The Big Lie Is Getting Told (Again)
The Big Lie Is Getting Told (Again)
Whether Trump wins or loses, America has already lost
Editor’s Note: Are you, like Matt, happy the election is over, and everyone accepted the results, behaving like responsible citizens of a functioning democracy who love their country and are prepared to take a loss even if it means preserving our system of government/highest ideals? Sorry, the election’s not over. And there’s almost zero chance the aforementioned will happen. Matt believes in telling hard truth, even when he’s lying. He was just toying with reverse psychology, trying to make you feel better. Because look at you, you’re a mess. Pull it together. Settle down. And send questions about whatever’s troubling you to askmattlabash@gmail.com.
Double Questions:
Dear Matt,
Don't care who wins, half the country will be irate either way. I am a human that would not like to participate in the civil war. Where would you suggest riding it out? Idaho? They have remote locations and too many potatoes. I don't want to have to go to Canada if it's avoidable. But I think I would love it there. Honestly, as long as we're together I think we'll be fine. We can meet wherever you like.
Best,
Jeremy D.
Dear Matt,
What in the name of Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and whatever other MAGA Steves there are will you do if Trump wins? Go into witness protection?
Rachael S.
In answer to the first question, I love both Canada (except for the place being overrun by Canadians) and potatoes (invest in a good mandoline slicer and try these fantastic garlic potatoes, which crisp up nicely when baked in a cast iron skillet). But your best bet for dodging civil war is probably to hide in plain sight at Mar-a-Lago. A place where you know none of the MAGAbots will do any actual fighting, because they are men with soft hands who can’t risk injury to their meme-ing fingers. (The Meme Wars being where the real fighting happens.) The only hardship you’d have to withstand is gnawing through overdone steak drowned in ketchup and/or sitting through Mr. Trump playing the theme from Cats on a loop. Which is why personally, I’d rather take my chances on the battlefield. I really can’t stand Andrew Lloyd Webber.
In answer to the second question, if Trump wins, I’ll probably do what I always do when an undesirable takes the Oval Office. I’ll put on the war paint, tape up my fists of fury, grab my bear spray and Kevlar and CamelBak (it’s important to stay hydrated while overthrowing your country), and head down to the Capitol, filling my adult diaper so I have materials with which to fingerpaint slurs on the walls of The Speaker’s office while I take a stand for overriding the people’s will by beating the snot out of cops with American flagpoles.
Or wait, the Trumpsters already did that last cycle, didn’t they? Since I hate to be a walking cliché, I’ll probably just sit defeated on my couch, suck on it hard, drink heavily, and hope for better days in four-to-twelve years, or whenever His Majesty and his congressional/judicial enablers deem it appropriate for Mr. Trump to relinquish his emperorship.
I don’t pretend to know what will happen next Tuesday, and the swing-state margins are razor-thin enough that anyone who says they do is lying. Though since they have a 50/50 chance of being right, they will claim they knew all along after the fact. But one thing I do know with 150 percent certainty is that win or lose, Trump (and Trumpsters) will claim he won.
The table has already been set. The Big Lie that got told endlessly for four years after the last election is now getting told preemptively in this one, just in case it’s needed.
MAGA lawyers are already gumming up the courts with faux grievances. Trump’s shine boy, Elon Musk — the man who puts the “ass” in Asperger’s — has already opened up a voter-fraud complaint line on his money-hemorrhaging disinformation depot. Trump’s amen chorus of rubber-stampers and knob-polishers – the farm-team demagogues who took the stage at Trump’s Nerf Riefenstahl rally at Madison Square Garden the other night — have already tried to put the fix in for the fix, claiming the only way Kamala Harris could win is by fraud.