You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role, because impeachment is not about punishment, impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.

— Lindsey Graham, 1998

Lindsey Graham explains that a president stonewalling Congressional oversight is an impeachable offense. pic.twitter.com/tv88AilKUJ

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) April 26, 2019

Despite that rock solid position he took the last time a President was facing impeachment, Graham seems to have no issue with the fact that Trump refused to comply with congressional subpoenas, directly impeding their constitutional power of impeachment, saying that the whole process is “illegitimate”, and based on hearsay”.

This is unabashed hypocrisy; Lindsey Graham is an embarrassment to the people of South Carolina, and his electorate — Democrats, moderates, and Republicans, alike — all deserve better. Anyone who voted for him, even just a handful of years ago, certainly shouldn’t feel like they’re being well represented; the man is flimsier and more of a flip flop than those pretend shoes women wear out of the salon after getting pedicures.

I’m not even from South Carolina and this man makes my blood boil; it’s high time that he crawls into a hole in the ground. Speaking of which, the inside of a hole would at least be a nice change of scenery over the inside of the closet within which he has dug his heels. To be clear, I won’t ridicule him for his sexuality (which many presume is of the homosexual variety, despite his laughable insistence to the contrary), but I will ridicule him for being such a craven that flimsy political power granted by his homophobic base is enough for him to ignore the innate desire we all have to connect with other human beings on the most deeply personal level. What kind of unfeeling person would chose such a life? Not one I would chose to represent me, certainly, if he lacks the basic courage to lead an honest personal life. Lindsey, if you’re reading this: just go for it man, you’ll feel much better, and I’m sure there are plenty of conscience-lacking twinks out there who would jump at the chance to be your live-in boyfriend/sugar baby.

Further instances of Graham’s cowardice and hypocrisy are not hard to find: take, for example, his complete switch from boisterous critic to unshakable supporter of our Commander in Cheeto. What has Trump threatened him with to inspire such a drastic change of opinion since 2016?

If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 3, 2016

He was, at one point, a staunch critic of Trump’s border wall and immigration plan, calling them “stupid”, “illegal”, and “not practical”. Fast forward two years, and he’s telling Trump to proceed in building the wall without congressional approval:

Mr. President, the Democrats are not working in good faith with you.

Declare emergency, build the wall now.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) January 11, 2019

Examples of Graham’s hypocrisy regarding Donald Trump alone are plentiful, and while this certainly lends itself to the theory that Trump has him by the balls, the truth, most likely, isn't that Trump has dirt on Graham, but rather that Graham is just disgustingly committed to upholding the status quo. His short-lived run for President was a weak power grab, and evolved into a poor attempt to save the Republican establishment from Donald Trump. Now that Trump has entranced a large swath of Republican voters, Graham will say anything to remain in his good graces. He has no shame. He puts party above all else, no matter how the party shifts or how often it results in his foot in his mouth.

It must be nice at times, not having a spine; you could weasel your way into all sorts of dark, uncomfortable places. If you’ve got some extra cash laying around, throw it at Jaime Harrison, a South Carolinian running a strong campaign for Graham’s Senate seat in 2020.

John Bowden, writing for The Hill:

President Trump's reelection campaign on Thursday tweeted an edited cover of Time magazine's "Person of the Year" issue that depicted the president's head on the shoulders of Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old climate change activist.

Is their whole reelection campaign plan to just keep poorly photoshopping Trump’s face onto images of other people? Play to your audience, I guess.

This one was weird, though:

House Democrats can push their sham impeachment all they want.

President Trump's re-election is 𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲. pic.twitter.com/O7o02S26nS

— Trump War Room (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TrumpWarRoom) December 10, 2019

I hope they realize that Thanos’s character arc was defined by dictatorship and mass murder, not to mention the fact that he died twice in that movie.

See also: Clearly jealous, Trump makes fun of Greta Thunberg (who is 16 years old) after TIME names her “Person of the Year”.

Kamala got a lot of attention too early. I’m afraid the same will likely be said for Pete Buttigieg, as well. I thought she was a contender for a while, and I’m surprised that she dropped out as early as she did and was the first big name to do so, but I’m not surprised that she didn’t make it. I think this is for the best.

While she originally seemed fresh, that didn’t last long, and I think people fell swiftly out of love with her during the debates. Her attitude was sometimes off-putting for someone hoping to be the leader of our country, and I personally wasn’t a fan of her presumptive demeanor when she delivered what she thought was a zinger on stage. Additionally, as pointed out by Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala’s record is one with quite a few dark spots, and some of them are hard to overlook.

