Remember during the 2012 and 2016 elections when Republicans admitted (on television) that their strict voter ID laws were not about fictional “voter fraud”, but about suppressing Democratic voter turnout?  Well, in 2020, it’s happened again.  This time, right-winger, Joni Ersnt of Iowa, said (on television) that the Iowa caucuses were coming up and mused about how smearing Joe Biden using the Trumped up Ukraine conspiracy was going to hurt him by keeping people from caucusing for him.

The shocking thing about how conservatives talk is that they say this crappola so much amongst themselves that they blurt it out are the worst time – for them.  The jig is up.  Not only was Trump trying to smear Biden with a fake conspiracy theory and associated fake investigations, the GOP is continuing that strategy by saying “Biden” as much as possible during the trial about TRUMP.

Since we all know that Russia prefers Trump to any other US president (since Putin said so on global television) it’s not a surprise that Russian military hackers got into the systems of Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company where Hunter Biden was on the board of directors for a few years.  Ignoring the stupidity of Hunter’s taking of that job, there is no evidence of wrongdoing by him or his father, but that didn’t stop the Russians from doing the job that Trump extorted Zelensky to perform, the move that drew an impeachment action against him.

The effort started in November just as the impeachment inquiry started in the House and Trump began frantically trying to discredit it.  Using phishing and spearphishing tactics (just like in 2016) the Russian GRU has been bombarding Burisma email accounts and have successfully stolen email credentials to get inside of the company.

The super frustrating thing about all of this illegal activity is not only Trump’s acceptance of it, but his encouragement for it to continue.  When is enough enough for Republicans?

In New Hampshire yesterday, Biden was asked if he would pick a Republican as VP.  Here’s his answer, ALL of his answer:

Deval Patrick, former Massachusetts governor and current co-chairman of Bain Capital (yes, that Bain capital), announced today is candidacy for Vice President of the United States.  Yes, I said VP.  Patrick knows that he has zero chance of being nominated president, especially at this late stage.  He’s positioning himself, in my opinion, to be the go to person for the VP slot.  He has all the qualifications, and would be the perfect running mate for Biden (and others, but especially Biden).  Think about it – Biden has the best chance of beating His Orangeness, but he’ll undoubtedly be a one-term president.  Therefore he’ll need a Veep who can take on the 2024 mantel.  That could very well be Patrick.  He’s experienced, worked closely with President Obama, and is well liked among Democrats and New Englanders.  He’s the perfect presidential candidate – for 2024.  I think that’s the play, but others believe that Patrick will try to take New Hampshire and go head to head with Biden in South Carolina.  That approach virtually guarantees a win in SC for Warren by splitting the African American vote between Biden (who’s very popular there) and Patrick.  That’s unwise, and I believe Patrick knows that.

I like Patrick in the mix, which makes the whole thing very interesting.  Biden/Patrick?  I like it.  A lot.

Right now, Democrats are doing what Democrats always do: They form into a circular firing squad and snipe at one another to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Currently, the Dems have three viable 2020 candidates – Warren, Sanders, and Biden.  Buttigieg, as great as he is, can’t get out of single digits in national polls, and let’s face it – it’s not his time and he should prepare to run for governor or Senator from Indiana and then come back in 10 years.  His time is in the future.  There have been no votes cast in any primary yet, but the intramural feuding is well underway with Warren supporters smearing Biden and amplifying Trump’s idiotic conspiracy theories, Biden supporters saying Warren is unelectable, and Bernie supporters hating everyone.

Warren is sticking to a Medicare for All plan that doesn’t have the slightest chance of ever seeing the light of day, wants to fund it by taxing billionaires, vows to shut down the US oil industry,  and is threatening businesses that she’s going to jail CEOs.  Sanders vows to also shut down the US oil industry and tax billionaires; he’s more circumspect on healthcare policy.  Biden is staying down the middle, making the electability argument as his main selling  point.

Let’s be blunt here.  As much as you’ll hate to hear it, big sweeping policy changes and turning industries and healthcare on their heads is NOT a winning strategy.  Dems have only one choice, and that is Trump, not Trump.  Period.  Short of him being removed by impeachment (which I believe is a slim to zero chance), or him keeling over from his artery clogging diet, getting him out of office through the ballot box is the only viable chance to rid ourselves from this metastasizing tumor sitting in the Oval Office.

