(Illustration: Pablo Picasso’s ‘Les Deux Saltimbanques: l’Arlequin et Sa Compagne,’ found here).

Nice to see a decent feeling in the air for the return of reality — even this early in the 2020 presidential competition, the T-Rump has apparently already shown he’s his own worse enemy: He’s united Americans in an effort to get rid of him.
In yesterday’s New York Times (h/t Digby):

As the already large presidential field grows by the week, the enthusiasm that propelled Democrats to a decisive takeover of the House in the midterms is still surging, driving crowd sizes and intensity typically seen in the days before the first caucuses and primaries, not a year ahead of them.
Powered by an almost desperate yearning to oust President Trump, and galvanized by the most diverse field in presidential primary history, Democrats are packing into gymnasiums, churches and exhibition halls to hear candidates speak — even if they are far from committed to supporting the candidate they are showing up to see.
…
Although many people have not yet decided which candidate they will support, political watchers say the level of engagement is comparable to what they typically see much closer to the primaries and portends high voter turnout.
Michael McDonald, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida who studies voting data, said he believed enthusiasm and voter turnout were correlated.
“We already know interest is running high given so many other indicators, so I expect turnout will run high for the 2020 primaries on the Democratic side,” he said in an email.
In the general election, he added, “We may see a hundred-year storm for turnout.”

And of that ‘takeover‘ last November, HR1, also called the “For the People Act,” a restoration of Democracy-type legislation, and is multi-faceted at protecting our constitutional rights, like voting, was passed yesterday by the House, now the bill goes to the Senate..
Republicans, however unsurprising, are scared shit-less of HR1 (Amanda Marcotte at Salon last night):

But while the public very much likes the provisions in this bill, Republican politicians and conservative activists very much don’t.
The reason is simple: Conservatives know they’re not likely to win a fair fight, and so they want a system that makes it easy for them to cheat.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been aggressively demonizing this bill, characterizing it as a “radical, half-baked socialist proposal” — which is peculiar, since it doesn’t address economic issues at all — and “a political power grab“.
“One senator said this is a power grab,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D,-Calif, in a Friday morning press conference, without mentioning the majority leader’s name.
“Yes it is. It’s a power grab for the American people.”
…
“Leader McConnell, we’re proud we want more people to vote. Why are you ashamed of it? Why do you run away from it,” asked Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on the Senate floor, taunting his Republican opponent.
Not only is McConnell refusing to bring the bill up for a vote in the Senate, he is reportedly waging an all-out campaign to intimidate any Republican senators out of backing it in public.
…
It says a lot about how unpopular the Republican agenda is — and how clearly Republican activists and politicians understand this — that they’re in full-blown panic mode at the idea of having even a fraction of their unfair advantages taken away.
Apparently it’s not enough to have an entire TV network blanketing the nation with right-wing propaganda, a billionaire class willing to spend ungodly amounts of money on misleading ads supporting Republican candidates, and an electoral system set up so that even when Democrats get millions more votes, Republicans win anyway.
No, Republicans clearly believe they also need anonymous spending, voter suppression and toothless election laws in order to keep on winning.
Republicans don’t just believe they have to cheat; they believe they have to cheat a lot.
They’re probably right about that.
Without the two-ton thumb on the scale in favor of Republicans, they wouldn’t, in their current form, win anything much except regional elections in the Deep South and some parts of the Midwest.
Rather than moderate or adjust their views to win elections in a rapidly changing America, they have embraced a darker agenda: trying to crush fair and free democratic elections.

Even beyond politics, the T-Rump is now seen as a toxic piece of shit:

But the companies haven’t been quick to return the affection or attempt to cash in on the presidential product placement, with McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A and Wendy’s all remaining silent about Trump’s endorsements.
When Trump held a similar event in January, Burger King was the only company to reference it on social media — by mocking Trump for misspelling the word hamburger in a tweet.
…
The corporate reticence underscores the tense relationship between a polarizing president and top U.S. consumer brands.
From Sharpies to Big Macs to Diet Cokes, companies behind some of the president’s favorite products have kept him at arm’s length even as he has lavished them with public praise and highlighted their products in the White House.
“It used to be that brands would love to get an endorsement from the president,” said Tim Calkins, who teaches marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
“Now, if anything, I think these companies probably squirm a bit.”

Really, way-odd right now is how America’s historical narrative is a story which would-have/should-be happening in another country, or in fiction — however, who could have thought-up the T-Rump horror show, complete with GOP/Fox News ingredients, both pure support no matter the subject, though, Fox News the most nasty-dangerous and a crazy influencing component in the T-Rump modus operandi.
This situation a way-unfortunate arrival together of an asshole, cold-hearted-criminal who continuously lies about continuously lying, that’s the T-Rump, with an entire political organization, which is the GOP, an apparent bunch of asshole, cold-hearted-criminals, who continuously lie about continuously lying.
And neither party to this ugly-axis-of-evil cares about anyone/anything other than themselves and Bob Dollar.

This is bad-sadly funny:

Increasingly how obvious the shit…