I think Kamala is best suited for Congress. She’s smart, bold, and calculating; she was really in her element when she was grilling Brett Kavanaugh last year. We need more senators like her.

See also: her brilliant response to Trump’s sarcastic farewell tweet.

It’s rare that President Trump deserves praise, but I felt it was in order when he announced that he was banning flavored cigarettes. As it turns out, he isn’t banning them because it wasn’t politically popular and he doesn’t have a fucking spine. From the New York Times:

Under pressure from his political advisers and lobbyists to factor in the potential pushback from his supporters, Mr. Trump has resisted moving forward with any action on vaping.

I find this supremely annoying. Everyone with a brain can piece together how vaping isn’t good for you, and Trump’s proposed ban would’ve been an excellent way to dial down the attractiveness of the practice to those who aren’t using it as an alternative to smoking.

Trump’s supporters will probably try to play this as a win for civil liberties, but then why weren’t they expressing concerns about civil liberties in September when the ban was announced? I don’t think that’s where their concerns truly lie; the truth is that vaping is simply popular enough among Trump supporters that cracking down on it would lead to unavoidable political fallout:

[Trump] is concerned about his chances in 2020, and allies working for the vaping industry have told Mr. Trump of battleground state polling of his own voters that showed the issue costing him support. […] The poll, which surveyed battleground state voters who vape, showed negative results for Mr. Trump if he went ahead with a ban.

It’s pretty sad that this is the issue upon which Trump fans would be willing to withdraw their support. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s almost as if they’re easily hoodwinked by powerful people who don’t have their best interests at heart, and boy, do they have options.

There are many displays of patriotism that occur during a football game (which often border on nationalism and militarism), and I've always assumed they were the prerogative of the NFL and therefore funded by the league. I was shocked to learn that our military actually foots the bill for these demonstrations, such as when the flag is stretched across the field before games and during halftime, special events like flyovers, and most recently, all the desert brown “Salute to Service” hoodies worn by players on the sidelines of last Sunday’s games.

As a patriot, I was outraged upon learning this information; I’ve written to my legislators to express my disapproval of the practice, and I recommend that anyone who supports our troops do the same. I’m a big football fan and I love going to games, but we’ve got to be honest with ourselves — the NFL is frivolous compared to the military — there’s absolutely no reason for us to divert funds which could be used to improve facilities and increase pay for our service members to finance wasteful and unnecessary marketing ploys for an organization made up of millionaires. While this is obviously a case of mismanaged tax dollars, I believe it’s symptomatic of a deeper problem in our society.

Sport has always been closely associated with masculinity, and football — a very physical competition between men wherein success is dependent upon the team’s ability to work together using strength, agility, and strategy to accomplish a goal — can be seen as a manifestation of masculinity. 

Unfortunately, masculinity in America has recently been receiving a lot of criticism, because it’s become interwoven with a violent brand of militarism (see: Masculinity and Militarism). The NFL realizes this and they’re using it to their advantage: their marketing team is savvy enough to see that drawing on the militaristic aspects of sport and trumping them up through the aforementioned displays creates a spectacle capable of engaging millions of men for whom football fulfills a need to connect with a more deeply masculine side of their identity, further ensnaring them in the idea of a masculinity that is predicated on militarism, which in the current political climate, can be easily mistaken for nationalist aggression.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but in that case, I find it puzzling that sporting events (which, as mentioned previously, possess an inherent masculinity) are the only types of large public events where these overly patriotic displays occur. If they were truly about celebrating our country and reverence for those who serve, why would these displays not occur at other events that AREN’T inherently masculine, like fairs, concerts, or parades? The key here is that the NFL knows there is a financial benefit to taking advantage of the militarized perversion of masculinity that many have been hoodwinked into accepting.

I’m not arguing that it’s bad for men to engage with or celebrate their masculinity, nor am I arguing that patriotic displays have no place in sport. In fact, I think we should take more opportunities to elevate favorable manifestations of masculinity, as well as to participate in patriotic displays which serve as reminders that we're ALL Americans with a shared set of values. The two are not mutually exclusive: as an Eagle Scout, I feel qualified to say that Boy Scouting is a good example of a program that celebrates masculinity and incorporates mildly militaristic practices that instill a deep respect for country (and actually leads many young men to serve) without conflating the two or perverting either.

