Where Shamelessness Goes to Die

 

     OK, you're not about to read anything stunningly insightful, original or brilliant in this post. You all have eyes and ears and, if you're reading this, I'll assume you're fellow travelers and that, at best, I'll be preaching to the choir. At most, one could almost accuse me of phoning it in.

      Of course, I rarely if ever do that. But sometimes the obvious has to be stated just in case it's in danger of getting flushed down the Memory Hole. And, with Republican lunacy, there's a constant danger of that. After all, if the neo-Nazi wing of the Republican Party, which is to say the Republican Party, had its way, they'd have you forget all about the gutting of Roe v Wade and Project 2025 (aka the Enabling Act 2.0) until Election Day. Then, one way or the other, once the ballots are in on the evening of November 5th, they won't give a shit what you remember or not.

     Among the two monolithic parties (that plainly have to go), Republicans were by far the shiftiest, most furtive. Historically, Republicans like to engage in their rat-fuckery in the cold and dark shadows, which is why, for over seven decades, they've been hostile to the very concept of a free press. We saw this in the wake of the last-minute language changes to the fascist USA PATRIOT Act in which Democrats literally didn't know what they were voting for until after the bill was passed.

     But in the Glorious Age of Trump, all that changed in a hurry. They're like the zombie dogs in I Am Legend, slavering, twitching, muscles bunched, barely restrained by the thinning strip of sunlight. And pretty soon, that strip of sunlight will be gone and then there will be nothing between us and them.

     They see in Trump a creaking, aging Trojan Horse that will let if not actually enable them to erect an agenda that's plainly right out of the Third Reich. Republicans have been shameless for a century but now they're wallowing in it like pigs in slop. The first day of the RNC convention, they nominated a convicted crook found guilty on 34 felony counts. We thought Republicans couldn't possibly get more shameless after they showed up to the courthouse wearing Trump/Dangerfield suits. Then, this week, they started putting fake bandages on their right ears.

     The RNC convention has always been a place where shamelessness went to die. Now, it's not only being put to death, its throat is being slit on prime time, its carcass roasted and they're stringing the bones around their necks. It's like Carrie only without the pig's blood.

     Predictably, any pretense to ethics, morality or respectability started circling the porcelain drain at warp speed 10. When Mike Johnson (R-Not Ready For Prime Time) tried to introduce a guest, the teleprompters failed, prompting the Dad tribute band they'd hired to play Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" for over 13 minutes while they tried to fix them.

     Ironically, it took Johnson less time to leave the stage than Trump in Butler the day he was "shot".

     And the crowd laughed at their own party's incompetence.

     Things had already gone south long before Peter Navarro showed up on the convention floor, still smelling of the Salisbury steak they served in the prison cafeteria that day. Amazingly, he was allowed to give a speech in which of course he ranted and raved like the demented leprechaun he is and they treated him like a returning conquering hero.

     It didn't take Paul Manafort long to worm his way onto the floor like a nattily-dressed silverfish. That's at least two jailbirds that were seen at the convention. And, of course, the man of the hour is also a convicted felon. For good measure, the "Law and Order" party also saw fit to put up on the stage Savannah Crisley, whose own parents are doing a lengthy stretch for fraud.

     It's like a mug shot book come to life, a Thomas Nast cartoon turned into a four day-long movie. It's the world's longest pity party for a clown and buffoon who would turn on each and every single of them if he felt they were being insufficiently loyal. And all because his ear got nicked by a flying piece of glass. Now half the people at the convention center are wearing fake bandaids on their ears as if they, too, stared down an assassin's bullet.

     And this fecklessness, this hypocrisy, this utter lack of shame is what we've come to expect from a democracy-loathing party like the GOP. We've seen nothing new, so far. What shocks us are these same qualities put on display by the mainstream media, especially CNN.

     Granted, I don't own a TV. I have a laptop and internet access that offers the lunacy that those of us who are actually sane can take in just small doses. But I can still view short clips from the equally nauseating Fourth Estate giving free passes to the emerging Fourth Reich and focusing on Biden's age and the Democratic "leadership" trying to push Biden aside as if he's some drunk uncle who's old and in the way.

     Not once have I heard them mention Trump's prominent place in the recently-released Epstein files and the rest of Katie Johnson's testimony in which she went into harrowing detail of the night Trump raped her in Jeffrey Epstein's townhouse when she was just 13. Or that the only reason Trump is a free man and allowed to run for president is because of a thoroughly corrupt federal judiciary and US Senate.

     No. The poor man got shot so they give him a free pass for everything even as he dozes off during his own pity party.

     This is their standard bearer, their vision of the future- A tired old fat man of 78 and convicted felon who's uniquely positioned to destroy what's left of the world already burning because of the machinations of a group of fifth columnists who loathe democracy as much as he.

     And Democrats and the media are letting them get away with it. And the only thing standing between us and them is a largely unsupported, doddering man of 81.