Unbelievable, but not like, unexpected...

"Wow, didn't see this coming."

-Literally no one

In a move surprising nobody except perhaps the people whose job is to prevent exactly this from happening, thousands of Trump supporters, many of them armed, and some of them violent, swarmed the U.S. Capitol yesterday. It was a sea of MAGA hats and persecution complexes. A number of them even breached the building itself, threatening lawmakers, forcing a lock down, and delaying the certification of Joe Biden's election win. They smashed windows and broke into offices. Fortunately, law enforcement immediately responded and repelled the invasion arresting everyone responsible. 

I'm sure this officer handcuffed this
rioter after posing for a selfie with him.

The swift response on the part of-yeah, I'm just kidding. That didn't happen. These were white people, so legally speaking, it was patriotism. Only like fifty-two of what must have been several hundred rioters who committed serious federal crimes in full public view were arrested. And while there's been a lot of criticism leveled at the lethargic response to the riot, and the fact that it was hours before the National Guard rolled in, bear in mind that these people were only trying to seize control of the capitol in order to force Congress to overturn the election. It's not like they were BLM or Antifa. Or were they?

Pictured: One of Trump's people seen here
 vandalizing and breaking. Or is it? Yes.

No, of course not, but some of these people are already telling themselves that the rioters were actually anti-Trump people pretending to be Trump people in order to ruin their reputation:

"Trump's people and patriots and people who just care about personal property and their country don't vandalize and break, nor do they use violence."

-Adriel Leddy, standing amidst the chaos 

of right-wing violence and yet...

"I'm going to let you off with a warning, but
if I catch you committing treason again..."

Anyway, the FBI  has said there will be more charges to come and more people involved have been arrested in the hours since hundreds of rabid-foam Trump-crazies were allowed to saunter away from the most stunning act of domestic terrorism in decades, but I mean, they're not going to get all of them. When they take off those dumb MAGA hats, they look more or less like regular people. A lot of them are going to get away with this. They've flown the coup, if you will (sorry). And it's easy to blame Trump, I do, but he told us who he was years ago. 

Like, we all kind of knew this was where this was heading and now we're stuck with thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people who despite seeing what went down yesterday are still living in a world where the election was stolen, yesterday's riot was a false flag operation and the only one who can save them is a deranged reality TV star who will face zero consequences for his coup attempt. 

Some people just love America so much that the only way
they can show it is by laying siege to its government in an
effort to overturn the will of the people using violence.

More like Perdon't...

Can you believe it? What kind of country do we live in where a sitting President can't commit a federal crime in private? I mean, it's like the terrorists already won...

Sometimes I think that Republicans' words and actions are
their own worst enemy. Well, that and an informed electorate.

Is it me or is the "It's only a crime when
Democrats do it" defense wearing a little thin?

Yeah, did you see this? Republican Senator David Perdue in an interview with Fox News took Georgia Secretary of State and fellow Republican Brad Raffenspurger to task for recording and then releasing the hour-long conversation he had with the President in which Trump pressured him to falsify the election results. You know, to commit election fraud? Which is weird because the only reason we're still talking about the election is because Republicans have been baselessly claiming that it was rigged.

How was he raised that hypocrisy and
fascism were accept-oh, right, Republicans...
  

Senator Perdue told Fox News, with what I presume was a straight face and total lack of self-awareness or any sense of irony:

"I guess I was raised differently. To have a statewide elected official, regardless of party, tape without disclosing a conversation--private conversation--with the president of the United States, and then leaking it to the press is disgusting."

-David Perdue, possibly

burying the lead

I mean, clearly he was raised differently. Or maybe he was just born without the part of the brain necessary for hearing oneself speak. Either way, the story is the that President tried to get a state official to steal the election for him, not that he got caught. 

"It's a condition called moderate to severe Fuckwititus and it's characterized 
by a distinct lack of human empathy and an assumption that the rest of us are
idiots. It affects about half of all lawmakers. I'll let you guess which half..."

-Some doctor

You're right, that was unfair.
Sometimes it's a Ford.

