The Glass of 2024

 

America is big on conspiracies and mysteries and who dunnits these days.

A case might easily be made that one of the more likely reasons for this surge in solving is the uncontrollable chaos of the political section of the peanut gallery. Mere mortals have a tendency to seek out things they can accomplish or achieve or...wait for it...solve....when other things are beyond their reach...or skill sets.

Most especially when those "other things" include little this and that things like, say, the future of democracy as we know it.

Here's a nuclear Rubic's level puzzle...that first appeared almost a decade ago, popped up again almost four years ago and is slowly but surely rearing its Whack A Mole head once again as the Benny Hill meets Monty Python meets Stephen King shit show that passes for a "Presidential" campaign down shifts into full fast and furious.

To lighten the dark tragedy of it, imagine, for a moment, the next few sentences in the voice of Jerry Seinfeld....

 "....what is the DEAL...with Ted Cruz?...."

"....what has HAPPENED....to Lindsey Graham?..."

and a new fly in the original ointment, buzzing in just in the past few days....

 "....Chris Sununu said WHAT?...."

For those unclear, unsure, confused and/or disconnected from the 'state of the Union' over the past almost decade, here's a Cliff Notes 'splaining that even Ricky Ricardo would comprende'..

Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, currently United States "Senators" (Cruz from Texas, Graham from South Carolina) were arguably the most vocal, of dozens, hundreds, of loud vocalists in the, then, Republican Party of 2016 who were convinced, to hear them actually tell it (which you can easily do by some Google of them vocalizing at the time) that Donald Trump (then a joke who became a serious candidate faster than you can say 'we keep the White House in tippy top shape') was not only a joke as a candidate but a clear and present danger to the democracy, the nation, hell, the whole world...if it was 'put in his hands' (the whole, wide world, as a matter of fact) in the form of the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania.

Trump, of course, 'articulately and eruditely' responded with the graciousness, maturity and intelligence that that 'whole world' has to come know and dread.

Give or take 75 million 'Americans' who, to paraphrase Master Yoda, "a fucking clue, they have not".

Trump trash talked Cruz's wife and essentially accused his late father of being directly involved in the removal of John F. Kennedy's skull with a 6.5 caliber cartridge in November of 1963.

Meanwhile, the orange wonder who made "The Apprentice" sure to win a Peabody Award alluded to Graham's 'manhood' in as close as one can get without letting 'fag' slip into the sentence construction.

And, at the time (2016) Trump assessed the lovely Lindsey's mahhvelous medulla.

“He’s one of the dumbest human beings I’ve ever seen,” Trump said.

Fast forward to 2023. (Let alone 2020).

Both Cruz and Graham would throw themselves in front of a bus (campaign or other wise) to give their lives in sacrifice to their king, their monarch, hell, practically their Pope.

Pope Orange Julius the First. Has a certain hip snap to it, don't ya think?

And the newest WTF? in a long,long....very, very, very long...line of those "Republicans" who have not only become loyalists of the first order, but have also, tragically, developed what could prove to be a fatal drinking problem....a seemingly incurable addiction to orange Kool Aid....

...the brand new member of the "Are You Effin Kiddin' Me Club"....the current 'Republican' Governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu.

Who, as recently as this past August, was not only being touted as a fresh, clean, mature and intelligent possible candidate for the White House gig himself, but came (comes) from a long line of "traditional" Republicans, not the least being his father John who was New Hampshire's Guv in the 80's and served as George H.W. Bush's chief of staff.

Sununu, when asked this past week who he would vote for in 2024 if that election is a sad and soggy rematch between Joe Biden and the orange wonder who made "The Apprentice" sure to win a Peabody Award, answered as follows....

“I’m a Republican.”

For those who didn't get translation card or a pair of those 3D glasses they give away in the lobby so you can see what the hell is going on, those three words are stunning not for what they say but, rather for what they don't.

They don't say "I will not vote for Donald Trump."

Sununu's side step of the inevitable wave of WTF? consists of his repeated, oft expressed belief that Trump will, in fact, most, even very, likely not actually end up being the candidate next year.

The problem, of course, with words like "most" and "very" is that they leave a lot of room for "oh...yeah....well, what do you know....I was wrong...."

And it does nothing to ease the fears that tens of millions have that the historically skilled used car salesman who wants to "use the military to take care of those who oppose the President" in his second term will actually wake up the morning after Election Day to the hysterical cheers of tens of millions of others who have given him that second term.

