Protecting Ones Self…

It’s kind of wild, isn’t it? Watching the entire world, rushing to “Trump-proof” their area of responsibility is a little inspiring, a little sad. I don’t think they can do as much as they hope to do, but I’m glad people are trying.

I think the single most important factor Trump had last time was that nobody believed him. The idea that someone THAT undeveloped might have actually ascended to the highest office in the land was, simply, ludicrous. But the more the nation and the world interacted with this…guy…the more they understood: we need to protect ourselves.

I’m sure our allies are currently drying up back and forth communications, certain that any intelligence they share will end up in Putin’s control. Businesses are already trying to position themselves to survive the tariffs, if possible. Work-a-day Joes are just scared, mostly defenseless, wondering just how bad it’s going to be. Although, the recent, oddly celebrated shooting of the CEO of a “health care insurance” company has offered up a telling possibility.

The powers that are about to be at the top, should really take that shooting into account. It seems the American people really ARE angry at the way we’re being treated. It seems we may be more angry than many of us have presumed. It seems we may have less distance to revolt than I would have thought, anyway.

Americans KNOW we’re being Capitalistically abused in our quest for health care, for example. We KNOW it’s possible to create a better, not-for-profit system that provides superior care for FAR less money. Most developed nations have done exactly that. Yet, here, in the United States, the so-called Greatest Country On Earth™ can’t work it out. We simply cannot, for some reason, figure out a way to remove the leaches that have attached themselves to the system just to suck the life-blood of the desperate.

As the One Percent have succeeded, slowly but steadily, in reversing the benefits of the New Deal, life has become more and more expensive and it’s getting increasingly difficult just to keep up. And now there’s a crowd coming in that promises to make matters worse, not better. It’s an entire government BY the One Percent, FOR the One Percent and if there’s anything the One Percent do not understand, it’s the day to day challenges of NOT being in the One Percent.

The CEO of a health insurance company got shot and the country responded with a collective, “Good!” Not even a ho-hum. An actual, “Good!” That suggests an anger level much deeper than I had imagined. I mean, I know MAGA is angry. They’ve been angry about everything for as long as I can remember. It’s part and parcel to their operating system. But they’re usually angry about stupid things, made up offenses, imaginary threats, that kind of thing. Still, anger is anger and that shooting has kind of opened up my eyes.

I do believe the US is ripe for revolution. We KNOW the One Percent are having their way with us and we’re not much enjoying it. But we ALSO know that we’ve been a bit spoiled for quite some time. I’ve tended to discount how quickly the anger would bloom because I think people will put up with lots and lots of crap for a long, long time.

But we the people have been told we have to suffer for the bottom line for over forty years, now, and, perhaps, we’ve had it already. Now, here comes Trump to make sure we pay through the nose and suffer in new and more spectacular ways. But if the recent shooting is any indicator, they may want to slow their roll just a little bit. JFK seems to have been more prescient than I had guessed: violent revolution seems inevitable.

Note to the monitors: this is not a threat of any kind. I’m not calling for violence. I don’t want the violence. I’m simply acknowledging that I can see a path for it and wondering if the One Percent are seeing things the same way. (Sometimes, the rich and powerful misread the reality of the masses. Assad, anyone?) For clarity, it’s conjecture, not a threat…

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I’ve seen a lot of promises about all the various and sundry things Trump is going to do “on Day One.” I suspect Trump is going to play golf on day one. And day two. And day three. That pretty much defined his first maladministration. Why the hell wouldn’t it define the second? In order to do ALL the things he has promised to do “on Day One,” he would have to, wait, what’s that word he doesn’t know? Right, ‘work.’ He would have to work.

There are certain things I’m hoping for (counting on?) to help protect us from the threat of Trump, and his indolence is one of them…

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Nah, not buying. Whenever the gun argument heats up, gun rights advocates (GRAs) invariably mention that guns can’t go off by themselves. It’s a point of dogma for them: guns don’t go off by themselves.

Trump’s choice for Surgeon General, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, shot her father in the head when she was just 13 years old. Well, that’s not her story. SHE says she was “looking for a pair of scissors kept in a tackle box on a shelf above her dad’s bed one early morning.” She accidentally knocked the tackle box off the shelf. It fell down and a .380 fell out of it, which then magically discharged, shooting her father in the head.

She wrote in a book about how she had to just sit and watch her father die but she never mentioned what killed him – her. The ‘New York Times’ had to go get the police report of the incident to discover the details. She got away with it. It was classified as a “tragic accident.”

Maybe it was, I don’t know. Then again, maybe Daddy never did THAT again. (I mean, why DO 13 year old girls shoot their father in the head?)

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