Well That Escalated Quickly...

Reading past blogs and "On This Day" posts and seeing my warning bells clanging about the disappearing middle ground and the divisiness in the country has been really depressing me lately.

I could see it happening. I kept talking about it. And it kept happening. And it's worse now than it was when I first started talking about it. And I'm sure I was talking about it long before I was ever on Facebook. Back when I thought it was bad.

Some of the posts reminded me of the joke where I wish I was as fat now and I was the first time I thought I was fat.

I wish we were divided as much now as we were the first time I thought we were divided.

Because it's crazy.

There was a post in my "on this day" where I talked about Sarah Palin and the hypocrisy of the abstinence only lecture tour when her kids kept having babies out of wedlock. A comment on that (and this was YEARS ago) was that someone liked her just because of how mad she made "the left." I said that was a horrible reason to like someone, how negative, how ridiculous. And now looking back, how prescient.

How many times have you seen that? The liking someone or something just because "the other side" doesn't? And it still really bothers me. That's not a good reason to like someone. You end up liking people like Ted Nugent if you do that.

For another reason, it's lazy. I mean it. I am all about defending your ideas and your reasons with valid arguments and facts. If the only thing you can come up with is you like the taste of liberal tears (an actual thing people say) then you shouldn't be allowed to make decisions.

I saw it as Trump was running for office. The people who wanted to vote for him so he could just blow everything up. I kept trying to stress that WE are the EVERYTHING he was going to be blowing up. But...you know...liberal tears. So I wasn't going to win that argument. And now when I point out that he is blowing up some serious shit, well, they don't want to hear it because obviously anyone who disagrees with them about the president has TDS so la la la...they aren't listening. Winning!

I see it now with people unfriending on Facebook because they cannot have someone around that doesn't believe the exact same things that they do. Now sometimes I get it. There are things that I believe that if you don't I'm not going to keep you around. There are things that if I find out you believe them I am also not going to keep you around. But everything? All of it? That's kind of crazy. How in the world can you defend your beliefs if no one ever challenges them? And why is it bad to have different beliefs? As long as what you believe isn't racist, homophobic, sexist...basically hurtful, then why shouldn't I have someone around who can challenge my thoughts on international trade policies?

And I'm not talking about challenging people's beliefs just to be an asshole either. You don't have to take it upon yourself to play devil's advocate for the world. Don't argue with them if you agree with them, just to argue, that's stupid. But if you actually disagree with someone and can respectfully debate them then go on ahead. But you can also just scroll on past.

And I totally understand how difficult this is to do. Brent had to delete a post the other day because he was making a general "don't be an idiot" statement linked to a news story and a group of his conservative friends took offense at the fact that it was a conservative who was tagged in the headline, even though the article itself had other examples, but who reads articles right? Then I (after much typing and deleting and debating) posted a list of points arguing their self satisfied circle jerk of superiority (because I, you know read the article and listened to the podcast they wanted to say said something it didn't). And well...Brent doesn't care for conflict, wasn't looking for conflict, was disgusted that his post was misinterpreted just for the sake of conflict and deleted it. So yeah, I did not scroll on past. Even though I thought about, because I know that Brent doesn't like conflict, but I couldn't leave it there because it made my jaw clench that nobody was challenging their posts.

But you don't have to challenge everything. You really don't. Even when everything in you is DYING to point out the fact that just LAST week they posted something completely CONTRADICTORY to what they are saying RIGHT now and NOT even seeing the IRONY in that...(hypothetically)

I used to really like to argue and debate. And every once in awhile I would post a reminder that we are more alike than we think and to not let people try to cause divisions where there really aren't. But now? I have a hard time arguing and debating because people aren't interested in ideas anymore, they are just interested in sides.

It makes me sad.

Not sad enough to cry liberal tears though.

Because they like that shit too much.

Too Simple?

I'm working on a theory in my head this morning. Trying to find a reason why Cult 45 still stands by Trump. Why they can't connect the dots to see that he's a bad person. A dishonest person. A person that should not be running the country. And I've decided that it's too simple. The reasons to dislike him that is.

