Kudos to the many who have kept the wolves at bay—district and federal judges, even the Supreme Court; lawyers, people in the streets, conscientious media who still get the word out about how failed and faulty and inept Donald Trump and the rest actually are. The damage could be worse than it already is.

The build-up to today’s elections has been relentless and low-brow and loud, and I can’t wait for tomorrow when the ads go away for at least a little while. In the meantime, 57 million people have already voted, and many more will go to the polls today to, hopefully, give Trump—who told people to vote as if he was on the ballot— a middle finger and reason to consider other work. Like breaking rocks.

That won’t happen, of course, and it remains to be seen if any of these potential upsets in Texas and Kansas and elsewhere actually materialize. Many are holding out hope at this point, reluctant to bite when it comes to what the prognosticators are saying but still willing to entertain the possibility that maybe we get a toe hold on meaningful change.

Trump will be President for another two years, so we can expect a bumpy ride when it comes to signing off on any legislation presented to him. I’m hoping that the Dems, if they do gain control of at least one chamber, don’t waste the mandate and fritter away their time going after people. That would be just the next reminder of the endless cycle of retribution that perpetuates inertia—unless they can show they’re able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

What if Trump had won in 2020? If this had been the case, we’d likely be done with him by now, or at least he’d be back on the periphery or in jail. Meanwhile, we could be starting to repair and restore and pick up the pieces—unless Mike Pence or Don, Jr. or some other nightmarish replacement won in 2024.

If The Donald had prevailed in 2020, he and the Heritage Foundation wouldn’t have had an extra 4 years to ruminate and iron out the wrinkles in their Project 2025 strategy. It still would have been horrendous, but they wouldn’t have had quite the helping of steely resolve nor perhaps wouldn’t have hit the ground running the way they did as soon as Trump was inaugurated in 2025.

As things turned out, Trump and Miller and Vought and the gang had too much time to stew and to plan their dastardly deeds.

Probably a lot of holes in this scenario, if we think about it for a while.

Thanks for the memories?

What kind of things is he remembering? The self-enrichment? The bridges burned? All the self-congratulatory rallies and Executive Orders and power trips? All the patronizing awards bestowed by suck-ups and coattail grabbers? All the paths of destruction blazed in the name of making America “great” again?

Is this one of your last ploys, Donald? Another play to win over voters long enough to discard them? An appeal to whatever sympathy anyone can still summon for you (it can’t be much, anymore)?

You deserve no sympathy.

You’ve had your fifteen minutes and now it is time for you to go, you small-minded, useless, lying, selfish son of a bitch.

Dear America: don’t give in to this smarmy appeal to sympathy. Seventy-seven million of us voted for him so he could finish what he started, which was to tear us apart. Two years in, and some damage has been done. But on Tuesday, we must make it as plain as possible to Trump and anyone who still stands with him that the America they envision is actually a slice of hell on earth, and we won’t stand for it.

*and good riddance

Who will be the military personnel and/or law enforcement who will go to polling places to intimidate—and who knows what else—because they’re just “following orders?”

What are we going to see unfold between now and Tuesday? Chances are that we will see evidence of Donald Trump’s desperation. The machinery will be ramped up and we will witness things most of us never imagined we’d witness in this country.

I saw a video clip last night from a YouTube pundit who implored us to ask a very basic question: Who’s benefitting now? Not “Who’s to blame?” but Who is benefitting from the insanity we’ve been forced to deal with for the past 10 years? There is only one answer that makes sense, that should be obvious. It’s not us, not the general public, so who’s left but Donald Trump and his hangers-on?

They’ve made billions, they’ve razed and pillaged, and we’re stuck with the fallout of the empty-souled skullduggery and incompetence and grift and deceit and emptying of the coffers. Right under our noses. In our faces.

What are we gonna do about it?

Start by voting out every Republican on Tuesday, even if they’re starting to see the light. Until very recently (how convenient?), they refused to even question the damage being done. They are all guilty by association, riding coattails, complicit in their silence or maybe having a hand in this rampage that’s now lasted a decade!!

Yes– even when he was out of office. We must be mindful of the monumental level of distraction, and that Donald Trump is just the tip of an iceberg of nefarious intent and ill will toward America.

Damn the torpedoes. It’s long past time to say No More.

Here’s a piece of the ugliness and frustration and confusion that has marked this election cycle and the decade since Donald Trump emerged from his fortress of gilded toilets: the Senate race in Alaska is now a front-page story because of the alleged shenanigans of aids to Democratic candidate Mary Peltola.

The NY Times broke the story and now the Washington Post is following up with what sounds to be a more robust assessment of wrongdoing on the part of the Peltola camp.

Trouble is, the Republican Governor is commenting as if the Democrats are obviously guilty, saying that they will do anything to win (wow, talk about calling the kettle black), basically insinuating that it’s an open-and-shut case of Democrats trying to sow confusion.

The Peltola camp response is denial and a predictable defensiveness, though if it is true, shame on them. Way to shoot yourselves in the foot and hand the bad guys more ammunition.

In any event, now we can add this to the list of things that may or may not be true and emerge as news stories simply to muddy the waters and serve as another distraction…

… along with an apparent concern that many Alaskan voters don’t know the meaning of the word “incumbent.”

Enough already. The saturation point has long been reached and surpassed. Political advertising is a curse, a bunion, a migraine headache, a toothache, a hernia, and a hangnail all rolled into one big shitburger.

The darkness, the graininess, the exaggeration, the low road taken all the time. And the filthy excess of Elon Musk and the roughly half-billion dollars he’s contributed to Republican causes. Doesn’t this raise red flags for anyone—that one person can have so much potential influence over an election season? And what are his motivations?

My sincere hope is that all his money won’t amount to a hill of beans of support for the candidates he’s pushing. I want to believe that all the money in the world can’t compromise principles, that voters are awakening to the gross underestimation of our own intelligence, and that we can no longer be bought with cheap, over-the-top, insulting and manipulative drivel.

Ugh, I guess we’ll soon find out if that’s the case.