I don’t know what I was thinking. How can one not be able to string two sentences together after seeing the Presidementia-Elect trounce yet another over qualified presidential candidate? It is, after all, a target-rich environment.

Witness the delicious MAGA backlash at the news leaked yesterday that Captain Bonespurs has picked fellow Floridaman, Marco Rubio to be 4th in line to be president (after Ridgerunner JD, MAGA Mike (?), and whoever President Pro Tem of the Senate will be) should something awful happen to him.

Raw Story has gathered some amazingly predictable quotes from Don the Con’s bevy of butt munchers.

Laura “Looney” Loomer: “Why are people inside Mar-a-Lago leaking Trump’s possible cabinet picks to the media? Not a good sign that things are being leaked already.”

Libertarian “comedian” Dave Smith: “Might as well give Liz Cheney the State Department. Awful sign.”

Charlie Kirk: “Folks, word of wisdom. If Trump hasn’t confirmed it on Truth [Social], don’t jump to conclusions and don’t believe everything you see.”

That’s more than one word, Charlie.

Suddenly, the cockles of my heart are thawing as I observe that Von Shitzenpantz’s own MAGA elite are now doubting what they see and hear. It is literally the opposite of what we now call “sanewashing.” Nominating a person who is arguably a moderate conservative with experience in the area of foreign relations rather than another clueless candidate for the looney bin has got to stick in their craws.

I wonder what you call the opposite of “sanewashing.”

I have some advice for MAGA maniacs. A maxim that has served me in the past as far as Pumpkin McPornhumper goes: Pay no attention to what he says, watch what he does.

Tom Homan is in the cat bird’s seat today. Bronzer Boy’s former ICE Administrator has been given carte blanche as the new Border Czar (aka “Deportation Czar”) which confirms, in my mind anyway, that the Project 2025 chapter on immigrant deportations is well on its way to becoming reality.

Homan: Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. NOT!

While not an author, Homan is credited on page xxviii of the nefarious plan to reinvent America into a Trumpian Paradise as a “contributor.” And his appointment to head up Don the Con’s Department of Mass Deportations is our very first indication that Project 2025’s blueprints for a fascist state is very much on The Orange One’s agenda.

Homan has a plan, and it is outlined on pages 133 through 153 on the 922-page document that is intended to replace the US Constitution.

Among other things, it proposes the use of so-called “Blackies Warrants” to raid workplaces where they suspect they might find undocumented immigrants trying to earn money. Blackies Warrants are named for Blackies House of Beef that was raided by La Migra in 1978. The warrant has already been challenged under the 4th Amendment but has gotten a mixed result – one win, one loss.

But probably the most heinous words out of Homan’s mouth came in an interview by 60 Minutes journalist Cecilia Vega last month. Answering Vega’s question, “Is there a way to carry out mass deportation without separating families?” he responded.”Of course there is. Families can be deported together.”

Imagine that. A child, a natural born American citizen, will have the opportunity to be deported along with their undocumented parents. That’s one way to solve the immigration problem that doesn’t break up families. 

Still waiting for the 1-800 number we can call anonymously to denounce our neighbors, co-workers, and competitors. Coming soon to an SS headquarters near you.

Promises kept.

It was just eight years ago that we all got ice water splashed in our collective face when Don the Con erased Hillary Clinton’s glide to victory. Then, four years ago, there was literal dancing in the streets when Joe Biden, as a youthful septuagenarian, kicked Bronzer Boy out of DC.

Now we’ve come full circle and await the onslaught of another four years of street brutality, migrant detention facilities, boons for billionaires, and overturned alliances.

And whatever else they can think of to throw in.

Times are bleak, and they don’t do anything for my ability to string two cogent sentences together, either. But I do hope to recover sometime before we bid a fond farewell to governmental sanity. Hopefully it will be short-lived.

Andy Borowitz, who authors the subscription website The Borowitz Report, seems to be similarly deflated. So much is the case that he filed this serious piece on his website, which is free for this one posting. .

I suggest you read it. It might help. It did help me somewhat.

Reflecting on a lifetime of presidential elections today. My first, as a 20 year old college student, was 1972. Viet Nam was heavy on all of our minds as our friends and brothers were getting drafted, some not coming back. Protests everywhere. Richard Nixon won. I feel for the young people who are new voters and now feel like I did in 1972. My track record is not great (6/14). I have lived in blue and red areas of red states, in blue and red areas of blue states and overseas. Even with deep disappointments, I have never felt as devastated as 2016, and did not want to feel that way again. Which is why I did not watch returns, and locked up the whiskey. Oh well, here we are, gut punched again by a felon who has no business running for president of anything. My sparkling wine is still in the fridge.

In earlier times, people all sat down to watch the nightly news with Walter Cronkite, and I think we were all better aware of reality. Decades of misinformation from too many sources have taken a toll on the electorate. Our education system is under attack. Our justice system is no longer just. Separation of church and state has been blurred. Our national empathy and understanding of people who are not like us is disappearing. Too many people caring about only themselves.

