Successful electoral politics in the United States is ultimately about setting up successful dichotomies. There is you and your opponent and more people are like you. This is what all the “woke” nonsense is all about. The GOP realize they are on the wrong side of almost all of these issues. They are on the wrong side demographically and on just about every major domestic and foreign policy issue. The only way forward for them is to paint the left is somehow extreme and that they really are the “silent majority.”

If that phrase seems familiar to you it should. It has been a part of the conservative blueprint for more than half a century. It’s time to throw that whole sentiment on it’s ear. The basic campaign that Joe Biden needs to run is a run on basic decency. While certainly not a perfect man and not the ideal standard bearer for liberals, progressives, and leftists, Biden is easily the most decent person on the ballot. That is particularly true when compared with the entire GOP field.

A series of stories circulated this week that drive this point home. The first on my radar was the story of an assistant principal that was kicked so many times that she ended up having seizures and had to be hospitalized. The second involved a man that killed all of his neighbors after they complained about the loud gunfire at his house. The third story involved a man that shot a parking attendant over 40 dollars and then returned to the restaurant and completed his date.

I witnessed a hit and run on the way back home from a trip this past weekend. A truck had to stop suddenly because of traffic. He simply had to get somewhere quickly, so he quickly changed lanes and just shoved an SUV over so he could occupy the lane. He didn’t stop. He just kept going. These are four stories in the span of a week. Pick any seven day time span at any point on the calendar and you can either read or watch these stories unfold in fairly similar fashion.

Two of these stories involved guns. Two of them didn’t. Some involved young people and some didn’t. Some involved people of color and some didn’t. I point out that all of them involved men, but I don’t know if that is a relevant factor here. I wish I could say that all of them involved conservatives but that would be a stretch and would be irresponsible. What I can say is that they involved four different sets of people that were not decent people. Decent people do decent things. Indecent people do indecent things.

I can comfortably say that I’ve never done any of these things. I don’t see me kicking someone while they are lying helpless on the ground. I don’t own a gun, so the two gun stories are out for me. I’ve had accidents, but I’ve never fled from them. I would reasonably expect that most of you are with me here on those counts. I know some of you own guns, but I doubt you’ve shot anyone on a first date. I would guess that the vast majority of Americans are in the same boat. The MAGA crowd applaud these people. They are those people. Whether they would do it themselves or not is immaterial. They represent the indecency that has become MAGA. It’s time for the silent majority to vote out indecency.

I have done this one before. All that is old is new again. The overwhelming theme that has occurred this week in the argument over gun control are those three words. Because I can. I have gotten into debates with multiple folks on social media and all of them have asserted the same things. The second amendment gives me the right to do it. Of course, whether that’s true or not is up for debate. I don’t have time for that debate in these spaces right now.

Because I can. That has become to conservative mantra in the United States. It has become the mantra of the MAGA crowd. Because I can. I can cheat on my taxes. I can commit fraud on the American public. I can grab the private parts of women. I can be selfish and refuse to wear a mask. I can be selfish and refuse to get a vaccine or follow basic safety protocols. Because I can.

Because we can. Essentially, the difference between a fully functioning adult with moral autonomy and one that isn’t is the keen understanding between “can” and “should.” I’ve fought this my whole life. It’s a hard lesson to learn. That period of early adulthood is key. For the first time in your life you have autonomy from your parents. You CAN do things they would never allow you to do. Because we can. However, that is never the most important question. The most important question is whether we should.

I still remember vividly serving on the editorial board of my college newspaper. A student had been accused of sexual assault. He had not been charged. Journalistic ethics indicate you can report on it and publish his picture. So, the rest of the editorial board chose to do that. We have the right to do it. I didn’t think it was wise since we were a small campus and were the only source of news for the campus.

I lost that debate. They told me I wasn’t a journalism major and simply didn’t understand. We have the right to do it. Because we can. As it turned out, the charges were dropped. The student in question had an identical twin on campus. Both had to transfer to another university because of the fall out. The alleged victim recanted her story, so no one knows if an assault even occurred. Because we can.

All this happened because no one bothered to ask the important question: should we do this? Far too many people have made life more difficult, more painful, and more cruel because they’ve never bothered to ponder that question. Should we do this? Because I can has been the default position. Because I can has been the mantra that has driven this country into a ditch.

Naturally one could take this whole concept to its logical extreme, but any time a decision is made, the effects on those around us should be considered. Does my behavior present an inherent risk to those around me? Does my behavior make the world a better place or a worse place? Because I can is just simply not good enough. We need better. We deserve better.

I always hesitate to write these things. You know that’s what these people intend in the first place. After all, why does someone take a picture and release it onto the interwebs? So, we feed the beast but likely not in a way that they fully intended.

It’s the same reason why they put bumper stickers on their big ass truck or fly the flags at the house. It’s the same reason why they wear their t-shirts and hats to the gym or into the grocery store. It’s a not so subtle fish symbol like the early day Christians used to identify each other. For the rest of us, it is the announcement that I am indeed an asshole and there is nothing you can do about it.

I could focus on poor Logan and the life he has in front of him. I could focus on the hatred that is obviously there. I could focus on the nearly pathological need for attention. I could certainly link it to gun culture and the tragic events that occurred in Buffalo. All of these things are things they want.

My overwhelming feeling when seeing that isn’t anger or fear. Those are the emotions they want, but aren’t the ones they get. The overwhelming emotion is one of pity. At the end of the day they are closer to being a victim than they are to being a bully. They likely went out and stockpiled weapons when Joe Biden became president. They stockpiled weapons because they heard that Biden was going to take their guns. Somewhere the gun manufacturers are having a huge laugh and sharing a round of drinks at happy hour.