"Most" and "very" likely won't be the candidate"...is like assuring the parents of a sixteen year old girl that they shouldn't be too concerned, that their daughter is only "a little bit" pregnant.

Waffles are more common on Capitol Hill than they are at all the IHops on the planet. What makes this particular waffling so dark is that it's not coming from an obvious gutless sycophant "Texan" who would turn in their mother to curry the favor of the king....or their wife who was trash talked...or their father who had absolutely nothing to do with killing JFK.

Or a South Carolina sweet magnolia who screamed so loud and hysterically in 2016 about how the sky would fall if Don Corleorange wasn't stopped by Barzini that Chicken Little, himself, urged the lilting Lindsay to "ah say, ah say, ah say, ya'll calm down a little there, boy...."

The waffling is coming from a guy who has come off, at least up until the last few days, as a fresh, clean, mature and intelligent possible candidate who recognizes what a completely inept, psychologically damaged pile of both flotsam and jetsam the currently presumptive nominee is.

Yet, there he is. Not provably saying that he's "fer" Pope Julius.

But not saying the word "agin'", neither.

Write that one down as "genuinely disappointing".

And, for the time being, qualified for status as "....next....on Unsolved Mysteries"....

As far as gutless sycophant Rafael....and sweet honey Graham cracker are concerned?

Absolutely no mystery "a tall".

It's simply a matter of shattered glass.

Seven years ago, as it became apparent that the "joke" that was the "candidacy" of Trump was, like the most persistent and infuriating weed, starting to take serious root, Cruz and Graham (along with dozens of "good, honest, "for the people" "Republicans) recognized that it was time to stop putzing around and get serious about letting the "we, the people" that enjoy shovelfuls of their particular brand of horseshit that they needed to wake up, smell the Orange and put an end to running along the bandwagon at all, let alone climbing aboard.

And it wasn't because the gutless gang was all that offended, even bothered, by the "straight talk" (read: blunt, crude, offensive, foul mouthed demagoguery) that MAGAboy was spewing out by the Tweet tonnage.

In fact, a lot of the actual 'agenda' underneath the used toilet paper that Trump wrapped it in was the kind of agenda that the Right Wing Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight had dreamed of for decades, if not generations, from the garden variety "tax cuts for the rich and fuck the middle class" and "put Christ not only back in Christmas but in everything else from sea to shining sea"...but also the more insidious, even puritanical, sexist, ageist, racist sewage that had been, ostensibly, put in the bottle and corked by the "advancement" of the 'God fearin' carnival disguised as a 'civilization' known as "America" in the post World War II years.

It's just that Cruz and Graham and their assorted sidekicks modeled after Curly, Moe and Larry knew they dare not pull the cork out of that bottle, fully aware that to do so would result in 'general election' backlashes that would do precisely the opposite of what they hoped and prayed for...and dreamed of.

Not returning things to those thrilling days of narrow minded, tunnel visioned, don't even think about wearing short shorts yesteryear. 

But a forward surge of 'liberalism' that would make (in their eyes) Sodom and Gomorrah look like a backyard BBQ at Joel Osteen's profanely palatial testament to how the Old Testament doused liberally (pun unintended but a chortle, nevertheless) with gullibility was a recipe for riches beyond even the master snake oil sales staffs wildest dreams.

Revelations, it turned out, wasn't just a chapter in the good book.

And one of those revelations that finally found their way into the moist mush medullas of Ted and Lindsay (and Moe, Larry and Curly, oh my) was that they didn't have to pull the cork out.

Donald had already done that.

And it not only wasn't resulting in his being condemned as a charlatan, false prophet, even Anti-Christ.

It ended up resulting in a four year lease on the big white building at 1600...

Banishment from the Garden? 

Hell, he was even celebrated for grabbing Eve's pussy.

How d'ya like them apples?

America is big on conspiracies and mysteries and who dunnits these days.

But "what about", "whatever happened" and "what's the DEAL with" when the "what" is applied to Cruz and Graham and their insufferable ilk?

Eeezy peezy. 

They're now having their cake....and eating it, too.

Courtesy of the orange impeached, indicted 'political war' criminal.

Who pulled the cork out of the bottle, poured the poison into the mainstream

And threw the fake gold brick...through the plate glass window of "Uncle Sam's Bakery".