After last night there seems a spiked, ugly knot in my bowels constricting any kind of flow and the end result is no matter the stool softener/laxative used, the shit will only thicken and boil, finding no escape.
No matter how you look at it, Democrats just don’t have any kind of strategy to confront floating bullshit and outright, preposterous lying.

Despite some optimism, the real bottom-line factor is this country is awfully-awash in one-sided stupid. And it’s paying off big time for Republicans — I’m sure you’ve seen this tweet already, but it seems to epitomize our current dilemma:

I’m concerned that this person represents a large portion of this country. https://t.co/ONs0AxIsIU

— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) November 2, 2021

As a reminder (and too, you probably well-know this already), Republicans are not in the race to govern, they in it to rule. And there’s no item trite or outlandish for them to stroke the lies and misinformation into political discourse to rattle the idiot vote. GQPers ladle-out the emotion without an ounce of reality.
A prime, idiotic example is the CRT so-called controversy, which in actuality is really a non-issue.
Some background via the Guardian this afternoon:

Developed by the former Harvard Law professor Derrick Bell and other scholars in the 1970s and 80s, critical race theory, or CRT, examines the ways in which racism was embedded into American law and other modern institutions, maintaining the dominance of white people.

CRT argues that racism is not a matter of individual bigotry but a systemic issue that creates an uneven playing field for people of colour.

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, a law professor widely credited with coining the term, told the New York Times: “It is a way of seeing, attending to, accounting for, tracing and analyzing the ways that race is produced, the ways that racial inequality is facilitated, and the ways that our history has created these inequalities that now can be almost effortlessly reproduced unless we attend to the existence of these inequalities.”

A year or so ago few people had heard of it, yet Republicans have whipped up a moral panic that CRT is being rammed down the throats of schoolchildren.
They caricature it as teaching Black children to internalise victimhood and white children to self-identify as oppressors.

And is CRT taught in schools?

No, it is not a part of the secondary school curriculum. The National School Boards Association and other education leaders are adamant that CRT is not being taught in K-12 schools, which teach students from five to 18 years old.

But Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and other rightwing media have turned it into a catch-all buzzword for any teaching in schools about race and American history.
They loosely apply it to concepts such as equity and anti-bias training for teachers.

Patti Hidalgo Menders, president of the Loudoun County Republican Women’s Club in Virginia, told the Guardian last week: “They may not call it critical race theory, but they’re calling it equity, diversity, inclusion. They use culturally responsive training for their teachers. It is fundamentally CRT.

“It’s dividing our children into victims and oppressors and what’s a child supposed to do with that?”

And in Virginia?

Winning Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin’s signature issue was education. He hammered government schools on “culture war” issues such as race and transgender rights and falsely claimed that his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, called his friend, President Joe Biden, and asked the FBI to silence conservative parents.

Youngkin said he would ban the teaching of CRT in Virginia classrooms.
At a campaign event in Glen Allen last month, the candidate said to applause: “What we won’t do is teach our children to view everything through the lens of race. On day one, I will ban critical race theory.”

McAuliffe was forced onto the defensive and had to engage with the issue. He accused Republicans of using the Trump playbook of division and deceit, a message that did not cut through in the same way.

Hence, that last note — Democrats don’t know how (or haven’t yet acquired the talent) for throwing shit back in the wingnuttery face. Maybe until then, we be screwed. And another right-wing sore hole is violence. America has become a violent place, and beyond gun violence, it’s a catch-call for Republicans — a big chunk think violence could be needed to preserve freedoms.
According to the latest American Values survey, Republicans lean contrary to reality (via Salon yesterday):

Close to one-third of Republicans in the survey, or 30-percent, agreed with the statement that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
That was more than the combined total of Democrats and independents who say the same thing (at 11-ercent and 17-percent, respectively).

PRRI CEO and founder Robert Jones said the large proportion of Republicans who appear ready to endorse political violence is “a direct result of former President Trump calling into question the election.”
Jones noted that according to the same survey, more than two-thirds of Republicans (68-percent) claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump, as opposed to only 26-percent of independents and 6-percent of Democrats.

The study also found that 39-percent of those who believed that Trump had won the 2020 election endorsed potential violence, compared to only 10-percent of those who rejected election misinformation.
There were also signs of a split based on media consumption, with 40-percebt of Republicans who trust far-right news sources agreeing that violence could be necessary, compared to 32-percent of those who trust Fox News and 22-percent among those who trust mainstream outlets.
In addition, respondents who said violence may be necessary are more likely to report feeling like strangers in their country, to say American culture has mostly worsened since the 1950s and to believe that God has granted America a special role in human history.

And insurrection has become a popular patriotic angle for GQPers — worse down deep (HuffPost): ‘At least six Republicans who attended the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C., that turned into a deadly insurrection were elected to office Tuesday.‘
Details and ugly background at the link.

Not only can Democrats not attack rightfully, but one Democrat is shitting on Americans and the system and gets ‘the Bern’ for it:

Asked @BernieSanders for his reaction to yesterday’s elections:

“Uh, it appears that Gov. Murphy is going to win, and I guess be the first Democratic governor in 40 or 50 years to be re-elected.”

Asked him why he thinks McAuliffe lost VA:

“Ask the senator from Virginia.”

— bryan metzger (@metzgov) November 3, 2021

Joe Manchin is a 100-percent piece of shit.

We’re at a most-vital crossroads with democracy and the current shape of American life right now. Next year if Republicans retake Congress we’ll be set up for T-Rump to roll in two years later. Under Republican control, no Jan. 6 select committee, no doing anything at all about anything. Biden will limp until 2024 rings out the American experiment.

We need to get a way-big move on about the situation before it’s too late, though, it might be already. And what to do? Get mean, for one, and maybe crow about work Democrats have done for the country — but do something!
Republicans have the edge as they’re willing to lie, steal and cheat, and the left needs to get a move — Steve M this morning concludes:

Democrats need to get something done — it almost doesn’t matter what. They need to reassure the public that the country is in capable hands and we’ll get past this moment.
Barack Obama and Bill Clinton had similar struggles early in their presidencies, but they were young and vigorous and were excellent speakers — they seemed reassuring to at least some of the doubting public, and that gave them room to recover from setbacks.
If Biden can’t inspire confidence, then he’s going to stay at these numbers, maybe even after things get better. (COVID is getting better and that doesn’t seem to be helping Biden.)
This may be where we’ll be until Election Day 2024.
If it is, we can stop worrying about Republicans stealing the election, because they won’t have to.

And where be America?

Here we are, once again…

(Illustration out front: Edvard Munch‘s ‘The Scream,’ lithograph version, found here).