The elephant in the room

If you have any kind of connection to mass or social media, you’ll have noticed the terrible quandary that those pleased to call themselves Republican leaders—and especially those whose names are on November ballots in races ranging from Vice President of the United States clear on down through Senators, Representatives, Governors and state legislatures—have found themselves in since the #TrumpTape was released on Friday.

Because they’re desperately trying to demonstrate their loyalty to whatever it is that the Republican party claims to hold as core values as they simultaneously spray themselves with DDT to purge the contagion that the Chaos Monkey they nominated for President is spreading every time he opens his mouth, pretty much.

Let’s put aside the issue that his long litany of racist, homophobic, sexist, xenophobic, cruel, ignorant and delusional statements didn’t seem to ruffle any of these people’s feathers over the past, well, decades. It doesn’t even seem to be an issue to them that the behavior he described on tape (which may, TBH, fall under the “delusional” rubric above) was abusive and in most civilized places illegal. It’s that he used language that no Baptist is supposed to know the definition of that caused them to flap their hands about and call for smelling salts.

The trickle of disapprobation (characterization of his recorded bragging as “unacceptable” and “offensive”, but no unendorsements) that started late Friday has turned into a torrent of not only withdrawal of support for him, but also frantic attempts to put as much distance as possible between them and him. 

They're even—mirabile dictu—calling for him to step down. Like that's ever going to happen.

(And nor should it. People are already casting their votes based on the slates nominated by the various parties. Play the damned hand you dealt yourselves, babies. You don't get to redeal because you suddenly don't like the cards.)

The Chaos Monkey, as usual, is pissed off but not at all dismayed, and he still has connectivity and an iPhone:

Also, I believe the “shackles” he refers to in this tweet are the ‘Pubs who are shoving the women and children aside in their race for the Titanic’s lifeboats:

Well, whatever.

But I do love the way social media stepped up to the plate to frame the current neo-con conundrum in images that they hold so dear:

And, of course, Twitter totally owned it like a boss.