Pattern Recognition

This photo of the State of the Union address should tell you everything you need to know.

Notice that, despite the almost two hours of rambling lies, every Republican politician present stands and applauds and smiles.

But you still think that the Republicans are going to do the right thing and impeach? Even though impeachment has never removed a president from office. Even though this one has been impeached twice already.

You still think they are going to support the use of the 25th Amendment?

By the way, I don’t expect anyone to actually read the links I provided on these two issues, because Americans can’t be bothered to read, which is why we’re here.

Republicans have systematically destroyed our educational system over decades of voting against funding it, precisely so that we would arrive at this moment. They wanted an uneducated, easily-led population, and they got it. And it’s our fault. Yes, ours, because we don’t read anything unless we have to. Well, guess what—now, we have to.

You think Republicans are going to suddenly change direction and stop supporting the agenda of hatred and authoritarianism and ripping the Constitution into tiny pieces?

Even if they did, what would it matter, if they are still there when the dust settles?

They obviously WANT all of this. They’re not simply being polite or playing politics. They want this madness. They want fascism in America.

You watched as the Supreme Kangaroo Court tried unsuccessfully to put a leash on the monster it created.

The only way you get out of this mess is through violent revolution.

You’ll be tempted to tell yourself that violence is what I’m hoping for. But that’s stupid. I’m going to be 53 years old this year, and I have a long list of things I would rather be doing, and none of them involve a revolution that will undoubtedly sow chaos and destruction in our lives in ways we can’t even imagine.

But I know what the alternative looks like. It looks like North Korea. It looks like Cambodia, or the current events in Iran. It looks like Hungary and Russia and Turkey. It looks like the dozens of other authoritarian regimes around the globe. It’s far uglier than any civil war.

It’s an intolerable day-to-day dystopian nightmare.

Even if the president and the vice president and half the current Republican Congress were suddenly gone, you would still have a huge problem in this country.

Because scenes like the one in this photo don’t just happen. There’s still massive support for this bullshit. The most dramatic polls say that only 68% of Americans have an unfavorable view of the president.

Think about that for a moment. 

That’s a problem. That’s a huge problem.

You have huge numbers of Americans who refuse to fact-check anything. They still get their news here:

That should tell you that nobody is getting out of this the easy way.

Despite Jon Oliver’s criticism of right-wingers saying “Civil war is inevitable,” I assert that any reasonable person, a person who’s head is not buried in the dirt, should come to precisely that conclusion.

There’s no reasoning with people this hateful and stupid. There’s no debating, no middle ground to be had.

That’s not my choice. It’s their choice.

You cannot reason with someone who doesn’t understand logic and rejects facts.

Continuing to insist that diplomacy always wins the day isn’t merely naive, it’s outright dangerous.

Nobody is getting a pony. 

Authoritarians don’t allow free and fair elections. 

If you are still telling yourself the lie that they can’t stop the elections, then you’re delusional and you are missing the point. 

They don’t have to stop the elections. 

They only have to interfere with them, sway the elections through gerrymandering and other tactics, dissuade people from voting through intimidation, stop the counting of votes, deny the results, and there are other methods that we won’t even discuss. 

You’re not voting your way out of this. 

And you’re not going to learn to live with the new order; it’s going to be absolutely insufferable. 

If you want to watch a really fantastic movie that perfectly illustrates how intolerable fascism is, while also managing to make you laugh and smile, then watch this on Netflix:

The Penguin Lessons

You won’t believe what I’m saying. You’ll continue to watch and wait and complain and do nothing. You’ll be nervous but hopeful when the midterms are closer. 

But then, you’ll watch them go sideways. And then you’ll act like no one warned you that this could happen. 

You’ve been repeatedly warned. 

You’ve heard it before—you want to know what you would have done in 1930s Germany? 

You’re doing it right now. 

All because you never took the time to study history, the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War I and II. You never read the writings of the Founding Fathers. They warned us that we would have to fight the same battles again in the future. 

But you were so sure that we’ve evolved, become more educated, empathetic, and that we’ve “outgrown all that.” 

You were wrong. Dead wrong. 


©2026 Kevin Trent Boswell

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Author: Kevin Trent Boswell

Kevin Trent Boswell is a thing that once blinked briefly in and out of existence. It made noises and gestures while it lasted. The exact nature of its demise is unclear. Some sources say it collapsed beneath the weight of entropy and time. Other tertiary evidence suggests the possibility that it was destroyed by a predator, an accident, or perhaps even by itself. The truth of the matter is unknown. Luckily, no one cares.

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