Anti-America’s Top Ten Countdown: Week 4

It’s that time of the week again, so it’s time for Anti-America’s Top Ten Countdown! Today we’ll be going through the top ten most important stories that every progressive member of the resistance needs to know about. Without further ado, here we go!

10: GOOD RIDDANCE TO GAETZ

So Matt Gaetz had to withdraw from consideration to be Donald Trump’s Attorney General after four Republican Senators (including Senator-elect John Curtis of Utah) privately voiced their opposition to his confirmation. To me, this is a case of “good riddance.” This sex-trafficker is not going to be the Attorney General of the United States after all. However, that doesn’t mean anyone else Donald Trump picks (such as Pam Bondi, his new choice) is going to be any less dangerous. If anything, I’d argue that Bondi is more dangerous because liberals don’t despise her as much. People won’t be as motivated to resist this outwardly inoffensive lady as opposed to Matt Gaetz. But at least Gaetz won’t be coming back to Congress, and I always love to watch a conservative get humiliated. Countdown number nine!

Protest against anti-Asian hate crimes in 2021, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Image taken from ABC News.

9: VOICES OF VIOLENCE

So in Minneapolis, Minnesota the other day, two trans women were beaten outside of a railway station. Minnesota, of course, was the home state of Kamala Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, and Walz has designated it as a sanctuary state for the LGBTQ+ community. Remind me again why the country chose Trump and Vance over the jovial, joyous man known as Tim Walz? In any case, this shows that Trump’s rhetoric has emboldened those who traffic in hate. This is hardly news, considering all too many moments during his first term. Even so, now that Trump is actually going to be President once again, his words matter even more. I fear that hate crimes against marginalized communities are only going to increase in the coming years. Countdown number eight.

Bob Casey Jr. speaking at a Kamala Harris rally on November 4, 2024. He would be narrowly defeated at the polls the following day.

8: CASEY STRIKES OUT

The final Senate race of 2024 has been decided, ladies and gentlemen. In the midst of a recount, three-term Democratic incumbent Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania has conceded to Republican challenger David McCormick. Casey ran a pretty lazy campaign, and I’d long been a pessimist about Democrats’ Senate chances in 2024, but even I didn’t expect him to lose his seat.

 And yet, by a margin of 48.8 percent to 48.6 percent, he has indeed been defeated. This means that the Republicans will have 53 Senate seats in the coming Congress, and that Democrats will need to flip four GOP-held seats to retake the chamber in the 2026 midterms. Honestly, this is the Senate loss that angers me the most. Sherrod Brown and especially Jon Tester were always going to have very difficult races, but Casey won by 13 points in 2018! I suppose he got too complacent. Countdown number seven.

Rooster getting swabbed to test for H5N1/avian flu. Taken from the American Veterinary Medical Association.

7: ONE FLU OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST

The last time a zoonotic disease emerged during a Trump presidency, it ended with more than a million Americans dead of COVID. And that was when Trump still needed to get reelected. Now, with a further emboldened Trump having nominated anti-vaxxers to key public health posts, dozens of cases of bird flu keep popping up in humans. A case was confirmed just yesterday in a US child. If Americans were able to grow numb to COVID deaths, though, they’ll grow numb to this. And I guarantee you that if this does indeed spiral into a pandemic, nothing will be done. It’s just like how we do nothing about mass shootings, only on a far greater scale. Oh yeah, and this disease has a 50 percent case-fatality rate, whereas COVID’s case-fatality rate was 2 percent at most. And look how much devastation that caused! We’re clucked. Countdown number six.

Donald Trump shaking hands with Mark Rutte. Image taken from Bloomberg.

6: THE RUTTE REACTION

Recently NATO Secretary-General and former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte met with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. I think we can all read between the lines and know that this was done for one reason, and one reason only: Rutte was begging Trump to stay in NATO. 

Well, I hate to say it, Mark, but you’re wasting your time. I voted for Kamala Harris in part because I wanted the US to keep supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes. But you’re not going to convince Trump to remain a NATO ally. Just as Joe Biden is Benjamin Netanyahu’s bitch, Trump is Putin’s bitch. I wish the US would hold fast to our European allies, but he isn’t going to, and the sooner these countries realize they can’t convince Trump not to lick Putin’s boots, the better off we’ll all be as a species. Countdown number five.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at some meeting. Image taken from the Toronto Star.

