"Far too much of this"

Republicans love states' rights.  They can put their hands over their hearts and recite the Tenth Amendment, approaching song when they reach "reserved to the States respectively, or to the people!"  They will do this whenever Congress tries to extend voting rights to minorities, or ban assault rifles, or make car manufacturers reduce carbon emissions.  When the states ignore a president who ludicrously claims his authority is "total," however, you can hear crickets.

Proving that he can, too, multitask, Trump took time out from the enhanced SAPFU that is his regime's response to the greatest crisis since World War II and barricaded himself inside the Twitterverse to encourage a handful of "the people" to defy "the States."  Most governors are trying to keep a pandemic from getting worse, with minimal help from the federal government -- in fact, with quite a lot of hindrance -- by ordering non-essential workers to stay home and closing schools and other public spaces.  Focusing from the beginning on the economic impact, and now exclusively on the economic impact, he spotted "his people" blocking a hospital entrance in Lansing and crowed, "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" and "LIBERATE MINNESOTA!"  Savoring his own brilliant rhetoric,  he added:  "LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment.  It is under siege!" (a reference to the gun safety laws passed this week by Virginia's elected legislature and signed by its elected governor).  As Charlie Pierce remarked, "It's not every Friday that the president* takes to the electric Twitter machine to foment insurrection."

Another elected governor, Jay Inslee of Washington, has called this "unhinged."  I call it "impeachable," but even if that could be arranged, there's no reason to believe it would succeed any better.  No president has ever been impeached twice in four years.  If nothing else, it would signal to history that this seditious crackpot does not speak for us.  Mr. Pierce seems to hold out hope for the Twenty-fifth Amendment, but really, have you seen this Cabinet?  He'd have to kill and eat Anthony Fauci on live television.

I know this is the old familiar Trump technique -- keep people enraged so they can't concentrate on the real atrocities committed by the one percent as they tighten their chokehold on this country and the world.  The pandemic makes it easier, and time is running out.  Patience is running out.  Food is running out.  I'm not at all sure we will survive until it's time to vote.

Is it the weekend if all days are the same?  I plan to turn everything off and read very old poetry.  And then...