I have long opposed the death penalty on the slippery slope principal.  Once we enshrine the idea that the State has the right to kill someone, the only thing left to argue is who gets to decide who needs killing. The list of those who decide tends to be people way too comfortable with the idea of doing it and the list that says who deserves killing only gets longer. It’s an awfully big hammer. So tempting to use. Sooner or later we’ll all qualify in someone’s eyes, and you never know who’s going to be put in charge. The usual argument I get into is someone points at some really heinous killer and says “You want to keep this guy alive?” (It’s usually a guy, and I figure in this case the sexism of that construction might get a pass). And I say “No, I really don’t. But I believe what I believe despite the fact that guys like that exist. That’s how important I think it is. Better this guy rot in a cell then say ‘Sure, I trust your judgement about who lives and dies.’ Because I don’t.”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as it’s becoming clearer and clearer that, domestically anyway, the focus of the incoming administration will be to dismantle as much of the social safety net as it possibly can and sell it off piece by piece. Look at the people being nominated for Cabinet positions. Each and every one has a vested interest in gutting them. People keep yelling about “conflicts of interest” when, in fact, there’s no conflict at all. They don’t believe there should be a social safety net. Their interest is to make sure there isn’t one. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. There’s no conflict.

“What do you mean you have popular prices? You’re the most expensive in town!”

“Well, we like them.”

I think idiot who got elected is only interested in having power and enriching himself and his family. I think his Veep is  interested in leading the Republican effort to strip the country down for parts and install a soft-core theocracy that allows you to believe anything you want as long as the only opinion that counts is “What Would White Jesus Do (in our opinion)?”

I’m equally convinced that Russia’s victory in the Cold War becomes final just after noon on January 20, 2017. They won this election. I don’t think that’s because they “hacked” the election. I think they hacked some computers and ran a pretty standard disinformation campaign. I don’t think they messed with voting machines because that’s not the weakest part of the system. That would be the people who do the voting. I do believe there was coordination between the Republican campaign and some Russian intelligence service if for no other reason Rudy Giuliani seemed to know what Wikileaks was going to leak before they actually did it. But that’s not why it worked. It worked because the Russians were very comfortable dealing with Americans as we actually are rather than who we’d like to think we are. Not having to pretend to care really opens up the old day planner.

And in the end we voted for the guy they wanted us to. By “we” I mean, of course,  the small number of rubes who had to vote particular ways in particular places to game the horrible system we use to elect a President. But they could have gotten more if they’d needed them. It’s not like the Democrats ran a candidate people actually liked. There were plenty of people out there plenty willing to believe all the pretty stories. Yes, in a sense, Clinton did win because she got more votes.  In the other, more accurate, sense she lost. There’s no “moral victory” column in the Electoral College.

At any point in the campaign did anyone ever float the idea that the CEO of ExxonMobil was the best person to be Secretary of State? There’s only one country that benefits from that, and Sarah Palin thinks she can see it from her house. (Hint: It’s not the United States). All the other appointments either hate the departments they’re supposed to run or they used to be a General up until very, very recently. Which is pretty much the way they run things in Moscow. There’s not a downside for Russia in this election. They don’t give a shit about our social safety net either. And they don’t have to pretend to. But we have to care about what they think because our Dear Leader loves their Dear Leader and wants to be just like him when he grows up.

So now we are confronted with the image of buyer’s remorse on a national scale. It’s kind of sort of sinking in for some people, but it’s coming for everyone who voted for him sooner or later. I’m on record (if Facebook can be considered a record) for wanting to be the one to announce to the assisted living facility that I worked on Election Day that the guy most of them voted for is going to touch their Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And it’s going to be one of those bad touches you tell your grandkids about. Except you gave them permission to do it.

It’s tempting to sit back and laugh. Hey, if you’re dumb enough to vote for a con man, you deserve what you get. You managed to vote for the evil of two lessers. I can’t sustain that, though, any more than I change my tune on the death penalty when a serial killer or mass murderer is caught. I’m not going to oppose cuts to healthcare and the rest of the social safety net because the people who will benefit from them in the short term did anything to deserve it. I’m going to oppose them because it’s the right thing to do. I believe it so much, in fact, I’m willing to fight for it even when you couldn’t be bothered to do it yourselves.

For your sake I hope there are enough of us.  Because otherwise, you are screwed. All of us are, but we’ve had longer to get used to the idea.