See, if you give someone a complex narrative about why the Clinton's are actually criminal masterminds who kill everyone who stands in their way they believe it. Even if you question them about things like, "If you believe Bill Clinton will kill someone who could cause trouble for him politically AND you believe that Bill Clinton is a rapist why did he let Juanita Broaddrick live?" Or "If you believe that Bill Clinton flashed his dick at Paula Jones, why did he bother to put a disguise on his penis (she said he had certain identifiable marks that he did not actually have so obvi he disguised his dick) but not bother to then have her killed so she would be quiet about it all?" If they are murdering people willy nilly then why don't they murder the people who actually could cause them damage?

Then there are birther and truther and flat earthers. They can believe that Obama's family was so prepared to have him run for president in the future that they published a fake birth announcement in the Hawaiian papers when he was born AND got a fake copy of his birth certificate put on file with the state  AND everyone involved has been able to keep a secret about it. Truthers the same thing, there is a vast government and civilian cover-up about a controlled detonation that somehow simultaneously certain "bigwigs" knew all about it so they stayed home from work that day and yet never said a word to anyone else. Massive amounts of coverup and secrecy. Flat earthers, same thing. Massive coverup and secrecy among not just our government but the WHOLE world.

It has to be complicated for people to believe it.

When Trump Jr. says on television that they get most of their funding from Russia, that's not proof of anything.

When Trump says that Russia was for sure on his mind when he fired Comey that doesn't mean anything.

When Trump berates our own federal agencies, tries to bully his own AG, calls any news he doesn't agree with fake...well none of that means anything.

When he doesn't release his tax returns. He's not hiding anything.

When he says he had never even heard of the women he paid off, until the tapes are released, then he says, NO COLLUSION!

All of these things are too simple. Too in your face.

Very fine people on both sides. (But he wasn't saying the neo-Nazis were good people, even though they were the people on one side)

Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States...(but it's not a Muslim ban)

They discount them because if it really is that simple, if he really is a bad guy, then they have to start asking themselves why they voted for him, and well, maybe that's too simple as well.

Would it be easier for you if you believed that the Russians worked on a multi-layered approach to influencing the election? That through a strategic release of negative stories about Clinton that were shared, retweeted and promoted by a series of bots and fake accounts that pretended to be Americans but were really Russians they created a movement. That they then created groups and fronts representing different angles to get Americans to fight against each other and used our own divides on things like race and class to drum up more discord? That you thought what you were seeing was the truth when in fact it was actual fake news? That you acted on information given you, but it was fake information? False fronts. Fake accounts. Seeds of discontent sown.

Would that be easier?

Or because it's all out there now is that too simple?

He tells you who he is every day. Why you don't listen is really confusing to me.

Why Is This Still a Thing?

Reading my on this day posts from 2 years ago and it's all about the outrage over Kaepernick kneeling.

Next year I will have those posts PLUS outrage over Nike using him in their latest ad campaigns.

AND I still have friends who don't know why he is kneeling.

Who want to argue with me about why he is kneeling.

Even though he (and those that protested with him) are on record REPEATEDLY saying why they are kneeling.

Because those people are more concerned about their outrage than they are about the reason why he kneels.

Why is this still a thing?

Why aren't you listening?

I should put out a few caveats here...

I don't watch much NFL and I don't like Colin Kaepernick. Those things are even sort of tied. He was the quarterback of the 49ers when I was still a HUGE football fan. He was the quarterback when the team last went to the Super Bowl. I still didn't like him. Even then. I didn't make it a secret that I didn't like him either. I thought he was spoiled and self centered. I thought he was a sign of a badly managed team, in the fact that they kept talking about wanting quality character guys and then kept signing guys who beat women, or used drugs, or had DUIIs or kissed their own biceps, didn't give credit to their teammates and wore the hat of another fucking team in the off season.

I never got over my dislike for the management, or mismanagement, of the 49ers and stopped watching them. Then without a team to follow I stopped watching most NFL games. I'll watch a playoff game here or there, I'll loosely follow the Lions to see how they are messing up this year, I'll have the Super Bowl on in the background while I read...but I'm not a NFL fan anymore.

