Understand this before you read any further: I am not in any way advocating a civil war. Not even close to that. Civil wars are invariably bloody, visceral descents into hell for any country that fights them, and this was true for us in 1861 just as much as it was in other eras for England, Ireland, Russia, Lebanon or the Balkans. You don't want to go there. Ever.

That being said...

The degree of unconstitutional fuckery currently being advocated by certain halfwits in Congress such as Louie Gohmert, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz in order to support the mindless power fantasies of their thoroughly delusional caudillo seem guaranteed to push us in that direction, even if the electoral college vote is upheld tomorrow. Because there will be any number of Trump cultists (and forget about denying that it's a cult, since there's plenty of evidence affirming that fact) willing to do any number of stupid things if our Orange Caligula is turned out of office on January 20th.

In my opinion, this is the closest we've come to Fort Sumter in 1861 since Fort Sumter itself.

And if that's the case, you'd better hope that things proceed as normal on January 6th.

Because if they don't, we're all in deep trouble.

This is going to look like preaching to the choir, since many of you have already voted and I'm fully aware of who you probably voted for, but...

Tomorrow is election day. And the importance of this particular election can't be understated. It may be one of the most important election for President other than 1860, 1932 or 1968, and that's not hyperbole - not in the least.

Because Donald Trump has to go. It's just that obvious.

I could spend hours compiling all of the reasons why he needs to be driven out of office by January 20th, 2021 (there are articles in RationalWiki and the Encyclopedia of American Loons that have compiled a huge chunk of them, so look for those instead), but there's a simple set of facts that make it glaringly obvious:

There's the narcissism. The deranged Tweets that will end up in the historical record whether he likes it or not. The self-dealing. The filling of his cabinet with fellow would-be oligarchs, incompetents and fellow self-dealers. His need to browbeat the few competent ones into resigning when they're no longer sycophantic enough for his liking. His abject refusal to release his tax returns when every other Presidential candidate has been doing it for decades. The repeated accusations by women he's encountered of sexual harassment and outright sexual assault. The fact his family are mouthpieces for his knuckle-dragging brand of politics and simultaneously in on his grift. The fact that that grift is only further enhanced by his refusal to let go of his business holdings. The fact that he's used his position as President to enhance the monetary gain of those business holdings. His inability to handle criticism, hard questions from the press or any status other than someone never to be questioned, ever. His butchering of environmental regulations, national parks and wild spaces in the name of profit. His abject slavishness to Vladimir Putin. His cozying up to the likes of Kim Jong-un. His use of the race card and the xenophobe card every time he needs or wants to. His cult of personality among people who'll ultimately be humiliated when they finally realize what they've been worshipping. And on and on and on.

Donald J. Trump, in short, is not worthy to be President. He never has been and he never will be. And he doesn't deserve your vote, my vote or anyone else's.

People will still be foolish enough to give it, but that's because he's used his nascent personality cult to whip people into a state of fear of anyone or anything different from them. Never mind the fact that he's done everything he can to prove that he's a sociopath, a narcissist or both: there's always been plenty of room in Anerican politics for candidates who appeal to racists and bigots stretching all the way back to the Anti-Masonic and Know-Nothing parties, and there will be in the future. But no one has combined that with a hostility to - or an outright ignorance of - the workings of democracy and the Constitution more than Trump has, and that's one of the reasons that he's so dangerous. He wants to stay in power in order to avoid the consequences of his corruption, and he's practically willing to do anything to accomplish it. Which is precisely why he needs to be defeated.

So if you haven't voted yet, do yourself a favor and vote him out of office.

Because I don't want to end up in a refugee camp for exiled Americans somewhere outside of Auckland or Winnipeg four years from now saying "I told you so!" because they didn't vote.

And that's not hyperbole, either.

Not that anyone should be surprised at this by now, but over the last few days you have a real choice of things to know about Donald J. Trump: that he's probably a massive business and tax fraud, and that he's definitely giving aid and comfort (and probably veiled orders) to white supremacist groups.

Just keep all of that in mind if things get especially hairy in the run-up to November 3rd.

