here come the MAGA purges

Republicans are eating their own in a mad dash for survival

Dear Leader is a broken-inside bottomless pit of need. you’ve heard of “what have you done for me lately?”

with Donny, it’s “what are you doing for me right now?” mixed in with “what have you been doing for me all along?” — praise must be lavish and unceasing. loyalty must be unwavering. step out of line just once, and you’ll be discarded faster than one of Donny’s overripe diapers.

it was never a secret that one goal of Project 2025 was to purge the government of Democrats — but a lot of Republicans are now waking up to the fact that the long knives are out for them, too.

watch Paul Ryan get taken to the woodshed for insufficient fealty.

Joe Kernen: “so now you’re calling for unity.”
Paul Ryan: “I am calling for unity.”
Kernen: “well that’s nice. it would have been nice before the election.”
Ryan: “he won.”
Kernen: “and the other thing I thought was funny was when you said ‘hey, look — I want Trump to succeed.’ you know who that sounds like? it sounds like a Democrat.”

that’s not some bobblehead from Fox News or Newsmax reading the riot act to Ryan, accusing him of sounding like some fuckface commie Democrat. that’s Joe Kernen on CNBC — ostensibly an arm of the so-called “mainstream” NBC News. Ryan probably wasn’t expecting a dressing-down when he sat down for his interview — but Kernan’s a member of the MAGAsphere, and he’s never going to forgive Paul for the unspeakable crime of not voting for Dear Leader.

so, here come the purity tests — and the purges. a bunch of loyalists are now learning that there’s such a thing as being insufficiently MAGA.

Mike Turner had been Chair of the House Intelligence Committee for two years, and was no doubt feeling secure in his job — but Dear Leader’s been nursing a grudge ever since Turner voted to certify the 2020 election. add to the mix Turner’s vocal support for Ukraine, and it’s fuckity-bye, Mike.

Turner’s replacement as Intel Chair is Rick Crawford, an election-denier who always has a knife handy when it’s time to stab Ukraine in the back.

April 20, Crawford joined more than 100 other House Republicans in voting against roughly $60 billion in aid to help Ukraine’s war effort against Russia and its humanitarian needs.

ousting the dissenters is pretty much page one of the Totalitarian’s Playbook. the first thing old Joe Stalin did after seizing power was to purge the Communist Party of anyone who didn’t toe his ideological line.

The Great Terror of 1937, also known as the Great Purge, was a brutal political campaign led by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to eliminate dissenting members of the Communist Party and anyone else he considered a threat.

Stalin called them “enemies of the people” (sound familiar?) and 750,000 of them ended up on the wrong side of dead.

Donny’s got himself a quite a lengthy shit-list — and once you’re on it, there’s no fucking way you’re ever getting off.

“As of today, the incoming Trump Administration has hired over 1,000 people for The United States Government. They are outstanding in every way, and you will see the fruits of their labor over the coming years. We will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and it will happen very quickly! In order to save time, money, and effort, it would be helpful if you would not send, or recommend to us, people who worked with, or are endorsed by, Americans for No Prosperity (headed by Charles Koch), “Dumb as a Rock” John Bolton, “Birdbrain” Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, disloyal Warmongers Dick Cheney, and his Psycho daughter, Liz, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, General(?) Mark Milley, James Mattis, Mark Yesper, or any of the other people suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, more commonly known as TDS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

of course, many of these “traitors” are happy to live on Shit-list Island. the Cheneys hate Donny’s guts. so does John Bolton — he earned his residency after telling Donny that inviting the Taliban to Camp David for a terrorist sleepover on 9/11 was the dumbest fucking idea he’d ever heard.

but look at poor Birdbrain Nikki Haley. ever since she suspended her campaign for president, she’s been enthusiastically kissing Donny’s ass, every chance she could get. but no ass-slobbering will ever be sufficient to erase the stain of running against Dear Leader in the first place — so now’s Nikki’s the Mayor of Shit-list Island.

actually, there is one way to get off Donny’s list, and that’s to be a tech-bro gazillionaire. do you run a social media platform and are willing to turn it into a fact-free cesspit for MAGA lies and propaganda?

bingo, pal — all is forgiven! step right up and have a seat next to Donny at his inaugural ball. we’ll forget all about that silly little time that Dear Leader wanted to throw you in jail. that was just Donny being Donny!

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here’s something you’re going to start seeing a lot of.

Maria Bartiromo: “so what about the border. southern border communities are regaining a sense of normalcy, we’re told, ahead of the Trump inauguration.”

solving problems is a piece of cake when the problems didn’t exist to begin with.

of course southern border communities are quiet right now. they were always quiet. the border was never “open,” and million of immigrants weren’t streaming across it. that was a bullshit story spun by Donny and the entire wingnut outrage-industrial complex, to terrify voters.

but here’s Maria Bartiromo, claiming Donny’s already solved the border “crisis,” just by the sheer force of winning an election.

MAGA knows first-hand that there was never any problem. just about a year ago, a whole convoy of cultists descended on the sleepy down of Eagle Pass, Texas — because they’d heard about all the swarthy invaders and were determined to mete out some vigilante justice.

when they arrived in Eagle Pass, there wasn’t a single immigrant in sight — and they were so bored to death by all the peace and quiet that they had no choice but to start beating the shit out of each other.

but just watch — Donny’s going to brag that he “fixed” the border, magically, just by taking the oath of office.

just like he’s going to brag about having “solved” unemployment (which Joe Biden has already brought to an all-time low) and inflation (also at a historic low, thanks to Biden’s policies).

and Maria Bartiromo and Fox News will be right beside him, throwing flowers and hailing him as a savior.

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here’s an item that came to my attention after I published yesterday’s post about CEOs psyched to be able to use slurs again, else I would have included it.

let’s watch Bob Hope teach a master class in how you’re never too old to learn — and how easy it is to say you’re sorry.

Still, in 1989, in his mid-80s, Hope used the word “fag” on The Tonight Show. GLAAD immediately asked for a statement apologizing for the slur. Instead of telling them to get a sense of humor and calling them snowflakes, Hope shocked them by creating an original PSA for the organization on gay-bashing. Taped at his own expense, he gave it to GLAAD with permission to run it as much as they liked. “It was pretty extraordinary. We can’t even get progressive artists to do that,” Karin Schwartz, a GLAAD deputy director, said when it was announced.

in a world of Mark Zuckerbergs, be a Bob Hope.

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here’s your daily reminder that I can be found on Blue Sky at this link.

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this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:

practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.

to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.

we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.