Tornado Alley (PROG)

[newmedman]

When Good Men Do Nothing

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

https://www.stonekettle.com/2022/06/when-good-men-do-nothing.html

The lack of faith is not doubt. It is certainty.
? Abigail van Buren



Have faith.

That's what you tell me.

Have faith. Just believe.

Have a little faith, Jim. The DOJ is moving quietly. Building a case. Have faith in Merrick Garland. These things take time.

Like a dying Shepherd Book saying to Malcolm Reynolds, "I don't care what you believe in, just believe."

Just believe.

Have faith.

Why?







Faith?

That's long wait for a train that don't come, so long as I'm already quoting Firefly.

Why the hell should I have any faith that Donald Trump will finally get what's coming to him?

Why should I have any faith in the Department of Justice?

Why?

Go on, tell me. It's been a grim couple of weeks, I could use the laugh.

Have faith.

You've got to be kidding me.

Trump was impeached twice.

Nothing. Not a mark on him. Hell the MAGA crowd loves him even more for being impeached, for owning the libs. Ha ha! Still here, Chumps!

The Mueller investigation was going to bring him down.

Have faith, you said, as it dragged on and on. You'll see. Mueller will get him. And ... again, nothing. In fact it was Mueller and the FBI who ended up laughingstocks. Oh, Mueller might have been right, but without an indictment? Trump and Republicans could spin it however they wanted, and oh boy did they. Russia! Russia Russia! Doesn't matter what the Mueller Report actually said, the only thing that matters is Trump didn't go to jail. Once again, he owned the libs ha ha, Losers!

Okay. But what about New York? Any day now, they're gonna bring charges.

Indictments. Any day now.

You'll see. Real soon. Yeah.

Except that day just never seems to come. Trump delays and appeals and denies and it just goes on and on and on until one day it just quietly goes away. He paid somebody off or they dropped the charges like they always do. What's that? Oh, yeah, that New York thing. Yeah, whatever happened to that? Nothing, that's what.

Georgia, though, right?

Oh, we got him now! Yeah. Georgia. Election fraud. He's going down! Republicans, the Republican state government, yeah, they're gonna indict Trump any minute now! Just watch!

Any minute now. Yeah.

Any minute.

You'll see.

Trump has been the center of a criminal enterprise for decades. Fraud. Confidence games. Bad real estate deals. Mob connections. Decades? Hell, his whole life. His father. His grandfather. His goddamn kids. Crime is the family business.

And...

Nothing.

They're all still walking around (or riding around in a golf cart as the case may be).

Hell, Trump's talking about running for president AGAIN.

Nothing ever sticks to this guy, not even hairspray.



Why the hell should I have any faith that he's going down this time?



What in Trump's history would give me any faith at all?

What in America's history?

Shit, we pardoned fucking Nixon, right? He got away with it. People look back on him now with fondness. Oh, Tricky Dick, he was a crook, but he loved America!

Ronald Reagan sold weapons to our enemies -- literally sold weapons to our enemies -- and we did nothing. Less than nothing. We let him get away with treason right out in broad daylight. Oh, that's just Ronny. You know how he is. And the Lieutenant Colonel who led that caper? Yeah, he got a pardon and he's a fucking hero nowadays with his own radio show.

If Trump was a business woman who happened to trade some stocks, he'd have spent a couple months in jail next to Martha Stewart.

If Trump was a Jew who scammed a bunch of people out of their money, he'd be in prison next to Bernie Madoff.

If Trump was a poor black man who tried to pass a fake $20, some overfed cop would have knelt on his neck until he was dead right next to George Floyd.

But rich powerful white men like Trump?

Nothing.

They get away with it.

And they get away with it every day in this country.

Trump's been getting away with it for his whole damn life.

And...

Oh, what's that?

What? This time it's different, you say?



LOL



Yeah.

Sure it is.

People like Trump have been stirring up violence since long before this country was founded.

Shit, take a look at the Supreme Court lately, there's some violence for you.

How about the rich sons of bitches who implode the economy every other decade? Last time you lost your jobs, your homes, your savings, your retirements, your kids' college funds, your businesses, the whole damn world economy flatlined because some unbelievably rich assholes tried to make themselves even richer.

And not one of them, not a single one of them was ever once held to account.

They got away with it.

Hell, they didn't even lose any money. They got richer. They became even more powerful.

Don't believe me? Look up John Thain.

Right now, rich white men like the Kochs are pulling the strings, squeezing you at the pump, at the grocery store, getting fatter and richer and even more untouchable at your expense, while their gullible foot soldiers blame everybody but those actually responsible.

The MAGAs who stormed the Capitol? They're going to jail.

But their leaders? The rich powerful white men who egged them on with fistpumps on national TV?

Nothing. Not one of the people actually responsible have been indicted, let alone send to jail.

And that's important.

