alone get to do the punching? When do you say enough, and hit back?
Where are the good guys...the left-wing militias? Are they secretly organizing in the hills of Pennsylvania and Michigan, waiting for the coin toss? Not likely. Where is the 21st century version of the old SDS...out of which sprang the Weather Underground? What is the today's Bernadine Dohrn up to? (You were just a kid then, Mr S. She was a real firebrand, and quite a looker. Then she sold out and became a wealthy lawyer. Sad.)
When are the millions of decent and loyal and democratic (small D) Americans finally going to wake up, and mobilize, and fight back...if it indeed comes to that? After another punch in the mouth? Too little, and too late.
Camping out and marching for Palestine is all well and good. But all that youthful energy should be focused not on the fascists in Tel Aviv, but against the homegrown ones in our own part of the world. If even half of the anti-Zionist zeal were directed toward Priority One--defeating Orange Julius--I would feel a lot less nervous...and frightened. Instead, it's chants of "Genocide Joe" and "A plague on both your houses", and even planning to piss away precious votes on some nobody, for the third time in a quarter-century.
The streets should be filled, and be resounding with cries of "Bash the Fash!" and "Let's Go, Joe!" and "By Any Means Necessary!" But that's not happening. And if it doesn't start happening fairly soon, we're probably screwed, blewed, and tattooed.
i have long said it's futile to complain about the right having all those guns-that ship has sailed. the problem now is. the left doesn't own enough. i'm doing my part on that front, but i'm lonely in my realism
DeleteThere's an organization called the John Brown Rifle Club. But I will turn 77 this summer...and that's too old to shoulder a musket. After the poop hits the propeller, I would stand a good chance of buying it in the first week...maybe even on the first day. Perhaps from a bullet...but far more likely from a heart attack.
Deletei'm 78 grizz, and a viet nam veteran so i realize one never knows how they'll react when the shit hits the fan. however, i give a fair bit of cash to many of the usual lefty suspects and my intention is not to go quietly
DeleteI have repeatedly said that no matter who wins in November there is going to be trouble and violence. If Biden wins Donald and the Trumpistas are going to go absolutely crazy. Verbally and physically I believe. If The Orange Master wins his minions will consider that a license to get revenge on everyone who ever did anything they didn’t like. Verbally and physically. So hold on tight, I hope I am wrong. But like many of you folks I have met a lot of people in my life and I know how many of them are.
ReplyDeleteRecently I learned that the anti-Biden sentiment among young progressives is so strong that it's motivating them to prefer Trump. Some of them even think Biden bears more responsibility than Trump for the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022. How can those of us who are no longer young find a way to communicate with those young progressives who have decided "anybody but Biden"?
ReplyDeleteMaybe with a felt board?
DeleteSome of those die-hard Bernie Bros are too obtuse even for that method. My guy's not lefty enough, so I'll vote for the authoritarian fascist. Yeah, that's the ticket...the ticket to ride...straight over the cliff and into the abyss. My head hurts...so I'll stop the pain by cutting my throat.
DeleteHow could ANY woman, of ANY age think that Joe was the death of Roe v. Wade? What are these people smoking and snorting? If these brain-damaged young'uns throw their votes away again...they will be throwing democracy away. They will destroy America in order to "save" it. My God, we're not just toast...we're burnt toast.
Much too early to be having these discussions. And it's all B.S. anyway. I was somewhat disappointed to find out that demographers give both Biden and Trump a good deal more than a 50% chance of surviving to the election and 4 years beyond, with a neglible difference between the two. Being a few months older than Biden, I should be delighted, but can you imagine the political and economic chaos that would ensue should both Trump and Biden check out before November --- maybe Whoopi Goldberg would end up President of the United States.
ReplyDeletejohn
And no one is coming to save us
ReplyDelete