By David Glenn Cox
When a phonograph record nears its end, it only appears to speed up. An optical illusion, a trick of the eye. The label goes round and round in an ever-tightening circumference not because it’s going faster but because it is getting near the end. Matt Gaetz is paying underage prostitutes to do drugs and have sex with him, and that gets little traction other than a Nelson Munce, “Ha, ha! Caught you doing drugs with a teenage prostitute ha, ha!” But Gaetz has the face of a man being anally penetrated. Ritchie Rich loses his wallet. And yet the lobsters don’t feel the water getting any hotter.
Fresh off a stinging defeat at attempting to destroy democracy and resulting temper tantrum. Texas Governor Gregg Abbott minus Costello chooses to withdraw 1.3 million dollars per week in Federal unemployment assistance. Over five million dollars per month leaving the Texas consumer economy. Bye, bye, bye Home Depot! Bye Walmart! See ya around Kroger! Taking a lifeline from four hundred and forty thousand Texans. (What was your margin of victory again?) Many self-employed Texans without customers due to the pandemic. So rather than help them get back onto their feet, Abbott minus Costello chooses to kick them in the ass. Trust me, I know this one. Americans are funny people, if you push them into destitution and try to ruin their lives…they won’t vote for you anymore. [See: Bill Clinton, it’s the economy stupid!]
It is hard to imagine playing Stratego with other people’s lives. Where it is just lines on a chart and figures in a column in the governor’s mansion. Out on the street, it’s a different story watching the repo man drive away with your vehicle or saying no to your kids in the grocery store. To rob the poor and struggling, willfully and wantonly for the sole purpose of posturing and acting tough. Come through the looking glass into the imaginary world of Republican politics. Have you noticed the Republicans don’t want to talk about the pandemic anymore? “Yeah, yeah, Joe Biden ended the pandemic, so what? Have you heard about the lazy no-good son of a bitch Americans collecting unemployment?” Always looking for a villain in dark cape and handlebar moustache they find one in the people themselves. Elected and paid by the people of Texas, Abbott minus Costello chooses to hold their heads underwater just to make Joe Biden look bad. Drilling holes in the bottom of their boats and then complaining, “Look at what Joe Biden did!”
After World War Two, the United States welcomed prosperity with money in their pockets and pent-up demand. Demand right now is beginning to look like the Oklahoma land rush. Demand is spread evenly, but by taking money out of Texan’s pockets Abbott minus Costello risks scuttling the boat for everyone, rich and poor alike. Just politics don’t take it so personal. Send winter coats to Valley Forge? Tough it out; you bunch of pansies! The recovery comes slowly like the dawn, but it comes. We all know what happens when you unkink a hose, and the states of the Republican Reich will be less prepared to ride that wave. “Vicious in struggle, lazy in victory” …Vote Republican!
Under the Party of Harrumph, Abbott minus Costello throws Texans into the Volcano to appease the angry orange fire god. But here is the funny part, Harrumph is stupid enough to think this helps him to wreak his petty vengeance. But it is as if the Republican Reich Marshalls have forgotten they will have to stand for a local election someday filled with angry townsfolk. And “Donald Trump likes me” is not going to cut the mustard with those on a sinking ship. Harrumph bungled the pandemic now Abbott minus Costello and his Republican cohorts bungle their economies. As news leaks, the Texas Governor was well aware of natural gas shortages before the deep freeze hit. He just chose to do nothing. Watch me point fingers and take that phone off the hook!
But as we go deeper down the rabbit hole it turns curiouser and curiouser. “Malaria! Call the moving company, we’re going back to Washington August 1st!” Donald is not possible. For one hundred times I tell you, you lost election! “Oh, but is possible Malaria. Mike Lyndell founder of My Tragic Breakdown.com just told me. On the back of the Declaration of Independence scribbled in Thomas Jefferson’s own handwriting is a provision where I become the President again. But you need these special glasses to see it! It says if any candidate is unhappy with the returns in Georgia or Arizona, they have to let him be President again. I can’t wait, I’m so tired of this golf course and the helicopter rides! Don’t forget the helicopter rides!” Donald do not count chickens before they scratched. “Boy oh boy, I can’t wait to see the look on Joe Biden’s face! Satchels under his arms loading up the minivan! Leaving Washington in disgrace. And just wait until I call Nancy Pelosi to tell her I’m back at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Hey Nancy, guess who? Better get Mike Pence on the horn and tell him we are going back to work baby!”
Harrumph likes to say these outrageous things and you never know for sure if it he is only saying it for local dumbass consumption (Help Donald Trump with his moving expenses! Send Money Now!) or he really means it. But like Harrumph’s social media network he was going to start. And the TV network he’s going to buy or the political party he was going to found. August 1st will slip to October 15th and then January, then down the memory hole. A bloody, murderous insurrection is just middle-class tourism down the memory hole. Dead policeman? What dead policeman?
Going round and round in a circle and appearing to run faster, but it’s only because they are running away. It is hard to talk bread and butter issues to people without bread and butter. It’s hard to talk law and order with murder, mayhem and blood on your hands. It’s hard to speak about love of country when you are disloyal to its Constitution and brutal to its people. Where Generals talk Coup de tats and talk show hosts advocate violence against CEO’s whose politics they don’t like. Caught in the crazy cloud their feet no longer touching ground. Hoping to win the next election by trading a million votes for one.
“Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt
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