Bur really, I can't help but wonder if this isn't, like everything the GOP does now, a calculated move designed to appeal to the rabid-foam Trumpies in hopes that enough of them will crawl up out of their Rapture bunkers and climb maskless-ly into their oversized black Dodge Rams draped with flags and drive down to polling places to menace and breathe on voters. Perdue, after all is one of two GOP Senators in today's runoff election, and needs to win to keep the party majority in the Senate and ensure that they can keep making our lives miserable. 

Anyway, I don't know about you, but I'll be plugging my ears until the runoff is over. It's not that I don't care--quite the opposite--it's that those of us who don't live in Georgia can only stand by while our anxieties consume us and besides, I've made a New Year's resolution to play more video games. 

Pictured: my actual fingers, seen here crossed in an ultimately pointless,
yet soothing expression of hope for an outcome that won't leave us at the mercy 
of MAGA goons, Republicans and their moderate to severe Fuckwititus.

Today in legitimizing the crackpots:

Pictured: the party of Lincoln.

I guess we're going to watch a bunch of Republicans bludgeon to death whatever faith anyone had left in democracy in order to appease the petulant man-child they let hijack their party. Like thirty GOP representatives and eleven Senators are going to object to Joe Biden's seven million vote margin of victory on the grounds that Trump lost and they'd prefer that he didn't lose, even though he totally did and everybody knows it and do they seriously not have more pressing concerns right now?

Hey, you know who did win
a Presidential popular vote...

The soon to be-ex Vice President has now said that he "welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections and bring forward evidence before Congress and the American people on January 6th." The lawmakers are calling for an investigation into all the voter fraud that crackpots on Parler have been shrieking about ever since Donald Trump lost the popular vote-sorry, the second time he lost the popular vote. Yeah, you and I have both won the same number of popular presidential elections.

Yeah, but there's only one of him
and 330 million of us. So, let's get'em.

Anyway, I don't believe for a second that these Republicans actually believe the nonsense they're spouting. They're just cynically exploiting the ignorance of their supporters which is pretty on-brand for them. Like, where would the party be if they hadn't spent the last forty years convincing the gullible people that supply side economics would lead to prosperity and not say, crushing and inescapable debt, unaffordable health care, and Jeff Bezos making double the average median household income per minute. No, really. 

I mean that metaphorically. Although
I wouldn't put a literal one past him either.

And until today, I wasn't even sure that Trump actually believes that he won. I mean, I wouldn't put it past him to be capable of that kind of self-delusion, but I also think it's just as likely that he's trying to leave a political upper-decker before he leaves the White House. But then I read that he called up Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and asked him to just say that he won--which again, he didn't. Holy shit, yes, the sitting President just asked a state attorney general to lie about the results. 

Does he...does he not
know how voting works?

Like, it's pretty cut an dry. Just...just look at this:

"So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won that state."

-The actual President 

attempting an actual coup

But if he needs 11,780 votes, wouldn't that mean that he didn't-you know what? Never mind. 

Look, there's no reasoning with these people. But their claims are baseless and batshit and they need to accept the fact that the worst president we've ever had lost the election because more Americans wanted him gone than didn't. So I suppose what I'm saying is that maybe humoring them isn't the best idea either...

Because if there's one thing you want to do with
crackpots, it's legitimize their bonkers claims.

Rabbit rabbit rabbit

That wasn't on us. Still, I'd run though...

Rabbit, rabbit rabbit. Yeah, so there's this superstition I heard about where you're supposed to repeat the word "rabbit" three times or just say "rabbits," when you wake up on the first of the month. How come? I don't know, does it matter after the year we just had? Ok, obviously superstitions are nonsense. Everything that went wrong with 2020 can be traced back to poor decisions--with the possible exception of that volcano in the Philippines.

Above: where we went wrong.

For example, not shutting everything down at the start of the pandemic could have spared us months of horror. And before that, people making better choices in the 2016 election would have spared us the incompetent leadership that led to not shutting down at the beginning of the pandemic and all the subsequent horror. Plus racist tweets. And before that, the industrial revolution sparked our love affair with climate change and now we're all doomed.

Pictured: the bar.

