The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

If you’re like me … and about 50 other Republican wannabees … no doubt you’re thinking about tossing your fedora in the ring and taking a shot at knocking Trump out of the primaries in 2024.  Why not?  The Loudmouth is gambling that his candidacy will subvert the lawsuits, indictments, criminal fines and penalties, possible jail time, all that pesky stuff that would give most people ulcers or visions of suicide but not him.  Money talks and he’s got plenty of talking to do.  Twitter just took a vote and the tweeting public, by a slim margin, said sure, let the man rant on their platform.  That, or they figured the way I do, Twitter is going down like the Titanic with Elon at the helm, kicking off half the sailors and the guys who run the engine room, shortly before the iceberg.

Sure, the other four dozen potential candidates are more qualified than me or you, but you think Trump was more qualified than his ten or twelve opponents when he won the primary back in 2016?  You just got to be more outrageous than the others.  The media loved that guy.  Who do you think they wanted to cover, Bernie Sanders or Marco Rubio?  It was Trump all the time, crazy talk, wild stuff, outrageous accusations, foul language, everything the press figured would sell papers and add to their audience shares.  Even when he turned on them, the networks and the reporters were drawn in like moths to a dumpfire.  And the MAGA minions loved it!!  Deplorables?  Naw, they just love a thug gangster, nothing more American than that.

Used to be candidates espoused unbridled optimism.  Our nation’s best times were just around the bend, a new morning in America, all that blithe jibber jabber.  Now they want to hear why their country is going down the tubes.  So give it to them!  Commies, Proud Boys, Putin, Xi, the big corporations, the immigrants, the gun laws, hell … all of those and more!  Guns kill but gun regulation is worse!  They’re both to blame.  Right wing nationalists and those leftist transgenders, they’re all the reason this once great nation is a shithole.  Blame the farmers, why not?  Toss the Tech Boyz and the potato growers into the same bushel basket of grievance and hate, there’s plenty of room.  Republicans and Democrats … all of them are toadies and inside traders!  The whole wretched bunch should be hauled out and stoned.  Don’t forget the churches, all just as culpable as Hollywood.  Foreigners and inner city criminals, what’s the difference?  Gotta do something about it, gotta get even, gotta get tough!!  And I mean Tough with a capital T.

Yeah, this might be the election to go for the prize.  Most Powerful Hombre in the World.  My hat’s ready.  And so am I.  You just have to know how to appeal to the people.  Trump certainly did, but hey, he’s a Loser now and nobody wants a Loser.

Imagine, if you can, living without power for a few days.  No phone.  No daytime TV.  No internet.  No refrigeration.  No connection to the modern world you once knew and took for granted.  Maybe you got some candles.  Maybe some kerosene lanterns.  Hopefully some matches.  All the stores nearby are shuttered.  No gas, no food, no ice, no beer and wine.

We just went five days without electricity.  Windstorm blew down trees, power lines, dreams and all hope.  What is a modern pioneer to do?  I’ll tell you what.  Crank up the generator!  That’s right, mister, keep the house powered up!  Reefer cooling, TV on, lights on too.  Just keep pouring gas into the thing, ignore the noise from yours and the neighbors too, return to your Facebook updates, your Instagram posts, your emails and your newsfeeds.  This past week we listened to the hive in full swarm across the road, generators all buzzing angrily.

Folks ask how we can manage without one.  Since they themselves can’t imagine life worth living beyond the reach of the grid.  Oh, sure, they remember their first power outage here, the one that convinced them to haul down to the hardware store once the roads were passable again and buy that portable 25 kilowatt big boy for the next emergency, at least keep the TV running and the computer, maybe some lights, probably not electric heat.  Some got serious and installed permanent whole house units, propane tanks, inverters, automatic kick-in so they needn’t worry about missing an Oprah interview or the ending to that Netlix movie.

The pioneer days are over, friend.  Sitting by kerosene lantern, hauling in water, stoking the stove — maybe we think that sounds romantic, a break from the modern world — but not for most of us now.  Inconvenience isn’t in our vocabulary.  I can tell you that you will survive okay without the computer for a day or two.  You can discover what life used to be like before Instagram.  You might even remember what was important before the digital age.  Maybe why you came here in the first place….

Just got the news that the world population has passed 8 billion of us humans.  I remember fondly my sociology classes back in the 60’s where my professors absolutely forbid using The Population Bomb as a footnote or a reference.  Paul Ehrlich was no scientist, my educators said, he was a dopey doomsday prophet.  I think the world population at the time was maybe 4 billion.  A lot of us, seemed like to me.  8 billion, well, I have trouble enough getting to know the neighbors now, sure don’t want many more.

