rud.is

(Leading this with the periodic warning/reminder that this blog occasionally breaks from technical content and has category-based RSS feeds which can be used to ensure one never see non-technical content.)

Every decent human (which excludes 74,222,958 🇺🇸 who voted for this, now 100% undeniable, traitor) with knowledge of this past week’s tragic events is likely still processing — and will be for a while — what happened; I am no exception. The Feedly board I set up to save content I’ve been pouring over has 113 articles in it, so far.

Different aspects of the costume-clad, treasonous chaos have hit me daily, if not hourly.

Two newspaper paragraphs, each one about a different victim, have bubbled up to surface thoughts more often than much of the other stories of the week.

One is about Erin Schaff, a brave, talented journalist from the New York Times:

Grabbing my press pass, they saw that my ID said The New York Times and became really angry. They threw me to the floor, trying to take my cameras. I started screaming for help as loudly as I could. No one came. People just watched. At this point, I thought I could be killed and no one would stop them. They ripped one of my cameras away from me, broke a lens on the other and ran away. [NYTimes]

No one came.

People just watched.

While I am deeply shocked, outraged, and saddened by what happened to Erin, I am not surprised, given that the President of the United States wants journalists to be executed for regularly giving his 2017-2020 reality show bad reviews by stating undeniable facts. Furthermore, he has continually cultivated disdain and hatred for the media in his regiment of cult followers.

Erin is lucky to be alive, even if that means living in the ruins of a failed, so-called democracy.

President Trump is responsible for Erin’s assault, and he is going to get away with it.

The other is about Ashli Babbitt, the troubled insurrectionist who died assaulting the Capitol:

With help from someone who hoisted her up, Babbitt began to step through a portion of the door where the glass had been broken out. An officer on the other side, who was wearing a suit and a surgical mask, immediately shot Babbitt in the neck. She fell to the floor. [WaPo]

After the February 2020 impeachment proceedings failed to do anything substantive, the President boasted of feeling “untouchable”; and, in at a campaign rally in 2016, then Republican presidential candidate Trump boasted that he could “shoot somebody and not lose any voters.”

Trump has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. And, while the gun wasn’t in his stubby hand, he is fully responsible for this woman’s shooting and death.

So, Trump was right: he is going to get away with it.

Mike Pence, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, and a few hundred other evil, self-serving, elected cowards are all unindicted co-conspirators to Erin’s assault and Ashley’s death, as are countless “news” and talk show hosts.

Beyond what happened to these two women, this traitorous cabal also helped orchestrate this week’s current crescendo to Trump’s term in office.

I say “current” because there’s a non-zero chance of increased violence and bloodshed before January 20th despite Trump being deplatformed.

I have lost all hope that Trump will face any tangible consequences for his actions, which will only serve to embolden other wanna-be dictators like Cruz and Hawley.

What’s worse is that even after Biden’s victory was finally 100% sealed and one of America’s most cherished institutions was ransacked, the Trump supporters near me (rural-ish Maine) still, proudly, have their 2020 Trump campaign signs up and were very likely laughing and cheering the insurrection while Erin was being assaulted and Ashley’s life was ebbing away.

Even the Court Evangelicals have doubled-down in their support of Trump.

I (literally) pray I’m wrong, but it seems inevitable that the violence and bloodshed will continue through and after the 20th. As Biden tries to (also, literally) heal America by bringing science-fueled, centralized, enforced standards to quell the carnage of Covid, we will very likely and regularly see regional repeats of this week’s contemptible acts. As he and his administration attempt to right the many, many wrongs of the past four years (and more), these necessary actions will further push the ilk of this week to regularly manifest their entitlement-fueled rage.

Nos autem non in antebellum; bella iam inceperat.