Short Takes por Moi

If anyone GAF…

1.) Anne Applebaum wrote a piece in The Atlantic about how liberal democracy is not an inevitability. Something about this feels familiar on a grander scale. Like the universe tends towards disorder and it takes work to make it functional. In other words, that feeling you’ve had for about the last two decades that has grown stronger recently that there’s a cosmic struggle between life as Americans have always known it and the Iron Fist of control from that small evil group that controls everything and to which no one we know belongs? Yeah, that’s probably not just your paranoid delusions talking to you. It’s real. The days of cross country road trips in your dad’s red Chevelle through a country where the very air felt like an overload of pure oxygen? That’s going to come to an end if we don’t recognize the threat to us all. Governance by kleptocratic control freaks is so close we can almost touch it. Let’s not touch it.

2.) So weird that the thing that ruffles the cool, automaton, undemocratic hive mind of the GOP is not that TFG tried to carry out a coup, the wife of a superme court justice is a QAnon addict or that Ukraine really did need those weapons back in 2019 despite the Perfect Phone Call. No. The thing that’s got their knickers in a twist is Madison Cawthorn’s lurid account about being invited to a sex party by other Republican big wigs.

Believe it or not, I didn’t know what a key bump of cocaine was. No, seriously. Jeez, doesn’t the Congress require pee tests from its members?? Gotta look into that.

Anyway, Roger Stone has confirmed that there are indeed sex parties. This is something I’d heard before. He and his wife were into that swinging thing (ANOTHER thing I’ve never done but sounds intriguing from an investigational POV). Paul Manafort was known to have coerced his wife, who suffers from a traumatic brain injury, to engage in gang bangs. (Ok, I’ve *heard* of these but unlike Roger Stone, have no first hand knowledge. ).

Anyway, I think this might be a sort of maybe third rail for Republicans. I’m going out on a limb here but my hypothesis is that when you have this much money and corruption in a party, the chains are off. It’s not that big of a leap to get into sex parties and cocaine. The leadership is already aware of consultants and dirty tricks artists being involved. It’s not unreasonable to believe that Matt Gaetz has been to a few. Who else? Just draw a circle around these people and you’re bound to find a few more.

Will it turn voters off their kibble? Who knows. It has that prurient, voyeurustic element to it and it’s just a matter of time before accounts of blow jobs (*everybody* knows what they are 🙄) start to disgust the older ladies in the Fox News audience. For what it’s worth, I don’t think Madison Cawthorn was lying. Maybe he embellished the truth a bit. But think about what happened to Rep. Katie Hill of California who engaged in some sex positive threesome activity with her husband and another woman. Someone took selfies. (Note to self: if it ever comes up, don’t do that). Then they husband plastered those photos on Google. Ok, the other woman was part of her campaign staff before she went to Washington but to her credit, Hill tried to get her a job with some other representative to avoid any impropriety. Nevertheless, the damage to her reputation was bad enough, plus she was a Democrat, which meant she felt compelled to resign even though no cocaine bumped keys.

I think Republicans know their audience. There’s enough probability there to dig up nuggets of scandal that turn into a complete Mukbang (different cardinal sin but much more tasty). The flop sweat is palpable. Pass the lube, er, popcorn.

3.) Severence on Apple +. Omg. It’s the best television I’ve seen in a long time. The premise is novel and weird. I can’t even describe it. But being a member of the corporate world, there are elements of it that hit uncomfortably close to home.

The problem is that if you don’t have a subscription to apple +, which is most everyone, there’s no one to discuss this with. And we do desperately need to talk about it.

But it’s so weird.