Dark Times

Now that Dear Leader has been newly freed of any constraints and with a vicious campaign cranking up, Lucian Truscott gets straight to the point.

There will come a time when we look back on this week as the moment in our history when we finally understood that we have a man as president who is acting like a fascist dictator.

Openly taking vengeance on his enemies means Fuckface is sliding further into dangerous territory.

To call for the imprisonment of political opponents without trial is not playing with rhetoric for effect. It's not political gimmickry. It's not cute. It's not funny. It's not clever. Let's say out loud what it is: It's pure fascism, plain and simple.

Update (February 17):  David Cay Johnston suggests that Speaker Pelosi anticipated von Clownstick's worsening behavior and that Democrats have the opportunity to make Republicans pay a price.

They are tied to [Dear Leader] and cannot easily get a political divorce, thanks to Pelosi’s strategy, without openly saying they made a terrible mistake in failing to convict and remove [him] from office.

Update (February 23):  Heather Digby Parton says Bill Barr "and the president are on a crusade to punish the president's enemies and go easy on his friends". Even giving a briefing about ongoing Russian interference is enough to get you fired and replaced with a loyalist.

Meanwhile, Bob Cesca notes a Daily Beast report in which Dear Leader "offered WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a pardon in exchange for aiding in [von Clownstick's] cover-up of the Russian military's hacking and theft of emails from the Democratic National Committee in 2016".

Update (September 24):  We certainly know by now (February in hindsight is part of the "beforetimes") how dark things can get--there's no guarantee anything gets better. In an interview with Chauncey DeVega, Tim Wise offers some advice.

Even with all the horrible things that have happened in such a short time this year, I will tell you that the outcome of this moment is not preordained. If the people in this country who have been ignoring the crises finally wake up and get out of bed and do the moral and good thing, then America's multiracial democracy has a chance of surviving. The problem is that too many of us have been waiting around and not being engaged in the struggle, because they believed that the long march of progress was something guaranteed in America.

Do what James Baldwin said to do: Earn your death. Earn your death by confronting with fortitude and honesty the conundrums of life. Earn your death by the way you live. And that means people need to get off their behinds and do what is necessary to save the United States and the world and the planet from [Fuckface von Clownstick], the Republican Party and the broader right-wing movement.