How can Republican members of Congress continue to walk on eggshells around the Toddler-in-Chief? How spineless can these people get?

I get that they’re looking out for their own political futures. But maybe they wake up some morning very soon and decide to throw caution to the wind. They decide they just won’t cower anymore. They take the power away from the son of a bitch in the White House, because he doesn’t warrant or deserve it.

Take your honor back, Mitch and Lindsey and the rest. Stand for something other than sham religious piety and whiteness. Or are you too far gone, too?

America is quite ill.

Looks like maybe the chink in Trump’s armor turned out to be his own ego. No surprise there.

His handling of the pandemic may have been the biggest miscue, but his general unsavoriness- his unwillingness to take advice or listen to anybody- hasn’t helped him, either. He seems to be his own worst enemy. Again, no surprise, and this is offered with just a trace of sympathy for the guy.

It’s more pleasurable than it probably should be to watch him implode, though this satisfaction is tempered greatly by knowing that all the stall tactics and whining are hurting the country, sabotaging and delaying the transition process as a pandemic rages, among other things. Trump seems intent on leaving things in as much of a mess as he can possibly orchestrate. He’s always been good at sowing chaos. But that’s bad, right?

This is absolutely nuts.

Many will look back on these days with a mix of revulsion, anger, embarrassment, and astonishment at the depravity of the person who took up space in the Oval Office for four years.

Unfortunately, his “cologne” is going to linger for awhile.

Anderson Cooper recently gave an impassioned, most likely scripted editorial regarding the worsening Covid situation. He began by making it sound like he was launching into another piece on something Trump was saying or doing and then stopped himself and said, “You know what? This doesn’t matter… he doesn’t matter.” He said more, but the essence was that we have much bigger fish to fry than covering the attention-starved manchild every minute of the day.

He then proceeded to highlight the disaster that is taking shape once again, only worse, in hospitals all over the country because of skyrocketing covid caseloads and the resulting shortage of beds, canceling of other procedures, and the exhaustion of staffs everywhere.

This is what your brand of herd immunity buys us, MAGA Nation. Have you thought this through? Are you ready to own this, ready to claim it as your course of (in)action?

You’ll enjoy your holidays, I’m sure.

Dr. Osterholm dares to suggest that another shutdown is advised and financially feasible, but then takes it back. Why does he need to backtrack on something that, while being brutally honest, still needs to be heard? He’s the one who’s been giving it to us straight this whole time. He hasn’t been blowing smoke or, for the most part, weighing his words. He’s been the prophet saying the hard things.

Seems like the choice we have is pretty straightforward—if we sincerely want to put a dent in the spread, if we really do want that– especially in the midst of what’s currently unfolding– then we commit to shutting things down, minimize circulation, bite the bullet and get through 6 weeks of legitimate quarantining, like we should have done back in March. Even if this means staying put for the holidays.

No more half-hearted measures, no more bended knee to those who just don’t want to make the “excessive and oppressive” (or laughably simple) sacrifices of wearing a mask and keeping a safe distance. And we do these things for no other reason than it takes some of the pressure off our overwhelmed healthcare system and the exhausted staffs.

If we’re going to aquiesce, there’s no shame in it being to a dangerous microscopic virus that spreads like wildfire when people are being careless and stupid. Down the road, when we look back on all this, we might wish we had not tried to carry on as if everything was normal.

Of course, others will look back and say, “We carried on despite the challenges, we soldiered through, we rose above…” And they will be proud. But what will have been proven? The indomitable, American can-do spirit? Meh. It’s been less about that and more about stemming the financial losses.

Let’s leave the real heroics to the vaccine researchers and the many doctors, nurses, EMTs, police officers, firefighters, teachers, nursing home caregivers, poll workers, stay-at-home parents, grocery store employees, and everyone who’s been checking on their neighbors. And not just here, but around the world.

I don’t feel like we have anything to prove. Sure, we’re getting our asses kicked by something we can’t even see, and we’re having trouble dealing with that. But we’ve never really put forth the effort needed to nip this in the bud.

This isn’t a battle we win by being stubborn and ignorant and faux patriotic and taking the advice(?) of Donald Trump and Mike Pence and an underqualified neuroradiologist crony and quack, who at this point don’t care anymore, anyway, if they ever did.

Patience is a virtue, the order of the day. And some help from Uncle Sam wouldn’t hurt, either.

What rankles me is the whining, the wistful pining going on over the lack of “patrons” at The Masters.

Yah, there are no roars this year. Get over it. There’s a pandemic going on. Has been since all year! The golf is still going to be great.

The roars will be back next time. Maybe.

It is telling that the pre-election polls were so inaccurate. One reason for this may be revealing: pollsters may have approached many Trump voters who declined to respond to any questions– one might assume because they were ashamed to admit they were voting for Trump.

But why would one be ashamed to admit such a thing, apart from knowingly intending to cast one’s vote for an incompetent, loud-mouthed racist with authoritarian aspirations?

The Republicans are trying to get us to doubt what we can see with our own eyes. Who are these people?

They must be Americans from the other America.

The truly appalling thing is that they are carrying on as if nothing else is happening in the world- no pandemic, no economic hardship, a planet on fire, the myriad other needs to be tended to. I guess I understand the politics of the stonewalling— for the Georgia run-off and the possibility of a Trump run in 2024. And to pay Donald’s bills. Gotta keep the damned base motivated. Still, this doesn’t make the current ugliness any more palatable or excusable.

Looks like the Republican Party has officially checked out. We’re watching a coup attempt, aren’t we?

Donald Trump is like a chronic and painful condition that flares up on a regular basis. A vile, cankerous, pus-infected eruption. A boil, plantar fasciitis, a bad back, a hernia.

Is he really so powerful that the people around him are all in lockstep with his tweets and rants? Or is it, has it always been, the other way around? Is he just your run-of-the-mill gas bag, following someone else’s lead, someone else’s instructions? Has he always just been a mouthpiece, a puppet?

The Republicans appear, once again, to be putting up a united front, claiming fraud and irregularities in the voting results of several states, refusing to give the go-ahead for Biden to start getting ready to take the reigns, refusing to cooperate during the transition.

But the results are the results. The people have spoken. Certainly they are aware that this was no ordinary set of circumstances. There was and is a pandemic going on, so the mechanics of voting were different than normal. What the Republicans are doing is a waste of everyone’s time. They really do like pissing people off. They’re really good at that, but not much else.

We can’t let a minority- even a significant minority- keep hijacking things. 74-plus million people voted for Biden, and he prevails in the Electoral College. The majority rules, yet right now the minority seems to still be pulling the strings, muddying the waters, holding things up. It’s disappointing, and maddening beyond words.

They all seem OK with deepening the wounds and pouring salt in them. Trump and Pompeo and Barr and the rest of the sycophants are vindictive, callous, lecherous, smug, self-serving slugs who need to have their collective shit-eating grin wiped from their faces.

This is all delicious sport to them. They’re all just messing with us, and they think it’s hilarious. They’re like the defeated bully who gets in one last dig about your girlfriend before being unceremoniously tossed out of the dance.

It’s a bit surprising how easy it has been to forget about Donald Trump.

The election, for all intents and purposes, is over. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will take office in January, and already Trump is fading into the ether.

Though not totally, because, well, it’s Donald Trump, and he’s not going anywhere without throwing a hissy fit and giving at least the appearance of wanting to throw a wrench in the works. And he is still the president for another 70-plus days. He can still go scorched earth, unless cooler heads prevail.