This is exactly what extremist Republicans are trying to impose on Americans.  The Handmaid’s Tale comes into actual life.

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Republicans have taken away your right to choose. Now take away their right to govern. #GOPHandmaidsTale pic.twitter.com/uHZVjH5Qfh

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) May 3, 2022

Tomorrow is the 1st anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters, but just commemorating that violent event is not enough and doesn’t address the real problem today in America.  The problem is much deeper than a couple thousand dumbasses brainwashed by a carnival barker and career liar.  Our system of government is now under constant threat.  That threat comes from what was once a national party that has morphed into a fascist regime which is striving for permanent power in defiance of the will of Americans.  THAT is the problem.

This has been coming for decades, fueled by increasingly radical media that is unconstrained by any regulation, especially the Fairness Doctrine that Reagan destroyed at the behest of Rupert Murdoch who was also provided fast track US citizenship and allowed to monopolize US media by a compliant FCC, also under Reagan.  That started the drain of fair journalism, and the rest is history.  Murdoch’s empire has rotted American democracy from the inside, moving from ranting about taxes at their historic lows to Bill O’Reilly’s idiotic “War on Christmas” trope to lying about everything not Right Wing Nut Job.  Murdoch offered up Fox as the official press office for TFG during his infestation of the Oval office, and still amplifies his lies ’round the clock.  The entire goal was to piss off one demographic, and that has succeeded.

We now live in a society where civil discourse and fact based policy decisions no longer exist.  Politics is now more than blood sport – it has become a death cult, from the radical gun culture that has successfully injected armed thugs into the political arena to losing candidates who will NEVER concede defeat, no matter how obvious that candidate’s loss is.  I recall 2008 when Al Franken beat incumbent Norm Coleman by 312 votes.  The votes were counted and counted and counted, and Franken’s win was close, but certain.  Coleman never conceded, fighting in court for 8 months until a 3 judge panel declared Franken the winner.  Since then, virtually no Republican has conceded defeat.  Every election is a battle to the death, and concession speeches from GOP candidates are almost non existent.  Trump has now normalized that behavior by lying and lying and lying and lying.  The Big Lie has now been embedded into the DNA of Republicans, and all over the country they are taking election administration out of the hands of non-partisans and putting it into the hands of radical partisans, even legislating overruling free and fair elections if they don’t like the results.

The real tragedy is that now both sides of the political spectrum have no confidence in the system.  Over 80% of Republicans have lost confidence because they believe The Big Lie and that the system is full of fraud.  Over 80% of Democrats have lost confidence because over 80% of Republicans believe The Big Lie and are trying to rig the system in their own favor.

All of this adds up to every election now being contested to the death especially if the Republican candidate loses.  Armed goofballs will show up at polls, counting locations, city halls, county seats, state capitols, and, yes, even the US Capitol if the election goes against their candidate.  Though TFG is the heartbeat of this massive delusion, it has now grown beyond his own cult of personality.  Oh, sure, every right winger will run to Mara Lago to kiss the ring, but The Big Lie is so engrained that it has taken on a life of its own.  People who were reasonable folks 10 years ago are now ranting maniacs spouting bullshit and even QAnon conspiracy theories.  All reason and critical thinking has all but vanished.

My greatest fear is that this won’t end well, and not until violence and fascism touches most Americans will people wake up and demand accountability from elected leaders.  Add the metastasized cancer that is TFG to the political mix, and the patient could easily die. That is the risk that we really face.

Remember back in 2008 when Sarah Palin’s lie about “death panels” in the proposed Obamacare legislation took on a life of its own?  How the entire red state noise machine took it and ran with it?  Well, irony kicked in this weekend when Palin, talking at the Turning Point USA convention brainwashing, said she’d get a vaccine “…over my dead body“.  The crowd of young conservatives fascists cheered, completely missing the irony of her statement.  Dana Milbank hit the nail on the head pointing out that Palin was an active participant in what can now only be called a death cult.

The death cult also showed its ugly head when the few people who actually paid for seats to the  Traveling Bullshit Tour stop in Dallas booed their Dear Leader, none other than TFG, when he told Bill O’Reilly that he got the booster to protect himself.  The Trumpified GOP is now actually getting people killed as the death rate from COVID in Trump counties is 5 times that of the death rate in blue counties.

The Darwin Club is actually a thing.

This week Texas Monthly announced its 2022 Bum Steer Awards and the ones you expected were winners.  The only question was who was going to be the Top Bum Steer.  You won’t be surprised that it is none other the National Embarrassment of Texas, Greg Abbott.  The magazine ripped him a new one with these choice quotes:

“From the beginning, Abbott was attuned to the 4 percent of Texans who decide Republican primary elections and that group’s many peculiar priorities.”

“This has been a hard year for everyone, and no governor in the U.S. has had it easy. (“At least we don’t have Andrew Cuomo,” Texans could say.) But every step of the way, Abbott has made it harder for nearly everyone, rendering life more difficult, the death tolls higher, and the experience of being a Texan more demoralizing.”

About the blackout: “Who was the responsible party? Two days into the crisis, Abbott took the time to appear on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show and blame renewable energy—a field in which Texas has been a leader, thanks in large part to his Republican predecessors—even though the blackout was caused mostly by problems with the distribution of natural gas.”

About COVID-19: “And Abbott’s handling of the situation was comically erratic. He ordered a lockdown and then, under pressure from his right, crusaded to free Texans imprisoned by his lockdown.”

“But Abbott had other priorities. With his approval, the Legislature passed voter suppression legislation that rivaled the worst in the country as well as a law placing bounties on the heads of those who help others get abortions.”

And finally, “Over the course of 2021, Texans learned that Greg Abbott was not so colorless after all—somewhere along the line, he learned to be ruthless. ”

The article is a must read.  Close runners up were Ted Cruz for obvious reasons, and 25 Texans who participated in Trump’s effort to overthrow the US government and steal the presidency from Joe Biden.

After 26 years of single party rule where the GOP has controlled the governor’s mansion, both state houses, and virtually all the courts including the Texas Supreme Court, our state has become a cesspool of corruption, weirdos, felons, and fascists.  I have little hope that much will change as long as the federal government and courts are tolerant and complicit with Texas’ post-democracy fascist regime.

Yes, he actually said it.  In a combative appearance before the press in Cheeto Tower, Trump blew a head gasket and said some REALLY inflammatory and false things.  He got so heated up that I thought his combover was going to self combust.  A few gems:

“You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious and it was horrible and it was a horrible thing to watch. But there is another side. There was a group on this side — you can call them the left, you just called them the left — that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that’s the way it is.”

“I think there’s blame on both sides. I don’t have any doubt about it and you don’t have any doubt it either. And if you reported it accurately, you would say it.”

“George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status? …Are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him? OK, good. Are we going to take down his statue, because he was a major slave owner. Now we’re going to take down his statue. So you know what? It’s fine. You’re changing history, you’re changing culture, and you had people — and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally — but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”

Best quote of the day, though?  From Chuck Todd.  Quoting Trump, he said, “The press has been unfair to White Nationalists and neo-Nazis.  We’ll let that sink in while we go to commercial break.”

Jesus, what a day.  Again.