Rage processing

I said at the turn of the new year that I had optimism regarding how 2026 would play out big-picture-wise, but it was a specific kind of optimism—the kind that says we have to go through worse before the better comes, and this is the year when the worse forces us to make the choice to be better. For whatever reason, I was and am still surprised at just how quickly we're careening into the worse.

I still think we'll have turned the corner by the time we get to New Year's 2027, and I'm trying to take a rose-colored-glasses view that the rapidity of the descent into even greater evil by Felon47, his cronies, and his puppet masters will herald a faster and more powerful move to oust them. I see reasons to think that might be the case, but I'm also more aware than ever of what John Fugelsang calls "WTF fatigue."

Every damn day there's a new WTF incident stemming from the fascist regime in DC. Processing all the outrage is a challenge. And it would go along way in aiding the public's mental health if elected officials were more visibly putting up a fight.

In this way, the speed of the regime's further descent into evil is helping because more officials seem to be finally getting it that these are not your grandparents' Republicans, these are rather the enemies your grandparents fought in World War II. But it's not enough, it's not nearly enough. I'm glad to see the statements by some Democratic Congresspeople voicing outrage over Felon47’s Venezuelan smash-and-grab and ICE’s murderous thuggery and the overt obstructions of justice being perpetrated by the FBI of all agencies. I'm gratified to hear state and local officials making it clear that the regime's actions are criminal. But what we need to see and hear are Senators, Representatives, and potential candidates for Federal office demanding impeachments. Promising reforms. Vowing to prosecute.

Instead we still get Tim Kaine and Amy Klobuchar and others voting to confirm insurrectionists to the Federal bench.

We cannot be giving an inch here. The cult is beginning to crack. A significant number of Republicans in Congress seem to be realizing that they're politically better off opposing Felon47 on at least some things—nine of them helped Democrats succeed in a discharge petition to force a vote on restoring ACA subsidies and then 15 voted for the measure, even though the Speaker refused to put it up for a vote under normal business; five Republican Senators voted in favor of curtailing Felon47’s military adventurism—and that they have to think about their careers post-regime.

Because one way or another, this regime will end. That's where that choosing-to-be-better thing comes into play, and that should be what Democrats nationwide at all levels of power need to be shouting into every microphone they can find.

In the words of our friend Craig Calcaterra:

America is lost. It's completely lost and it is marching deeper and deeper into darkness every day. We're past the point of mere elections fixing it. It's going to take the prosecution of scores if not hundreds of members of the current regime and the eradication of their evil and lawless works to even begin to put us on something resembling a path back into the light. Like, that's where we have to start to even have hope of a positive future.

We cannot go back. We must forge a new path forward and through. Anyone who promises, with clarity and conviction, to do that has my support. Anyone without the courage to do so does not.