To Russia, With Love

We are at war with Russia. Or perhaps more correctly we have lost a war with Russia without a battle. We are no longer a sovereign nation, we are no longer a democracy, we are no longer a free people. We are the victims of a bloodless coup. So far, a bloodless coup, engineered by Russia with, at best, the traitorous indifference of the Republican Party and Donald John Trump, a man who, to borrow a phrase from another December long ago, will live in infamy.

In five weeks time unless desperate measures are taken we will hand over the government to a man who lost the popular vote by more than Woodrow Wilson or Jimmy Carter won it. A man who the Russians wanted to run our country for them. A man who the Russians got to run our country for them. A man for who the Russians interfered with our elections, which if we did it to another country would be described as an act of war.

There is an element of attention-seeking to what Keith Olberman does. He is the Left’s version of a conservative radio host: loud, sensational, longwinded, and uncompromising.

The only real difference between the two is that Olberman is not blatantly lying to you. Does he exaggerate? Probably. Could he frame his message in a softer way? Yes. But does he achieve his desired effect of explaining to people how important this is? Because I can’t criticize him for the last one.

There is a slim chance — and I don’t mean 1 in 10, I mean like 1 in 1,000 — that all of Donald Trump’s cabinet appointments are going to make the lives of ordinary people better. To this point his cabinet owns more wealth than a third of U.S. households. That’s 40 million households. If there is a way to bet against the American people in the stock market, now would be the time to get your money in.

By this point all of America’s internal agencies — the CIA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, et. al — agree that Russia had a hand in influencing the November election. I still can’t bring myself to show much empathy for the Democrats, the side that lost, if only because the party should never have been in such a position in the first place. Only Hillary Clinton could have lost to Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton is who the establishment wanted.

We know this from Wikileaks. Wikileaks are responsible for the hack of the Clinton emails, the DNC emails — more or less showing the fix was in against Bernie Sanders — and also the thus far unreleased emails from the Republican National Committee. What’s funny about that? What’s funny about that is there is a good chance we’ll never know the dirt Russia and Wikileaks have on the Republicans from the RNC. Because Trump won the election. They work for him now.

Is it not strange how quickly the GOP coalesced behind Trump? Must you suspend disbelief that much to believe their loyalty to Trump is tied to how long the Wikileaks information gets withheld?

It’s an unfortunate position to be in, especially given Russia’s chauvinistic, expansionist campaign. I lament about how Democrats are beholden to big money interests like Wall Street and big pharma, but it pales in comparison to the existential threat of who controls the Republicans. The companies that own them want war. They want to destroy the planet by burning up fossil fuels. And that’s without mentioning Russia, who is led by an ex-KGB authoritarian in Vladimir Putin and the rest of his goon squad.

This is a dangerous global path to be on, but the American people won’t be paying much attention. Because while the pieces on this nefarious chess board are in motion, the people will be worried about the rise in health care premiums and drug prices. They will be worried about the cut in Social Security benefits, that’s already been drawn up by House and Senate Republicans. They will be wondering why Donald Trump, who promised to bring back jobs, hasn’t fulfilled his promises.

This is the reality we’re headed towards, and America deserves it for who they elected. Under the guise of being the candidate of the working man and woman, the alleged billionaire Trump has appointed nothing but multi-million and billionaires to run his cabinet.

Republicans, Wall Street, big money interests… they were all worried when Trump was running for president. To them it meant they would lose influence and he would do what he wanted. Then he won, and they worried that he would go AWAL and destroy the party and institutions.

What they’ve found is the opposite: nothing will change on Wall Street. It won’t affect the tax breaks of huge corporations. And Republicans, owners of the House and Senate, can finally do all the things they’ve been wanting to do for the last 20 years. It’s the ultimate wild wild west, and it’s a good time to have Fuck You money.

The middle class is about to enter the dark ages, something I haven’t experienced, or been affected by, in my working life. All the poor and uneducated people who voted for Trump, thinking he was going to change things for the better, will be left with the sad realization that things won’t only not get better, they are almost a guarantee to get worse.

See, for people like me who work for tips it’s a pretty easy way to get by. But when the lower and middle class have less money to spend, they certainly wouldn’t want to gamble with it. (I mean amiright.) That means less money in circulation. It hurts everybody, and eventually causes a loss in jobs. Basically the worst economic spiral you can imagine, something in the vein of what happened when the stock market crashed in 2007-’08.

Again we see that the rich get richer, while the middle class assumes the bill. And when the stock market does crash again — and it will happen — we will be the ones bailing out these millionaires and billionaires all over.