A Few Thoughts on the State of the Election Campaign

1. We’re coming to the end of the election season and the fact that Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump remains a viable candidate is a damning indictment of American patriotism, morality, and intelligence. He’s not even bothering to hide the fact that he has gone Full On Fascist these days. Not that he could stop himself if he tried – the man is a walking 25th Amendment dementia case who hasn’t been able to form a coherent sentence since 2018 and shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the White House even as a tourist. But Fascists gonna Fascist, I guess, and he does seem to be drawing such volk to him like flies on dogshit. If you vote for this guy, guess what that makes you? Go on, guess! You are the company you choose. You can’t claim ignorance this time. You know what he’s planning. You know what he will do. He’s told you, loudly, at every available opportunity. Even through the haze of his senility the crystal-clear lodestar of his ideology remains. Either you stand with those who fought WWII to destroy this sort of thing or you stand with Fascists. And yes, I mean that in every historical sense. If Trump and his supporters don’t want me to call them Fascists they should stop doing what the Fascists did.

2. I don’t know if you caught the recent statement by General Mark Milley (US Army, Ret.), the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – i.e. the highest ranking military officer this country has – but as you would expect from a soldier he minces no words in describing Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump. “He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country…a fascist to the core.” And yet Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump’s cult following is stronger than ever, which tells you all you need to know about who they are.

3. On that note, just this past weekend Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump called for using the military to round up his political opponents and anyone he decides is “radical,” which effectively means anyone who dares to disagree with Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump by contradicting his policies, being the wrong sexual orientation, having non-white skin, belonging to a union, or exercising the rights of American citizens in any way that doesn’t contribute to the fawning adoration of Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump, and if you want to know how dictatorships start this is a good place to start looking.

4. You could also look at his repeated descriptions of immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of the nation or his descriptions of his political enemies as “vermin” who need to be eradicated, both of which are direct quotes from Adolf Hitler and thus we come full circle to point number 1 above.

5. FEMA announced this week that thanks to the batshit insane conspiracy theories thrown around by Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his loyal minions they have had to suspend hurricane aid efforts in western North Carolina because aid workers are being threatened with violence. Sometimes you feel tempted to step back and admire the aggressively stupid asshattery of the American right as a platonic idea of evil that really shouldn’t have been achievable in this fallen material world, and then reality sets in and you say to yourself “What the FUCK is WRONG with these people?” instead. There is either no possible answer to that question or there is an answer that will take the rest of your life to list in all of its details and either way we are so, so screwed as a country.

6. Watch what Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump’s campaign is doing, here in the closing stages of the election. They’re only very occasionally sending him to swing states where the vote will be close. He’s too much of a coward and a dementia patient to accept a second debate with Kamala Harris, even on Fox where she has offered to meet him. He’s not doing interviews. Honestly his campaign is not really sending him anywhere much at all – a few highly scripted rallies to rile up his cult members here and there, but his disappearance from the campaign trail at this late hour is unprecedented for a modern election. He’s not trying to win votes. He and his campaign know very well that he cannot win any sort of free and fair election. The Republican candidate for president has won the popular vote only once since 1989 – a record of futility unmatched in American history by any major party – and this year will be no different. He will lose the popular vote by somewhere between two and eight million votes just as he has done twice before – it’s been eight years, nobody’s changed their mind about this neo-Fascist toddler. Instead what you’re seeing is a concentrated effort by his minions to suppress votes and sow chaos and disorder so he can claim the election isn’t valid and seize power some other way – either through GOP control of the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court or through a repeat of the Trump Insurrection of 2021. We stand on a precipice, folks. It’s a long way down.

7. If you’re planning to vote for a third-party candidate this year because your precious “principles” won’t allow you to take the better of the two candidates on offer, just know that you are part of the problem and you will not be forgiven for your smug refusal to notice the world beyond your own fingertips. Moral purity is a luxury enjoyed by people with no responsibilities and no concern for the consequences of their actions. Politics isn’t about purity. It’s not about finding a perfect unicorn candidate. It’s about finding the candidate who will get you further along the path you want to go than the other candidate will. There is only one candidate in this election who is normal – who has pluses and minuses and will leave this nation intact when she is done with it, and there is another who represents everything the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution to prevent and the Greatest Generation went to Europe to fight. A vote for a third-party candidate is a vote for the second one, and you either know that or you don’t.

8. The fact that Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump has successfully pushed most of his many indictments and prosecutions beyond the election and hasn’t already been jailed for his crimes (some of which the United States has, in the past, executed people for) is a travesty of justice that will haunt the United States for however long it has left.

9. If you’re not making backup plans for when Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump seizes power, you’re kidding yourself. There will be blood. He’s promised that. His cult is eager for it. Fascists do not take kindly to dissent or opposition and those of us who have been banging this gong since 2015 are probably on a list somewhere already. Make your plans now.

10. By my count I have received 17 glossy campaign flyers in the mail frantically attempting to distance Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump from Project 2025, the blueprint for Fascism that Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump’s supporters and former administration staff put together for the initial blitzkrieg against the United States should he be installed into power next year. You can understand why they are trying to distance Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump from a document that mentions him by name over 300 times and which contains policy measures he repeats at nearly every public appearance, I suppose, since Project 2025 is the pure distilled essence of authoritarian dictatorship and is desperately unpopular even among self-declared conservatives. It calls for destroying the merit-based civil service that has defined the federal government since the 19th century and replacing it with a force of toadies, lickspittles, fanatics, and slaves loyal only to Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump. It calls for expanding the power of the presidency until it is unchecked and uncontrollable. It calls for the elimination of the Department of Education, NOAA (the agency that provides weather forecasting) and FEMA. It calls for a concentrated surge of bigotry and hatred against anyone who isn’t straight, white, or male. It calls for a national ban on abortion, contraception, and anything that might give women the idea that they and not some old white men in a far-off capital actually control their bodies. It will end Social Security, overtime pay, and the Affordable Care Act which tens of millions of Americans rely on for their care. It will get rid of the FDIC and remove regulations on banks so that they can go bankrupt with ease just as they did in the 1920s and take your money with them. It effectively makes the United States the personal property of Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump and his servants, and if that doesn’t kindle you to incandescent rage you really need to re-examine your life choices.