Week of August 24

First of all, I apologize to my legion(s) of fan(s) for not writing MY FRIDAY RANT last week. I was traveling with my family through the Finger Lakes area of upstate New York where we saw lakes shaped like fingers as well as our share of un-ironic “Trump 2020” signs, and yes, an unacceptable number (by which I mean more than zero) of Confederate flags, most of which were waving proudly – or “profoundly”, as President Illiterati would say – outside of what otherwise appeared to be condemned trailer homes. In other words…

Trump’s base!

But this week, I was back, sitting in front of my TV box and my computer thingy stirring myself up into my usual state of bewilderment and despair, or what’s more commonly known as “bewilderspair.”™

Of course, last week was the virtual version of the Democratic National Convention during which a parade of who’s-more-powerful-than-who in the democratic party rushed to the microphone with the urgency of holiday bargain hunters bursting through the doors of a Walmart on Black Friday. Their mission: to shit on Donald J. Trump. Their mistake: Not realizing that Donald J. Trump prefers to be peed on.

This week, politics took a turn for the worse followed by a full circle of madness and a backflip of delirium as our feverishly  beleaguered electorate was (mis)treated to what can only be described as outrageously unbridled dystopian lunacy.
But enough about Kimberly Guilfoyle.

“I’m older than my fake boyfriend’s dad’s third wife!!”

The convention itself was filled with backs being turned on black men being shot in the back and enough mistruths and blatant lies to fill a large, white house, though no large, white house in particular comes to mind. Among them, that James Madison signed the Declaration of Independence. He didn’t. But who cares, right? If it’s not in Hamilton is it really even “history”?

There’s far too much to cover in a reasonable amount of time, so let’s just throw the shitshow into the fan.

NIGHT 1

• Bucking convention convention, President MeMeMe showed up on the first night and every night after that to make sure nobody said anything stupid… er than he did. He spoke for over an hour, at one point encouraging his maskless supporters in the room to chant “12 more years!” which is hopefully the conclusion the jury will come to at his criminal trial next year.
• Mini-MeMeMe, Donald “I can grow a beard now, dad!” Jr., put on his bestest “I’m serious” face and talked about all the ways democrats and the Chinese Communist Party teamed up to cause every bad thing that’s happened in the past three-and-a-half years while his flawless father was out golfi– I mean, ummm… greatening America.
• There were also stirring-the-pot speeches from Senator Tim Scott, who probably thinks he’ll be the first black president who wasn’t born in Kenya, and rising star Nikki Haley who smilingly believes America is “not a racist country” and, based on that, was probably shocked when she first heard that Freddy Mercury was gay.
  

  SHOCKED, I say!

NIGHT 2

• First Mail-Order Lady, Melania Trump, headlined the evening hot on the heels of her most noticeable contribution to-date while in the White House: creating a “white’s only” Rose Garden. Her human form operated without malfunction as she managed to speak adoringly of the man who, during his inauguration, said whatever he said that caused her to do this…

• There were also speeches from Tiffany “Not Ivanka” Trump, who might actually have the not-particularly-glorious distinction of being the best Trump. On the other end of that grotesque spectrum would be Eric Trump who also spoke for some reason and said some things. And the parade of emotional also-rans was rounded out with an actual appearance at a national, major-party political convention by this kid…

… who I presume was put on the line-up in an attempt to assure that Eric’s wasn’t the most discernibly irritating face of the evening.

NIGHT 3

• The cast of evil Disney characters continued on Wednesday which featured speakers ranging from Presidential Boot-licker, Mike Pence, all the way to former college football coach Lou Holtz who I suppose appealed to anyone who had the patience and desire to listen to former college football coach Lou Holtz speak at a political convention for some stupid fucking reason.
• Pence proved you can’t spell “line” without “lie” by delivering the “liene” of the night, saying of Trump’s reaction to the pandemic that has now killed over 180,000 Americans, quote…

“President Trump marshaled the full resources of our federal government from the outset.”

• I think Mike Pence was confusing Trump’s response to the coronavirus with his urge to walk through a park and wave a bible around in front of a church.
  

  “I feel like Vladimir Jong-un!”

• Trump chose night 3 of the convention to highlight women, probably because it was Wednesday and he has a childish misunderstanding of the term “hump day.” Speakers included Karen “Mother” Pence, Governor Kristi “Mount Trumpmore” Noem, Kylie “I will never lie to you” McEnany, Lara “Mrs. Eric” Trump, and “Miss Condescending” (2016-2020) Kellyanne Conway, who recently left her position as Senior White House Advisor so she could spend more time arguing with her family.
  But the message of female empowerment was undercut ever so slightly the night before with an appearance by anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson who just back in May tweeted her preference for “household voting” adding that “In a Godly household, the husband would get the final say.” I wonder if “Mother” agrees.

NIGHT 4

• The final night of the convention was obviously the most important because it featured Ivanka Trump, who, fully understanding the gravitas of the moment, made sure to iron her hair.
• Mitch McConnell and Rudy Giuliani arose from their hyperbaric chamber and coffin (respectively) to remind us that if any democrats win in November, America will immediately be reduced to a cop-killing, baby-eating, non-gun-toting hellscape where white suburban women will be cast into the furnace of fire unless they willingly and repeatedly give up that Wet Ass Pussy to an unrelenting mob of blacks and Mexicans. And they could be right. It’s really hard to say.
• And then Trump spoke and it was gross. Nothing new there.

So, to any liberal-to-moderate human beings who took the jaw-grinding time to watch even half of the republican mouth-fart-fest (#MouthFartFest), I commend your effort to at least expose yourself to the dark side, hopefully without giving in to it. And to those who still support anything having to do with Donald J. Trump, I refer to the wise words of the normally reserved Jim Gaffigan…

Congratulations!
You made it to the amazing follow-up!
Here’s Winwood beautifully performing the same song 43 years later accompanied only by the crackling of his fireplace.

Peace, y’all.