Not a question, but an answer to a perplexing one.  Why, if most of us care about fairness, truth, kindness, compassion and equality, does the contrary minority seem to triumph time after time after time?  What has hampered that most basic precept of majority rule?  Well, I, like too many other liberal-leaning thinkers, have been a befuddled, devout member of the righteous protestors, uplifted by fulfilling melodies of caring for and loving one another.  “We Shall Overcome” and “We Are the World” and “That’s What Friends Are For” are goose-bumpy tunes and soul-stirring messages.   But, raising our voices in song and protest, donning silk screened, smart-sloganned t-shirts and rallying every couple of years on the National Mall does not counterbalance the relentless, grassroots mobilization of the Dark Side.  It appears that negativity and demonization are the preferred cozy places for those who can’t be bothered by the honest hard work of fact-checking.  So, the other side, the Republicans, conservatives, Tea Partying federalist-nationalist-white supremacists strike at the warm, light-filled heart of humanity with preposterous propaganda, baseless conspiracy bullshit and unfounded threats to hearth, home and gun ownership to mobilize a highly motivated base.  They have honed these tactics over many years of a slow-moving coup to control state legislatures, gerrymandering districts to allow elected officials to choose their voters rather than the other way around.  While the Left was sloganeering, the Right was stacking the courts, (all of the courts), with unqualified, wrong-minded judges whose decisions have turned back long-sought, right-minded rulings and opened the dangerous, unlimited big money manipulation of elections and legislative decision making.  I fear that the purely evil intent of the despicable DJT, the manifest embodiment of a fascist tidal wave roiling across our country, may be too late to countermand.  For sure, speeches before the members of the DOJ, Rachel Maddow’s long-winded sermons to the choir or any attempt to play nice with Joe Manchin or the Devil, will not get it done.  “They” are fucking with “The Vote”, enlisting hundreds, maybe thousands to call in and email ‘scripted’ threats to election officials and their families that won’t bend to their will.  “They” are passing legislation that allows them to overturn elections that don’t go their way.  “They” are arming themselves and they are coming for us.  I am not paranoid.  I’m terrified.  They think we’re zapping them with Jewish Space Lasers and eating baby meat on pizza.  They’re batshit crazy and will never, ever snap out of it.  We have a very brief moment, a tenuous legislative/executive majority.  If we do not grasp the existential imperative to shut these fuckers down with whatever drastic measures they would use, American democracy ends.  That’s why.