We have no one to blame but ourselves. And Republicans (what?). It's all been a rich tapestry of bad ideas and no amount of saying "rabbit" and crossing our fingers and good luck pennies are going to change it. We have to wear our masks, and stop listening to batshit conspiracy theories. And we could probably all stand to be a little nicer to one another. The bar may be incredibly low, but if 2021 has even a chance of being better than 2020, it's going to be because of hard work, not magic. 

Probably. But who knows, right? Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit. Knock on wood, throw some salt over your right shoulder, go outside, spit, swear, and spin around. I mean, let's do all that hard work stuff to, but why take chances, right?

Yes, I know it's dumb. Say it anyway.

The most annus Annus Horribilis!

This year, this seemingly interminable parade of horror and absurdity that has been anno domini two thousand and twenty, is just about over and it's time for my annual look back at the year that was. Although this time it felt at best like a year that wasn't, and at worst a year we wish wasn't, but here we are.

Remember a year ago when we all thought 2020 wasn't going to be the
  worst year ever in the history of-oh shit, how many maskless idiots are going
to show up in Times Square and breathe all over each other? It's lots, isn't it?

Pictured: us randoms.

Every year for the past eleven years, this has been the post where I go over a list of people who have died in the past twelve months. I list only famous people because for real who cares about us randoms? And then I'd occasionally drop some abstract concept into the mix: "So long irony, we hardly knew ye" or sometimes I'd get political and put something like "democracy was clubbed to death this year by so and so." It's kind of a tradition at this point. Huh, I have a tradition, how 'bout that? 

Also, especially these last few years, I've done a running gag about how the next year couldn't possibly get any worse and now I can't help but wonder if all of this is my fault...

"Couldn't get any worse huh? Sounds like a challenge..."

-The Fates, evidently

Yeah, but were any of us truly 
surprised when his presidency ended
up killing hundreds of thousands?

Anyway, I'm not going to do that this year, so feel free to go back and read the old one. When every year managed to out-shitshow the one before and when not caring about us randoms became the official pandemic response, the whole thing became a lot less funny to me. To be clear, we're all going to miss Chadwick Boseman, Alex Trebek, Kobe Bryant, Diana Rigg, Grant Imahara, Ian Holm, Little Richard, Bonnie Pointer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg--oh, how we're going to miss Ruth Bader Ginsburg--I'm going to break with tradition.

Instead I'm going to suggest that we all agree that the last year--the last four years even--never happened. Which, I know it's impractical and the ramifications of everything that's happened will carry over into 2021 and beyond, but it's not impossible. Time is a construct and has no meaning beyond our need to measure it, so what the hell?

Are you just going to let some calendar tell you when to go to work
and when bills are due? Or are you going to take charge of your life?

Something, something, resources, doesn't
matter, we're here for quips and explosions.

It'll be like the Blip. You know, that thing from the Avengers: Endgame? Here, let me refresh those of you for whom, like me, those movies all run together. In it, half the population was wish-gloved out of existence by Josh Brolin because the writers love Malthus. But then five years later one of the Avengers, I forget which one, manages to steal the Infinity Gauntlet and wishes everyone back, but now everyone has to deal with 50% of the world being five years younger than...uh...

Look, I didn't like or understand the movie, but my point is if living through this has taught us anything it's that life is too short to care what others think or what the calendar says. So I say let's just take the mulligan, roll back whatever we want to roll back, shave a few years off our ages and start anew.

What I'm saying is that the only difference between us and
Time Lords is that we're reluctant to admit that time is nonsense.

Today in Pied Pipers of the willfully ignorant:

You know, the word "hero" gets thrown around a lot these days, but sometimes it's appropriate. Sometimes, a person of great courage and conviction takes a stand against oppression and strikes a blow for freedom, faith and basic human kindness. This however is not one of those times and Kirk Cameron is not one of those people. 

"Alright, who's ready to endanger some lives?"

-Cameron, taking a stand

Above: pretty much this, but with
sputum. Did I mention the sputum?

A former teen heartthrob and current adult idiot, Cameron has been using his platform as a guy who was once on a sitcom that went off the air twenty eight years ago to organize what he's calling peaceful protests against public health official's desperate pleas to stop infecting others with a potentially fatal respiratory disease that's already killed hundreds of thousands and crippled the global economy. The actor, turned pied piper of the willfully ignorant, has held two separate Christmas caroling jaunts wherein maskless fools stand really close, sing songs and inhale each other's sputum. 

