Let Them Eat Shit?

The most frightening statement I heard on the news this morning was something about how the Republicans' health care botch job might affect 45's run for reelection in 2020. Seriously?

By 2020, if 45 is still a free man, let alone living in the White House, I expect I will have either renounced my citizenship or taken up residence in a survivalist bunker somewhere in Idaho with a lifetime supply of pasta and Tate's cookies. Every morning, I wake up hoping for news of a smoking Kalashnikov; every morning, I pull the covers over my head in despair.

Corruption in and of itself is disturbing enough. These days, though, corruption is flaunted, a purloined letter right there on our collective nightstand. Nevertheless, the emperor remains fully clothed (a silver lining, in some respects). And he golfs. And his beauty queen wife stays in the gilded penthouse, safely distant from 45's grabbing paws. And his daughter and son-in-law ski,  while our country, the same country that less than a century ago led the fight to save the world for democracy, disintegrates into a pile of rubble. At our expense, no less. Our considerable expense.

Circumstantial or direct, the evidence has piled up to a point where the notion of coincidence is laughable. Money laundering, unabashed secrecy, suppression of adversaries, blatant lies, dare I say treason? We are perpetually agape, yet business proceeds as usual while our unduly elected royal family laughs at our plight. Let them eat cake, they muse, or, better still, let them eat shit. 

A few days ago, I suggested that, with the confirmation hearings of 45's Supreme Court nominee well underway, the Democrats should avoid politicizing the proceedings simply to avenge the injustice done to Merrick Garland last year. To clarify, I despair about the pointless obstructionism that has overtaken Congress, where principles get lost in an irrevocably divisive purple fog. Having said that, there are good reasons to press the pause button, reasons that have nothing to do with battles between red and blue. It is not unreasonable to propose that, if a poisonous tree is be felled, it's fruit must go down with it. It is also not unreasonable to refuse to confirm if the unflappable and telegenic Neil Gorsuch turns out to be less principled than he appears. Then again, he would be replacing Scalia, so as long as we can keep the rest of the justices alive -- on life support, if necessary -- until the emperor and his cronies go down, it's not a particularly immediate problem, in the grand scheme of things. Short sighted, I know, but desperate times....

I am encouraged by the Republican's health care failure. Not because I think the ACA is perfect, and not because I disagree with all Republicans. I am encouraged, mostly, because the silence has been broken, and ordinary citizens have gotten loud. And, whatever hold 45 had on Republican congressmen and women across the board, it was loosened by a rudely awakened electorate.

Hopefully, I won't be peering out of a bunker in 2020. With a little vigilance, and a lot of screaming and yelling, we (and I mean "we," not just the white "we") will get our country back, and 45 and his ilk will be eating shit pie.