Sometimes kids have to learn for themselves.  You know the type – the child who defies your warning to be careful or not do something that could be painful, like touching a hot stove or tasting Tabasco.  Some kids listen, and some…have to learn for themselves.  I think we’re there.  Trump has bent reality to the point that alleged rapists, liars, haters, racists, security risks, and the clearly unqualified are tapped to lead gigantic federal agencies with millions of people.  Prolific lying is normalized.  Political pressure from oligarchs’ money, along with the caving of tech bros has created a tsunami of bad judgement and acquiescence that’s going to get precisely what Trump wants – chaos and destruction.

You know what?  Sometimes you just have to let them touch the hot stove.  I predict that in the next 24 months millions of Trump voters who have supported mass deportation, privatization of the Post Office and Medicare are going to be shocked when they lose benefits and friends disappear.  They’ll be pissed when the price of eggs and other groceries skyrockets and when it costs more to fill up their cars.  They’ll be shocked when their iPhone and television prices double, and when there are shortages of products they’ve come to expect on the shelf.  They’ve believed the bullshit and touched the stove – let’s see how long it takes for them to recognize that doing that really hurts.  The problem is that others who didn’t touch the stove will also get burned and healing will be a really long time coming.

There’s not much else normal people can do now.  Delusion has taken over at all levels of government, business, and society, and the only way out now is to let happen what’s going to happen.  Hopefully when the suffering gets hard enough, people will wake up from their coma.  I just hope they do.

After 9 years of incendiary rhetoric, inciting actual violence, and personally threatening dozens of perceived enemies, TFG has certainly demonstrated that he can dish it out, but sure can’t take it.  He has spent years vilifiying everyone from Haitian immigrants to Dems to Taylor Swift, but when someone starts shooting at him, he’s shocked and appalled when the tables are turned.

Let’s be clear – violence is NEVER appropriate in any instance, political or otherwise.  But this monster of escalating violence has been wholy created by TFG and his sycophants repeating his vicious lies about everything from “the deep state”, to immigrants, and to anyone who happens to disagree with him.  He’s even inciting violence against schoolkids in Springfield, Ohio, FFS.  His social media accounts drip with hate, authoritarian declarations, threats, and lies against millions of people and entire classes of society, fabricated from whole cloth.  He even incited thousands of knuckleheads to attack the US Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the US government.

I find it pretty rich that TFG and Vance are now denouncing the very violence they’ve been inciting, but only because that violence has been turned on him.  If they want a reduction in violence they need to start that at home and turn down the heat, but I’m not expecting any of that.  A little self-awareness would be useful right now.

Here are a few bumper sticker ideas for the 2024 campaign.  I’m taking suggestions.

Like George Clooney, I love me some Joe Biden.  With decades of experience in the Senate, then as Obama’s VP, and then as President who pulled us back from the TFG and Covid abyss in 2020, Biden has been in the right place at the right time for years.  I supported him strongly in 2016 when Hillary boxed him out and handed the White House to TFG the first time.  I backed Biden in 2020 because he was the only Dem candidate running who had a chance of unseating TFG.  He succeeded magnificently and has done a great job shoveling out the manure that TFG piled into the White House the previous 4 years.  However, the Biden of 2024 is clearly not the Biden of 2008, 2016, or 2020.  Like many others whose opinions count for a lot more than mine, I agree that Biden cannot beat TFG, period.  Clooney says that, three weeks ago when he was with Biden in NY for a huge fundraiser, Biden was the same Biden we all saw on national television who totally and completely fumbled THE debate.  The orchestra is playing, and it’s time to gracefully exit the stage.

I know this is not a popular opinion among many of the party faithful and a lot of customers of the Salon, but the numbers support my opinion.  Though Biden is statistically tied with TFG in national polls, he’s LOSING EVERY SINGLE SWING STATE by an average of over 5 points.  At this point in the cycle, that almost guarantees, barring a miracle, a Biden loss.  To believe Biden can win the electoral college in 2024 requires complete suspension of disbelief and blindness to facts.  In a word, if Biden doesn’t drop out, and I mean RIGHT NOW, we’re all fucked in 2024, because we’ll not only lose the White House, but likely the House and Senate.  That means, especially with a packed and corrupted SCOTUS, that there will be no guard rails to stop the goons who will be running the entire federal government and most of the states.  That, my dear readers, is unacceptable risk.

