We here in Florida are trapped in a state that Republicans have fucked beyond repair.

The “duh” came about in 2000, when the Supreme Court stopped the vote of Florida’s highest court and appointed George Bush to the presidency. (A vote that, it turned out, Al Gore had won.)

Today, Ron DeSantis is trying to bludgeon Mickey Mouse into submitting to his “Don’t say Gay” law, has banned virtually all math textbooks in schools, (except those from a single publisher), and has gerrymandered the state into an white, “Christian,” dominated, private Republican domain.

My guess is that in actual voters, Florida is split nearly 50/50. But when you’re making the rules, that split doesn’t count.
Gov. DeSantis (and Gov. Abbott of Texas) have shown us the future of America if Republicans win/steal the congress and the presidency over the next two years. (They already own the Supreme Court.)

So, please lay off the “Floriduh.” The future of the country isn’t in our hands because our votes are suppressed, or uncounted. Either vote for Dems in your own state, hope we end up holding onto, at least, a part of our government, or tell us how we can all stop a fascist takeover of our entire country.

And if the fascists end up owning America, tack that "duh" onto all who didn't act when they still could.

I've been asking this same question here on DU for many years. And the answers are becoming ever clearer.

The majority of us are average, and somewhat "normal" human beings. Today's Republicans represent and attract a minority of people who do not hold most of the same values/morals that the rest of us do. They don't view the world, or reality, the same way that most of us do. Want some examples? Okay. Here are the beliefs of many (most?) of them:

O They are against abortion for any reason, including rape, incest, or the life or age of the mother.

O They are for the death penalty.

O They want no restrictions on gun ownership.

O They are against any LGBTQ lifestyle, against gay marriage, and would make "alternate" lifestyles" a crime.

O They don't want people reading the "wrong" books. Book burning is fine with them.

O They want their children to believe the "correct" version of American history.

O They want America to be a "Christian" nation by their definition of "Christian."

O They believe that violence is necessary to obtain their goals.

O They have no problem with labeling all "others" as "Thems."

O They believe that any white "Christian" who deviates from their dogma is a "Them."

O They believe that cruelty towards any and all "Thems" is fine.

O They don't want any "Thems" voting.

O They don't believe in free and fair elections.

O They don't believe in the rule of the majority.

O They don't believe in democracy.

O They don't believe in the America that the rest of us long for.

O They are dangerous and deadly.

O They are fully capable, and ignorant enough, to destroy all life on the only planet we have.

Those are some of the reasons that Republicans are dicks. And please, add more reasons, disagree, or whatever.

A few final thoughts (excerpts) from the diary of a friend. (Yeah, some people still write diaries.):

I've been doing a lot of reflecting lately and I'm aware that I'm living in the past. I remember during the JFK years, many believed in the talk of “The best and the brightest.” Then they murdered him and, for a moment, sane people lost hope.

But MLK pushed racial justice to the top of the agenda, and LBJ brought about Medicare, Medicaid, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, and it was the FDR era all over again. Well, except for that Vietnam thing, which made many of us believe we should have hung the prick. What a dichotomy. LBJ was FDR domestically and Hitler on foreign affairs.

But, for the most part, I thought the world was going to be a better place. I believed in a better future. I believed the horrors of the the dark ages and world wars were behind us. I believed that America was leading the world toward some kind of Utopian existence.

And then they murdered MLK and RFK and so many dreams crashed. People were incapable, or too distracted, to understand the degree to which Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” would poison the well.

Then came Reagan, whose destructiveness of democracy was hidden behind the facade of a "harmless, likable moron." Those who used him did their best to destroy the world that most people considered to be "normal."

Perhaps I've outlived the definition of “normal.” But by anyone’s definition, the current Republican Party is in no way “normal.” Watching those “plantation/slave owners” in the senate taking a crap on our Constitution is beyond any possible definition of what is allowable in a civilized society. Yet, come next November, they’ll probably own the congress.

We may be living through the final years of America. I’m grateful for having spent my life in a somewhat free country. But it seems those freedoms are disintegrating daily.

I really hate to die without seeing American Nazis purged from decent society. I was hoping to leave this world seeing the promise of the future come into being.