Open thread on this bullshit, brought to you by The Hives’ “Hate to say I told you so”

@Skiriki
Happy to help.

Oops, it turns out the entire planet needs to be scrubbed. Damn it!

* * *

Also, Maria Butina: she’s been arrested, but at least she has the comfort of knowing that any moment now — if it hasn’t already happened — she’ll be the alt-right’s new It Girl.

Speaking of fun with the NRA!

http://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/07/16/ex-supervisor-in-adam-putnams-gun-license-unit-warned-of-gross-misconduct-sued-and-got-30000-settlement/

@Skiriki

That line about footage of his rallies being shown in documentaries in 20 years with overlays of ominous music, and them getting to watch it live…

Yikes.

Now I can’t even remember who, but some faux despondent Republican was on cable news today to declare that Democrats and progressives should be non-partisan and not mention about how we told all your asses two goddamn fucking years.

My response?

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/30500000/Will-Grace-will-and-grace-30502608-245-181.gif

Calmdown,

Mainly it was during the press conference. An AP reporter asked Trump if he believed all the US intelligence or Putin on the matter of election interference. Trump said he respects his intelligence director but Putin really strongly denied interfering and he can’t imagine what motives Russia could possibly have. In other words, he confirmed on foreign soil that he sides with Putin over anything else. He also ranted about Hillary and her emails again.

So yeah, it’s nothing new. But he was just so open about it. On foreign soil. Next to an adversarial authoritarian head of state. After declaring the press and our usual allies in the EU enemies. The optics were so bad it woke up some of the people who were usually really committed to both sidesism and centrism, I guess.

Thanks guys for explaining. That’s what I thought it was but I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something. I guess I, like a lot of people, just don’t understand why others are so shocked at his behavior. I knew since the Access Hollywood tape came and went that this man could do or say almost anything and still get away with it. I wish this would change, but I just don’t feel much hope for it now.

frankly, if the cambridge analytica confessions didn’t convince people of the truly maniacally evil nature of the entire trump/republican government/facade/scandal, nothing in all of the known universe will.

We’re talking literal, irrefutable video and audio evidence of unfathomably powerful men bluntly speaking, nay bragging, like freaking emperor palatine, like some sort of comic book cartoon super-villain. I would have never even imagined in my entire life that people that truly evil could even exist, I would have written it off as just extremist conspiracy theory if I hadn’t seen the footage myself (though I might have suspected if I were in a particularly cynical mood). But most of america seemingly just shrugged and forgot it faster than yesterday’s memes.

Trump ought to be sundered from his gold-leaf, and from his ludicrous hairpiece, and from his usurped office, and removed to Leavenworth, to break rocks for the rest of his parasitic life.

Mea: I think it ought to be titled “The Micturian Candidate”.

Well, it seems blatantly obvious to me what’s going on here.

Trump and the Republicans know damn well that Russia helped Trump win, and they are happy about it and grateful to Putin, because they don’t care about democracy, they only care about Republicans winning, even if it means they win unfairly.

The first election I voted in (because it was the first election I was old enough to vote in) was the 2000 presidential election, when the Supreme Court decided to give the presidency to Bush, even though Gore won the popular vote.

Right after that we get 9/11, and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Imagine how differently that may have gone if Gore was president.

When the 2008 election came around, I was genuinely afraid that the Republicans would refuse to give up the presidency, and would pull something to give Bush a third term, or make Cheney or McCain president, and was quite relieved when Obama became president. Phew! Maybe democracy still works after all.

But then comes the 2010 midterm election and Census. Republicans took over most of the state legislatures and were able to gerrymander them so that Republicans get more seats in Congress than Democrats even though they get fewer votes. After that, Congress was able to block everything Obama tried to do, including blocking him from appointing Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

And then we get Trump, who is even worse than GWB, and outright colluded with Russia to rig the 2016 election in his favor.

Now Trump might be able to appoint as many as four justices to the Supreme Court while he’s president, since he’s already got two (one that was stolen), and I think at least two more of our remaining justices are in their late 70’s or 80’s.

And now I’m really afraid that the 2018 elections will be stolen too. Despite enthusiasm on the left, there’s nothing to stop Russia and the Republicans from interfering again and stopping the so-called “blue wave” from happening, and maybe even making Congress MORE Republican and purging any remaining anti-Trump Republicans.

Next Donald Trump will be appointed president for life, and the only thing that will get rid of him is the fact that he is in his 70’s and lives on fast food. Once he dies, maybe Don. Jr. or Ivanka will be our next president. The U.S. will become a sham democracy like Russia or China where we still have “elections,” but the outcome is always predetermined.

I really hope that I’m wrong, but then again the GWB presidency turned out to be much worse than I thought it would be. Back then I even looked into what it would take to emigrate to another country, and found out it’s pretty impossible for me. So much for “If you don’t like America, then leave!” since it turns out that it’s extremely difficult.

And yeah, I know it’s fashionable to say that the U.S. has never been a democracy and has always been evil, but I dunno, America’s done some good things too.

But the Republicans are on their way to permanent single-party rule, and they’re against everything the government does that I like. And to think that I thought for a little while there that we’d get single-payer healthcare in my lifetime. Now it looks like abortion will become illegal again in my lifetime.

I really hope I’m wrong and the blue wave happens the November and Trump gets defeated by a Democrat in 2020, but I know that the Republicans are going to do everything they can, bend every rule they can, maybe even do things that are outright illegal, to hold onto power. Between Russia’s help, partisan gerrymandering, and the weakening of voting rights, at best we’ve got a HUGE headwind in November. And if we don’t win in November, I’m afraid that will probably be it. Republicans will ensure they never lose again.

@Juniper

Next Donald Trump will be appointed president for life,

You can’t just handwave this away; constitutional amendments are not trivial things, and the republican party is not united behind trump.

It is also very clearly the case that the country is not united behind trump, and trying to impose rule on a country filled with unhappy armed people is likely to result in civil unrest and secession rather than move smoothly into a dictatorship.