Remember When?

Remember in November when Biden was elected and we all were like...oh whew! In just a few months we will never have to think about Trump again!

And then he lied about the election results for months, fomented an insurrection, got impeached, had a trial where Republicans who voted with open eyes are getting censured by their party,  some of the ones that voted to acquit are still saying, yeah he did it but what are you gonna do right? and ones that have completely lost their way are saying, it wasn't even THAT bad. I mean, who hasn't tried to overturn and election, called out to hang the Vice President and smeared LITERAL shit on the walls of Congress? I mean sure, we normally spread figurative shit, like this, but honestly is it even any different? AND...the Democrats put a blue check mark where there shouldn't have been one in the testimony slides so it's all a hoax!

And people in Florida lined the streets to clap for Trump as he came back from golfing.

I've said it for ages that he's a symptom, not the disease, but for fuck's sake it would be nice if the Republicans would purge him from their system so they could at least try and pretend they wanted to cure the disease he represents.

It's frustrating because I know, like solidly know, at this point that it is who they are. That no matter what excuses are made (but, but, but, abortion! and taxes! and guns! And taxing gun sales to abortion protestors!) they said, yeah, we support Trump. And we will vote for him. And we will ignore every. single. other. thing. Because we can OWN THE LIBS! And that is the basic platform. 

When asked why they still support Trump they come out with things like, he tells it like it is. He is going to root out the deep state. He's just like me. He OWNS THE LIBS! For four years I saw the arguments boil down to "what? are you triggered?" and "I love the flavor of liberal tears!" 

If your whole position is just making the other side mad, it's not a position, you're just an asshole. 

Oh but if you call them an asshole they cry about being canceled. Because not only do they want to OWN THE LIBS they don't want any consequences for it. 

Like I said, I know who they are. 

But...

Who am I? And this is always where it's so fucking hard. Because I really want to see the good in people. And even in people who are fundamentally broken in the greater empathy department (which is what the Republican party is) there can be shots of decency. You can see the good parts of people. But people aren't like cheese where you can just cut the bad parts off and have a perfectly fine piece of cheese left. You don't get to ignore the bad parts with people because that rot goes deep.

If you say, well they are decent to me, and they donate to this or that charity, and they are nice to old people, then you have to tell yourself that it doesn't bother you that they aren't decent to the trans kid who is struggling enough without having to worry about a junk check before playing a sport or using the restroom. That they give to a charity but they rail against the program to house the houseless because their money shouldn't go to people like that. They are nice to old people but only SOME old people. I mean there are old people out there who just didn't do enough to not get sick, or save money they didn't have to save, or...whatever.

It's that balance thing. 

It's awfully hard to look at the good and the bad and not have the bad outweigh it all. 

Because the bad really flavors all of it. How can I think you are good to people when it's not to all people? Or even most people? It's not politics anymore. The parties have split away from that. We just call it politics because Empathetic and Lacking Empathy seems like a hard sell for debates.

I mean, they don't want to admit they lack empathy so...abortion, guns, taxation. Sure...okay.

But it's not.

It's a rot in the party. Deep rot. And back in November we all had a moment where we pretended it would go away. The spell would be broken. Carving the bad part off would leave decent cheese. Or at least a chance for decent cheese.

But Trump wasn't just a small bad part. He's the symbol of the deep rot that goes through the whole thing. There is nothing to carve off, because there would be nothing left.

And I don't know what to think about that.

Which is even worse than having to think about Trump.