The New York Times published their latest poll this week that pretty much sums up what Real Clear Politics has been reporting for months – Biden is the clear choice for the best chance to beat Trump:

This is the summary of the latest poll.  Sanders is second, Warren a distant third, yet Warren is catching up to Biden in the early primary states, though she is the worst of the front runners to face Trump, and her rhetoric is making it even harder for her to compete.

Before you say it, yeah, yeah, yeah.  I know, I know – Biden is old, failing, sleepy, confused, (insert your insult here _________).  What’s really weird is that none of those adjectives are used on Sanders or Warren even though he is older than Biden and is ACTUALLY suffering from a heart condition, and Warren is only a few years behind both of them.  The issue here, and the ONLY issue here is beating Trump.  Biden, especially if strengthened by a younger vibrant VP candidate is the highest probability candidate to beat Trump.  Warren and Sanders are not.  Period.  Want to lose suburbanites, and middle of the roaders?  Threaten to take away their healthcare and triple the price of gasoline.  It’s stupid, and a losing strategy.

As much as all of us hate it, this is NOT the election for sweeping policy changes.  This is the election of winning.  That is the only goal.  The choice is Trump, not Trump.  If you think things are miserable now, imagine if this SOB got another 4 years.  He has already destroyed the State Department and the Justice Department.  After he packs another 2 or 3 ideologues on the Supreme Court and hundreds of lunatics in the federal court system, he would have virtually destroyed our democracy.  The risk is too great to lose this one – the cost is too high.

The Dems just have to stop the infighting and focus on the only goal for 2020 – beating Trump.  It’s arithmetic.

Last night I extricated myself from a FB conversation.  Yes, it was one of THOSE conversations, started by one of my conservative acquaintances who has become a Never Trumper.  A couple of days ago, he asked what act would turn his Trumpist friends against The Orange One.  The answer (nothing) was predictable; what was shocking was the nonsense they spewed in a continuous stream to justify that.  Intellectually, we all sense that Trumpists are unbalanced and misinformed.  When it’s laid out in plain English on social media, it makes your hair hurt.

One Trumpist would deflect all questions about Trump to Biden and his son, Hunter.  He would simply not address any of the issues about Ukraine or the thousands and thousands of easily disproven lies from Trump.  His source is Sean Hannity and he actually begged me to watch his show to “get the facts” that were going “to bury” Biden and his son.  He would only gloat about how Biden is “cooked” and would not even address the question.  Another Trumpist resorted to immediate grade school name calling and wanted to bet all comers $2,500 that Trump would not be impeached and that he would again be elected president.  He didn’t like I said I didn’t believe I wanted to bet on the level of stupidity of Trumpists.

One Trumpist kept quoting the Bible.  One even quoted Shakespeare, which I found entertaining.  One kept quoting the lies of Peter Schweizer, author of Clinton Cash, one of those fact free “investigative” books that makes people’s brains soft.  One said he would only vote against Trump if “he was convicted of a crime”.  He seemed puzzled when I said that was impossible since DOJ policy didn’t allow a sitting president to be indicted for crimes they committed.

The one who took the cake?  The QAnon Trumpist.  I have never had a social media conversation with anyone as unhinged as this one.  These folks are obsessed with pedophilia, and have this weird article of faith that the “Deep State”, whatever that is, is somehow covering up Hillary’s pedophilia ring that has “pedavores” as members.  I have no idea what a “pedavore” is, and don’t want to know.  This person was so unhinged that even the most Trumpist of Trumpists paused their ranting momentarily, one even saying, “I don’t even know what that means.”  I burst out laughing at that one, almost spilling my Jack on the rocks on my keyboard.

What I learned during this exchange was that to a person no level of corruption, criminality, or misconduct would cause a Trumpist to think again.  The really disheartening lesson was that how thoroughly these people are brainwashed with pure unadulterated bullshit.  We knew that the Hillary nonsense is encoded in the DNA – but right alongside those lies, the lies about Biden and his son have already been ingrained.  The facts have no bearing on these opinions; none.  I have finally given up even trying to talk to these people because I make no progress.  The message framing, as defined by George Lakoff, a linguist and retired professor of language at Berkeley, is perfect.  This message framing hits all the emotional buttons of fear, belonging, and Them vs. Us.  Once that kind of messaging becomes encoded, it’s almost impossible to alter it, and that’s what we’re witnessing.

These people are beyond reach of reason and critical thinking.  The only way they can be beaten is to neutralize them at the voting booth, and that requires the engagement in massive numbers of normal people who haven’t been brainwashed.  That is a huge task.