Smells Like Team Spirit

Are Americans tired of winning yet with Trump? Not even close! There's so much more winning left to do!

Just three months ago, republicans in congress vowed to stymie any USSC appointments by President Clinton. They figured we could go on just fine with eight justices on the Supreme Court. Of course, they hadn't figured at the time on seeing the inside of The White House anytime soon. With Trump/Pence they were merely fielding a team to remain in the game. They were figuring on retaining both houses of congress and being obstructionist, Grumpy Old Pricks. It's what they do best. Amazingly, however, Trump won the presidency using the Electoral College, an archaic system of voting that the founding fathers installed as a form of Affirmative Action so that the presidency wouldn't always be a popularity contest. There had to be a way to get less-popular candidates in there so as to level the playing field. Pay no attention to that notion that the EC was a safeguard to keep out demagogues. If that were true, we'd have another President Clinton right now.

Many people had posted vaingloriously about holding their noses to vote for either candidate. "Trump was not a mainstream candidate...and yada, yada yada" And, of course, "Hillary had a private email server! Who does that??!!" Well, everybody in the current Trump administration actually but, hey, we dodged that bullet...

Now more than ever politics is a team sport. You want your team to win no matter what, no matter how. Winning isn't just everything- it's the only thing. The Chicago Cubs (finally) winning the World Series brought me immense personal joy. There's no doubt about that. Myself and others get bragging rights at least for a year. Not bad but, I personally did not win the WS. My team did. The guys who did, many of them will win new contracts, bringing them more fortune to go along with their fame. Ticket prices will rise for the games along with concessions as being champions is great for the wallets of a lot of people. But yeah, we won!

That's baseball. Any sport, really. You get bragging rights in politics too. All over the internet you see people who are likely about as republican as Trump isn't, boasting about "our win". Mostly though, much of that boasting is more about the liberal loss than a republican victory. In this respect republican fans are a lot like Chicago White Sox fans in that they hate the crosstown Cubs far more than they love their team. If you live in Chicago, you know what I mean. It's pathetic fandom, indeed. Lots of hate involved without much love self love. It was more important for them to know that Hillary was defeated rather than Trump was declared winner. They erroneously describe her as "liberal" and being representative of all the feel-good, liberalness that ruins their lives on a daily basis. Trophies for participating. Safe places in schools for after-shooting therapy. Open arms for refugees. They hate that shit. Anybody who defeats that is okay in their minds. They are tough and armed and they shoot good and, if God were not for us, who could be against us? They've been trained to believe this since Reagan. It finally accidentally worked.

I really can't see your average Trump voter getting anything more than bragging rights out of this. Concessions will go up. Turns out Mexico is not going to pay for that wall after all. Who didn't see that coming? Sixty million Trump voters, that's who. Many surely doubted the wall would be built at all but appreciated the sentiment just the same. Now it looks like they'll not only get the wall but they'll get to pay for it via income taxes and again with higher prices on goods from Mexico. Trump never mentioned that during the campaign. When you can get people to even pretend to believe something like building a wall and making the neighbor pay for it, you pretty much can get away with anything. Trump really grabbed those people. When you're rich and a celebrity, you can do things like that. I believe Trump did mention that.

We're about 12 days into his term and he's already signed 20 Executive Orders. EO's used to be something a dictatorial king like Obama did. Now they are as cool as private email servers.

There's no telling what other mischief Trump has in store. We worried about an oligarchy but it's looking more like a kleptocracy now. This administration is out to loot and pillage everything they can grab. How long can these idiots cheer for that? How long before they realize that maybe the best they can hope for is a *job* as a kapo in a concentration camp? Don't think Trump or the republicans will go that far? Why? Because they were against that when they told you Obama was going to do that? These people foreshadow everything they intend to do by assigning it to someone else. I bet you did Nazi that coming.