Voter harassment is happening......now.

 

   It comes as no surprise that voters are experiencing various kinds of harassment as they stand in line to vote.  In an unspecified town in Pennsylvania, a convoy of semi-trucks and pick-ups...waving Trump banners, of course....circled a voting place for hours, apparently.  But, they weren't just driving around the block...oh, no.  They were putting up such a cacophony of honking horns and shouted epithets that it easily constituted illegal voter harassment.  The story is still growing and it's not clear if law enforcement officials were called...or if they were, did they do anything to stop the harassment. More to come on this.

  But, here's the real issue: what exactly is going through the minds of the people who feel empowered to do this?  Clearly, they have no allegiance to the ideals and conventions of what it means to live in a democracy.  They seem oblivious to the idea that they are violating the rights of fellow Americans.  All they care about, apparently, is getting another term for their Fuhrer, aka, The Idiot.  Does anybody imagine that these thugs would be acting this way without a clear signal from the Idiot's campaign that it is okay?  Nah.

Dreams of becoming a Supreme Leader....about to be dashed.
God willing, eh.

  He has been sending signals all along (some of them blatant, and some of them more subtle, i.e. 'dog-whistles') that observing anything resembling fairness, honesty, decency...and HONOR.....are just stupid and irrelevant ideas.  What counts is getting the minority voters to stay home, letting them know that white supremacist America is not ready for them to participate in the democratic process.  The Idiot made a faux appeal to black voters just the other day.  It was so clearly insincere that it resonated with his begging white women in the suburbs to love him.  He is utterly incapable of actual sincerity.  It's like asking dogs to fly.  

  And, in his haste to get in as many super-spreader rallies as possible in the remaining 9 days until the election, he has scheduled as many as five rallies in each day of travel.  He's a busy boy, eh.  But, the tragedy is that these are 'quick hitter' rallies, taking place in a hangar or on the tarmac at airports.  His jet lands, parks, he gets out and spews his hatred of anything that is not himself or somehow part of his fantasy...pops back into the jet, and is GONE.  Meanwhile, his sycophants are all huddled together, without masks, of course...and cross-infecting each other.  Research has just come out that these events...as many as he can manage....are indeed 'super spreaders'.  Tough shit for the ones who get sick; they are merely collateral damage.

  Had to laugh...okay, it was a sarcastic gufaw.....the other day when the Idiot said, "I take full responsibility.  It was all China's fault."  Can you even tell me what that means?  My take is that he just wanted to speak the words, indicating that his critics are all wrong, uh, okay...lying...and, that he is a responsible leader, despite what the 'fake news' has been saying all along.  Nah.  He invalidated his willingness to actually be responsible....for any goddamned thing...in the very next sentence, "....It was all China's fault".  The truth is, this man is incapable of taking responsibility.  His horribly mutilated ego won't tolerate being blamed for a single thing...as in NOTHING.

  What needs to happen now is this: we need to stay the course.  When his red-neck brownshirts start harassing a poling place, it needs to be documented.  That is actually as easy as people pulling out their phones and recording what is happening.  As with the unending police shootings of unarmed black men....nothing would happen in these cases unless a bystander got video footage of it.  

   The George Floyd murder became over-the-top horrific precisely because that woman who recorded it knew that what she was doing was critical and stayed the course.  Her determination to remain a witness to the horror that was happening right in front of her....allowed the entire world to witness it also, and to more deeply understand how much of a nightmare the black community has been living for generations...many generations.

   So, please people, make a clear a record of these incidents, and send it to not just the police, but to the ACLU, the voting commission, and the press.,...especially to sites like Salon, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, and any others you can think of. 

   The only way to meet this assault on our democracy is head-on.  Record the transgressions and follow-up on getting them exposed to as much of the country and the world as possible.  Cowards and Assholes much prefer to do their law-breaking in anonymity and having a video record means that is impossible.  

  I am still feeling a strong sense of calm and certainty.  I am calm.... because, hey, what else am I going to do?  Getting overly worked-up over all of this will not change it.  But, I am asking you, my fellow Americans, to take reasonable and doable actions in the face of people who do not give a flying fart about your right to vote or to live in a fair and honest democracy.

  My heart and my deepest respect goes out to the American Heroes who are still and always fighting in the trenches against Covid-19.  And, I have a strong sense of gratitude to all the people who are making the great effort to stand in line for many hours...in order to be heard.

  The knaves and the idiots will not triumph here.  They are going down.  And, how they react when that has been accomplished...is a whole other matter.  I will take it up as we get closer to the election and it's results.