Quick Hitter

We are being eaten alive from within. Like the COVID-19 virus that hijacks cells of the human body to do its dirty work, the Republican Party has devolved into a Trump virus, endlessly replicating itself until it overwhelms the American body politic. It originated in several labs across the world, one in Saudi Arabia, another in Russia, Turkey, and yet another in China. But the super spreader is Trump, literally and figuratively. Trump is patient zero. How else do you explain the lack of condemnation over the murder of Kashoggi? How else do you explain the lack of condemnation over Russian bounties on the heads of our soldiers? The lack of response over the brawl in front of the Turkish Embassy? The capitulation to China? How does an enemy take down the preeminent superpower in the world? Just find the softest spots in our society. The ignorance, the partisanship, the systemic racism, frame it, cultivate it, then dispense it with the delicacy of an air horn in the form of Fox News, Facebook. Gin it up with some religious fundamentalism, oh, the irony, and American oligarchs who find more in common with our nation’s longest standing arch-enemy than with the tenets of our own democracy. Twist it up with our country’s warped definition of true masculinity and patriotism, and we find ourselves here. Find the most influential right wing extremists in our country and plant them deep within the White House and dress up their hateful words with the august trappings of the office, press conferences, executive orders. The media follows. Wrap the legislation in the flag, whore out the ideology to the lowest common…