After the bunker scene

 

 

By Nellie Bly
Spy Washington Bureau with
Roscoe Arbuckle, Motion Picture Correspondent

Last week we described the excitement in Washington as the Republicans built toward their big bunker scene.  So far the rage and the sense of doom attendant thereto have not disappointed the most jaded connoisseur of political Götterdammerung.  How dare a reporter question President U Bum's decision to retweet insane conspiracy theories!  That's even worse than waiting for hours at Franklin's and then finding out they are totally out of brisket!

But as entertaining as the bunker scene is, let's not forget that the end of the credits roll doesn't mean there won't be anything left to watch, as we intimated last week.  After the bunker scene, remain seated for the spectacle of the Republican zombies rising from their graves as they return to devour us and our democracy.

Even as we enjoy watching shameless Republican former toadies and now traitors to Pres PAB like Sen. Ben Sasse escaping the bunker and running through the street of Nebraska, the thought of the sequel is giving us the chills.

Republicans are beginning to realize

they may need a little Wiederaufbau

after the election

You remember Ben Sasse, don't you, or, as he is better known to discriminating critics of the political scene, that f***in' guy?  He was the supposedly moderate reasonable intellectual who despite his moderation, reasonableness and intellectual gravitas faithfully supported Pres PAB by increasing production of wonder weapons by slave labor year after year [Surely, by voting to take away health care and to put a credibly accused sex offender on the Supreme Court? – Ed.].

Now that he's survived his Republican primary (as even the primitive reptilian brain of the Grifter-in-Chief was quick to note),

 

this f***in' guy has turned to rubbishing the demented grifter whose sagging bronze ass he'd been kissing for years:

Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska unleashed on Mr. Trump in a telephone town hall event with constituents on Wednesday, eviscerating the president’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and accusing him of “flirting” with dictators and white supremacists and alienating voters so broadly that he might cause a “Republican blood bath” in the Senate. 

And why the sudden 11th hour revelation?  Tell us, Catie Edmundson of The New York Times:

But now, facing grim polling numbers and a flood of Democratic money and enthusiasm that has imperiled their majority in the Senate, Republicans on Capitol Hill are beginning to publicly distance themselves from the president. The shift, less than three weeks before the election, indicates that many Republicans have concluded that Mr. Trump is heading for a loss in November. And they are grasping to save themselves and rushing to re-establish their reputations for a coming struggle for their party’s identity.

A “coming struggle for their party's identity?”  What tf does that mean?  We'll take a wild guess: it means they want to save their own ass for future elections.  Now this f***in' guy from Nebraska failed to draw a strong Democratic opponent so Cornholers [Surely, Cornhuskers? – Ed.] are likely to return him for another six years to reinvent himself as other than a degraded spineless toady.

We're not finished with him yet, but for the moment let's just note he's one of the lucky few who aren't done after the bunker scene.

Not so for the tenth rate hacks who populate the U Bum Administration, sadly:

Have we heard the last of
Kellyanne Conway?

“Quiet conversations in Gmail are more active now than would be expected a month before an election,” said a senior Republican strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. “I have a buddy in the administration who is starting to quietly move his resume around, and he’s noticed people who he thought would be quicker to respond to inquiries have been less so. He called it ‘the Trump stink. How much Trump stink is on my resume right now?'” 

Trump stink? It almost sings, doesn't it? 

Basically, U Bum stooges have two alternatives: burrow their way into the civil service (we'll talk about that someday), or seek employment in the private sector, as did the flacks, shills, and plug-uglies in the George W. Bush Administration.

How did it turn out for them?  Depends if you ask smooth operators like Josh Bolten (raking in millions as a corporate lobbyist), or less-smooth mouthpieces like Fredo Gonzales (banished to the tumbleweeds of Texas without a sweet corporate-law gig).

But as any movie fan knows, just because zombies are six feet under doesn't mean they won't come springing back to life to ruin prom.  You'll be shocked to learn that two of cable news's brightest and most sententious lights served respectively as a hack Republican Congressman representing Florida's Redneck Riviera who impeached a duly elected President for lying about pootie (6 a.m. Eastern), and a flack for clueless lying war criminal George W. Bush, going so far as to smear his opponent John Kerry as “anti-fetus” (5 p.m. Eastern).  

If they can rise again, surely there's hope for down-home super spreader Mark Meadows or even Kellyanne Conway, who already looks like a walking zombie.

Our prediction is that the return of the Republican walking dead will be ever scarier than the current ranting and raving from the bunker, because one thing we know about Republicans: they have an insatiable appetite for devouring human lives (218,000 so far this year).

Let's go back to this f***in' guy, double-crossing Ben Sasse.  We were going to tell you that the real reason Sasse is trash-talking the leader he followed right up to the steel bunker door, but Ben Mathis-Lilley at Slate already did the hard work so let's just plagiarize him:

 

Yeah, that's it.  It's not that he and his fellow Republican toadies disagreed with President Super Spreader's evil policies.  They didn't.  They just don't want those horrible polices – tax cuts for the rich, no health care for the poor, denying the reality of climate change, tormenting LGBTQ persons, ripping babies out of the arms of their refugee mothers, inserting their mitts into women's genitalia – among others to perish in the ruins of the bunker:

Sasse occupied a crucial position in the Trump-era Republican Party as someone who was respected by movement insiders and outsiders alike. Like New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, Sasse gets liberals to treat his message seriously by demonstrating that he is well-read . . . .  Also like Douthat [Another f***in' guy – Ed.], the society he envisions in its place would be radically different and more primitive than the one that most Americans want.

Sasse believes—and has shown, with his votes and his words—that the government should have almost no role in guaranteeing citizens a basic quality of life, because the job is better done by “the Rotary Club and the PTA, the synagogues and the churches, the small businesses and local town meetings.”

And by Justice Handmaid telling you that your unwanted pregnancy is your punishment for being a fallen woman.  For some reason, that's always part of the libertarian utopia.

The blood-curdling premise of the sequel to the bunker scene is that the Republican zombies will rise from the wreckage to push once again the same horrible ideas that the Tangerine-Faced Grifter had advanced for years, with their help.  We actually warned you about this two years ago.

But here's a chilling thought: even if Democrats prevail this year, if either they are too craven to unwind the institutional biases that have cemented reactionary Republican control for generations (just ask Supreme Court Justice and future D.C. Senator Merrick Garland) or the Democratic base fails to turn out in 2022 (as they failed in 2010 and 2014), the Republican zombies fleeing the bunker today will be back.

And they'll be out for blood.