But Colin Kaepernick? Well, I still can't say that I like him. But now I respect him. Now I've seen him do something that wasn't selfish. That wasn't spoiled. That actually was something outside of himself trying to make the world he lives in better.

And that's what he's doing.

He kneels because he wants to call attention to injustice. He donates money to causes to help advance people less fortunate than he is. He sparked a protest and a movement even though it caused him to lose his main job. And stop with the he lost his job because he's not a good enough quarterback. That's nonsense. He lost his job because of the baggage he brought with him. And that's a valid reason why teams might shy away from hiring him. When the president of the United States turns his following against you, that's a lot of pressure. But stop trying to say that wasn't why he lost his job. It makes you look silly.

He kneels because he was told that sitting was disrespectful to members of the military and as he was not protesting the military he knelt instead. It's all out there. It's well documented so stop trying to say it's about the troops or about the flag.

AND even if it was? So fucking what? Are we not allowed to protest military actions? Are we not allowed to say that war is bad? Stop trying to deify the military. We don't need to do that. That's not why they serve. They serve for a lot of reasons but if you get down to the whole basic "protecting our freedom" part of it, protesting is a freedom we have. So they fight for your right to kneel. Stop acting like the people who sign up to fight for our country are so soft they can't handle a little criticism. Trust me they can take it, and a lot more than you can ever imagine. But...

That's not why he kneels.

And can we stop with the bullshit about protesting on the job? They aren't kneeling while they are playing. They are kneeling before they take the field for the game. Patriotic displays are not part of the game or the job. And of course they protest while on camera, it wouldn't do much good to try and call attention to an issue if you aren't getting attention right then, would it? Don't be stupid.

And stop saying that because he has money he has no right to bitch.

THIS ONE MAKES ME CRAZY!

Of course he has a ton of privilege. He was raised in a middle class household. He went to college. He got his dream job. He made a ton of money doing it. He is dripping with privilege. And this is what you are SUPPOSED to do if you have all of those advantages. Help people who don't. Speak for people who don't have a microphone. Make a difference for people who cannot expend any extra energy on anything other than surviving. When you have a lot, you give a lot. That's what makes you a good person. Ignoring people who don't have it as good as you do? That makes you an asshole.

So yeah, I respect his choices a lot more now. He put it on the line. He took a stand, by kneeling. He's trying to make a difference.

And when you try to silence him, when you say that what he is TELLING you he is protesting isn't what it is, but it's something else, then you are just showing that you are part of the problem.

Not listening, not wanting to fix an issue, or to understand why someone else feels it's an issue, not even being willing to engage in another form of thought. You don't have to agree with him, but instead of disregarding the fact that he's telling you it's about social injustice and changing the narrative to something you can pretend to get pissed about, how about you just say, I don't think there is a problem here. I don't think that the police have an issue. I don't think there is a racial component. You can do that. You don't have to agree with him. But to not listen at all? To scream over his quiet protest? That says something totally different.


And yes up there I said pretend to get pissed about. Because I still think the majority of people are pretending to be pissed. I saw A LOT of posts about Nike and sweatshop labor (none of them linking to the current articles about how Nike solved its sweatshop issues), and a LOT of posts about the problems Nike has been having with its corporate culture from people who had never given a shit about such things until last week. Seriously, you're not fooling anyone. You don't care about labor prices, you don't care about corporate culture, you don't care about the guy in the beer line still ordering his beer and not stopping and standing at attention, you don't care about the fact that you don't stand up in your living room when you hear the national anthem. You don't care that they are breaking the flag code every single time they lay the flag out horizontally, or wear a flag, or use the flag for advertising. So yeah, you don't actually care.

And don't even get me started on the people who seem to think the military now has a monopoly on the word sacrifice and that you can only sacrifice all of something if you die...stop it. Just stop it. Sacrifice comes in a lot of shapes and forms, and you can sacrifice all of one thing or another without sacrificing your life.

