"The Best People"

[Top Gun]

This ★■◆● right here is maybe the most insidious existential threat to our republic right now. This greedy sack of ★■◆● has single-handedly torpedoed the very institutions that serve the same idiots who elected him to office. Traitorous scum. And those sycophantic pussies in Congress won't do a goddamn thing because they're all bought and paid for by the same douchenozzles he's appointing. What the ★■◆● will it take for someone to actually do what's necessary?

Oh right, this country's largely populated by inbred fucks who salivate over his every word. We're ★■◆●ing boned.

[Tunnelcat]

But TG, that's precisely what all those Trump buttkissers who voted for him wanted, to drain the swamp. Not only has Trump and the GOP drained said swamp, they then re-filled it with a toxic miasma of corrupt sludge.

[Tunnelcat]

What a self-made man....NOT! More like daddy's spoiled son who got rich by defrauding the U.S. taxpayers and using other dubious accounting schemes, including raising the rent on the rent controlled properties they owned by using an old mobster inspired scheme. Must be nice to be a rich family that makes a profit and avoids taxes by sticking it to people who are just scraping by on their rent.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... trump.html

[Vander]

Most days I don't even know how to wrap my head around this stuff. Remember when we spent years investigating a failed land deal the Clintons lost money on? This NYT story where Trump scams renters and tax payers for hundreds of millions and completely invalidates his origin story is almost already forgotten, and it's only been like 3 days! And it just keeps coming. It seems like years ago when we learned the Marvel CEO was running the VA out of Mara Lago. Remember when Wilbur Ross was found to have basically stolen $120 million? That was like 2 months ago. Scott Pruitt? He left only 3 months ago. I think I've forgotten more Trump scandals just from the past few months than Obama had in 8 years. And this is all basically the public sourced stuff, because congress does no oversight.

I'm pretty sure this must have been what woodchip felt like. Except the scandals he saw were mostly imaginary.

[Tunnelcat]

So all these politicians have figured that they can get away with anything by overwhelming the public with so many scandals and dirty behaviors that we'll all eventually get burned out and hopefully ignore it. What kills me is that people will vote for and stick with these politicians over and over because enough of them find it's easier to put their blinders on and demur to party loyalty instead of working at the more difficult task of independent critical thinking as an individual.

I'll be the first to admit that the Clintons were scum and got away with all sorts of probable criminal behaviors, political and personal and I personally disliked the both of them for acting so arrogant that they believed they were above all of us peons. But I think Trump has set the bar so low for being honest and forthright in the performance of his job as president that it's now sitting squarely in uncharted territory, the deepest sewer on the planet. But what's new with Trump is that EVERY department in our government has been affected. They've all been deliberately poisoned and tainted by his administration's overt cronyism, bullying, neglect and outright stupidity. I'm hoping that we as a nation will be able to clean it up somehow when enough people begin to realize that we need a functioning government of the people, by the people and for the people and that it's not in our best interests to have that government run by a bunch entitled rich playboys.

[vision]

I'm pretty sure this must have been what woodchip felt like. Except the scandals he saw were mostly imaginary.

It's interesting that you bring this up because I continually need to check myself and make sure my reactions are objectively grounded. I understand what it's like to be disappointed in the US' leadership, but what we are witnessing today is orders of magnitude above anything I've seen in my lifetime. I was still fairly young during the Civil Rights era, and the Cold War gave me legit PTSD, but today I'm disturbed beyond belief at the level of corruption in my country. It's taking everything I have to not fall into depression.

[Tunnelcat]

And I thought Nixon was corrupt back in the 1970's. He pales in comparison to Trump.

[Vander]

I think the big difference is it's not just Trump. The complete decimation of functioning government that is going hand in hand with the rampant corruption is being aided and abetted by all the Republicans in Congress.

What makes matters even more infuriating is that the avenues to rectify this through voting are being greatly diminished. Gerrymandering House districts effectively gives Republicans 21 extra seats in terms of population representation. That's 5% more seats than their number of voters can justify. Basically, Democrats need 5% more votes than Republicans just to break even. A 5% win in a Presidential election is considered a landslide these days.

The Senate is even worse. One voter for a Wyoming US Senator has more governmental power than 40 California voters. Santa Clara County (where I live) alone has a greater population (~2 million) than the lowest 3 population states combined. Those 3 states get 6 of the 100 Senators. Santa Clara County gets 2, and they have to share them with the 37 million other Californians. Our governmental structure is at odds with physical reality by any standard.

Yesterday a Supreme Court Justice, nominated by a President who lost the popular vote by 3 million, was confirmed by Senators representing just 45% of the population. We now have a Supreme Court where 4 of the 9 Justices were nominated by a President who lost the popular vote.

It's bad enough that we objectively have minority rule, but that minority party is utterly disinterested in functional government. Utterly disinterested in policing their own corruption. Utterly disinterested in dealing in objective reality. It's a completely untenable situation, which they intend to further by vote suppression.