One thing I never hear in the debates concerning global warming and climate change is that maybe, just maybe, there are too many of us.  More mouths to feed, more houses to build, more cars to drive, more garbage in the landfills, more need for heating and air conditioning, small stuff like that.  Sure, turn the thermostat down, but hey, what if there were 4 billion less of us wanting to stay warm?   Oh, I know, we love our kids.  We love our dozen grandkids.  And we certainly love our 100 great grandkids.  Although, to be honest, judging from my old man’s memory at 99 years of age, he couldn’t tell you any of their names.  And he has a lot of trouble with his grandkids’s names.  Which are only three of them.  The fact that us 8 billion are living longer thanks to medical science and improved health care doesn’t really help either.

When I came to the South End, four cars drove off going north of our shack, four cars returned home at night.  Better believe we knew our neighbors back then and, unfortunately for them, they knew us.  Now it’s a constant parade of commuters and contractors and lawn service crews.  I don’t recognize most folks at the local grocery.  And with my memory, remembering their names wouldn’t be a likelihood.

So when we’re looking for solutions to overheating the planet, why not look at overpopulating it.  You won’t miss an extra grandkid or twenty, all I’m saying.

In the smoking debris of the Republican Red Wave the pundits are weighing in on what went wrong.  No doubt a few die hard MAGA’s will assume that the election was rigged, probably Venezuelan software in the Dominion voting machines, but most of the autopsies seem to be looking for a villain among their own.  Trump.  The candidates he backed, ranging from the football hero to the quack TV doctor, just weren’t of a high enough quality, they say.

Ya think?  C’mon, folks, take a stroll through the past few years and tell me the GOP candidates were top drawer.  Consider just the folks who won, mostly old white angry men, guys like McCarthy who on Jan. 6^th said his president was unfit for office — ya think, again?— but was on a plane to Mar-a-Lago 22 days later to kiss the ring.  How many of these quality Republicans holding office refused to confirm Biden as the legitimate winner of the 2020 race?

To quote the bard, referring as easily to Donald Trump as Julius Caesar:

‘Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a Colossus, and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs and peep about

To find ourselves dishonorable graves.

Men at some time are masters of their fates.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.’

Let’s be honest here.  You proved you can fool some of the people all of the time.  The real truth is you fooled yourselves.  If you’re looking for a scapegoat, try a mirror.

If you were dreading another two years of the interminable election cycle, probably canceling your newspapers and substituting subscriptions to entertainment channels, plugging your ears and avoiding MSNBC and maybe waiting  til the dust clears in 2024 before pulling the quilts down from over your head and leaving your bed … well, you got some good news.  Trump plans to tip the checkerboard for the Republicans, the House is going to divide up sides for some serious tag team no-holds-barred smackdown wrestling, and you can expect some cliff hanger serials with plenty of violence and mayhem to get you through those lonely nights coming up.  Trump is running again and you best believe the Republicans are going to war with themselves.

I guess if you honestly believe Trump won the last election, well, hell, run him again.  Just make sure the voting machines aren’t cooked, the dead aren’t voting,  the ballots aren’t stuffed, the mail-ins are banned, the gerrymandering continues, the lines in the inner cities are long and the polling places few.  Just to get the ball rolling, the President-in-Exile announced from his palace in Mar-a-Lago that the new slogan for his campaign will be — cue the trumpets— Make America Great and Glorious Again.  I guess that first term of his didn’t really make the cut.  Maybe hold off on the Glorious and get the Great accomplished.  Or … I don’t know, triple down and Make America Great and Glorious and Glamorous Again.  Just need a bigger ballcap to read MAGAGAG.  Costs slightly more, all proceeds going to the Trump charity.

Down in Florida they must be drinking the swamp water, all I can figure.  DeSantis runs ads that on the 8^th Day the Lord made a warrior.  Him.  Not to be outdone, Trump wants a glorious second coming, another Rome with him as Caesar.  Must be some biblical prophecy needing fulfilled for these guys.  If the Lord is working overtime now, adding days to Her week to get the job done, maybe it’s time to take a rest.

You were probably thinking you deserve a rest.  Sorry, looks like a long slog from here to election day 2024.  Like they say, it ain’t over til the Fatboy squeals.  Or something like that.  Might be a fine time to read some good books.