Sunrise, because who needs sleep?

The majority of those I know and those I follow on social media are rightly pleased with the appointment of a special counsel (and with the specific appointment of Robert Mueller) to investigate the possible (lol) collusion and coordination between 45’s camp and Russian officials.  This puts us on the road to possible impeachments, indictments, convictions.

There are also quite a few calling for the use of the 25th Amendment, which would be a way of removing 45 because he is literally unfit for office. I think this is the option that makes the most sense because, in my opinion, he is literally unfit and unable to comprehend the responsibilities, duties, and consequences of his words and actions. This doesn’t address the larger problems, which are all the things and people that put us here. As I said in my last post, nothing he has done or said is a surprise, he is who he’s always been. When this is all over, if there is even a pretense of democracy left, we will be here again, unless we address the underlying issues. Now. I’m just going to hit a few of the biggies, the most immediate concerns.

Fake news! This is a real issue. The FCC needs to stop worrying about who used the seven dirty words and instead get some regulation and oversight going over who can/cannot identify their TV/cable/newspapers/internet sites as news. If there aren’t fact checkers working overtime, they don’t issue corrections when they get it wrong, and they’re just spouting off whatever comes into their heads (yanno, like Mrs Fringe), they aren’t news and cannot call themselves news.

The GOP: Yup, every one of those fuckers has got to go. Not because I disagree with their tax plan, and not even because I think we should have nationalized health care, but because they knew. They all knew.  Each and every one of them knew he was unqualified, unstable, a proven liar, relied on unstable extremists as advisors, wore his many, many lawsuits like medals, viewed women as objects to be categorized and mauled, viewed immigrants as occasionally useful subhumans, admired dictators above democratic leaders, and strongly suspected Russian ties.  They supported him anyway.  They thought he’d make them and their buddies lots of money by relaxing and omitting those pesky regulations (correct), and likely they thought his inexperience and disinterest in the nuts and bolts would make him easily manipulable (big old incorrect).  These are not people who take their duties as elected representatives with any degree of responsibility, no true ethics.  Get rid of every last slimy one.  This includes the VP. He knew all of it. If he didn’t, he’s as incompetent as 45.  And yes, McCain too.  Moderate my ass. He opened the door to these loon extremists being taken seriously with Sarah Palin, and fell right in line behind 45 as eagerly as the so-called Freedom Caucus (formerly known as the Tea Party).

Us. By us I include those who supported and continue to support 45.  I can’t think of a single thing he stands for that I don’t despise, but. We are still the United States of America, fractured as we might be right now, so it is distinctly unhelpful to draw an invisible line with invisible ink and blame “those people.”  Sure, some of his supporters are unrecognizable to me as American citizens, with their hiding on compounds hugging their armories and preparing for Armageddon, but more of his supporters are regular Joes and Janes who hate. That hatred has festered and spread, cultured with ignorance and disinformation until there were enough to vote someone like 45 into the office of President of the United States. This didn’t just happen overnight–we’ve got that long history of hatred–that long history of bullshit pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and a more recent history where we’ve gone from admiring those who succeeded against the odds to glorifying the uneducated and vilifying those who do the work and get their actual degrees by studying. It happened when people said “W was a “C” student” like that was a good thing. Having Jefferson Beuregard Sessions, a man too racist to make it through to become a federal judge during the Reagan administration as our Attorney General didn’t happen overnight.  It happened with the acceptance of the privatization of the prison system increasing the flow of the school to prison pipeline for young men (and women) of color, it happened with the demonization and endorsement of bullshit studies re marijuana, it happened when Black Lives Matter was regarded as a nuisance instead of a necessity, it happened when we allowed racial profiling to flourish. It happened when we allowed police brutality, particularly against people of color, to continue unchecked without justice.

More us. It’s time to stop fantasizing about the only acceptable President being the Messiah. Barack Obama was an excellent President, but he was neither perfect nor magical.  This made his decisions untenable to many on both the left and the right. Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t that just a little bit completely batshit crazy?

We are in trouble. We are in trouble on the world stage, and we are in trouble within our own borders. The American social fabric isn’t merely torn, it’s ragged. I don’t believe a patch will hold, we have to rework these threads.