We Cannot Be Speechless While We Wait

I've been trying to figure out what to say that would be unique here. Not sure that I can.

45's rhetoric has found the place it has always been: Racist. Vapid. Condescending. Elusive. Go back where you came from. This, to four young female (please note) Members of Congress.

We can't throw him out; too politically risky, or so they say. (Would you rather have yet another two years of complete Republican control? But it also might flip everything the other way.) We can't ignore him, though we might try that once and see what happens. So we deal with him, one outrage at a time.

While we wait, we must endure. That there is no sense of progress is distressing; that occasionally Democrats actually must make deals with this phony (hat-tip to Bernie Sanders, who finally said that to a national audience) is discouraging.

Investigations seem as if they've taken a back seat. This is the product of time and endless attention-seeking by the insecurity-in-chief, who also knows the effects of his nonsensical outpourings. There is no stability because there can't be any, any longer. He cannot rest for fear that the country will focus on his crimes--and, having finally done so, will dispense with them, and him.

Meanwhile, the clock ticks for both investigators and the investigated. We must wait another week for Mueller to approach, it is said, for both sides to spend more time with him. Republicans will do their best to destroy him, but his findings have been public for three months now. Democrats will ask: Do you have anything to add? His stock response has been no, but a public airing will change that answer whether or not he wishes it. Then the Republicans will have at him. Regardless of the intelligence of their questions, or otherwise, 45 will unleash vitriol before to set the stage, and claim justification afterwards to get the last word.

It is all so predictable. It's the waiting that's driving us crazy. We are defenseless. He has everything right where he wants it. There are no insults that will top his, and there are no responses that will sufficiently satisfy. Media reveals, but also enables, all the awfulness.

Emotionality causes lapses in memory. Endless violations of propriety seem too great to recall. That's what he wants--a short memory, so he can focus for a few days on delivering his message, making people forget all that he's done so that they don't balance it against whatever success he's had in advancing the wrong, damaging agenda of a party that, like him, has lost its way.

That's the trick. We must not only recall all the terrible things he's done and said, but also to connect them to whatever terrible things he's doing at present--to create a sense of continuity of incompetence and cruelty. Whomever gets the presidential nomination must, and I do mean must, have at his/her disposal all that's been messed up by this monster, to be able to draw upon it and put him on the defensive, instead of the other way around, which is probably the only thing he's good at.

But to do that, we must also continue the conversations. We can't be speechless while we wait, understandably exasperated and becoming, potentially, more numbed each day.

Let's not do that. That is the way to acquiescence. He is a racist, incompetent, lazy, lying, lecherous slob. There can be no worse person who could possibly be president at this point in our history. He proves it every day. We need to recall how, clearly and sharply, inserting ourselves into discussions. If the energy isn't utilized, it will dissipate and won't be there when we need it. And we are going to need it.

After all, this is, in fact, one heck of an opportunity. A vast vacuum exists, created by the other side, which refuses to stand up to him. We can advance our values and superior policy options because nobody's doing anything across the table, Lindsay Graham's rantings notwithstanding.

Besides, the immigrants--the unwashed, poorly fed, crowded, helpless immigrants--are still there. Their children are, well, somewhere else. We still haven't accounted for all of them. Someone's trying to make you forget about that, too.

See? Some reminders are necessary. We need to remember.

Be well. I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark