Deplorable Was Far Too Kind

It has been four days since the jaw dropping scenes filled our televisions, since horrific photos made our online feeds hard to keep up with, since every single thing we have worried about for five years came to pass. An armed insurrection, terrorists called to DC by Trump, incited and directed by him at his rally, and resolute in their belief they were doing his will, stormed the Capitol, out for blood.

Four days and it still has not fully sunk in how perilously close not only the line of succession came to being murdered, but the Senate and Congresspeople, their staffs, journalists inside, janitors just making their hourly wage, and Capitol police officers, too. We watched it all, yet it still seems like a bad dream.

The reality is that we were, and are, all wide awake. And more are finally opening their eyes to what we have warned for so long — Trump never should have been elevated to office — any office — and that he has always been a clear and present danger to everything this country is supposed to be about.

From the moment he slithered down his tacky gold escalator in 2015, we warned you. Anyone paying even cursory attention as far back as the 80s knew what a complete and utter failure of a human being he has always been. A conman, a charlatan, a bankrupt — both financially and morally — a gold plated grifter who excelled at one thing only — selling the sizzle of a nonexistent steak.

Yet with those first words about Mexican immigrants, “They are not our friend, believe me. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” the most disgraceful excuses for citizens in this country sniffed the air, smelled the imaginary steak, and came crawling, hungry for more. Mmmmmmmm, they loved what the crock was cooking.

Like so many, I remember being sickened, but also believing that wholesale racism and bigotry would never make it past the first turn in the race to the nomination. Surely, the RNC would take steps to put out that fire before it could burn them all down. Yet on he went. Gathering bigger crowds by saying even more reprehensible things, grabbing a bigger paintbrush to cover an entire demographic — Mexicans, Muslims, women, LGBTQIA, Democrats, immigrants, etc — with his incendiary rhetoric.

And the fire grew.

And decent society still felt sure he would be stopped. That someone in the GOP would put the brakes on it. Sure, those running against him mumbled words about him as a liar, a cheat, that if he was elected we would get what we deserved, even calling out the size of his dick on national TV (Rubio, Cruz, Graham). Yet he thrived because the coarser his dialogue became, the more the retrograde elements of our society felt emboldened to crawl out of their hidey holes and join in the fun of race baiting, opening hating, taunting, bringing their dive bar-KKK-white nationalist behavior out in the open.

One by one, he took those things Republicans profess to hold so dear — the military, POWs, Gold Star families, family values — and bent them over to ream them out on the rally stage. And the crowds went wild every time. It was a surreal type of outrage porn and his followers emotionally masturbated with him. “Lock her up!” “Fake news!” “The media is the enemy!” “The elections are rigged if I lose!” — all words of foreplay for what happened on January 6, 2021.

Yet we still hung tough in the belief that he would be stopped. That there could not possibly be enough people in this country to vote him into office.

Hillary stepped forward and called his supporters out — referring to them as a “basket of deplorables.” And oh, how the pearl clutching and shirt rending ensued. How dare she? This only emboldened Trump more as he pretended to pull closer in his sick embrace the rubes who feigned outrage at the insult, yet also wore it as a badge of pride. HE loved them. HE understood them. HE had their backs.

Again, anyone who had followed this man’s adult life knew full well he would not cross the street to pee on any of them if were they on fire. They were, and still are, the type of people he reviles — poor, losers, trailer parks inhabitants, not enough teeth, not pretty enough, not macho enough, not rich enough. But they are also the easiest to manipulate and use. In that I will give Trump credit. He’s a consummate carnival barker and excels at the shiny object diversion.

When the Entertainment Tonight tape emerged, we all thought, “NOW. Now people will see what he really is, how little family values he has, what a vulgar cretin he has always been, how unfit for the Presidency he is.”

I still sit stunned by the response to that scandal. The crowd of “family values” pulled him closer to their foul bosom, to their lusting “pussies” — wearing shirts begging for him to grab them by theirs, excusing his words away as “locker room talk”, buying any and all excuses for him so he could continue his assault on all that is still decent and right in this country. He literally skated right through, untouchable.

I know I am not alone in going into election night 2016 still believing this country would never let it happen.

And then it happened. Between back room dealings, collusion, and political machinations, he was elected. Yet as much as Russia still hangs over that election, there were millions and millions of his deplorable darlings who helped. Millions of our fellow citizens who went to the ballot box and said with their votes, “FUCK THE USA.”

Since that night, things have gone from bad to badder, from worse to worst, from breathtaking to breathending. Every norm that has guided us for centuries, laughed at. Every guardrail on the office of the Presidency knocked down. Every ugly utterance excused away. Every hideous action applauded. Muslims banned. Immigrants targeted. Children ripped from their parents forever. Protection stripped away. Quid pro quos attempted with foreign countries. Obvious obsequience to dictators like Putin and Jong-Un. And a pandemic that has killed 381,536 people so far, completely botched in response and finally ignored as if it is not blazing still through this country.

Through it all Trump has been enabled by Republican Senators, Congresspeople, state and local officials, talk radio malcontents, FOX and OANN. Call his wife ugly and his father a murderer of JFK? No matter, Cruz has been there right alongside, propping him up, making excuses for the inexcusable, selling the lies to the rubes. Continually ridicule him as Liddle Marco? Pfft. Rubio just throws up another meaningless Bible verse on Twitter and returns to his actual religion — staying in power. Gaetz and Jordan and Nunes and Johnson and Meadows and Hawley and Davis — all like piglets fighting one another for the prime orange power teat.

They are all complicit and responsible for January 6, 2021. They spread the lies about election fraud. They stoked the fires of insurrection. They encouraged the sedition. They courted the deplorables for Trump as much as for their own ambitions over the POTUS prize in 2024. Good luck with that, guys.