Because in a very few short months, Americans are going to the polls to vote in the midterms.

And who they blame for their (alleged) misery is going to determine what happens next.

Now, your vote is already fighting an uphill battle.

As any number of you have repeatedly pointed out to me over the years, the game is rigged.

And you're right, it is.

It's all sorts of rigged and always has been.

But, now Republicans have turned disenfranchisement into a goddamn sport. From new laws making it impossible for poor minorities to vote, to armed voter intimidation at the polling stations, to impossible Voter ID laws, to gerrymandering, to rigged election maps, to gaming the Electoral College, to just out and out passing laws that give Republican state legislatures the power to simply ignore voters and declare whoever they want as the winner.

And now they've got a Supreme Court that will gleefully let them get away with it.

But that doesn't mean your vote doesn't count.

It means your vote counts more than ever.

Every single vote against these fascist assholes is vitally important.

Every single one.

There's no margin at all. None. Zero.

Every single vote counts. Some of these races are going to be decided by a hundred votes, by less than ten, by one vote.

One vote.

Your vote.

But...

It's the midterms.

Half the country barely shows up for the General Election, the midterms are a disaster.

Especially when the (Left, liberals, progressives, undecideds, whatever term you want to use for whatever part of the population who allegedly still opposes this galloping fascism) barely shows up on a good day.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you screaming in rage at me. WE SHOWED UP!

Sure, you show up.

But the truth is that a hell of a lot of the "resistance" doesn't.

They just don't.

You can get mad at me for saying that all you like, but if even half the eligible voters show up for a midterm, we call that a good turnout. I know it. You know it too. So there's no point in pretending otherwise.

And yes, maybe -- just maybe -- this time, given recent SCOTUS decisions enough people will be pissed off to turn out in record numbers. Maybe. Let's hope so.

But I wouldn't count on it if history is any guide.

Look, you can trace the rise of Trump and the howling mindless mob of MAGAism right back to the midterm elections of 2010 when the country was mad at Obama for not fixing everything fast enough and not giving them a baby unicorn to boot, and so they handed Congress over to the fucking Tea Party out of spite.

So, forgive me if I don't have much faith in the sustainability of your outrage.

And again, you can get mad at me for saying it out loud, but there it is. Go look up the voter numbers for 2010, you'll see. I can go back and pull up the screen caps of the comments I read back then, but you don't need to take my word for it, we live in the Information Age, go look for yourselves.

Trump is the direct (heh) intellectual descendent of the squawking mindless miserable ignorant racist misogynistic clanging violent fanatical hate that was the Tea Party.

But more than that, where we are right now is the direct result of what happens when good people don't show up. What's that quote about triumph of evil and good men doing nothing? You know the one, even if you incorrectly attribute it to Edmund Burke or Ben Franklin.

And why?

Why don't they show up? Why do good men stand by doing nothing and allow evil to triumph?

You don't have to look very far.

You don't have to guess. You don't have to take my word for it. You don't have to run a poll and hope for honest answers. Why don't they show up? They'll tell you. They are telling you. They've been telling you.

Look, folks, I interact with something like half a million people every day and I'm neck deep in Americans telling me why they're not going to show up.

They're not inspired.

They're sick and tired of nothing ever changing, that things not only don't get better, they're getting worse.

They're mad Joe Biden hasn't delivered them the pony they were promised, just like they were mad at Barrack Obama and Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy -- and probably George Washington too.

They're sick of shitty choices.

They're sick of the people they had to vote for not making bold moves to save the Republic.

And yes, I have mocked that attitude, those very words, right here, over and over and admonished Americans to grow up and do their pragmatic duty anyway.

But still, there it is.

Most of all they're pissed that rich white men are never held to account.

And you know what? I am too.

You bet I am.

Look, I hate to be this way, I do, but there are Mafia Dons in prison right now looking at Trump like, goddamn, when are they gonna indict this guy?

I mean, Tricky Dick Nixon was a piker compared to Trump.

At this point I don't really care if they arrest Trump for outstanding parking tickets. Something. Anything.

Because if we hit the election without an indictment, then it's over.

It's OVER.

This isn't about justice.

This isn't about "The Law."

This is about politics.

And politics are about appearance. About what the public believes.

Politics are about being inspired.



You're right. It's about faith.



If we go into this election with America believing Trump and his cronies will again get away with it, if we don't have faith -- real faith -- that this time these goddamn crooks are going to prison, then the people who need to show up won't, and those who want to own the libs will.

And you don't have to look any further than 2010 to see it coming.

Yeah, Merrick Garland is the guy who put away Timothy McVeigh, I got it. So what?

I hear the lawyers cautioning me to patience. Slow, steady, build a case, ironclad, so Trump can't wiggle out. I got it. I hear you.

I hear you.

But you're not hearing me.

Slow and steady won't win this race.

