If Republicans had a nation all to themselves, we'd have to treat it as a hostile foreign power.

[Maven]

We already know that they would be a client state of the Russian Federation, under the sway of Vladimir Putin and aligned with the world's most brutal dictators.

We know that they would engage in human rights atrocities based on racism, sexism, xenophobia and homophobia.

We know that they would keep a large swath of their population in abject poverty, and another large portion merely hanging on, with a very small number of corrupt oligarchs using whatever means necessary to maintain their wealth, power and dominance.

We know that they would eliminate all but the trappings of democracy, using fraud, suppression, propaganda, stochastic terrorism and other tactics to maintain control.

We know because they are doing their level best to accomplish all these things. Now.

And yet, somehow we have to pretend that we are all one country? We are not. I will never claim the 40% (or whatever the percentage is) of people who support this as my fellow citizens, and treat them as patriots ever again. They are the enemy of everything decent.

Where does our country, such as it is, go from here?

[SamKnause]

1. Fucking A !!!!

Stated beautifully.

[Atticus]

2. I already treat Trump's Gang Of Pirates as a hostile foreign power. nt!

[Hortensis]

3. So true. But this isn't new. Yes, I also believe

we're at our most dangerous point since the Civil War and then the destabilization of the Great Depression. But we came out of both of those damaged yet greatly advanced as a nation.

I see no reason why we can't all over again. We are STILL the nation who elected a black president by large margins -- twice and very recently, and even more recently still our first woman president. And goodness knows we have a lot of pent-up advances to get to.