They were all deplorable in the run-up. And 87 people lost their lives to this heinous cult in the first three years of his term. But it is so obvious now that deplorable was not nearly adequate or strong enough for anyone who climbed aboard the Trump Train. Treasonous. Seditious. Insurrectionist. Soulless.

Perhaps that last one is the most accurate. They are all soulless.

I have been outraged at the people buying them excuses — that the horde was brainwashed, mentally ill, misinformed, caught up in the moment. Miss me with that white-people-bullshit-excuse machine. Where were these soft embraces and excuses during the summer as the military was deployed against people actually protesting over something real — RACIAL INJUSTICE, SYSTEMIC RACISM in our policing, the blatant murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Aubrey, and on and on? Where were the convenient white people excuses to protect my son from the rubber bullets and tear gas used against him?

As nonexistent as the police and military protections at the Capitol on Wednesday.

Like you, I have seen the many videos and photos showing the complete lack of respect for the historic building — feet up on desks, looting, shit on the walls, vandalism. I have felt my stomach turn at the photos of the functioning gallows erected outside the Capitol and the chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” as they breached the entrances. The terrorists in tactical gear, carrying pipes, crowbars, sledgehammers, brandishing zip cuffs. Yes, I have seen and been enraged at the police inside who obviously encouraged the mob — those heathens who put the RIOT in patriot — but there are also officers who were viciously attacked and tried their best to thwart the insurrection despite being completely outnumbered by a salivating, soulless mob.

LOOK. Watch the video, take in the picture of the scene from above as they beat that officer with pipes, flagpoles, kicked him repeatedly. I guess the new motto is Blue Lives Mattered? Sure as shit doesn’t look like they matter anymore.

Yo @tedcruz @vp @senatemajldr You helped this happen. This is video showing the #DCRIOTS #maga terrorists dragging a police officer out of the building. Hitting him with a baton, flagpole, and crutch. pic.twitter.com/aWrNtCX7VO pic.twitter.com/4ScWcmn7HT

— sprujitsu (@sprujitsu) January 10, 2021

The officer that died during the attack, Brian Sicknick? Beaten in the head with a fire extinguisher. Blue Lives Matter, my ass. Oh, and MAGAts? Your Coral Caligula has still not reached out to that officer’s family. You know who has? Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi — two of the people whose blood you were looking to release. (And this morning another officer death was reported. Off duty that day and a suicide — remains to be seen what/if there is a connection.)

And now, as glass still litters the Capitol, as janitors still work to sop up the piss you left in hallways, the shit you smeared on walls, and disinfect because of the COVID you spewed everywhere (looking at you, “Baked Alaska” — you traveled to DC COVID positive), GOPers lawmakers like Cruz and Jordan are appealing for “healing and unity.” Begging that impeachment not be taken up tomorrow because it will further divide the country. EXCUSE ME, BITCHES? That treasonous horse has left the building and is miles down the road.

What remains is to root out the soulless legislators who assisted in this attack, to smash their own words in the run-up back into their smarmy faces. To hold accountable every insurrectionist that can be identified from that day. (Thankfully you people are so stone stupid you have provided much of the evidence the FBI is using to find you. Oh, and brilliant work with your anti-mask stance. BRILL-IANT. Seriously, chef’s kiss to you all.)

It cannot matter that the treason weasel in the Oval only has 10 days left. 10 days is more than enough to keep his violent horde ginned up and ready to attack again — they have already been openly planning this for the 17th, for Inauguration day, and for State houses around the country. 10 days means more lies, more fomenting of terror, more inexcusable pardons handed out, and more opportunity to cause chaos on a scale we surely have not yet envisioned.

The 25th amendment? If not now, when? If not for this maniac, who? Trump openly incited a mob to go after Pence, endangering his life — that is not hyperbole. Trump did not call Pence during the attack to ask about his safety. Trump has still not spoken a word to him since the attack. Yet Pence sits back, more concerned with his political future and ambitions than he is in protecting this nation, taking a stand, ridding this country of this seditious, murderous, vengeance minded mobster. Shameful.

Video of the mob chanting “hang Mike Pence.” pic.twitter.com/K4EcKK2rab

— American Times Film (@ExportedFromMI) January 9, 2021

But again, Pence is as soulless as the rest. Angling. Angling is what they do. What looks best for me? What gives me the best chance to stay in the cushy confines of government? What allows me the chance to run for POTUS in 2024?

As for the soulless horde? Before Parler, their terrorist-plotting playground was shutdown this morning, they were openly planning, encouraging one another, and throwing down the most heinous threats. Yes, Google and Apple pulled the app from their stores Friday night and Saturday morning, and Amazon shut down their hosting, but that does not make them inert. Their financial backers will find hosting (probably with a .ru suffix) soon enough. The dark web continues to be a moshpit of their plans for bloodletting. And Trump is more enraged at being thrown off social media than he is about the attack or threat of a second impeachment.

He has ten days to go to any microphone and make the next week and a half into his personal Festivus. And he will. A narcissistic psychopath knows one thing only — self preservation. He is experiencing the type of psychic wound that is intolerable to his pathology and we must all pay for the indignity.

We are not out of the woods just because they were unsuccessful in their coup attempt last week. There are 74 million of them who are deplorable enough, damaged enough, dullardly enough to continue on.

Four years ago I sat here and typed the title What Will It Take? — a piece in which I laid out his transgressions, his verifiable evil and criminality. A piece in which I asked them what would it take to get them to open their eyes, find their hearts, look into their souls. Sadly, they sold their souls long ago for an orange conman who could not care less what happens to them as long as nothing happens to him. They are now coming for the soul of this nation. We cannot let it happen. Fuck their feelings.

Deplorable was far too kind.