Category: Politics

Why not? Actual qualifications are completely unnecessary. So here’s your plan: whatever you do, don’t tell voters the truth, They hate that. Instead, make up some wild stories and call them the truth. Let your imagination go wild. The bigger and stupider the lie, the better. Making sense will only turn people off.

Tell the stories over and over and over. When they are proven false, deny it. Make up new lies for why the “proofs” are really wild stories and transparent lies.

Be sure your stories have villains who voters already hate and fear. When possible, however, provide new people to hate and new things to fear. Never forgive, never admit that you’ve made a mistake, and always double down.

Now run for office. If you lose, don’t admit it. If you win, do not govern. Just keep telling the wild lies and use them to raise as much money as you possibly can.

Run for re-election, and never look back.

Thank you for your service.

It seems as though our leaders don’t really care that much about national secrets. Trump stole them and lied about it to the cops. Biden littered every available residence and garage with them. Mike Pence doesn’t even know how he got them.

I went from shock and outrage with Donald, to crushing disappointment with Joe, to mild unease with Mike. And now I’m thinking, maybe we should just declassify everything. Publish it in newspapers all over the world. Stop already with all the secrets!

We have nothing to hide, right? Apparently not.

It’s been obvious for a while now that the Republican Party is in the process of committing suicide. It’s been long, drawn out, and ugly — and getting uglier every day. My main concern is not that we are losing an important counterpoint to left-wing policies. That disappeared a long time ago. My worry now is that the rest of us will be sucked down the rathole with them.

Once upon a time, Republicans represented a calm, moderate (if somewhat boring) force for common decency and fiscal restraint. They were holding their own against the Dems, but they didn’t have anything snazzy like Social Security or Medicare to brag about.

Then, in the 80s, they came up with supply-side economics — and abandoned the whole fiscal restraint thing. Supply-side was a fantasy, it was a crock, but they actually seemed to believe it. Cutting taxes, they told us, would actually bring more revenue into the U.S. Treasury. Yes, I know. That’s just stupid.

But they insisted it was true. That was the first death knell of the old Republican Party. The second came in the early 90s, when they left behind their reputation for basic human decency and began to follow the lead of Newt Gingrich. The result: a zombie party. Not only stupid, but mean. It’s a party that has come to believe a whole bunch of things that aren’t true. Global warming is a hoax. Corporations are people. Money is a form of speech. Saddam has nukes.

And now: Trump is a truth-teller, elections are rigged, Jewish space lasers started those fires in California. Yes, the zombie GOP ship is going under, and its leaders have been busy throwing everything overboard. First it was sensible economics, then science, then principles, then humanity itself. And finally, their best people. Over the side and gone. And they won’t be coming back

Come January, with their return to power in the House, we will see what is left of the Republican Party. As we have said, it will be ugly. Full of grievance and cruelty and dark, conspiratorial visions. Yes, it will be laughable and pathetic, but also dangerous. That ugliness will still be capable of wrecking everything.

So what are the rest of us to do? Well, we should start by moving the furniture out of the way. Put away anything breakable. Lock up the silver. Then, find a comfortable, secure location from which to witness the death throes of the GOP. And pack a lunch; this could go on for a while.

We will surely miss them. Having a genuine loyal opposition is vital to the health of the republic. But we will be so-o-o happy to see this bunch go.

That’s what the talking heads said about it, anyway. The political operatives, the news show hosts, the candidates — all the pundits agreed. In fact, they agreed on a lot of things. And now that the voting is over, now that the general outlines of the results can be seen, one thing is clear: nobody knows anything.

There was no Red Wave. The polls were wrong. Our voting systems were never seriously threatened. The prognostication industry in general had a bad night. And conventional wisdom made a fool of itself. Which shouldn’t be too surprising, really. In fact, it happens every time.

This may indeed have been the most important election in our lifetimes (so far), but we won’t know how or why until later. How much later? Like most events that will take place in the future, we have no way of knowing.