Like LBJ, Biden must graciously withdraw and then actively support a plan to replace him as a candidate.  Carville published a great plan a couple of days ago that outlined a short, transparent primary process moderated by 42 and 44 to select a new candidate.  This opinion will also piss off some of our customers, but I disagree that Biden should just endow Harris with the nomination.  Her numbers are almost as bad as his and won’t garner the support of undecideds like an open process.  This needs to be thrown open to other very strong candidates like Witmer, Newsom, Buttigieg, Moore, AND Harris in a process that is public, transparent, and fair.

I don’t want to hear the bullshit argument that the “primary voters have already spoken”.  That’s nonsense.  There was no real primary process; no debates, no real alternatives (including Dean Philips), and no active process, so the voters have NOT spoken.  There must be another alternative and that needs to happen NOW.

Americans should have one goal, and one goal only for 2024: soundly thrashing TFG at the polls.  We have to kill the cancer of MAGA and the cult of personality and that needs to happen now.  The DOJ has failed us; the federal and state courts have failed us; the SCOTUS has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the majority is profoundly corrupt and ruling for their actual constituents (the billionaires and extremists) and not for the rule of law.  None of our guardrails are working.  To save the US and our almost 250 year old form of government, we have to save ourselves.  And we, as voters, need someone to coalesce around, and that ain’t Joe Biden.

So there.

Enough is enough.  TFG, who has done, and continues to do more to destroy our country than anyone in US history, should have his bail revoked and jailed until trial.  Not only has he made fascism and authoritarianism acceptable in polite society, he is intentionally stepping over the limits of the law by defaming and threatening judges, their staffs, prosecutors, and witnesses.  Worse, he regularly defames their families with intensely personal and childish attacks insulting everything from their looks to their politics, which are definitely off limits and none of his fucking business.

Last week, almost immediately after NY judge Juan Merchan, who’s presiding over TFG’s hush money case, imposed a limited gag order against him, he attacked the judge’s 30 something year old daughter, calling her a “Trump hater”, among other vile accusations.  Yesterday, he posted a video of a pickup truck festooned with Trump flags including a tailgate mural of Biden hogtied in the bed of the truck.  The post went viral instantly, blowing up the internet.  Contrary to normal conduct, his lawyers are actively enabling this behavior by filing a continuous stream of idiotic motions demanding that TFG be given special rights because being forced to not threaten others is required because doing so is “election interference” and a violation of his “First Amendment rights”.

TFG regularly and loudly complains that he’s being singled out while falsely claiming that Biden is behind all the prosecutions, including the state cases.  That’s all bullshit, of course, except for the being singled out part; but it’s not like he says.  He is definitely being singled out, allowed WHILE ON BAIL to freely travel, use social media to attack his perceived enemies, shoot off his mouth, spread vicious lies about witnesses, attorneys, judges, and their families, and generally be a 24 karat gold asshole.  No other indicted felon on bail would be allowed to do anything close to what he does on a daily basis.  Yesterday, former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance said that if anyone else had posted a picture of Biden being kidnapped the Secret Service would be knocking on that individual’s door within hours.  TFG gets a pass because he’s, well, TFG.  She also said this about TFG conduct:

“Actions have consequences. Judges have the ability to compel good behavior from defendants on bond pending trial in their court. They can go so far as taking away their guns once they’re indicted or prevent them from contacting and threatening witnesses and victims. They should tell him he can’t threaten the President of the United States. It’s time for the courts to stop bending over backward to protect Trump. He’s entitled to all the constitutional protections any other criminal defendant receives, but he’s not entitled to more.”

TFG is a threat to the nation, to individuals personally, and to the rule of law.  And we know why he’s doing what he’s doing – he’s trying to run out the clock to the election, AND is working hard to intimidate witnesses and the jury pool in 4 different jurisdictions.  It’s simply go to stop.  As Vance says, the courts are bending over backwards to accommodate his behavior.  Judge Cannon is actually in the bag for him as well as more than a few of SCOTUS justices.  It’s up to the state or federal judges to take action.

Take custody of this shitbag and confiscate his phone.  Let him sit in jail wearing an orange jumpsuit until his trials.  If they do that, I’ll guarantee his lawyers will then stop the delaying tactics.  Time to return to the rule of law.  Jail him. NOW.

Because this sketch by Steve Cousineau couldn’t wait until next Friday.

“Passage from the tRUMP bible…Sermon on the Con.”