Day of the Iron Scepter

 

It's the first day of summer today in the Universal Solar Calendar. Dog days begin tomorrow, and then days of the new icon.

Changing topics, imagine for a moment that you're a Republican politician. I know that's a disgusting proposition, but I'm not asking you to imagine that you're a MAGA Republican - for the sake of this exercise, you can be an old-school, less-regulation-and-lower-taxes Republican. A free-market conservative. 

You're asked to endorse a candidate for President. You might find Donald Trump loathsome, an egomaniacal, narcissistic moron with little or no regard for classic conservative values. But if you don't endorse him, you're now an "enemy" and Trump is promising nothing if not retribution and revenge on his political enemies if he's elected. Not only will you lose the votes of the cult-like MAGA followers, those fanatical Jacobins devoted to blind allegiance to all things Trump, but if he wins the election, you will be targeted for persecution. He has even, and I'm not making this up, suggested that Presidential authority includes the right to have political rivals and adversaries assassinated if he deems it necessary. 

If you endorse him and he loses, there's really no down side. Sure, You'll lose the respect of Democrats and the small fraction on non-MAGA Republicans remaining, but those people weren't going to vote for you anyway, so no loss there. Sure, you're going against your own values, but isn't your life and the safety of your spouse and children worth more? It won't be the first time you've betrayed your values - after all, you're a Republican politician. We've already established what you are, now we're just negotiating a price.

It won't be the end of the world if America elects a fascist dictator as President. The sun will still rise in the morning, birds will still sing, trees and flowers will still grow. Look at Germany, they endured Hitler, and now some 80 years later, they're doing fine. Sure, it plunged the entire world into chaos and war, sparked the most horrific genocide in human history, and climaxed with the dropping of atomic bombs on civilian populations, but other than all THAT, everything's okay. 

But at least a generation of Germans didn't have to endure the "woke" agenda.