The bottom line is this: if the NFL wants to have these displays, they should have to pay for them. It’s not the tax payer’s responsibility to buy “salute to service” hoodies for the millionaire athletes on the sidelines of a football game, and if they’re going to capitalize on the sacrifices made by our troops, they should at least have the dignity not to take money from those same troops to finance their disrespectful and socially detrimental marketing ploys. 

President #DonaldTrump holds notes while speaking to the media before departing the White House for Texas 📷: Mark Wilson #QuidProQuo pic.twitter.com/9Ee3tqKL8Z

— Getty Images News (@GettyImagesNews) November 20, 2019

I just hope they’re giving him the washable Crayola markers.

Matt Egan, reporting for CNN Business:

Heliogen, a clean energy company that emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday, said it has discovered a way to use artificial intelligence and a field of mirrors to reflect so much sunlight that it generates extreme heat above 1,000 degrees Celsius.

Essentially, Heliogen created a solar oven — one capable of reaching temperatures that are roughly a quarter of what you'd find on the surface of the sun.

The breakthrough means that, for the first time, concentrated solar energy can be used to create the extreme heat required to make cement, steel, glass and other industrial processes. In other words, carbon-free sunlight can replace fossil fuels in a heavy carbon-emitting corner of the economy that has been untouched by the clean energy revolution.

Seems like this could be a real game changer. I don’t mean to sound uneducated, but my only concern is that a fourth of the temperature of the sun’s surface sounds a bit warm; are we sure that’s not gonna cause any unintended global heating?

Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s Cybersecurity Advisor, apparently had to go to the Apple Store to have his iPhone unlocked after he forgot his passcode. Giuliani confirmed this account, reported by NBC News’ Rich Schapiro, on his Twitter.

Forgive me for believing that nobody who is seventy five years old should be in any sort of IT or cybersecurity position. This gets right back to the issue of boomers not quite understanding what’s happening around them, yet remaining as cocky as ever.

As a former Apple Store Specialist, this was always the most annoying sort of customer to deal with, because in almost all cases, they knew nothing about the technology upon which they relied, other than that they could shuffle into an Apple Store to demand some person younger than them make it start working again after they’d forgotten something as elementary as a four-digit PIN. I can also vouch for the legitimacy of the photos presented by NBC: that really is what the internal system looks like on the iPad for technicians handling Genius Bar appointments.

Sahil Kapur, quoting Nancy Pelosi in a Bloomberg* article:

“What works in San Francisco does not necessarily work in Michigan,” Pelosi said at a roundtable of Bloomberg News reporters and editors on Friday. “What works in Michigan works in San Francisco — talking about workers’ rights and sharing prosperity.” […]

“As a left-wing San Francisco liberal I can say to these people: What are you thinking?” Pelosi said. “You can ask the left — they’re unhappy with me for not being a socialist.”

Pelosi has a good point here, that points to a larger problem in American politics. Yes, someone needs to get Donald Trump out of the White House, but we’re never going to heal the divide between the left and right if we don’t stop the pendulum of political power and public opinion from swinging so wildly, back and forth every few years. Installing an anti-Trump “savior” won’t necessarily make things better, it will just swap the roles of which group gets to be the indignant victims and which gets to be the vindicated idiots. We’ve got to collectively take steps toward one another, not run in opposite directions.

*Quick note to remind readers that last year, Bloomberg was the publication that put out “The Big Hack”, a sensational piece by Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley which claimed that many American companies, including Apple and Amazon, were having data siphoned from their servers by a tiny, Chinese military unit designed chip which had made its way onto their motherboards during production in Chinese factories without the companies’ knowledge. All parties involved denied the claims made by the Bloomberg reporters after conducting internal investigations which yielded no evidence that such tampering had occurred. Bloomberg has offered no evidence to corroborate their “reporting”. By all accounts, it seems like The Big Hack was a big farce. Until Bloomberg retracts the story or corroborates it, their institutional credibility must be questioned.

Facebook has long been a bit vague when it comes to laying out their political leanings. That seems to be coming to a calculated end.