See, Jimmy Carter was going to take their guns. That didn’t happen. Bill Clinton was going to take their guns. That didn’t happen. Barack Obama was definitely going to take their guns. That didn’t happen. Even three year olds and most dogs could pick up on the pattern. Somehow the MAGA crowd is incapable of deductive reasoning or maybe even object permanence.

Poor Logan doesn’t stand a chance. He is being indoctrinated and not so much into a life of hatred, bigotry, and violence. Yes, he is being indoctrinated into those things too. More importantly, he is being indoctrinated into a life of abject stupidity. Abject stupidity allows you to be led by the nose to hate, to discriminate, and to respond in violence. Abject stupidity allows you to buy crap you don’t need in order to protect your family from things that will never happen. Abject stupidity allows you to photograph your own ignorance and broadcast it on the internet for everyone to see. The self-own is the cruelest own of all.

Abject stupidity pushes you to do things to own the liberals, leftists, and progressives when you could be a lot happier just living your life. These photos never inspire the fear they think it does. It may inspire outrage, but that outrage fades pretty quickly. More than anything it inspires pity. Anger and stupidity don’t mix well and they are a horrible way to live. Yes, the self-own is the cruelest own of all.

Glenn Youngkin managed to find the key to unlocking electoral success for modern Republicans. The newly minted governor of Virginia won a narrow victory last night in a state that Joe Biden had won by ten points. His campaign was a campaign of half measures and lip service to the king without openly endorsing the king. It was a thing of beauty.

He refused to campaign with the ex president even until the end and yet somehow managed to convince the forever Trumpers that he was on their side all along. I suppose Democrats should be worried when they they lose a key governorship, but there is a silver lining in there somewhere.

Youngkin refused to kiss the ring. For that, you could label him a lot of things and we will label him those things before all is said and done, but he is no fool. For all his talk about winning, the ex president has never actually won. He didn’t the first time around. He didn’t in the last election and anyone significant that has ever hitched their wagon to him also has failed.

Youngkin’s stance on vaccine mandates alone is enough to make you dizzy. When it was brought up in debate he stuttered and stammered all over the place as if he were trying to solve an algebraic equation. He was for mandates for all of those other vaccines because no one wants to be on the record as the guy aiming to bring back the measles. Yet, he was against a mandate on the COVID vaccine because a majority of his base is against it.

It’s a perfect tactic if one could actually articulate it intelligently. I’m not sure Youngkin ever got there, but I guess he deserves a prize for effort. I suppose he finally settled on the point that there hasn’t been enough research done. If he had thrown out the nugget that everyone should do their own research he might have spit the bit, but he managed to walk a tightrope where he was against the mandate and for people getting the vaccine. It was twisting and turning that would make Simone Biles wince in pain.

In the meantime he just might have given Republicans the blueprint for long-term success. For all of his bravado, the ex-leader always trailed expectations by five to ten points nationally. That probably has something to do with voters that actually care how you say things and voters that actually care about the moral fiber of their candidate. Admittedly, it’s not nearly as many people as we might have hoped, but five percent can make a huge difference on election day.

What Youngkin managed to do is say enough of the buzzwords to signal to the MAGA crowd that he was one of them without uttering the offensive versions of their rhetoric that turn off moderates. This leaves us with only one conclusion. As long as national GOP politicians think they have to kiss the ring and be the biggest ass in the room then things are looking up. As soon as they discover they can ignore him and just borrow the more tame versions of his rhetoric, we could be in serious trouble.

New Zealand Air’s new Christmas commercial is cute and depressing all at the same time.  It has the Santa’s naughty list theme, where a kid in New Zealand accidentally receives an email showing him on the naughty list.  He decides to convene a worldwide summit of naughty kids to resolve to get on the nice list.  Of course, the kid from the US is a narcissistic little shit in a MAGA cap who, using Trump’s own words makes a laughingstock of himself, which fits perfectly into our global image courtesy of His Orangeness.  It’s pretty humiliating, so here you go:

https://youtu.be/8O0U9bqxm14

• President Obama
• President & former SOS Hillary Clinton
• Eric Holder
• George Soros
• Maxine Waters (2)
• Robert DeNiro
• Vice President Biden
• CNN

These are the recipients of letter bombs targeting critics of Trump that started surfacing on Tuesday.  We don’t know who’s sending them, but the Noise Machine is already running at full throttle, screaming about a supposed “false flag” operation funded by George Soros to make Trump look bad.  As we’ve seen for years now, facts don’t matter to Trump or his sycophants, and after calling for unity while reading off a White House teleprompter, Trump reversed himself in the evening, stepping up his verbal attacks on the media and opponents, trying to turn responsibility for the growing threat of domestic terrorism away from himself by blaming the media for recording and playing back what he says word for word.  Knowing his adoring fans would support him, he took ZERO responsibility for the threats and violence that result from the bile pouring out of his own mouth.  The deplorables cheered.

Anyone paying attention knows precisely where responsibility lay for the toxic environment that now pervades all American’s lives.  Our democracy is threatened, and could easily crumble, even as Trump and the invertebrates in the Congress step up their destructive rhetoric and political actions.  We don’t yet know who’s sending the letter bombs, but it’s my guess that the terrorist is some gun-humping weirdo sitting in his basement wearing a MAGA hat who actually believes that Hillary Clinton and members of Congress open their own mail.