Stop making up things to be pissed off about.

Why is this still a thing we are doing?

Why aren't you willing to ask why there is still a feeling of racial injustice and imbalance? Instead of being mad at those trying to call attention to a problem why are you working so hard to change the subject?

You can be anti-bad cop and still pro-police.

I've said it a million times by this point.

The people that should be the most upset about bad cops are the good cops. The bad ones make it harder for them to do their jobs. They make it more difficult for them to connect with the communities they are serving. They destroy the trust that needs to be there between the police and the people they protect. I've blogged and status updated about it so many times you all probably quoted that along with me.

And if you can't even get mad about that, then at least shut up about what it isn't about. You think everyone should always stand? Then stand. But stop trying to make it about something that pisses you off instead of something you don't give a shit about. Your righteous indignation is self righteous at best.

Stop letting this still be a thing.

Do Tell

It was the blush that gave it all away. Everyone has tells. Your body will give away your secrets every time. Some tells are very small and you would only notice them if you were looking directly at someone. Did you know your eyes dilate when you see someone you love? That’s one you have to be watching for to notice. 

Then there are the tells that aren’t really true. People believe you know someone is lying if they look up and to the right when they are talking to you. But if they look up and to the left they are telling the truth. Neither of those is actually true. People tend to look up when they are trying to remember a word, or a part of a story, it’s almost like they are looking in to their brains, searching. But it isn’t a lying tell. There isn’t a universal lying tell. You have to know the individual to know their tell. And there are tells for everything. Good news. Bad news. Lies. Truth. Your body is constantly giving away your deepest secrets. The good thing is that most people don’t notice.

Her mother was a professional poker player. She and her sisters were raised on learning people’s tells. The clues they gave away without knowing it. When they were bluffing. When they were holding a perfect hand. This was important to know when playing poker and they discovered early on that you could use that same knowledge away from the poker table as well.

The first thing they did when they were younger was figure out each other’s lying tells. When Julie lied she quickly crossed and uncrossed the pinkie of her right hand under the ring finger. It was fast. You had to be watching for it. Almost a twitch. But she literally crossed her fingers when she lied. Sarah touched her nose. Maybe to see if it was growing? But a glancing touch. Even when she became aware of it and tried to stop doing it her hand would lift and then go back down. So you knew she was lying.

 Her own tell was harder to see. She rubbed her toes together. Big toe against the toe next to it. What would that toe be, the index toe? Why do fingers each get their own names but not toes? But that was her tell. Very few people had figured it out. If she had any others nobody had let her know. That was also the secret of tells. You didn’t want anyone to know that you had figured theirs out. It wouldn’t do you any good then.

When she had started dating her husband her sister Julie had been the first one to know she was in love with him. They had gone on a double date to a dance club. When they sat down at the table after dancing Carl had reached over and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, briefly brushing her cheek when he did. Later that night Julie said, “It’s all over for you. You love him.” She and Carl hadn’t been dating long enough for that step to have been made. She told Julie no way, not yet, it was still too soon (her big toe rubbing against the next one) and Julie said, “When he tucked your hair back you closed your eyes. You love him.” The closed eyes when he brushed her cheek had given her away. She had a love tell.

A few months later when she was ready to say the words out loud she had remembered that night. The feel of his hand brushing her cheek and her eyes closed again. Yes. She was in love with him. She even loved that she had discovered his lying tell in what she thought was the best sort of way. She had asked if he wanted to go to the opera with her and he said, “I love the opera” then tugged his left earlobe. He did not love the opera. But he had wanted to seem cultured and did want to spend the time with her.

 She was ready to say the words that Julie had known were true months ago. “I love you.” No toes rubbing together. His eyes dilated, “I love you too.” No earlobe tug. It had been a good start to a wonderful life.

She was standing in his office. Remembering that touch. Remembering those days.  Her hand went to her cheek and she closed her eyes. Smiled. They were heading to Las Vegas for the weekend to watch her mother compete in a Master’s Tournament. Julie and her husband were flying out with them and Sarah and her latest girlfriend would meet them there.  She and Julie were excited to meet the new girl. And to see if Sarah closed her eyes when she touched her.  It was beyond time that she settle down.

