Project 2025 has a ton in it. There is a mention of detention camps for certain people. I will simply quote his own words from his crappy little app and let them stand on their own.

“2024 is our final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the Deep State, we wll expel the warmongers from our government, we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the Communists, Marxists, and Fascists, we will throw off the sick political class that hates our Country, we will rout the Fake News Media, we will evict Joe Biden from the White House, and we will FINISH THE JOB ONCE AND FOR ALL!”

It gets worse from there. I could go on and I’m certain we will hear more in the coming weeks and months, but instead I wanted to ask a series of rhetorical questions. This isn’t just for conservatives or just for liberals. Everyone needs to be asking themselves these questions.

Are we taking him seriously?

The answer for most is likely no. He is a known liar and for those that follow him they will talk about the fact that we really can’t take everything he says seriously. He is inartful in his speech. He doesn’t use precise language.

Admittedly, there is an aspirational nature to it all. He wouldn’t be competent enough to do this. Some people might consider it more than aspirational. Some people might want to do it and not just talk about it. Would a second administration have the constraints of the first?

Would he do that to me?

The quick and easy answer is no. I’m a white guy. Obviously, he’s not talking about me right? The trouble is that there is frequent talk of vanguishing enemies. Who exactly are those enemies? Are we talking about just recent immigrants? Are we talking about all non-white people? Are we talking about anyone in the LGTBQ+ community? If you don’t think someone would be perusing these pages to find people aligned against him you’d be nuts.

If I don’t want that to happen to me then what am I prepared to do? This is the scary part. Do I buy a red hat and a bumpersticker just so I can pass as an ally? Would more be required of me down the road? Would I need to help round up “undesirables” for these camps?

What do we do now?

Most people are not evil. Even if there are people we don’t like, few of us would ever dream of doing something like this. So, hearing someone else talk about this has to be somewhat jarring. Even if we acknowledge that he is most likely not serious, there is some stuff you just don’t joke about. You certainly don’t do it in public speeches in front of people. So, there is an element of honesty here woven within the lies and farce.

This is quite literally a fight or flight situation. If we are not prepared to fight on the political arena or maybe even the real one then we better be prepared to find a new home. Obviously, in the political world it means beating Trump at the polls. This is where we get a ton of disagreement. Is Joe Biden the best fit to beat him? Are there any other options at this point?

The worst thing we can do right now is divide our forces. A vote for Joe Mancin (for instance) only works if it were someone that would have voted for Trump but decided not to. He has a solid 35-40 percent ready to vote for him. So, you only beat him by uniting behind one man (or woman) that can get more than that.

“Tuesdays with Morrie” just might be the greatest book I’ve ever read. Mitch Albom began as a sports writer, but has morphed into an author that is somehow relentlessly positive. The book I am thinking of here is “The Five People you meet in heaven.” That book got me thinking in a round about way about death. Each of us reaches of moment of mortality when we realize we will die someday. More importantly, we realize that those that are closest to us will also die one day. One way or another we have to come face to face with our own mortality and the mortality of those we love.

This isn’t about the five people you meet in heaven, but the three people you actually want to die. It could seem like these three folks are all the same, but they aren’t. The first kind is one we have all run into at one time or another. They are suffering. They are in incredible pain or their life is not nearly what it once was. Sometimes they are suffering from physical ailments or disease. Sometimes it is psychological or spiritual in nature. We want them to no longer feel any pain. A wish of death in that moment is not intended with malice or anything other than the love we feel for that person.

The other two aren’t that. The other two might be a reflection of us as much as them. The first is the rich uncle, aunt, or distant relative each of us imagines that we have. We don’t know them or don’t really care about them, but we each imagine them leaving their millions to us for some reason. They would put us on easy street and we don’t lose anyone we particularly care about. That is pure fantasy. We somehow convince ourselves that their money and inheritance is worth more than their lives as it pertains to us. Again, any of us that honestly feel this way are not exactly living our finest moment.

Then, there’s the third kind. It has nothing to do with money and it has nothing to do with mercy. Simply put, our lives would be better and easier if they were not around. We hate to create it like a balance sheet, but the net negatives greatly outweigh the net positives. In most cases, we can’t necessarily even see net positives. They may or may not be there based on the person, but we have all come to that calculation at some point.

The cruel irony is that those of us that have that feeling have it because we are better than that. We recognize that our existence impacts others’ existence. We make people’s lives better or worse on a daily basis. Some don’t have that internal struggle. They just don’t care. Other people are not independent entities into themselves. They exist only to enrich that person’s life. They are an extension of them and not their own person. When that person goes, the people in their life are just happier. A weight has been lifted. I can’t think of a more soul crushing thing to say about anyone.

So, when I say that no one will shed a tear when the ex-president goes I don’t do it gleefully. I can’t. Melania will definitely be happier. His children will likely never admit it, but their lives will become easier. Those in his orbit will breathe easier. The entire GOP might throw a private party for themselves. Anyone that actually knows the ex-president personally will be happier when he goes than they are now. I can’t think of a sadder commentary than that. I know Mitch would be disappointed in me that my mind went to the dark. Maybe I will come up with something more positive next time.

