Response to Incompetent, Delusional and Retaliatory

(See: Just Above Sunset : Incompetent, Delusional and Retaliatory)

"Ah, but there was that rainy December day in Paris twenty years ago, when the world was a better place. That’s something to hold onto.”

No, it wasn’t really, and no, it’s not.

We didn’t realize it at the time, but your 1950s-esque film-noir memory — which I can’t help but picture in black-and-white, with some cheesy French accordion music wafting from some nearby smoke-filled cafe — was just a way-station on America's relentless slow-march to international oblivion.

Trump’s reality-bending superpowers seem to be deserting him, but if we thought that his Republican pals would be doing the same, we’d be wrong. Those poor lost souls seem to be still waking up in the recovery room, so we’ll have to wait to see how that sorts out.

They’re still in actual shock? They really did not see this coming? Go figure! All this time, I thought they were faking all that ignorance!

This could be the perfect illustration of the downside to being part of a cohort that refuses to pay attention to facts, especially of the "not-alternative" variety, which in this case means not checking 538 polls several times a day throughout this past year, like many of the rest of us did.

But yes, not doing that makes perfect sense to people who take way too seriously the ubiquitous "lesson" of 2016 — that political polls cannot be trusted and no attention whatsoever should be paid to them.

These people may agree with Trump when he claims “Science doesn’t know” this and that, but I’d put good money on my belief that science may seem sort of vague now and then, but it knows a lot more about just about anything worth knowing than these people's damn gut does!

I do like Jennifer Rubin’s “second option” as to when America's return to normalcy could possibly happen:

"Republicans’ bad behavior might bring on more losses in 2022 as voters decide divided government with a delusional, obstructionist party is worse than one-party government.”

I hope our government lives long enough to see that take place, although I do see it as probably happening after her "third option", which is this:

"Republicans will by and large insist Trump was robbed, use that to rationalize complete obstruction of the Biden administration, and limp along as they incite their base through one feigned outrage and fake scandal after another.”

But before we come to any of that, I strongly suspect that Trump, who prides himself on not being beholden to common decency and other societal norms of American life, is not quite finished leaving his mark on World history. He will, I’m sure, find some clever way to key our collective car on his final journey home.

And yes, I did mean collective. I realize it may only be liberals like me who actually take this phrase to heart, but I nevertheless mean this for all of us when I say that we truly are all in this together.