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Jul 15, 2024 By Steve King

So… 2024 started with mad earthquakes, the cicadas are coming back… oh, and Western Democracy might be about to tip over! Hello, Malaise, my old friend… Let’s just jump right in.

Biden, though an excellent president, has not been looking his best. He may not be the man he was a few years ago. More on that later. Yeah, he’s old and has a stutter. The Israel/Hamas war has riled the base of the party in a way not seen since 2016. When the base of the party is calling the president “Genocide Joe” you have a fucking problem. And that was before the debate!

It seems there is a before and after for the Biden presidency. Before October 7, 2023 and after. It’s important to remember that Biden wasn’t elected because people loved him. They just hated Trump. But before the war, Biden was on a hell of a streak. He passed an incredible stimulus and infrastructure bill. He killed Ayman Zawahir with a blade drone! Biden appointed the first Black woman to the Supreme Court and is the first president to officially recognize Juneteenth. He has pardoned thousands of non-violent marijuana arrests. He has rebuilt the economy Trump left in shambles and is the best president for employment ever. Full stop. The Biden Boom still hasn’t even peaked yet. He has been an objectively excellent president. And he fucks!

He has forgiven billions in student debt. Biden is a better politician than a public speaker, obviously, but he’s not running again because he wants to stay in office. He’s clearly over it. His purpose is more burden than glory. He knows he was supposed to be a transitional leader but none of the deep bench that the Democrats have were polling much better at the start of the race. And he’s the only Democrat to beat an incumbent president since Bill Clinton.

Incumbent presidential elections are about the current president until it’s turned into a choice, and Trump can’t not be his own main character. This is the grudge match that no one wants, and even Trump’s convictions for being a rapist and sex pest are not disqualifiers. You underestimate these two men at your own peril.

Obama wishes he had inherited the Biden economy. Imagine what it’s like being Biden right now. He’s spent his whole life running for president, served as Vice President for eight years, got the most votes for president than anyone in history, created the best economy in the country’s history, and he shit the bed in one debate and everyone is calling for him to drop out and resign. I’d have whiplash. How do you tell the most powerful person in the world to step down? Biden has always said “Don’t compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative.” Well, Joe… at least the alternative was awake! The debate only hammered home the cognitive decline stuff the Trump campaign has been pushing. Shit, he might drop out before we publish this story, though those odds have dropped since the shooting at the Trump rally.

Trump serves word salad on the regular, and is also showing signs of a pretty steep decline, but Trump did two legendary things: beat Hillary Clinton and killed Roe v. Wade. That makes every conservative soak their socks. And because negative partisanship rules everything around us, the crueler he is, the more they love him for it. A guy lit himself on fire outside of the Manhattan Courthouse during the hush money trial. His followers are literally wearing diapers in solidarity with him. That’s not an enthusiasm gap. That’s an enthusiasm canyon.

Democrats are simply not as committed. That’s mainly because we’re not psychos and cultists, but it speaks to how motivated we are or aren’t. Trump, for his part, has remained the cartoonish shyster he’s always been: selling sneakers, NFTs, cards, perfume, and, most hilariously, Bibles. But the far right cabal behind his campaign is organized, well-funded, and gruesome.

The threat we’re facing is a million times worse than 2016. The Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 are planning doomsday shit. Like, absolutely frightening. Project 2025 is a road map for establishing a permanent Christian nationalist caliphate in America. This election will decide if we will remain a democracy. That’s not an exaggeration.

We use a lot of the same old idioms. People always like to say “This election is the most important in American history.” This may be the End of American history. We all say “We’re moving to Canada if so and so wins” except this time it may actually be worth renouncing citizenship and peacing the fuck out. The last time Trump was president 4,000 people were dying every day in America, but whatever as long as millionaires and billionaires get another tax cut. What’s a little dictatorship?

You are going to need to get very scared very quickly because the christo-fascists backing Trump will never stop. They’re already bankrolling the campaigns of Cornel West and RFK Jr, and the race is shaping up to be another razor thin, nail-biting catastrofuck that will come down to a few thousand votes in a few states. Getting that 2016 feeling yet?

There are some reasons to be optimistic. Abortion is still undefeated at the ballot box. Since the Dobbs decision, every state that has put abortion on the ballot has passed it. Even the blood red states. Both France and the UK destroyed their fascist conservative parties. And Trump could always have a heart attack and die. There are mountains of dead Republican voters because of vaccine hesitancy. And… that’s it. That’s the only good news. With the Senate and House hanging by a thread, in reality, we are closer to a national abortion ban than liberals think. If Trump returns to office with the Senate and House in Republican hands, take that to the bank. That little “unaffiliated” protest vote you plan to make could end legal abortion in America.

Civil War is the thing on everyone’s tongue this year. Let that sink in for a second. We’re talking about the end of the Republic and with the recent insane Supreme Court decision making all official acts by the president immune from prosecution, we may have already lost it. The table seems set for a Trump win. We are careening toward official fascism and it’s all out in the open.

The limited immunity the Supreme Court recently gave to any president for “official acts” basically means that any president can do whatever they want and it would be legal. Biden could drone strike Mar-A-Lago. Trump, if reelected, could send Biden to Diego Garcia, torture him, and it would all be perfectly legal. That’s not hyperbole. You might not want to vote for Biden because of his handling of Israel’s war with Hamas, but this might be the last time you get to vote at all. Just something to think about.

This has already been the longest general election in U.S. history. We still have one more debate to get through. We’re essentially being electorally raw-dogged. Election workers are being seen by mental health counselors. What do you think it’s like to cover this race?! I had to sit this article down a couple times and go touch grass just to keep from having a breakdown. Proximity to this much evil is a heart risk.

And Trump has made his campaign crystal clear to not only his supporters but the world writ large. He doesn’t even care if they die. He actually said, “I don’t care about you. I just want your vote. I don’t care.” I mean, that might be the most truthful thing he’s ever said. Politicians are never that honest!

He’ll spend the rest of his life playing the martyr. He’ll also play the victims of Saturday’s shooting like a fiddle. He is most in his element when he is demeaning and playing his supporters for suckers. If your preferred president has advocated for human sacrifice in two straight elections, you’ve got the game fucked up.

Saturday’s shooting at the Trump rally in Milwaukee could not have happened at a better time, politically, of course, for the former president. He’s always had the martyr complex but now the whole Republican convention gets to be about how he fights so hard for you that “they’’ are trying to kill him. He took a bullet, for you. No worries that the shooter was a registered Republican. Anyway, as much as Americans don’t want to think about it, there is less separating us from third-world countries than we’d like to admit. And his recovery, while bleeding, with the raised fist, will go down in history as one of the most badass things that any politician has ever done. It was simply iconic. As there is still a lot we don’t know, conspiracy theories will undoubtedly fill the vacuum. But this instance again offers a window in the MAGA way of thinking.

This cuts closer to the bone more than many of us realize. It speaks to the sacrifice and agony we have put ourselves through during the Trump era. Since the summer of 2015, when he announced his candidacy by calling immigrants “murderers” and “rapists,” Trump has held half of this country in a very dark, very angry spell, and the other half apoplectic, left to run with their hair on fire.

The conventions are upon us and Democrats are in deep disarray. More disarray than normal, and fractured, but let’s see what a week of watching the RNC horrorshow does to Democratic unity…. Republicans are about to have their third convention in a row with no real platform. Oh, and it starts today. Get scared.

The Trump Plague: Viral Politics in the Age of Fuckery

The Trump Depression: Viral Politics in the Age of Fuckery Part II

Carnage and Malarkey: Viral Politics in the Age of Fuckery Part III

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