When we were in high school, the school experimented with something called Channel One. One of the challenges schools have across the board is what to do with extra time they have during the day. Most schools have class periods that are the same length except for lunch and maybe one other period during the day because home room or advisory is connected to it. Channel one was a way they filled the gap when we were in school. It was a group of teenagers that were covering the news of the day. The news of the day when Channel One started was the saga over the Branch Davidians.

Over the years, there has been a huge debate over who fired the first shot and who was really responsible for how this ended. Some blame the Davidians and some blame the feds. Beyond that, these cults ended the way these cults always end. Jim Jones and Jonestown ended the same way. Charles Manson’s cult ended the same way. We can’t literally say that every cult ends exactly the same way, but they usually end in disaster.

The dictionary defines a cult as “a small religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted religion and that has beliefs regarded by many people as extreme or dangerous.” Trumpism doesn’t fit that specific definition, but a growing number of people are considering it a cult. Are they off-base? We have seen a recent poll referenced in a number of places where more people who consider themselves Trump loyalists believe him than people from their own family, their religious leaders, or other right wing politicians. We have seen other loyalists say that they will back Trump no matter what until the day he dies.

So, how does all of this end? This is what worries me. If Jonestown ended in mass death and Waco ended in mass death then how does this all end? If it were a point of just cultists perishing then that would be one thing. We would do what we could to save our family and friends caught in the cult and let the rest of the lemmings jump off the cliff. Several agents died in the standoff in Waco. Jonestown even claimed the life of a member of Congress. It isn’t the plight of cultists that concerns me. It’s what happens to the rest of us. How many innocent victims go down when this finally ends?

We have already seen some of these isolated events go down. We have seen mass shooting events that were based on his rhetoric. We have seen a few loose nuts perish in showdowns with FBI and other agencies. The good news is that every time Trump calls for his followers to protest on his behalf it seems that fewer and fewer people show up. This is what happens in traditional cults. Members peel off when the trance breaks. As Trump gains more felony indictments, more and more members peel off. They may still vote for him, but they aren’t going to stick out their neck for him.

All it takes is one though. Who knows where the next crazy person will come from? Who knows what they will have up their sleeve or how many damage they could wreak if they are successful? Some of us could very well be collateral damage. That’s what frightens me. The trick is balancing that fear with the negative impacts of giving into it. We have to finish this thing. We can’t let the Freedom Caucus blackmail us into dropping charges. We need to finish it, but it doesn’t change my terror of what will come of it.

Decades of unbalanced coverage and a profound misunderstanding of the job of media has finally come home to roost. As you’ve probably heard by now, Donald Trump has been indicted again. I won’t belabor that point specifically as we have covered this over and over again, That’s a large part of the problem. What we have is an intersection of lack of proportion with a steady diet of misinformation to create what apparently appears to be our collective decent into nihilism.

Those are big words. That’s also part of the problem. Conservative America and conservative media have managed to pull off a dumbing down of society in general which has led to a whole separate universe. So, the House of Representatives continues to go after Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. Hunter Biden has almost certainly taken short cuts in life and traded on his name to get ahead. Of course, that pales in comparison with what the Trump children have done, but that is an example of the problem we will get to. Did Joe Biden use his influence to help his son? Perhaps he did and if he did that’s a bad thing, but we certainly haven’t seen proof of it yet.

Let’s compare that with a president that literally committed treason. Let’s compare that with his children that made money hand over fist from foreign governments while actually working in the White House. Let’s compare that with a president that has now been found liable for rape, indicted for paying off a porn star to keep the story from impacting the election, been indicted for illegally possessing documents in his bathroom, hiding it from the authorities, and apparently showing them off to any Tom, Dick, and Harry that came to see him in his office.

Anyone other than someone like Trump would be standing before a firing squad. This is not hyperbole. This is literally true. We haven’t even gotten to his efforts to subvert the election and end our democracy. We haven’t gotten to him being on voice mail openly asking the Secretary of State in Georgia to find him enough votes to win. He will literally be indicted in four different jurisdictions and will be held civilly liable for defamation in another one.

The problem is perfectly plain. We do not live in a balanced world. There is no “well your guy did some stuff so it is okay for my guy to do stuff.” Even if that were remotely true, there is no comparison between the two things. They want you to believe it. They want you to believe that all politicians are overwhelmingly corrupt. They want you to understand that Biden has committed impeachable offenses. They aren’t quite sure what yet. They can’t prove it and they’ve spent the better part of a year trying, but by God it’s true.