And we've heard these promises before.

There is literally no history you can point to in Trump's past to prove your case that this time, at long last, he'll finally get what's coming to him. None.

The public has to believe that this time something will actually be done.

A firewalled, tightlipped DOJ might be good for Justice, but right now it's bad for Democracy.

You can win the battle and lose the war.

That's what happened to Hillary Clinton. She won all the battles, but she lost the war.

Clinton was educated, experienced, prepared. Trump was ... Sarah Palin with better hair and a spray tan. Proudly sexist. Loudly racist. A blustering, bombastic, bloviating ignoramus.

Remember the debates?

Clinton answered all the questions. Succinctly. Competently. With knowledge and experience. She had a real plan for everything. Trump never answered a single question. His responses showed his utter ignorance, his complete inability to address reality, to answer a single question in a straightforward manner. The guy was a fumbling idiot, utterly ill-prepared to be president of the Country Club let alone America.

And yet, they called the debates for Trump. Because the crowd hated Clinton, she was too prepared Republicans said, too smug and confident like she thinks we owe her a vote said Democrats. And they loved how Trump put on a show.

You saw it.

Republicans saw it.

And they elected him anyway. Because they knew they'd get what they wanted -- and they did.

Because politics isn't about what's right.

It's about who wins the mob.

That's what Mueller didn't understand. He was a lawyer. A G-Man. An FBI Agent. A professional. He thought he could just put the evidence on the table and America, Congress, the Justice Department, would do the right thing.

Do I need remind you how that turned out?

Of course, they weren't going to do the right thing. Not when Republicans, Christian Conservatives, the hardcore Right, they finally got what they wanted.

Then 2020, and yeah, we threw Trump out of office, but he owned us all anyway, didn't he?

Republicans got what they wanted. Yes they did. They got rid of Roe v. Wade. Sure, we won the battle, won the election.

And lost the goddamn war.

And now they're coming for more and they're probably going to get it.

Roe was just the first fort to fall. Now they're coming for the rest of it, like Nazi tanks plowing through the forest around the Maginot Line. They're coming for everything you said you care about. Everything from same sex marriage to contraception to voting rights to gun control to the climate to education, all of it. They said so.

And you can hear the roaring of their army approaching.

If you don't show up this time, there's going to be no way to stop them.

Every single vote matters.

Every one.

And if the those who need to be inspired, who are disgusted by politics as usual, who already hate their choices, who are convinced that nothing ever changes and the only solution is to burn it all down, if those voters aren't given at least a reasonable hope that this time the old rich white man who did this to us will be held to account, then they aren't going to show up.

They will not.

They will hand the Republic over the horrible remnants of the Tea Party just to watch it burn.

They said so. They've been saying so. And they have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to carry though with not showing up.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

This isn't about indicting Trump.

This is about what kind of country we want to live in.

This is about the supreme court. It's about rights. It's about gun violence. It's about who can marry who. It's about who can vote. It's about autonomy over your own body. It's about keeping the goddamn church out of government. It's about the environment. It's about the economy. It's about decent jobs. It's about healthcare. It's about feeding the hungry. It's about what we can teach in schools. It's about history and who gets to write it. It's about who is a full citizen of this country and who is not. It's about all of that and so much more.

Most of all, this is about the future we leave to our kids and our grandchildren.

Have faith?

No.

Faith is for invisible gods who live in the sky. Not government.

Americans needs to know that the Department of Justice is going to bring these seditious sons of bitches to justice. All of them. Especially Donald J. Trump.

We need to know it.

We need proof, not faith.

Folks, we won every battle in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

And still lost the wars.

Well, maybe we didn't exactly lose those wars, but we sure as shit didn't win them either.

And that, right there, is the metaphor.

It's not enough to just not lose.

It's not enough to just hold the line.

You have to win. You have to win hard, decisively, overwhelmingly, in enough numbers to not only fix what these fascist bastards have already broken but to send them back into the sewer where they belong, to push the faces of these goddamn Nazis down into the muck and hold them there until they stop kicking.

Is it fair? That people are like this? That voters are fickle? That politics isn't about truth or fact but rather putting on a show?

Hell no it's not fair.

But that's how it is.

And if you want to win, then Merrick Garland has got to move. Now.

You tell me to have faith.

Well, then you have to give me something to have faith in.

More than that, the American people shouldn't have to have faith.

America should know with certainty, or at least a high degree of confidence, that the government they elected will do the right thing.

You've heard me say many times: If you want a better nation, you have to be a better citizen.

And that is true.

BUT, in America, citizens and government are inextricably tied together, one and the same, and therefore the converse is also true.

Thus: If you want better citizens, you have to be a better government.

For Merrick Garland, that time is now.



I do respect people's faith, but I don't respect their manipulation of that faith in order to create fear and control.
-- Javier Bardem