I don’t know what the answer is. You can’t stop people from watching/reading poor ‘news’ sources and believing them, no matter how many facts you counter with. You can’t undo racism and misogyny. I’m so afraid that until the consequences of hate touch the haters personally, nothing will change. It will take a shooting at your kids’/grandkids’ school, a loved one dying of sepsis when they can’t get a D&C, suffering shortages of fruit and vegetables, meat and dairy, when all the harvesters and processors are rounded up and put in camps to deport. When they can’t find any elder care or day care providers. When their imported cheap products at Walmart and the Dollar store become unaffordable due to tariffs. We will all suffer, but those who can least afford it will suffer most. The wealthy oligarchs are calling the shots.

I will keep trying to understand, and be thankful I live in a state that fits me. That my daughters live in states that will take care of their reproductive health. And I will move forward, as soon as I’m done grieving. It might be a while.

Historians will be scratching their heads over the 2024 presidential election for decades to come. How a clownish buffoon who uses too much bronzer and too few brains could have won any election at all with 34 felony convictions goes beyond the pale.

I have my own idea why this happened, but first I did “my own research” as independent voters are wont to proclaim. What do “the experts” say?

Former Obama advisor David Axelrod lays the blame at the feet of priggish over-educated Democrats: “[Democrats have] become a smarty-pants, suburban, college-educated party. You can’t approach working people like missionaries and say, ‘We’re here to help you become more like us.’ There’s a kind of unspoken disdain, unintended disdain in that.”

NY Times journalist Frank Bruni says people weren’t really paying attention to Bronzer Boy’s “florid ugliness,” especially toward the end. We who paid attention were outraged, “but we’re arrogant: We assume our experience is everyone’s and our knowledge ambient.”

I was guilty of this more often than not. As a matter of fact, I was known to say anyone could beat Trump. My refrigerator could beat Trump.

The New York Times (which replaced WaPo on my digital subscription list) lists the thoughts of several pundits, two of which struck me as being non-repetitive.

Politico’s Ankush Khardori says “a critical mass of voters were willing to set aside their concerns about Trump’s alleged misconduct because of their dissatisfaction with the Biden-Harris administration. Fair or not, this was absolutely their right as voters.”

Maybe.

John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times thinks that it’s the economy, stupid: “Ultimately voters don’t distinguish between unpleasant things that their leaders and governments have direct control over, and those that are international phenomena resulting from supply-side disruptions caused by a global pandemic or the warmongering of an ageing autocrat halfway across the world. Voters don’t like high prices, so they punished the Democrats for being in charge when inflation hit.”

And at the Brookings Institute, we have William Galston, who put it all on getting out the vote: “Convinced that Trump’s intense personal bond with his supporters would do most of the mobilizing work, the campaign decided not to invest heavily in traditional get-out-the-vote organizing and instead outsourced it to supporting organizations. Although the Harris campaign touted its advantage in the “ground game,” there is little evidence that it made much of a difference.”

But it’s like the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Each used their sense of touch to discover what an elephant looked like and came away with conclusions based on their own narrow experiences.

I prefer to believe that the reason he won goes much deeper. I recall a consideration early on that Joe Biden was going to bridge to the new generation of 60 year-olds and serve but one term. It was not my imagination. I thought it was a good plan. He is, after all, no spring chicken. But they flipped that script, didn’t they? And when they saw their mistake – too late – the hair-pulling began. America, too used to 2-year presidential campaigns, had to adjust to a new paradigm of what became our version of a “snap election.”

Don’t get me wrong, it was a great campaign – all 107 days of it – and I enjoyed watching. It just wasn’t long enough to let the less engaged voters catch up. Had Biden committed to a 1-term administration, Harris would have been a huge consideration to succeed him along with others. But by waiting until very late before stepping aside, only Harris could have accessed the campaign war chest that Biden’s people had already amassed.

It was Harris or bust.

If you’re paying attention, like Salon customers are, it would have only been a slight change in plans. But with so many voters not tuned in – people were Googling the terms “did Biden drop out” on Election Day – the outcome seems inevitable in retrospect.

American Exceptionalism may be defined as the perception or belief that Americans live in a unique society that is exceptional, unusual, or extraordinary.

It usually carries a positive connotation that suggests the moral, ethical, intellectual, and economic superiority of America as a whole.

Obviously, we need a new definition if we are to consider the reaction of some Americans as well as other nations to our recent presidential election result. Two points to consider.

First, we need to reconsider the oft-repeated phrase “this is not who we are.” It depends on what you mean by “we.” If the “we” means “me” or, more probably, “us,” then that’s fine if the “us” is you and your like-minded cohorts.

But if “us” refers to the US, then maybe a rethink is in order. A majority of Americans just elected a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist to our highest office. That’s new and different. Some would say, exceptional.

Second, we should realize that, as a nation, we look like Rubes. A Rube is defined as “an awkward unsophisticated person or a naive or inexperienced person.” Short for Reuben, Rube refers to an uneducated and gullible country bumpkin. Rubes accept lies as fact and are even capable of concocting their own facts. You may not count yourself among them, but our overseas friends, enemies, and allies can and most certainly do.

As a people and as a society, America is exceptional. Just not the way we think it is. As a nation with 340 million viewpoints, this is exactly who we are.