All News, All the Time

It's the only television I watch.

I can't be bothered with any of the new sitcoms and dramas that have premiered in the 2024-25 season, and I can't even name one.  As for other shows that have returned from the previous season, well, I haven't watched any of them either.  For the past several months, with the exception of the odd PBS documentary, I have only watched the news programs on MSNBC - mainly Nicolle Wallace, Lawrence O'Donnell, Jen Psaki (whom I must put on my beautiful-women picture blog), Katie Phang (ditto), and the Reverend Al Sharpton, as well as "The Weekend."  I keep watching for any good news, no matter how thin a sliver it may be, about the Harris campaign at a time when pundits are second-guessing her and critiquing her outreach efforts toward the voters she needs to win in November.  

I can't stop watching the news and analyzing the polls for as long as I remain unsure of how the election will turn out.  It's all about the campaign.  I don't even have time to watch the BBC News America report weeknights on PBS.  If I learn of any famous celebrity deaths, it's usually on the Internet, and I probably learned about more celebrity passings than I would have if I were still watching the PBS NewsHour.  

Why am I torturing myself like this?  Because I want to know if I get tortured by the Trump 47 administration if such an administration actually comes to pass.  See, I've been on my own since January.  I had a lot of plans for my life after I ended up on my own, but apart from adopting two kittens, I haven't realized them.  I'm in a holding pattern as I watch the latest news on the 2024 presidential election because, if Trump wins, it's game over as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, I still think it.  Trump will not only make himself a dictator if re-elected, he'll set up a system to opporess, incarcerate, and, yes, execute anyone who opposes him.  First he'll come for the press and the pundits, then he'll come for Democrats, then he'll come for state and local governments to root out anti-MAGA public officeholders, and eventually - perhaps somewhere in between - he'll come for bloggers who have spoken out against him.

That would include me.  

I can't make any long-term plans if living in a free and democratic America is a short-term deal.  I can't plan a trip to Europe for 2025, because either Trump will make emigration illegal or because I might have to plan on doing more than just visiting Europe.  I have to get ready to leave the country if necessary, and what research I've done in how to do that does not reassure me.  It can be so difficult that I might have to stay in America.  And if Trump is back in office, it will be an America where MSNBC is off the air. 

It shouldn't be hard for the Trump 47 authorities to find me.   In my area, there are numerous Trump lawn signs, and I put a Harris sign outside my door as a sign of defiance.

And I'm sure there will be many an informer to aid the Trump secret police to root out the rot.

I am probably a dead man already.  😱

Super Doomsday

As I type this, it is Super Tuesday, March 5, eight months to the day before the 2024 general election - and my 59th birthday. And if the polls and the media analysis bear any weight, I have concluded that it is a better-than-even bet that Donald J. Trump will be elected to a second non-consecutive term as President of the United States.   

And then we will prepare to meet our doom. 

Once Trump is backing power on January 20, 2025 - Martin Luther King Day, ironically enough - he will invoke the Insurrection Act to crack down on protesters against him, declare martial law, terminate the Constitution, and have the Democratic Party closed down.  All fifty states will have Republican governors who will be even less answerable to their constituents than Pontius Pilate was to the people of Judea, and Congress and the state legislatures will be rubber-stamp assemblies in the style of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.  We will still have elections, but they will have only one candidate per office.  The press will obey the government, and anti-Trump media outlets will be shut down.  Anyone accused of a crime will likely go to jail without a fair trial.  

And while I've said this before, I will say it again with as much clarity as possible: Trump will make opposition to his regime a capital offense. Those who cross Trump with lesser offenses will be sent to labor camps., though those who voice opposition will likely also be worked to exhaustion in said camps, and then, when they are all worked to exhaustion, they will be executed.  And I, as a blogger who has been speaking out against Trump for the past nine years, will not be immune to such punishment.  The Justice Department will find me and other bloggers by simply finding our IP addresses, and they will use the United States Secret Police - currently known as the Oath Keepers, and who will likely be known colloquially as the "Gestrumpo" - to arrest us once they track us down.

And once again - I cannot repeat this warning enough! - don't make plans to leave the country once Trump is back in power  . Anyone who plans to leave the U.S. will learn that Trump will not allow anyone to leave to avoid losing human capital and to avoid the humiliation of anyone leaving a country he claims to have made great again. The border patrol, who will likely be under the control of Stephen Miller, will "shoot to kill" anyone who tries to cross the border. And if you're caught alive. . . .you'll wish you had been shot to death first.

While I turn 59 on Election Day, I do not, at this moment, expect to live to see my sixtieth birthday.  If I do, I will likely be in a labor camp with my execution scheduled shortly thereafter, likely by hanging, although Trump has suggested using guillotines for executing capital offenders.

But I think this song from Led Zeppelin - a band Karen Hunter ridiculed Paul Ryan for still listening to in 2012 - better illustrates what we can expect a year hence. 

As does this song from Styx, a band Stephanie Ruhle ridiculed a Republican operative for still going to see in concert in 2018. 

This blog post is gallows humor . . . without the humor part. 😬