Above: white Christians are among the
most oppressed people in our nation's history.

(source: white Christians)

Singing, of course, was one of the first things the CDC identified as probably the fastest and most reliable ways to spread COVID-19. It's also one of the easiest things to avoid. Surprisingly few people's livelihoods rely on Christmas caroling, yet Cameron is framing the basic stay-at-home orders and mask requirements as a brutal assault on his and his fellow protestors' freedom. Because of course he is. Because if there's one thing conservative, evangelical Christians love it's to feel persecuted, no matter how down-trodden they're not. It's their catnip.

"How have I never heard of Jesus before?"

-no one

"We are going to be celebrating our God-given liberties, our constitutionally protected rights at this time at Christmas to sing Christmas songs to gather, to assemble and to sing about the birth of our savior."

-Kirk Cameron, finally getting the word out

He uh...he knows that Jesus is the central figure of the world's largest religion and is someone around whom western culture has basically revolved for the better part of the past two thousand years, right? 

And sure, he's correct that his protests are constitutionally protected. No one's arguing that. But they are also dangerous and incredibly selfish so maybe don't? I mean, I'm sure Jesus would understand if you took a year off from singing about Him off key in a mall parking lot, you know, if lives depended on it. Which in fact, they do.

"As a frontline medical worker, I may not agree with Kirk Cameron's constitutionally
protected, yet plainly reckless right to demonstrate how devoted he is by endangering
others, but I'm willing to die a slow death drowning in my own mucus to defend it."

-literally not one medical professional anywhere

There's not enough Febreze in the world...

Rome had the forum, we have
gifs, memes, and that poop emoji.

So President-elect Biden's transition team is upset that Twitter is-huh? I know, right? Here, let me say it again: President-elect Biden. Anyway, they're upset that @POTUS and the other accounts associated with the administration be deleted and then re-started rather than just handed over as they were during the transition from Obama to Trump. This will clear everyone following them and they'll have to build President Biden's follower base from zero. Given that Twitter has basically replaced the news and political discourse that's a big deal.

 The Tweets will also likely congeal 
into a negatively charged ectoplasm. 

Anyway, on January 20th, Trump's account, and the four years of accumulated vitriol, misogyny, racism, hyperbole, and demonstrably false assertions about anything from the size of his inauguration turn out to how rigged the election was contained therein will then be archived like some kind of incoherent all-caps cautionary tale about why the electoral college was a bad idea to begin with. Future historians will doubtlessly build entire careers speculating as to how an ostensibly reasonable people could let this go on so long.

Pictured: all of us in about six months
--God willing--watching the perp walk.

On the bright side, also on January 20th, Donald Trump will no longer be the President which means he'll have to follow Twitter's rules, so like, no more consequence-free death threats, typos passed off as secret messages, or lying about national health crises. He can, in theory anyway, get banned from the social media platform just like anyone else. And I don't want to jinx anything, but not being president anymore also means he'll lose whatever immunity from prosecution he's been insisting he has (he doesn't). So like, make some popcorn.

He locks kids in cages, brags about
sexual assault, blames others for his
failures, what's not to love, amiright?

And I don't know, I get that Biden's people feel like they're getting screwed out of millions of followers. I mean, they are. @POTUS followers will be given the chance to opt in to following Biden, but that's like a whole 'nother step. You have to hit "yes" and everything, so he's bound to lose some people. On the other hand, would that be the worst thing? Loosing people that followed Trump? Sure, some follow him for the same reason people slow down when they pass an accident on the freeway, but others are like, you know, fans.

So maybe starting fresh isn't such a bad idea. I think we'd all be happy to put the last four years behind us. You know, open the windows, let some fresh air in, symbolically speaking. And literally I suppose. When he moves in to the White House, he'll probably need to repaint. Replace the carpets. Curtains too, really all the bedding and towels. Chase the raccoons out of the disused press room and maybe take down the ten-foot perimeter fence. You know, it might just be easier to build a new White House...

It will take weeks to get the smell of narcissism
and incompetence out of the upholstery...