There is a chance — slight, but delicious to consider — that at this point, one can err too far in caution. Resignation even. The belief that nothing can touch Donald Trump, while valid, based on hard experience, might be old hat.
Yes, the default has to be: his cult doesn't care, hasn't cared for years, that he's a liar, bully, fraud and traitor. Nothing, most likely, can change that. A century after death, they'll be worshipping him like Christ, sitting cross-legged on the ground outside their temples, chanting, scanning the skies for his return.
Nothing upends that. What are the Epstein revelations compared to, oh, sending a mob to trash the Capitol? Or unleashing masked federal thugs on innocent immigrants? Or failing to do what he can to stop Putin from crushing Ukraine?
Not much. Certainly not much new.
So yes, social media blows up for a few days with the latest accounts of Epstein's emails. The juicy tidbits. Do they tell us something new about the man who bragged about groping women against their will? Who ogled teen pageant contestants undressed and speculated on the sexual appeal of his own young daughter? Who slept with a porn star, cheated repeated on each of three wives?
Not really.
But there is the straw that broke the camel's back. The possibility, anyway. Is this it? I doubt it, mainly because history commands otherwise, and hope is a luxury we can't afford. Or as a wit —okay, me —put it years ago: once you get in the habit of ignoring reality, the exact nature of the reality being ignored hardly matters.
Until it does.
Nothing upends that. What are the Epstein revelations compared to, oh, sending a mob to trash the Capitol? Or unleashing masked federal thugs on innocent immigrants? Or failing to do what he can to stop Putin from crushing Ukraine?
Not much. Certainly not much new.
So yes, social media blows up for a few days with the latest accounts of Epstein's emails. The juicy tidbits. Do they tell us something new about the man who bragged about groping women against their will? Who ogled teen pageant contestants undressed and speculated on the sexual appeal of his own young daughter? Who slept with a porn star, cheated repeated on each of three wives?
Not really.
But there is the straw that broke the camel's back. The possibility, anyway. Is this it? I doubt it, mainly because history commands otherwise, and hope is a luxury we can't afford. Or as a wit —okay, me —put it years ago: once you get in the habit of ignoring reality, the exact nature of the reality being ignored hardly matters.
Until it does.
I think that the straw that breaks backs will be coming soon.
ReplyDeleteI really hate to look at that building! That demented, deranged, moronic, fat, fascist traitor & disgusting pile of shit actually ruined the look of his building by plastering his name on it & doesn't understand he did that. That's what makes him so appallingly stupid!
ReplyDeleteOf course you hate it. I hate it. Everybody without mush for brains hates it. Do what I do. I picture what was...the words "Chicago Sun-Times/ Chicago Daily News" on the edifice that once stood there. Yes, Daily News. Even though it died in 1978. Because I'm that old. And so are you. Eventually, those letters will come down. But neither of us may be around to see it.
DeleteAnd the foreground...the corner of Lake and Wabash...will always be the place where the "L" cars tumbled into the street on a frigid Friday evening in 1977, because a train operator (FKA a motorman) was high and distracted. Knew a guy who was coming out of a Chinese restaurant and saw it happen before his eyes. That vista will always be a disaster site to me, Trump or no Trump.
Those of us on the overnight shift in the Sun-Times newsroom could see the carnage firsthand, from the fourth-floor windows across the river. By the dawn's early light, I watched as the "L" cars were trucked away on huge flatbed trailers. A supervisor told me they weighed 21 tons apiece.
As always, well written, Grizz. The Daily News was a great paper in its day. Hell, they all were. As for the orange menace, all I can hope for is the well-worn phrase, "and this too shall pass."
DeleteThe awfulness will end .. it must. But as Steve Schmidt writes in The Warning, it will get worse before it gets better. Then, some few Neo-Confederates will find their morality and their spines. Democrats will realize their leadership is old and ineffective. People will rise up and say "Enough!" The rotting head will die.
ReplyDeleteThank you as always
ReplyDeleteAs many have written, and you suggest here, it won't be one thing that brings down Trump, it will be the accretion of things. Things are shifting. MTG is a self-serving opportunist (and still vile on many fronts), but to see *her begin to break away, and to see folks like Boebert refuse to cave on signing the discharge petition, says the GOP is looking to a future beyond Trump and starting to loosen the volunteer lashing.
ReplyDeleteLenny Bruce, that's who you started to remind me of. Once an outstanding entertainer became unhinged at the end of his life obsessed with the government and fascism.
ReplyDeleteWaving at windmills you might want to talk to somebody get your meds balanced.
At the end he couldn't put 200 people in the seats for performance why do you come out here.
A cautionary tale
It can't happen soon enough for me. I hope and pray that enough people from the Republican party who have "grown a couple" are elected and join with the Democrats to help stop his reign of terror. Some of the fools on the Supreme Court need to wake up too.
ReplyDeleteI never thought I would see something like this in all my 80 years. Concentration camp in Florida?? Didn't we learn from the camps that the Japanese Americans were sent to in WWII?
I wonder how many years will it take to mend the harm he has done to this country? Will it be in my lifetime?
Not too long after Trump is out of office, his name will come off the building. It's bad for business.
ReplyDeleteHe's a lame duck atop coalition of MAGA, Q-Anon, Republicans, anti-Semites, techno-brats, crypto-crooks, et cetera. They're starting to look ahead and battling for positions.
How will Trump handle it? It is the end of the road for a supreme narcissist. Will he just get as much loot as he can? Or create more battles and chaos to stay at the center of attention?
37 months to go.
I have great faith in Cheetolini and his fan club of imbeciles will self-destruct. They will overplay their hand as they always do. And ignoring history doesn't really work in the long run. The video and photos of civil rights marchers (and children) in the 1960s being brutalized changed everything. I don't see ICE and CBP understanding that doing that now is not a great idea.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that will ultimately blow up everything for them, though, is wrecking the economy and then going into denial about it. But then it will be the Dems job (again) to fix it.
"Once you get in the habit of ignoring reality, the exact nature of the reality being ignored hardly matters." One of your finest all-purpose lines. I'm trying to be encouraged by the first-ever (if I'm not mistaken) deployment of an addendum: "Until it does." I think we can afford a little hope, anyway!
ReplyDeleteMany of the 37% who are all-in for the charlatan and always have been may be beyond hope, but some seem to be splitting away and the recent election showed that lots of less-committed folks who voted for him in 2024 have seen enough of what voting for Project 2025 hath wrought.
I agree with Clark St. today, in that I do hate to see that curse word atop the blog.
Hoping that he's self-destructs or that his administration implodes while great and theory is not a good strategy just sit back do nothing and watch him fail?
ReplyDeleteYesterday grizz described his activity before Obama got elected. It's going to take action to escape from this madness action on our part let's win the midterms volunteer make calls get people registered to vote
The defection of a few rabid MAGAites, at least on the Epstein issue, suggests that maybe the ice is cracking. We’ll see what happens on next week’s vote.
ReplyDeleteFor 6 years my husband and I had a nice little condo on Dearborn between Lake and Walker-loved the location for access to the Goodman and the CSO, etc. We notice that while the ground floor of the Trump building was retail, none of the spaces were ever rented. Wonder if there are any businesses in those spaces. We always got a laugh about that.
ReplyDelete