We needed Barack Obama to lay it all out for us: "Imagine if you hire your plumber. You've got an overflowing toilet. It's a problem," he said during a rally in Michigan. "[The plumber] comes in and, you know, you're waiting for the toilet to be fixed. He starts, 'Have you heard about the latest conspiracy of the Lizard People?' and he starts talking to you about all this stuff. 'We gotta do something about that.' You'd be like, 'No no no, I just want you to fix my toilet.' You'd find another plumber."
What Obama has done as he crosses the country for Democratic candidates in tight races is to say that crazy motherfuckers are crazy motherfuckers and we need to say they're crazy motherfuckers and stop acting like their crazy motherfucking is in any way valid. In that Michigan speech, Obama brought up how Governor Gretchen Whitmer's opponent, Republican Tudor Dixon (which sounds like what you'd call a shitty mobile home park to make it sound fancy) said in 2020 that Democrats are trying to topple the U.S. government and control people through Covid-19 restrictions because they lost the Civil War. Obama exclaimed, "Now first of all...what?" And then he turned to the laughing crowd and gave a confused/concerned smirk, adding, "Wha...what?" The "the fuck" is implied. He continued, "I mean, I know some people go down these rabbit holes on the internet. They're up too late. But that's like a subway tunnel. That's deep. That's the darkest rabbit hole I've ever seen."
It's funny, sure. Obama has such good comic timing that he drove Donald Trump to run for president. But it's also the goddamn truth. As I've said before, we need to treat the people who spout crazy shit like they're crazy. That means anyone who believes that what's real isn't really real should be shamed for it. And I'm not just talking about the QAnon blithering madness. I'm talking about those who say, for instance, that the 2020 election was stolen or rigged or whatever. Our leaders should be mocking them more, especially the politicians who say that. Yeah, they are a threat to democracy. But they are also fucking nuts. But they say this shit shamelessly because no one of any power is shaming them. Yes, many of them are lying just to keep Trump and the MAGA rubes happy. But their intentions in saying crazy shit have no bearing on how they should be treated.
Instead, we get CNN's new CEO pushing a policy on allowing the nutzoids on the air: "CNN won’t ban guests who have supported the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, but the network will attempt to keep conversations with those people in safe zones of truth." Read another way, that says, "We'll have liars and insane people on and hope they don't lie or say something insane." You know what the best way to avoid that shit is? Don't fucking invite them on unless it's to point and laugh at how fucking mad they are. CNN had the newest Trump clone, Kari Lake, on a couple of weeks ago and just let her get away with saying that she wouldn't accept the results of the gubernatorial election in Arizona if she lost. The next question from Dana Bash should have been "Do you know how fucking deranged that sounds? I mean, that's objectively fucking nuts."
The justifications for insanity are equally insane. Take the crime against Paul Pelosi, which was meant to be an assault on his wife, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. On his show Tucker Carlson Laughs Like a Sugar-Buzzing Child Stomping Snails, the host offered about the hammer attack, "Why should the rest of us sit here and accept obvious inconsistencies in a story that has public policy implications and not say anything?" And guest Glenn Greenwald, whose primary role now seems to be jock strap for fascists, agreed and said, "Skepticism itself can never be wrong. Skepticism says there is evidentiary holes, and there is faulty reasoning in what we are being told, even if evidence does emerge later on to prove it, the skepticism itself was not just valid, but necessary."
That's all fucking nuts. No one was saying that we didn't want the whole story. But there's a vast fucking world of difference between "Some details are missing that need to be filled in" and "82 year-old Paul Pelosi was in a hammer fight with his secret gay lover." The former is acknowledging that the public should be informed. The latter is utterly idiotic and isn't "skepticism." It's the opposite of skepticism. It's saying that your extravagant speculation is valid without any proof at all. Like I could say that it's obvious to me that Tucker Carlson can only orgasm while fucking his wife if a German Shepherd is licking his asshole while he's fucking her. I don't have any proof that this is the case, but it would be irresponsible not to speculate because I'm skeptical about Tucker Carlson's ability to jizz while fucking his wife. Details are missing that need to be filled. I have a duty to assume that he needs a German Shepherd to get its snout all up in his anus, just eating him out, while he is sweatily humping the misses, and until someone shows me otherwise, that's fuckin' canon right there.
You see what that shit does? Now it's in your head for the rest of your life. And no matter what, when you see ol' Tuckus, you're gonna think, "That dude needs canine analingus to get off." In the same way, because the "skepticism" on Paul Pelosi was treated as fact, it will never not be an article of faith among the brain-fucked MAGA cretins that David DePape and/or Pelosi just wore underwear during the attack. People who say that shit shouldn't be treated with any respect.
One of the triumphs of conservatives starting in the 1980s isn't that their beliefs attracted followers. No, it's that they turned liberal beliefs into something that many people became embarrassed to espouse. They turned helping the impoverished and the sick into some kind of weakness while amping up the fear of crime and immigrants and the need to be tough and cruel. So people fled from liberalism, Democrats pivoted to the center and the rights, and the stain of that refusal to broadly fight for those liberal ideals has carried through to this day. Some voters won't ever go for a Democrat because they will never not believe that Democrats are communists who want to gender change your children.
What I'm saying is the same approach needs to be used for this terrifying insanity that has gripped so many millions. There are voters who are choosing Republicans who do know that Trump lost the 2020 election, but who just can't bring themselves to vote Democratic. Well, they need to be made to feel too shitty and ashamed to vote for Republicans. The way that is done is not just by saying Trump is a ludicrous, gluttonous shitpile who will wreck things worse than he did before. And not just by saying that democracy is fucked if Republicans get any power. And not even by saying that abortion rights and LGBT rights and more will be gone, too.
The shit that the majority of the GOP candidates believe is fucking loony, befitting end-of-the-world screamers on street corners or shit-tossing maniacs in an institution. Call crazy what it is. Don't let them get away with pretending that it's normal to live in a backed up toilet full of shit. Let everyone know that the choice is to be dragged into the toilet with them. Or get a goddamned plumber.
