My Pet Goat- how to lose an election that nobody can lose....

Democrats have an unerring ability- except in the 2018 midterm House elections- to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Given a set of circumstances that, were the situation reversed, the Republicans would pounce on and use to their great political advantage, the Democrats inexplicably drop the ball. Case in point: in 2001, under a Republican President, George W. Bush, we suffered the greatest terrorist attack in the country's history. During the month leading up to that attack, the President of the United States took a vacation on his "ranch" in Crawford, Texas. During that time he received a Presidential Daily Intelligence Brief that specifically warned him that Osama Bin Laden was determined to attack inside the United States. The President blew off the briefer and did nothing. During the attack itself, the President was filmed sitting on a chair in a first grade classroom in Florida, reading a book, "My Pet Goat," after- AFTER- he had been told by his chief of staff, Andrew Card, that the nation was under attack after the first tower fell in New York City. Did he jump up, leave the room, go meet with his staff, take any action at all? Nope. He sat there for seven minutes, frozen like a deer in headlights. Listening to "My Pet Goat." Doing nothing. It's all highlighted in Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 9-11.

Bush, as it turned out, had been a war dodger during Vietnam, securing a stateside gig in the Texas Air National Guard and avoiding being put in harm's way in Vietnam. Then he got a transfer to the Alabama Air National Guard, from which he promptly went AWOL and was never seen at a drill for a year.

Running against Bush in the next election was John Kerry, an American who had not ducked service. Who had gone to Vietnam. Who was wounded there.

So here you had it: a cowardly man who went AWOL from his unit in Vietnam, who blew off a CIA briefer warning of an attack within the United States by Osama Bin Ladin, who spent a month cutting brush in Crawford, Texas while the final plans for the 9-11 hijackers were being taken to fruition, who froze, paralyzed with fear into inaction after being informed that the nation was under attack. And his opponent was a respected United States Senator who had actually served in Vietnam and been wounded there.

So who won the election- rather handily? The AWOL, war dodging, ineffectual coward who abdicated his most important responsibility- looking after the nation's security- and who allowed the country to suffer the worst terrorist attack in history, forever changing the course of this country. Who took a surplus national budget and turned it into the greatest annual deficits in the nation's history.

Why? Because Democrats can't stand winning. They can't take advantage of the opportunity handed to them on a platter. They can't even muster the ability to use truth- facts- instead of the incredible lies that the Republicans must rely on to win election and re-election.

The lie in 2004? Dick Cheney said it: you must re-elect us because we kept you safe, and we don't want to suffer another awful terrorist attack, which can happen if you vote for the other guy.

Seriously: they ran against Kerry's war record- wearing Purple Heart bandaids to mock Kerry during the Republican convention, as they praised the coward who had gone AWOL and who had let the nation down in 2001 when it needed an active, competent, brave leader the most.
And they won. Because Kerry never ran the first campaign ad decrying Bush going AWOL, first, during Vietnam, and second, during the terrorist attacks on 9-11-01. Not. One. Single. Ad. Had the situation been reversed, the Republicans would have run every ad on that subject, 24 hours a day. And their candidate would have won all 50 states.

And here we are, in 2020, about to do it again. The worst human being in history is happily ensconced in the White House, eating cheeseburgers and french fries while watching Fox and Friends. Who takes his intelligence briefings from Sean Hannity, and not the CIA or FBI. Who, while being impeached, can't stop talking to campaign rallies about imaginary water regulations that require flushing toilets 10 or 15 times (who? who does that?) and pushing buttons repeatedly to run a dishwasher 10 or 15 times to get the dishes clean (again, who? who does that?) while his brain damaged cult followers somehow manage to cheer the absurd, as this man devolves before their eyes. The man so scared of Joe Biden that he abused the power of his office to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to an ally to get an announcement- not an investigation- an "announcement" of an investigation into his most feared political opponent.

Someone who has repeatedly abused the people who voted for him. By trying- and failing by one vote in the Senate- to take away their health insurance. By wrecking their family owned farms with absurd tariffs. A man who has managed to take a wrecking ball to virtually every part of the federal government, who has appointed some of the most ignorant, incompetent, and venal cabinet members and agency heads in history. A man who took a nominee to the Supreme Court credibly accused of attempted rape and turned him into a cause celebre among his right wing supporters, warning them that their sons and brothers could be accused of sexual assault if they didn't support this disgusting, temperamental, privileged, narcissistic, misogynistic nominee.

And if we fucking lose to this guy- again- we will deserve the country we will get. Our children and grandchildren who are under the age of 18 won't. But the rest of us will.