The problem is that it all sounds like a fantastical conspiracy theory. It sounds similar to the yarns that are spun on the right. So, it all becomes political theatre, They say stupid stuff without any facts to back it up, so the seemingly bizarre truth that happened before our very eyes has to be equally nuts. Except it isn’t. We saw it with our very eyes. We heard it plainly with our ears. We aren’t stupid. Except maybe we are. Sometimes some things are so over the top and so up front that it is nearly impossible to believe. Would someone really be that stupid to do something that blatant? Well, the answer is yes.

In the midst of the bad news and the news of the weird is a bit of good news. Polls are simply data points at the end of the day. Numbers don’t lie by themselves, but people often lie about the numbers. However, it is impossible to look at the current poll data from 538 and think anything good is happening for Ron DeSantis.

Naturally, a comprehensive study of statistics evolves like peeling an onion. We could point out that he was polling near 40 percent at the beginning of the year and has dipped to nearly 20 percent now. That much is easy to see when looking at the graphic. The question of why is a lot more interesting and important. Obviously there are different theories here. A lot of it has to do with Trump and the weird hold he has over the party. Some of it is simply DeSantis himself.

Ultimately this is good news. 2016 should have taught us a very important lesson. There is a thought in party politics that you should root for the worst candidate to make it through the primary on the other side. After all, it would make it easier for your candidate to win. This was the thought in 2016. Clearly, no one in their right mind would choose Donald Trump, so why worry as he runs roughshod over the Republican primary?

Even as he was gaining access to the White House there was another thought that permeated through some circles on the left. Some people thought “how much damage could he really do?” and “maybe this will wake people up and they will finally support more progressive candidates.” We obviously found out on both counts. You never assume a jackass will lose. You never assume a jackass can’t cause immense damage. You never allow a jackass to go any further once he or she has shown themselves to be a jackass.

Ron DeSantis is a jackass. Boil it down and diffuse the vestiges of ideology and he’s just a jackass. Whether one buys into woke or not or even wants to engage in any kind of conversation of what that even is, DeSantis just seems intent on punishing people. He is actively making lives in Florida worse and the purpose seems lost on most people. At any rate, the more and more people hear about him the more and more they are turned off.

This is not about ideology anymore. We need people in government that aren’t jackasses. Maybe there should be a Hippocratic Oath for politicians. Whether you buy into anything you should first do no harm. Maybe there are enough sane people in the universe to expel the jackasses from our midst. Obviously, there are still a number of people that our jackasses. Hopefully, these poll numbers might be a sign that there are more of us than there are of them.

There is a famous bit in the Peanuts cartoons that probably best describes what many of us are feeling at this point. Lucy Van Pelt repeatedly convinces Charlie Brown to try to kick a football. Each time she promises that she won’t move the football at the last moment. Every time he barrels full speed ahead and every time she moves the football. Charlie Brown will lose his balance and land on his backside.

On a seemingly weekly basis we are told that Donald Trump is about to be indicted. He has been sued well over 100 times in his lifetimes. Sometimes he is forced to pay a minimal amount, but he has never been held truly responsible for any his financial crimes. He has committed fraud, treason, and has been credibly accused of numerous sexual crimes as well. As we sit here, he has a grand jury looking at his “perfect” phone call where he blatantly tries to interfere in an election and strongarm the secretary of state into falsifying the results. Then, there was the theft of hundreds of documents he had no rights to. The Justice Department could charge him with illegally possessing those documents, obstruction of justice when he refused to return them, and probably much more. Then, there was the illegal campaign expenditure where he paid off a porn star and former playmate.

Of course, because he is a brazen jackass he didn’t stop that. He released a post on social media showing himself holding a bat next to a picture of the district attorney. Legal experts have said that this broke an additional four laws by itself. Obviously, apologists will argue that he really wasn’t being serious. That’s what they all say before someone actually attempts to harm the district attorney. He did the exact same thing when he called for his followers to storm the capitol. It wasn’t serious until it was.

Here in Texas we know this story all too well. Our attorney general has been under indictment every day of his term. He then was able to run for reelection and was given another term. He will never go to trial. Donald Trump will never go to trial. We know this too. In this situation we find ourselves being the sucker and shill. Yet, every week we see the reports that an indictment is imminent. The mainstream media is playing the role of Lucy Van Pelt and Charlie Brown at the same time. Even if indicted, there will be no perp walk. There will be no jail time. There will be no justice.

This is where we need to reframe and readjust. Partisan media will frame this as a right vs. left issue. Fox will point out all of the crimes that the Bidens have supposedly committed. MSNBC will continue to tell how a Trump indictment is imminent. Whether the Bidens have done anything wrong is not really the issue. The issue is that there has always been a two-tiered aspect to our justice system. Some are able to buy their way out of facing justice. The rest of us must face the music when we screw up. If the mainstream media focused on that and admitted what all of us know to be true then they could simply outline the crimes that the rich and powerful commit and just move on. They could look at the disparate results that depend on how much any one person has to shirk their culpability. Don’t cry wolf. Don’t hype up a possible indictment we know isn’t coming. It never does. That’s more the point.