Everything is too loud. There is no civil tone. We’re all shouting at each other. To really get our attention, we need that sound of sheer silence.    

What is troubling about the push to fill the SC vacancy is that it has such huge implications for legislation and policy that a majority of us agree with and many benefit from.

This is what is so maddening- that a minority viewpoint will hold sway potentially for a generation or longer. Largely old, white, narrow-minded Old Testament Republicans are wielding power to make impactful decisions for the majority. Legislating morality, dictating the direction they and their small-minded constituents think the country should be going.

Our only recourse is to vote the dinosaurs out in November, so we don’t end up reliving the 1950s. 

It seems we are a nation stuck in a vortex of anger and revenge, which one might rightly think is unsustainable.

Politics is sometimes about convenience and opportunity. The sudden Supreme Court vacancy is case in point.

We can be mad at the Republicans for taking the course of action they apparently are going to take in filling RBG’s seat, but would the Democrats be playing this any differently? I know the Dems get ridiculed for being punchless and impotent, but might they be smart to bite their tongues and wait for the electorate to make a statement at the polls?

Because beyond the hypocrisy of McConnell, Graham, Cotton and the rest, we also get to weigh in on their seeming disdain for and dismissive attitude toward us the voters, who best not be as clueless and apathetic as they think we are.

“It’s like a peeing section in a swimming pool.”

Gotta love the way Neil DeGrasse Tyson illustrates the futility of one state trying to open too soon while the one next door attempts to abide by the covid guidelines.

In other words, the virus doesn’t honor state lines on a map, dumbasses.

He “up-played” the virus? What the hell does that mean? He didn’t want to cause a panic? Please. He played it down because he was trying to shield his (his?) precious economy from taking a hit in an election year.

So it looks like he was willing to sacrifice peoples’ health in order to preserve his re-election ace in the hole. And of course the economy took a huge hit anyway.

Good leaders find a way to break bad news. They don’t run from it. They don’t engage in such calculated avoidance. They mobilize people and resources. They engage the citizenry, offer reassurance tempered with honesty and a thoughtful assessment of the situation.

Think about this. He and those around him knew in late January of the virulence of Covid and decided not to take steps to prepare the nation for it. How can we not look at this without thinking he was willing to let the chips fall where they may and let people die? What kind of leader is this? Who votes for such a person?

The biggest hoax this whole time has been Donald Trump.

The only way there could be a less qualified person in the Oval Office is if a Trump disciple was plucked from the crowd at one of his god-awful rallies.

He has to go. Enough of him thumbing his nose at institutions and norms. He’s not the guy to shake things up. Maybe shaking things up isn’t what we need right now. It’s more the power of a likeable, genuinely stable personality, the power of patience and at least the appearance of compassion. A true respect for what the founding fathers have put in place, and working within that framework.

Which doesn’t mean change can’t come. It just means someone as damaged as Donald Trump can’t be the one to effect that change and challenge the status quo. He’s not about healthy and beneficial change. He’s too selfish and needy. He’s about payback, and winning because he hates losing, and being embarrassed.

I wonder if Trump ever looks out over the crowd at one of his super-spreader events and shakes his head. An enclosed space full of largely Caucasian lemmings, sycophants, and dumbness. What are these people holding onto? Trump only loves the adoration and attention. He couldn’t care less about those who show up.

And he much prefers staying in office for as long as possible so as to avoid jail time. That, and he apparently fancies himself the authoritarian type.

So maybe the anti-maskers actually know that masks make sense, but they just like being contrarians. There is no logical reason for their stance, other than buying into Trump’s big lie or just wanting to be a pain in the ass. They need to stop making it about lofty ideals and assaults on the constitution. It’s nothing that honorable.

Perhaps we just don’t have it in us— a capacity, for the long haul, to think and act collectively instead of always in our own best interests. To just notice things, put two and two together and come up with something closer to four.

Watched some college football yesterday. It’s not the same without the big crowds. But it’s football, right?

Tom Brady debuts with the Bucs today. That should be weird. But in the bigger scheme of things, it’s no big deal. Sports may be big business, but it’s also just a diversion. Of little consequence except to give a fan base something to celebrate or scream at, something to do besides worry about everything else going to shit.

Wow, I’m a happy guy.

If Mother Earth News and other sources can be trusted, we have reports that the Sturgis bike rally has lead to an estimated 260,000 cases of covid. Seems like a giant leap in numbers from previous reports, and time will tell if this is born out. It wouldn’t be all that surprising.

Let’s just let the past six months’ foolishness wash over us for a moment… And we still have three months to go.

There is no cure for stupid. Donald Trump is banking on that.

There cannot be a winning formula for Trump. Everyone knows who he is. No image makeover should help, so may everyone realize such a thing for what it would be: vanity.

A mirage, a chasing after wind.