For those of you who scoff at the idea of getting the hell out of the country if Trump gets re-elected, let's put it like this:

You can wait until the November election is over and done with. At the first sign of the Orange Duce not accepting a Biden win or declaring some sort of national emergency or martial law to nullify a loss, you better be prepared for the worst. I don't believe for a minute that the lunatic in the White House will ever accept any sort of voluntary departure from the oval office as legitimate. He can leave on a stretcher with a blanket over his face after Tweeting himself into a stroke at 5 in the morning, or he can leave at the business end of several guns held by Federal agents next January. He's already made ridiculous noises about "negotiating" a third term as if all of this was just some business scam he's participating in, and he probably believes it.

This is going to be hard for me to write.

Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars has long been a favorite skeptical blog of mine, since it featured a wonderful combination of incisive analysis, strong opinion and outright snark. It's bounced around from when I first ran into it on Scienceblogs, but Ed has always kept the same degree of quality and intelligence in all of its incarnations up until now.

Unfortunately, serious health problems dropped his output to the point where he couldn't post nearly as often as he liked.

And then I read something that just ruined my night.

Ed has decided to apply for hospice care, since his medical condition has deteriorated to the point that palliative care instead of yet more trips to the hospital and yet more stays in rehab facilities would just make more sense.

I understand his decision and respect it.

That doesn't make it any easier to accept.

As somebody who has a blog that has nowhere near the following that he does, it's like a giant sinkhole appeared and ate the place where I live. He was one of those bloggers who kept swinging for the fences even when a number of completely spurious lawsuits from some of his targets started coming in to try to shut him up. They didn't, but you know how idiots are when you point out their stupidity. They just keep plugging away even though all that proves is that they're still idiots.

Unfortunately, being shut down by your own medical problems is something entirely different.

Ed is, in my mind, irreplaceable, just as any great blogger is. I'm sure he'll keep up at it until he no longer can, but the end is the end, regardless of that. And that's what's so difficult to stomach about it.

There are many moments in the history of the United States where our political leadership actually showed political courage and wisdom. This wasn't even close to being one of them.

As for the 52 Senators who couldn't be bothered to show any scruples or nerve in trying to rein in an out of control President, let me say this clearly: if Donald J. Trump keeps going down the path he's been heading ever since his inauguration, fuck every last one of you for your inaction. You deserve nothing more in terms of sentiment than that.

It's not as if Qasem Soleimani wasn't a son of a bitch - he was, but a very high-ranking son of a bitch, to say the least - but his death on the business end of a US airstrike (and on neighboring Iraqi territory, on top of it) will do nothing to stabilize a region already fraught with sectarian violence and wall-to-wall atrocities against civilians.

But it couldn't possibly be a wag the dog hedge against certain domestic political issues, especially when embarrassing new evidence was about to come to light, could it?

Nah. Of course not.

"Contrary to what President Trump says, Article Two does not give him the power to do anything he wants - and I’ll just give you one example that shows you the difference between him and a king, which is the Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility, so while the president can name his son Barron, he cannot make him a baron.”

- Professor Pamela Karlan, at the Judiciary Committee

Is that pun clunky? Yes. Most puns are. Was it maybe a bit uncomfortable? Sure. But the degree to which Republican apologists for the Trump administration decided to turn it into a cause celebre (the singularly idiotic Matt Gaetz being an especially glaring example) is an indication of their desperation to latch on to any issue they can to deflect from what was laid out in the committee meetings concerning the Trump administration's actions in Ukraine.

Conversely, it's unlikely that Barron Trump knows anything about a kid named Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez. The 16-year-old Guatemalan came down with the flu in a Customs and Border Patrol detention facility and died, apparently after lying on the floor for several hours without medical treatment.

Barron Trump can count himself lucky that he actually has a family to take care of him. Carlos didn't. Regardless of the accuracy of the ProPublica report - and I have no reason to doubt it as this point - there was no widespread national outrage when he died after laying on a cell room floor unattended for over four hours.

Barron Trump, in comparison, will grow up a child of privilege, probably reach adulthood unhindered and end up avoiding the scandals his father and older siblings are currently awash in if he's lucky. All of the selective outrage over a clumsy but inoffensive pun on his name that was uttered during his teens will be something he'll easily get over. And he'll still be alive.

The other, far less famous kid wasn't so lucky.

And if you're still in a fit of pique over what Barron Trump was or wasn't called, your continued selective outrage doesn't mean a fucking thing to me.