This excellent piece from Popular Information illustrates a case where Facebook is breaking their own rules, seemingly, for political reasons. In this instance, they’re refusing to enforce a rule that bans networks of political “news” pages that work together but don’t acknowledge that they’re affiliated. It seems that most who’ve read this piece are, understandably, perceiving it as a threat because of the massive power Facebook demonstrably holds over the American electorate, which is a valid concern. However, I don’t believe that Facebook’s decision to allow one very successful, very political network of allegedly unaffiliated pages to continue operating was made for the sake of promoting a political agenda; no, this is an exercise in self preservation.

Facebook’s malfeasance is one rare topic upon which liberals and conservatives generally agree. There have been many calls for Facebook to be more heavily regulated from Republican and Democratic legislators alike, however I believe that the Democrats have slightly outpaced Republicans in calling for Facebook to be dealt with, despite the fact that the notion of privacy as a civil liberty seems to fall slightly more in line with traditional conservatism. This trend can likely be attributed to the fact that Democrats and their elected officials tend to be a bit younger than Republicans, and thus more in tune to issues of this nature.

Given the extreme political division our country is experiencing (which Facebook has cultivated for monetary gain), the fact that their deservingness of punishment is one topic most people can agree upon puts Facebook in a very dangerous position, not to mention the fact that the drum beat is growing ever louder, and more and more people are tugging at the curtain.

One solution to that looming threat? Take a side, and further capitalize upon the division you’ve sewn by allowing that side to defend you to the death. Give one side or the other a couple free passes, have a few chats with the right folks, and then step back while that side begins to see you as one of their own, and then you’re good to go. It honestly doesn’t matter which side Facebook takes, because taking either side would all but ensure that party's loyalty, not only because they don’t want to upset Facebook and have their reach limited, but because both parties are so committed to doing the opposite of what the other party wants.

Now, in this case, Facebook seems to have chosen to ally themselves with the Republicans, but again, which side they pick doesn’t really make a difference. In defense of the Republicans, Facebook just as easily could’ve jumped on the left-bound bandwagon — a few public statements in support of people with confusing genders and a few removed Trump ads, and they’d have them in their pocket, too. I believe this choice was made out of convenience; as mentioned above, slightly fewer conservative law makers have gone after Facebook.

If you’re a Republican, this should offend your sensibilities. As stated previously, privacy is a civil liberty that has long been a value of traditional conservatives, and Facebook is the biggest threat to personal privacy our country has ever seen. True conservatives should be outraged that Facebook is even trying to get in bed with them, and that their purported reason for doing so is their mutual support of free speech — what Facebook is trying to paint as free speech (political advertisements that include false statements of fact), isn’t. It’s paid speech, it’s false advertising, and it’s speech that presents a clear and present danger — it’s NOT protected by the First Amendment. In any case, free speech is a patently American value, not a partisan one.

Facebook worked hard for a long time to avoid taking a side, and we should enforce that hard earned neutrality by refusing to allow the public perception of Facebook to shift. They do not deserve to be seen as a company guided by any sort of moral compass or political agenda, because in reality, their chief motivators are, and have always been, financial.

TL,DR: Facebook is picking a political side so that their own regulation will become a partisan issue, and therefore never actually gain enough traction for any meaningful legislation to pass.

#deletefacebook

Wow. I don’t know how much evidence there is for these claims, but they’re certainly bold; calling for Hillary to join the race — Tulsi is not holding back.

In case you missed it, Facebook has updated their advertising policy to make it easier for people, companies, and campaigns to publish ads that contain false or misleading statements, a move which ought to be condemned equally from conservatives and liberals.

The old rule was that you couldn’t publish ads that contained such statements, but the protections were rolled back last week to allow any statement that hasn’t been proven to be false by an independent fact checking organization, and even that flimsy rule doesn’t apply to politicians, so they can, in theory and in practice, publish ads on Facebook that contain completely false information with no repercussions. Even before this rule change, misinformation campaigns on Facebook led to the extreme political division our country is experiencing, and significantly influenced several high profile elections around the world. I recognize that that’s a lofty claim — if you don’t believe me, check out this piece I wrote about a film called “The Great Hack,” and then watch it for yourself on Netflix.

#deletefacebook

UPDATED: 11/28/19, 13:30

Here’s a fun exercise, let’s see how two of the biggest news outlets in the country, one stereotypically more liberal and the other stereotypically more conservative, chose to represent the same story. Given Zuckerberg’s actual quote and the unpartisan nature of this issue, this should be a fairly straightforward chance to identify potential bias. Let’s get started.