He was running late. It wasn’t that unusual for him to be running late. She wasn’t even worried about it just yet. She always baked a little extra time in to their schedules to make sure they weren’t late. Or at least she did now. Years of experience had taught her that was best. She checked her watch again, they were still fine.

A few minutes later Carl and a young woman she hadn’t met before walked in to the office. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know I’m late!” He kissed her on the cheek. “Jim had extra questions for me after the meeting broke up.” He tugged his ear.

She held out her hand to the woman standing behind him, “Hi, I’m Emily, you must be Andrea?” The intern looked at Emily then at Carl and blushed. “Yes, yes. Sorry. I’m Andrea. I’ve heard so much about you. It’s nice to meet you.”

Emily said, “Nice to meet you too.” Her big toe rubbing against the one next to it.  

I Like Dogs...

Summer is always the time I think we need a dog. I like dogs. I really do. In a different way than I like cats, but I do like dogs.

And during the summer I think we need a dog. Then the weather turns and I think we are lucky we don't have a dog. It won't happen for a while. Fall is actually prime dog time. Or it used to be. Now we travel a lot during the Fall so I can convince myself that getting a dog, or more cats for that matter, isn't a great idea.

It's the same argument I use for not buying a different house. Not that the rain would be a pain for a house, but that we travel a lot in the Fall and a new house wouldn't work for that. We would have to give up the Michigan football trips or the musical season tickets or the Winterhawks season tickets or all of them if we bought a new house. We spend our money on food and tickets not on a mortgage and I really do like it like that.

But...

I do like dogs.

And I do like houses with woody views.

Or condos in the heart of downtown.

But we leave for Michigan on Thursday and then again in mid-October and then again the first weekend of November...

And then there is Hawaii in February. Or maybe a cruise. Or maybe both at different times.

And then there is breakfast out on the weekends. And green chile cheeseburgers at Killer Burger and the search for the best fried chicken in Portland and...

You have to decide where you spend your money.

Right now we spend our money on food and experiences. Not on our house.

But I do like dogs.

And cats.

And views.

And...

It makes me wonder if it's just the human experience. Do we always have that voice in the back of our heads saying "yeah but...?" I mean I am basically a content and happy person. I like my life. Wait, that's wrong, I love my life. I have a GREAT life. Like I see people listing life goals and it's my life they are describing levels of a great life. But even knowing that I have created a life that suits me to a tee I still have that  "yeah but..." voice.

The "yeah but..." voice is probably directly related to my "OH LET'S SET SOME NEW GOALS!" voice. Just quieter. Pretty much all of my voices are quieter than that damn goal setter voice. She's a bit of a loud mouth and constantly gets the rest of us wrapped up in wacky projects when we'd really rather just sit on the couch researching dogs I will never buy.

Brent is supportive of the dog idea. And the cat idea. But he also knows that I am the one who has to take care of said dog and cats. He works for that money I decide how to spend, afterall. So taking care of the pets would fall to me 90% of the time. The walks in the rain. The poop patrol, either out of a box or off of the ground. The vomit clean ups. The vet trips. The walks in the rain. Yeah, I know I already mentioned that, but it does rain here a good bit of the time. He would get the "YOU CAME HOME! I LOVE WHEN YOU COME HOME!" tail wags, but I would have the responsibility. So he is supportive of the idea of getting one, but the final decision is up to me.

Fall is that goal setting, life evaluating time for me. I look at the nooks and crannies and decide what stays and what goes. I am in the process of finishing a few big projects so that's taking most of my NEW GOALS focus, thank goodness. But still...

I like dogs.

And woody views.

And downtown condos.

And thinking of new places and new ideas and what ifs and...

Can You Hear That?

Whispered voices filled her ears.

"Shhh....I'm listening."

"You shhh...I'm talking."

"Both of you shhh....you're not adding anything of importance."