5: DON’T BLAME CANADA

So Canada has decided to defy the United States with regards to the recently-issued arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, and a deceased Hamas leader. Meanwhile, Biden keeps supporting Netanyahu to the ends of the Earth. It’s as though Biden didn’t want to wait for Trump to take over and destroy our relationship with our closest ally; he had to do it himself.

Now, to be fair, this is mostly moot. Netanyahu isn’t stupid enough to travel to a civilized country when he knows he’s likely to be arrested on the spot if he does. In other words, Trudeau probably won’t need to act on this promise. But it’s far more than Biden was willing to commit to, so I’ll give credit where it’s due. Even after Biden’s Vice President literally lost to Donald Trump because she supports Israel, he keeps showing that he deserves the title of Genocide Joe. If Trump throws him in prison, I won’t be too sad. Countdown number four.

US Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) riding the escalator. Image taken from Yahoo News.

4: THIS AIN’T NO NETHER-NETHER LAND

Tom Cotton, the biggest warhawk in a Senate full of them, isn’t too happy about the ICC’s arrest warrants against a pair of genocidal maniacs. In fact, he’s so unhappy about it that he wants to invoke the Hague Invasion Act.

Now, in case you all don’t know, The Hague is a real place. I’ve actually been there. It’s the third-largest city in a beautiful country known as the Netherlands. More importantly, the Netherlands is a NATO ally of the United States, or at least they’re supposed to be. At a time when NATO needs to be strongly behind Ukraine, Tom Cotton wants the alliance’s most powerful country to invade a fellow member. All of this for the sake of supporting Netanyahu against the warrants. 

Will this actually happen? Probably not, but you never know when you have people as insane as Tom Cotton in the Senate. Countdown number three.

Donald Trump pointing at something. Image taken from Yahoo News.

3: AMERICAN IDIOTS

Donald Trump’s Cabinet is taking shape, and it’s every bit as bizarre and horrible as many of us feared. I don’t need to tell you how dangerous people like RFK Jr. are, because you already know that. But remember Project 2025? The reason we kept saying that we could not allow Trump to be elected, but that so many people dismissed after Trump distanced himself from it?

Well, it’s happening. Trump has designated Russel Vought, one of Project 2025’s authors, to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Even if, during the campaign, Trump kept insisting he had “no idea” what Project 2025 was, he’s now filling his Cabinet with people who were behind it. I’ll borrow a line from a wise YouTuber I used to watch regularly: “Trump is a man who has no ideas, who surrounds himself with people who have bad ideas.”

But at a certain point, I have to give Trump credit. Even in the face of anti-Project 2025 attacks, even though so many people should have known just how dangerous it was, they voted for him anyway. Our education system is truly lacking, and we are a sick country. Many of us deserve what we’re about to get. Countdown number two.

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who will remain a former President. Image taken from the Boston Globe.

2: I WISH I’M GOING TO BRAZIL

I never thought I’d live to see the day when Brazil’s democratic institutions proved more durable than those in the United States, but that day has arrived when I’m all of 24 years old. A Brazilian court has indicted former President Jair Bolsonaro on charges related to trying to overturn an election loss. Now, where have we heard that one before?

Oh yeah. The guy who attempted a coup after losing an election was just elected again here. A country that had a military dictatorship in the not-too-distant past now has stronger institutions. I wish America would have taken note and realized that there’s only one way to deal with people who try to overthrow your government. Instead, we get to suffer under Trump for four more years and end the rule of law, all while Brazil and the rest of the world laugh at us. Countdown number one.

DNC JumboTron in 2024, taken from Politico.

1: THE DUMBOCRATIC PARTY

In this case, Dumbo is not a flying elephant who was the titular character of one of my favorite movies when I was a small child. Instead, it’s the prefix for one of the most incompetent political movements in the history of the world. 

These people managed to lose to Donald Trump twice. He might be a convicted felon, but apparently that doesn’t matter if the opposition runs a horrendous campaign. I don’t know how the DNC managed to screw this one up, but quite frankly, it’s unforgivable. In fact, we should probably burn the Democratic Party to the ground, because whatever rose from the ashes afterward could not possibly be more inept than the current opposition to fascism.

I’ve written about this before; it’s the feckless versus the fascists.Despite being given so many avenues to attack Donald Trump for so many different horrendous policies, they have been utterly incapable of taking advantage. Twice. In any other country, a political party with a similar record would go the way of the Whigs. But the Democratic Party has to stay, because it’s our only domestic bulwark against the world’s most dangerous organization. Arceus help us all.