So Now We Know
Over the years, we have watched the Republicans in action.
We have watched them obstruct programs that benefit the people whose interests they were elected to represent.
We have heard them rail about a smaller, less intrusive government when it comes to regulations that protect the citizenry, while touting the need for government interference when it comes to a woman's right to choose, or a same-sex couple's right to marry.
We have heard their endless rhetoric about the careless spending of Democrats, while they promote ever-increasing tax-breaks for wealthy corporations and individuals.
We have witnessed their disdain for the environment, the dismantling of laws that keep our water clean and potable, our food supply safe, and our communities free of toxic elements that endanger our health and well-being.
We have listened to their hypocritical statements about family values and protecting the unborn – usually delivered by men married to a third or fourth wife, who consistently demonstrate their utter disdain for the plight of children already born.
We have watched as they have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars trying to overturn programs like Obamacare, while decrying every penny spent on programs that feed the hungry or house the homeless.
We have watched as they clamour for war; we have also watched as they turn their backs on the veterans who return injured and broken from the battles they were sent to fight.
Over the years, many of us have wondered just how low the GOP is willing to go. We have waited in anticipation for the depths of their depravity to be reached, for the bottom of the barrel to be so thoroughly scraped there is no longer any chance of them going any lower than they’ve already sunk.
But with the “election” of Donald Trump, we now have our answer.
When you elect an incompetent, mentally unbalanced madman to the presidency, there IS no bottom to the barrel – its depths are infinite. When you place the reins of power in the hands of a Putin puppet, there IS no floor, no point at which you are willing to put country above party. When you put the nuclear codes into the hands of a self-absorbed idiot, there is NO end to how low you are willing to sink.
Any hope that there are reasonable people within the GOP that are willing to put the brakes on our nation’s speedy descent into catastrophe are now dashed. Any thoughts that “cooler heads” within the Republican party would prevail over madness are now gone. Any benefit of the doubt we have given to Republicans, any excuses we have made for their actions, any second-guessing we have done in order to attribute some reasonableness to their agenda are now proven to be without basis or merit.
There is an enemy in our midst. There is no limit to how low they will go to destroy the country they swore to serve and protect. There are no boundaries of decency they are willing to acknowledge; there are no lines they are unwilling to cross.
And any lingering doubts as to who that enemy is have now been forever erased.
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They now OWN the crazy.
I've no doubt the GOP will force Trump to step down - but they'll do it to protect their "brand", and not out of any concern for the country.
What will be interesting is how they try to spin the fact that they elected a madman in the first place. I don't think "Ooops! Our 
bad!" is going to cut it.
You could not have said it any more perfectly. 
I have nothing to add to a great post; I just want to K&R
The republicans don't care. All they know is that they hate liberals, and thanks to AM hate radio's relentless brainwashing, they simply don't care who they stomp over to get more power. It's truly disgusting. 
Trump was elected through winning enough votes in enough states to put him over the 270.
People voted for Trump who should have been voting Dem all along.
Why?
We have no vehicle to get the message out. Comcast took over MSNBC and drove it right. Al Jezeera isn't around any more. And a huge number of Americans get a steady stream of corporatist propaganda via Fox news and talk radio.
When Republican idol Reagan, who was a shitty president by the way, vetoed the 1987 Fairness Doctrine bill from Congress and so allowed the doctrine that had been set up in 1949 and had made this nation great with truth...
died.
And so we saw Fox and hate-talk radio metastasize across our once-great nation like a cancer until millions of Americans have been brainwashed, perhaps irretrievably.
We on the left watch the comedy channel and laugh, sometimes cry, but comedians are limited in getting the message of truth out.
Now, we have corporate money flowing capitalist corruption and buying off the very people we've elected to ostensibly represent us - including those in our own party. My own Dem Senator has often voted for corporate interests. Oh, not as often or as openly as his GOP counterpart, but in spite of the (D) next to his name, he is still beholden to a variety of corporate interests because of the disease that is Citizens United.
And, you know what else? I don't own a gun. I don't believe in them. I believe in gun control. Many, many of us do not own guns. Now the right wing crazies are HEAVILY ARMED and organized into hate-militias. So we can only become so militant and no more. Our words, sentiments and logical cases against right wing hate don't even make the mainstream and certainly the right isn't even exposed to them. My right wing acquaintances don't even concede that the Republican party agreed on the night of Obama's inauguration to oppose EVERYTHING he did. Yet they did.
And then we have Bannon, who is a self-proclaimed apocalypticist. If he can, he will use his position of power to take our nation to the precipice of Armageddon and over. Because, hey, that will precipitate the return of Jesus for his 1,000 year post-tribulation reign.
So taking back this republic from corporate greed and right wing corruption is going to be a heavy lift. Bill Maher sings, "Where have you gone, John McCain, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you..." But McCain is in his 80s. There are so few old-school Republicans who still remember the days of the statesmen. Certainly Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are little more than corporate embezzlers.
Jane Fonda speaks of p**sy power, or the power of women, and we harken back to the women's march in revolutionary France that finally ended the profligate reign of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Maybe a huge march of women wearing pink knitted hats COULD take our nation back, if they aren't shot down in the streets by smirking men who say, "Hey, you wanted to be EQUAL..."
Yes, we have a majority of Americans who are horrified, and together we could make changes. That's what the RESIST movement is - our base becoming more and more militant at the grass roots level.
Optimism...
Sigh.
I fear merely saying 'now we know' won't do much good. In the meantime, the roundups are about to begin. Guantanamo won't be enough...they'll have to build camps.