"EVERYBODY SHHH! I'm trying to concentrate."

"Concentrate on what?"

She looked at the closing garage door and tried to decide if the whispered fighting was happening on the other side of the door or in the garage. She couldn't see who was doing the whispering, but that was nothing new, she had heard voices that weren't attached to bodies her entire life.

For the most part it didn't bother her. She had gotten fairly good at tuning them out. But they were always there. When she was younger she had tried a lot of things to make them quieter. Ear plugs, drugs, an exorcism. The ear plugs only muffled them and that was more annoying than hearing them talk. The drugs flattened all of her other senses as well. So not just hearing, but thinking and feeling were more difficult. And when she realized that food didn't taste as good that was that. The exorcism was interesting, but the priest had finally come to the conclusion that the demons did not reside inside her and suggested therapy. Which is where the drugs had come from so she declined.

Instead she just tried her best to ignore them all.

Today they weren't making it easy. They had been fighting all day. But controlled fighting. That whisper tone thing that parents used with their kids in church, or the library, or a movie. Where you are whispering and yelling at the same time. It was actually kind of annoying, but she had to admit it was better than when they all actually yelled at each other.

She had also tried to ask them to be quiet. To stop talking to her. She got no answer. It took a few times of trying to engage with them to realize that though she could hear them, they could not hear her.

It was like living with the television on all the time. Background people living their lives without the laugh track. But she couldn't change the channel. She couldn't interact with them. She couldn't do anything but listen.

"Shhh....you heard that right?"

"Everyone needs to keep quiet. Please. I'm trying my best."

"Shhh...listen. Try to focus for a minute."

Okay, so the voices are definitely on this side of the garage door. So that meant they would probably be following her inside. She had hoped that they were in the alley. She might have gotten a little peace if they had been outside and nobody else was talking in the living room. That did happen. She didn't want to make it seem like there were always voices. Sometimes it was quiet. But when it wasn't, she couldn't make it happen. So today she would have the whisper fighters she guessed.

She went in to the living room and sat down. She was reading a really good book and was hopeful that if she got lost in that story the voices would sort of fade away. She didn't like the whispering. To be honest it was kind of creeping her out.

"What should we do?"

"Be quiet. Keep still. Shhh...."

"I really have to pee."

*giggles*

"You have to hold it. Please...shhh..."

The hairs on her arm lifted. Why in the world would she feel afraid now? The voices had never scared her before. Even when she was little. Or when they were yelling at each other. They weren't real enough to be scary. They were real. She knew that. But not really real. She had tried to explain it to her doctor. She knew she wasn't just imagining the voices. That they were coming from...well she didn't know where but it wasn't inside her head. If they were inside her head the ear plugs wouldn't have muffled them. And if they were inside her head the people she had met in her life who also could hear the voices wouldn't have been able to.

Oh yes, she wasn't the only one in the world who heard the voices. Now, to be fair, a lot of the people that heard them were considered crazy by most of society. But if you almost constantly heard disembodied voices it might make you a little nuts too. She wasn't sure why it hadn't affected her like that. Or maybe it had and she just didn't realize it. Did you know if you were going crazy? Or was that part of being crazy, that you didn't know?

"Shhh, sweetheart, just shhh..."

The whispering was quieter now. They weren't arguing with each other anymore, just trying to keep everyone quiet. She could hear something else as well. She tried to focus in. Sometimes that helped. She could sometimes hear things other than the voices. Like street noises. Or a phone ringing. Echoes of another life. That's how she thought of it.

What was she hearing? It was steady. Like a drum beat. A thumping. Could it be? Really? A heartbeat?

She leaned forward toward the sound and put her hand on her own chest. Trying to match the rhythm. Yes, it was a heartbeat. She could hear someone's heart beating. Pounding really.

"shhhh...."

She was so focused on listening to the heartbeat and the soft whispers that the first scream made her scream as well.

The screaming kept on for a long time. She tried covering her ears but it was too loud. Different screams from each of the whisperers. They weren't whispering now. Not at all.

