Sunday, January 3, 2021

Who Will Follow Trump In The Republican Circus Parade?

Lists are appearing that are intended to suggest Republican candidates for president in 2024. You can practically guarantee that the lists that are compiled today will appear naive two years from now. Here is the list of the top five as it appeared in this morning's Raw Story feed.

Nikki Haley==Really? Nikki Haley? It has become hard to tell when people are being serious, and when they are pulling your leg. It does seem like the primary requirement for being included on this list was abject, dog-like loyalty to Trump, so there's that. Otherwise, does Nikki, I'm going to go ahead and call her Nikki, because she's such a lightweight, does she have anything to recommend her as president otherwise? I can't think of anything, although I'm sure that she's a fine accountant.

One more thing. Can we make a rule that anyone running for president is required to run under their real name? No more Mitt, no more JEB! No more Beto. Her name is Nimrata, and it's a perfectly good name.

Mike Pence==At this point in the list I'm already beginning to lose confidence in the person that wrote the article. Although who knows? An eighty-two year old Joe Biden might make an attractive candidate, if he has really accomplished things, and if he has managed to avoid touching women inappropriately and smelling young women's hair. More likely he'll be well beyond his “sell by” date. He may have seriously embarrassed himself somehow, or become seriously ill, and the Democrats will have to find another candidate, an exercise at which they have never excelled.

People might then think, sure, Mike Pence, what the hell?

Tom Cotton==I am already actively terrified of Tom Cotton. We've all had our fun mocking Trump for his ignorance, and his lack of curiosity, education, or a work-ethic. Trump doesn't know any more now about the workings of government than he did when he came down that escalator. Trump showed us that someone truly dangerous could be elected, someone who's dearest wish was to get rid of any restraints on presidential power and run the country by fiat as a true authoritarian dictator. Our good fortune was that Trump was too foolish and inept to make it work. Tom Cotton is neither foolish nor inept.

Senator Cotton is the one that scares me.

Ted Cruz== Ted Cruz was born in the city of Calgary, in the province of Alberta, in the country of Canada. Forgive me if I haven't been paying close enough attention, but is having been born in the United States no longer a requirement for the presidency?

Ted also violates the alias rule. His name is Rafael Edward Cruz. Another perfectly good name.

He is also Ted Cruz. Doesn't everyone hate Ted Cruz? You rarely hear a good word spoken about him. People are not known to sing his praises at the drop of a hat. He seems like a real jerk, doesn't he? Yes, he does, and he always has. Like the rest of them, he fell into the roll of Trump lap-dog without much prompting.

Josh Hawley==His name actually is Joshua Hawley, so he has that going for him. He is one of the senators from Missouri, and he has been for about two years. He doesn't seem to be a fool, nor particularly lazy, but like the rest of this list he lacks charisma and likability. He is a graduate of Stanford University, and received his legal education at the Yale Law School, where he was the editor of the law review and a member of the Federalist Society. This week he is making himself the leading member of the “Trump Forever” club. On Wednesday, January 6th, Congress will meet to certify the election of Joe Biden. This is really a formality, a rubber-stamp situation, a way of standing up and cheering for the good old U S of A, that bastion of democracy, that Shining City on the Hill, proof that once again there has been a peaceful, proper, and lawful transfer of power in our great country. Except that this time Joshua Hawley will be leading a charge seeking to overturn the results of that election, ruining the whole rah, rah, rah effect.

This event is neither a ratification of the people's choice for president, nor a separate election process. It is a pro forma certification. There was a popular vote taken last November, and all of the votes have been counted. Those votes have received the closest examination for propriety that has ever been carried out in all of American history, and they have consistently been judged to be valid and legal in every way. The Republicans, and a team of Trump's Keystone Kop lawyers, have filed and argued something like sixty court challenges in various state and federal courts across the country, and in every case the votes have been found to be valid and the law suits have failed to persuade any court. The Supreme Court simply refused to hear the matter when the Texas Attorney General filed a suit of original jurisdiction there, along with seventeen other States Attorneys General and over one hundred Republican members of congress. That's a real slap-down.

The electors from the Electoral Colleges of all of the states have been certified by their respective states, have met, and have voted, and that is the vote that is to be acknowledged on Wednesday. Publicly, you know, as a show of our truly democratic form of government. Winner, no doubt about it, Joe Biden, Democrat, the people have spoken. But not this time. Oh, no.

(You may have to cut-and-paste this, but you know what to do: https://www.rawstory.com/republican-group-nails-josh-hawley/#yappa-comments-frame. This article contains a link to a short video of Mr. Hawley explaining firmly why he is exactly wrong in the actions that he plans to take on Wednesday.)

This time, Mr. Hawley, until recently thought to be a reasonable man, will be leading a last ditch attempt to overturn the lawful results of this last election, an election which from all of the considerable evidence seems to have been run fairly and by the rules. Mr. Hawley has decided to join the other four-legged, furry stooges crowding onto Trump's ample lap. Why would anyone do such a thing?


    It's almost too foolish to consider, but it really does appear that all five of these listed mediocrities are after the votes of the 71,000,000 Americans who voted in November for Trump. They may see it as wanting Trump's support in the 2024 election. As though in three or four years Trump can wave his Harry Potter wand and put 71,000,000 votes in their column. As though there will still be 71,000,000 votes there to award, like money listed in a bank-book. As though nothing will happen in the meantime to unbalance our current state of affairs. As though time will stand still, as it were. That would be a terrible delusion to labor under.

Trump will be seventy-five-years-old in June, 2021. That will make him seventy-seven in June, 2023, when the race for the nomination starts to heat up. Hell, that's younger than Joe Biden is now. Trump may want those votes for himself! After all, he wouldn't be the first person to labor under the delusion that nothing has changed.

Or he may be dead. Even healthy septuagenarians who exercise regularly and eat a good, balanced diet are liable to drop dead at any moment. I speak as a member of the club. We are fragile creatures.

It's worth noting that Mike Pompeo thinks that he should be president, and he thinks that he will be president some day, probably very soon. He is probably livid at having been left off the short list. Mike is a morbidly obese and girly voiced religious fanatic, a shambling hulk of a man whose suits are so big that they could house refugee families, and a failed West Point graduate who did the minimum five years, only made Army captain, and quit just as his unit was shipping out for the Gulf War. That's not why men go to West Point, Mike. Men go to West Point to become generals. If I had to guess, I'd say that he got tired of trying to make the weight. Yes, the service has maximum weight requirements, and officers who get carried away with the fork and the spoon get culled. He is a comical figure and should be regarded as one. If he keeps eating incessantly, his “Rapture” might come sooner than he thinks.

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