In Sean Davis’s latest Dispatches From the Apocalypse, “No Holds Barred and the Ignoble Lie,” he body slams the current state of politics in America. 

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” —H. L. Mencken, 1921

And just like that, the January 6 Committee jumps off the top turnbuckle behind a flying elbow aiming right at Trump as he lay on the mat dazed with little unobtainable Twitter birds flying around his head all cartoon-like.

In a recent article by Slate entitled “Tuesday was the best day for Democracy in months,” Jeremy Stahl writes about how Trump’s former Chief of Staff’s testimony on the January 6th Insurrection may be damning for the former president and, in turn, that may mean legal trouble for him. But, what’s this? Cameron Cawthorne of Fox News just wrote an article about how Hunter Biden and some Serbian Oligarchs illegally helped his father get elected president and Trump rolls out of the way seconds before the elbow drops. Cawthorne wrote another article the day before saying there is proof from “Hunter Biden’s laptop from hell” that says he joked around with his therapist about his dad’s dementia! Now the Left has hit the mat hard after missing the elbow and writhes in the middle of the ring and the Right goes in for a leg drop.

(artwork by Sean Davis)

News stories about the Left and Right today are like Randy “Macho Man” Savage talking shit about Hulk Hogan before their big match. The only difference is that the Macho Man and the Hulkster had, at one time, worked together. Frank Zappa once famously said, “Politics is the entertainment branch of industry,” and today, I’d say the rich have taken over that industry. While the “Build Back Better Bill” is said to inject 2.2 trillion into US infrastructure, it also gives a tax break to millionaires and billionaires, but let’s ignore that. Instead, look at headlines like:

“THE GUY WHO KNOWS WHERE ALL OF TRUMP’S BODIES ARE BURIED IS COOPERATING WITH THE JANUARY 6 COMMITTEE”

or

“REPORT: MATT GAETZ IS SCREWED SIX WAYS FROM SUNDAY”

or

“REPORT: TRUMP IS TERRIFIED ABOUT GOING TO PRISON AFTER LOSING THE ELECTION, AS HE SHOULD BE.”

Vanity Fair published all of these, and the last one a year ago before Trump left office. It was one of the first headlines proclaiming that Trump and his family may go to jail at any minute, but he and Gaetz are still touring the nation screaming in empty stadiums about how they’re the victims.

The Mueller Report was going to show Russian interference in our election process to get Trump in the White House and, after testimony, the only result of any consequence that remained was a 12.2 million dollar price tag left for the taxpayers (not the rich). The Benghazi Investigation cost 7 million dollars, lasted months, and spawned an 800-page report that ultimately did nothing but sell ad time for news stations, or maybe it acted as a year-long job application for Trey Gowdy’s new job as a junior partner in a South Carolina law firm defending white-collar criminals (the rich).

Of course, now we don’t need big committees or investigations to sensationalize the angst between the parties or distract us from what the rich are doing. Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert (a US lawmaker who didn’t have a high school diploma until she was 34 and about to enter the US House of Representatives) was recently caught on video telling potential donors a racist joke about being on an elevator with Rep. Ilhan Omar. Boebert said that she was frightened to be on the same elevator as the Somali American Congresswoman, but then she said since she didn’t have a backpack on that meant she probably wasn’t a suicide bomber, it would be okay. This wasn’t a one-time occurrence. Boebert uses this bit at her fundraisers to get her donors to give her money.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk is putting out a Twitter poll on whether he should sell six billion dollars in stock.

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But, look over here! It gets better!

Republican Representative from South Carolina, Nancy Mace, went on CNN and condemned Boebert’s racist comments, so US Rep from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, tweeted: “.@NancyMace is the trash in the GOP Conference. … Never attacked by Democrats or RINO’s (same thing) because she is not conservative, she’s pro-abort. …  Mace you can back up off of @laurenboebert or just go hang with your real gal pals, the Jihad Squad. … Your [sic] out of your league.”

Oh man, so entertaining, right? But the problem is that they were all elected to solve our nation’s problems, not add to them.

You know what would solve a lot of our problems? Taxing the rich like we did when we were in a similar crisis. Did you know that before WWII only 7% of the US population paid taxes? A person would have to make more than $200,000 a year to pay taxes. Yes, only the rich paid them. Now, they get loopholes, extensions, deferments, and deals where they only have to pay pennies on the dollar, and everyone else pays taxes, more taxes than they do. Today, the largest corporations making the biggest profits in the history of the world pay no taxes. Some get subsidized by the government.

We don’t want WrestleMania in any of the three branches of government, but here we are. The executive branch will have to react to a reality show con man and his Make America Great Again, Again tour for at least the next three years, and his poor vocabulary and nasally voice will echo throughout history. The Judicial Branch is about to flip Roe v Wade because of the three justices of questionable backgrounds whom Trump appointed, and we’re about to have a no holds barred cage match in the Senate and House for the majority as early as 2022.

We don’t want WrestleMania in any of the three branches of government, but here we are. … and we’re about to have a no holds barred cage match in the Senate and House for the majority as early as 2022.

And, for some reason, there is no accountability. You can pimp out underage girls by Venmo, you can ferment insurrection, you can pay off porn stars with campaign money, and nothing happens! Herschel Walker threatened to kill his wife and girlfriend (allegedly), and he’s running for Senate in Georgia with Trump’s endorsement. Former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens had to resign in 2018 after slapping a woman and intimidating her into giving him a blow job and then he took nude photos of her without permission (allegedly), and now he’s running for Senate. Dr. Oz has had to testify in front of the Senate multiple times because he promoted multiple miracle cures and untested weight loss supplements, and now he’s running as a Republican for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania.

If you’re already elected and you do something criminal and/or juvenile, the biggest penalty is being stripped of committees; so, they get penalized by having to do less work. Of course, when they get stripped of their committees they use this as proof of victimhood and they raise millions of dollars for reelection. Seems no press is bad press. If they absolutely have to step down, and if they are Republican, they can wait for one election cycle and then run for a higher office with Trump’s endorsement.

How do these people get elected or re-elected? Donations from the rich.

So, here’s the deal. They got us in a submission hold, a Figure Four, the Camel Clutch, and now we’re all enduring this pain as long as we can while the world is literally ending. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set the Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds until midnight. The COVID-19 Pandemic has spawned a new variant with 50 mutations. Nuclear programs in multiple countries are accelerating. Kim and Kanye look to be divorced for good, and what the hell is this Pete Davidson shit? It’s time to stop selling headlines that say that we may, someday, hold our political leaders accountable, and just do it already. It’s time to act. We need to kick out before the count. Vote. Tax the rich.