Democracy is a pressure release valve, and it's broken. It's hard to be optimistic about the future, and the only morbid solace I take is that I'm getting to see these big existential changes happen. It's bit like wanting to be able watch the meteor hit the planet instead of being asleep at the time.

[Top Gun]

The real joy of all of this is that it's displayed once and for all how utterly inadequate the Constitution is in actually getting government to function. The only reason we've survived this long was because politicians held themselves to some set of unwritten codes of decorum that kept things plodding along. But now that one party is almost entirely populated by rabid goatfuckers hell-bent on destroying the country they were elected to serve, the document might as well be toilet paper. My only hope is that whatever group is left in the smoking ruins that were the United States is able to tear up half of it and start out with something sane. Independently-drawn political districts. No political donations, period. No lobbying whatsoever. Y'know, the little things that every country that isn't a would-be tinpot dictatorship like ours does.

[Ferno]

Y'know.. you could probably copy our model, and probably be better off for it. Hell, we're moving into proportional representation now.

[Top Gun]

Yours, or the Netherlands', or one of at least a dozen other places Places that aren't completely bought and paid for yet.

George Carlin really did say it best:

[Ferno]

I'd rather see everyone vote - now, more than ever. It's the only way out of the hell that was created. Get some actual badasses in thete that actually consider the voice of the people, instead of the piles-of-★■◆●, cumstain fat fucks that are already in there. Get rid of that Mt. bull★■◆● you call gerrymandering. Get some codified laws that have some real teeth that stop this crazy from happening again. And actually find the balls to put those treasonouus fucks to death.

Stop being a bunch of "uhh i don't wanna vote because too inconvenient/doesn't matter" listless pussies. Light a fire under your ass and get the job done, no matter how long it takes. Don't quit because it gets tough. Quit when the job is done. You have the capacity to get some real hustle on. Now go out there and do it. And get others motivated. Hell, rent a party bus and have a bash afterwards if you have to.

If I can find the grit and time to get ★■◆● that matters done, so can you.

If you've gotten this far and you haven't got out of your chair yet to register to vote, or found a way to make it to the polling station, then what the ★■◆● are you waiting for? Get it done!

[Top Gun]

Hey, chill. I vote, at least in even-numbered years. (I can't exactly motivate myself enough to care about who the ★■◆● our local comptroller is.) But the issues we're facing are more systemic than a simple change of faces could fix. You'd need actual constitutional amendments to enact anything meaningful, and good ★■◆●ing luck getting that to happen, because the same fucktards who voted for Trump would continue to vote against their own interests.

[Ferno]

Dude, don't tell me to chill if you plan on just sitting at home and not vote. It's called passion. You have the ability to get things moving to fix it and if you sit home and just let ★■◆● happen, it's your fault. Stop making excuses to just sit there. Use that fire you've got to motivate others. Break those shackles. You know who the enemy is, now take them out. Bring some legit hell to the table.

Grab em by the scruff of their necks, dammit. Intensify that fire you have a thousand times over and show them what true wrath looks like. Show them what happens when you push a nice person past their breaking point.

[Top Gun]

...I just said I AM voting.

And if I went with the "true wrath" angle, as you put it, I'd probably wind up doing something highly illegal.

[Ferno]

Yes, I know you are. But can you light a fire under other people's asses?

Show them what a bunch of people who have focused their wrath into determination and a stop-at-nothing attitude can do. Never accept excuses. One determined voice won't do much. But an army of determined voices can change the face of the world. Gather your army, train them in the art of the verbal beatdown and be ready for war.

[Top Gun]

Yeah that's not me. At all. I try to keep my interpersonal interactions to a minimum. I'm all for following someone who's actually charismatic though.

[Ferno]

Then it's all the more important that you break that mould and reshape yourself. It's time you started to lead. You can do it. You have the chops.

[Top Gun]

Lolnope. You really don't know me from Adam, do you? I don't plan on leading anything. ★■◆●, at this point I'd rather see it all burn to the ground. I'm actively cheering for Giant Meteor 2020. It'd be no less than what this species deserves.

[Ferno]

I know that when it really counts, like it does now, people... even you... can do some pretty extraodinary things.

So show us, yourself, and others what you're really made of. Wouldn't it feel really good to finally punch TB, and people like him, in the gut by getting others to vote people he supports out of office? You could lord that over him for years. Imagine the butthurt he'd have over it.

[Top Gun]

What I need to do is round up every inbred sack of ★■◆● to the middle of Bumblefuck, Nowhere so they stop royally boning the entire planet. But in lieu of that, I need to escape this absolute joke we call reality by immersing myself in all sorts of electronic distractions. So good night to you.

[Burlyman]

So what is Donald Trump going to do about those 51,000+ sealed indictments?

[Vander]

Duh. Everyone knows he's waiting for the military parade to act on the indictments so he can march them in chains through the National Mall like a Roman triumph.

[Tunnelcat]

Yeah, I bet he'd LOVE that, knowing his ego.