She could hear the pounding again. Louder this time. More frantic. She realized it was her own heart this time. Panicking.

She tried to calm herself. She couldn't have helped them even if she had known what was going on. They couldn't hear her. She couldn't see them. She could only hear them. And hear the echoes of the screams ringing in her ears now. The whispering stopped.

Except...what was that?

She heard it again. Soft. Barely a noise really.

"I see you."

Her eyes widened...

"You. I see you. Shhh....."

The voices had never really scared her.

Before.

What Will it Take?

The President of the United States constantly claims that the press is the enemy of the people.

He claims an investigation in to Russian interference in our elections is a witch hunt.

He claims that our Department of Justice, the FBI and and the CIA are all part of a deep state conspiracy because they agree that the Russians interfered in our last election.

He now wants the government to step in and regulate what search results come up when you look for Trump News.

Any story that is not flattering to him is FAKE NEWS even if he is later forced to corroborate the story. And any news organization that reports on him in any way that is not flattering is the FAKE NEWS MEDIA and again the enemy of the people.

How are you not bothered by this? I mean honestly. How can anyone, I don't care what their politics are or were not be bothered by this?

I keep telling myself that even though the whole country has gotten so polarized lately that I would still be able to look at a progressive doing this sort of thing and unequivocally come down on the side of "That is wrong." And yet, I have conservative friends who aren't. Who are okay with it. Who even if they might not like this aspect of his public life won't condemn it because they like other things he is doing. Which face it what they like is the remaking of the judiciary in a conservative image.

But how can that be so important to you that you are ignoring the authoritarian drum he is beating?

In a meeting with evangelicals this week he warned that if the left wins the midterms they would overthrow the things he passed (never mind that he didn't actually get the Johnson Amendment repealed) violently. So violently. That doesn't even make sense. If democrats take back over the House and the Senate why would they need to be violent in stopping him? They would have the political power at that point. Violence wouldn't even be necessary.

And this has been part of my problem for so long now. Logic. There is a lack of logical reasoning going on almost all of the time. I used to fight with people about the Clintons' and their dead people conspiracy. People want to tell me that if you cross the Clintons you will end up dead. And yet...Monica Lewinsky, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Linda Tripp, Juanita Broaddrick, they are all alive. Wouldn't you think that if the Clintons killed off their troubles we would not have heard from any of these people? Use the logic path.

The flag incident with Trump. He shot himself in the foot with that one and yet conservatives rushed to show that NO! FAKE NEWS! LOOK! and would quote the flag code. Which, yes, does give a prescribed amount of time. And if he had just left it alone it would have been petty for sure but you could argue he just wanted it done by the book, but he didn't. He came back after getting push back from veterans' groups and made a decree and then re-lowered the flag. He could have made that decree as soon as Senator McCain passed, but he didn't. He tweeted sympathy for the family and moved on. Which, I will tell you I didn't have a problem with the tweet. They didn't like each other, anything else from him would have been disingenuous to the point of distasteful. HOWEVER... lowering the flag until Saturday when McCain will be buried is respecting the service of the man and he should have done that without being forced to. Use the logic path. He didn't do what was right automatically, he did what was petty automatically and then backtracked.

The logic trail is not being walked by a lot of conservatives right now. If Trump has nothing to hide and did nothing wrong then why not let the Mueller investigation just play out and finish in a natural timeline? If Sessions is actually implementing his twisted little plans the most efficiently of all of Trump's appointees (and he is) then why keep threatening to fire him, unless it's because he wants the Mueller investigation stopped? He is hiding something. He has always been hiding something and the logic trail keeps walking us to that conclusion. But for some reason conservatives don't want to look at it. They are too busy trying to find side paths that they can take that will distract them.

There was a threat against The Boston Globe where the person used the "enemy of the people" line and tied it to the Mueller investigation. Because the President of the United States keeps saying it. What will it take for people to see this is a problem? When will conservatives see that he's a wannabe dictator?  That his stance isn't "the good of the American people" but "Trump first?"

Follow the logic path. It's actually pretty well paved at this point...