First Things First, Here’s What Happened:

Lest we judge too soon, it’s important to know what Mark Zuckerberg actually said, so that we can draw reasonable conclusions about how the news outlets are presenting it. In an interview that covered censorship and in the wake of Facebook’s recent policy change that allows politicians to publish ads with Information that is known to be false, Zuckerberg said “my belief is that in a democracy, I don’t think that we want private companies censoring politicians in the news.”

The Headlines:

Here were the headlines of the stories from CNN and Fox News which covered that interview.

CNN: “Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg: Private companies should not censor politicians”

Fox News: “Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg rejects calls for Trump's social media to be shut down in exclusive interview”

The Verdict:

This is only one example, so perhaps it’s just a misrepresentation, but based on this exercise alone, “fair and balanced” seems like a stretch.

This has been quite a week for everyone’s favorite lifeless-eyed big tech CEO. First he got into it with Elizabeth Warren over whether or not politicians should be able to publish ads that contain lies, and now this. I’m glad to see that Washington is starting to recognize what an enormous enemy of democracy Facebook truly is.

In an interview with Fox News’ Dana Perino, he was asked a question about the disagreement between Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris during the fourth Democratic debate over whether Donald Trump’s Twitter account should be suspended. Zuckerberg responded by saying “my belief is that in a democracy, I don’t think that we want private companies censoring politicians in the news.” Of course he doesn’t want to censor what politicians say in their ads. The more ads they sell, the more money they make. The more sensational those ads are, the more engagement they deliver, and thus, the more money Facebook makes.

No, Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want to censor politicians, in fact, he wants them to publish the most ridiculous ads possible. Then he’ll just censor all the people talking about those politicians to effectively gerrymander opinions, enabling companies like Cambridge Analytica to publish their own sensational ads (which are personally targeted to undecided voters, whose information they’ve collected and analyzed without consent), effectively allowing them to sell out major elections to the highest bidder.

He’s trying to pass this off as a free speech issue, to seem like he’s making the tough decision now that will seem like the right one in the long run. He cites his confidence in people as a reason that the truth will prevail despite this inconvenient but necessary decision to allow the erosion of truth in our society. Fortunately, I’m not the only one seeing through Zuckerberg’s bullshit here; CNBC’s Steve Kovach had a similar take:

While there’s almost no human involvement in deciding what to pump into your Facebook feed, there is an algorithm that’s making those decisions. In general, that algorithm is designed to keep users sucked in, and the best way to do that is showing them stuff that will engage, enrage or feed their biases. Truth doesn’t matter to an algorithm. But when you’re delivering news and information at a massive scale, you also carry the responsibility to get it right. Facebook is doing that on a scale never seen before in human history. And its leader admitted on Thursday that it wants no part in playing the role of fact-checker. In fact, in the case of false political advertisements, it’s willing to get paid to spread those falsehoods.

History won’t look fondly upon that.

#deletefacebook

See also: this.

This is why Elizabeth Warren is in my top three for the 2020 election; she has a terrific way of playing by the rules while embarrassing her critics. Her response to last week’s Facebook advertising policy change (news which led me to read the policy and notice a glaringly hypocritical policy about ads for surveillance equipment) was the best clap back anyone could’ve hoped for.

#deletefacebook

You know that identity politics has a firm hold on our nation when journalists for the New York Times are incapable of understanding why an open minded, moderate presidential candidate could attract followers. Lisa Lerer’s piece is trash, and she is only serving to further divide our country by telling the far left snowflakes and SJW’s who read her nonsense that having a variety of opinions is so bad that it’s not only considered treasonous within the Democratic Party, but that it equates to appealing to white nationalists, anti-Semites, and the alt right. Disgusting.

Tulsi had a pretty good response.

As if to prove my point, NYT just published a “greatest hits” smear piece. All your favorite hits in one article! These are the folks who will be acting as the “neutral” questioners/moderators of Tuesday’s debate lol

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) October 12, 2019

Dan Lamothe, writing for Dan Lamothe writing for

The Pentagon will deploy an additional 1,800 troops to Saudi Arabia, senior defense officials said Friday, a modest increase in the U.S. military’s presence in the Middle East meant to deter Iranian aggression. […]

President Trump has approved the deployment of an additional 14,000 U.S. troops to the Middle East since spring

I am not a pacifist, but our presence in the Middle East is not a necessity, it’s war mongering. Fourteen thousand is a huge number, and the brave men and women we send to fight for us deserve the respect of only being called upon when it’s truly necessary. True patriots should see our continued military engagement in Middle Eastern affairs as a direct affront to our troops.

Specifically in the case of the Iranian attack on Saudi Arabian oil installations, that’s a situation that should be between Iran and Saudi Arabia; our dog doesn’t need to be in that fight. In any case, Saudi Arabia sure seems to fit the bill for “shithole country,” so it’s hard to imagine why Don is so apt to help defend them. Perhaps it’s because he and the Saudi crown prince share a distaste for the free press (read: the Saudi government chopped up a journalist last year).

From an opinion piece by Molly Roberts for The Washington Post:

There’s something known to those who grew up online as a “cursed boomer meme.” These memes are cursed because they are, basically, bad: occasionally indecipherable and almost never achieving the effect they intend. They’re boomer memes because they come from that crowd-of-a-certain-age that seems to have stumbled onto the Internet and now keeps bumping into things.

Many of these memes are variations on formats popular among millennials, but warped to the edges of recognition by some soon-to-be grandfather who has recently discovered the wonders of Photoshop […]

Some are originals, borrowing only the conventions of meme-making — macros with the white “Impact” font, say, or excessive collaging — to build something bafflingly new. Most of all, they’re deadly earnest, which is sort of the opposite of what memes are supposed to be.

It’s not that the president loves memes, though he does. It’s that he loves these cursed memes in particular. Because as much as Trump is the Nickelback president, or the post-truth president, or the reality TV president, or the 140-character president, he is, above all, the cursed boomer president.

Roberts makes a terrific point here. I think this will ultimately be one of the best ways to describe Donald Trump — the president who was woefully out of touch, not only with his constituents, but with the rapidly changing world he was surprised to find himself “leading.” In most of his actions, but especially in what he does online, Trump really is like an old person who just doesn’t quite get it.

The thing about many people who are around Donald Trump’s age (and a lot of early Gen Xers, too) is that they really don’t seem to understand the nuance of what’s happening in the world around them. Nevertheless, you can bet your balls that they intend to be just as loud and as adamant as they’ve ever been, if not more so, for the sake of exuding a false bravado to mask their perpetual confusion.

Anthea Butler offers a brutal (but for the most part, accurate) take in this opinion piece for NBC News.

She’s a bit bold with some of her statements, and I think she misses the fact that a lot of white evangelicals have good intentions, but she also makes some very astute and well articulated points:

Their imagined powerlessness, and the need for a strong authoritarian leader to protect them, is at the root of their racial and social animus. Their persecution complex is a heady mix of their fear of “socialists,” Muslims, independent women, LGB[&]T people and immigration. Their feelings of fragility, despite positions of power, make them vote for people like Donald Trump — and morally suspect candidates like Roy Moore. Rhetoric, not morality, drives their voting habits.

She’s spot on in pointing out that white evangelicals are driven by a persecution complex and deep seated fear (so deep that most of them probably aren’t even aware of its existence) that the status quo is changing in a manner that could put them in a position where they’re no longer the dominant social authority in America.

Trump delivered evangelicals from the shame of losing, and they will back him again in 2020 to avoid losing again. So perhaps we should take evangelicals at their word that they will support Trump come hell or high water, rather than twisting ourselves into knots trying to figure out why.

This hits the nail on the head. They aren’t wearing red hats because they think that’s what Jesus would do, they’re wearing them because they represent the vindication they felt in the wake of the 2016 election, and a hope that they can return to an America in which their authority wasn’t questioned. Perhaps they could regain some the respect and authority that’s been eroded if they were to focus less on their pride and more on actually helping people and being a legitimate moral authority. Fat chance.

Tulsi Gabbard has been one of my top 2020 picks for a while now. She’s level headed, she’s a veteran, and she’s moderate enough that she can easily appeal to independent voters. A few weeks ago when it became clear that she wasn’t going to qualify for the September debate, I more or less moved on, knowing that it would be almost impossible for her to recover from such a large setback.

So, imagine my surprise when I received this email saying that Tulsi will be on the stage again in October; I had to read it a few times to believe it. She’ll have to really kick ass, but if she does, she could very well be the candidate people flock to, having thwarted the huge Democratic Party political machine, who clearly didn’t want to have to consider her as a viable candidate for the nomination. I hope her campaign sees a huge rejuvenation, and that she’s able to not only defeat Trump and the Republican Party, but to use this as an opportunity to truly challenge the status quo in Washington, and call out the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party as well.