Im hitting the gym a little harder these days to get ready for the upcoming civil war. Trump ain't leaving till he's dead.

"...Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone; you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' Why not?-Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty. Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, 'everyone' is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, 'It's not so bad' or 'You're seeing things' or 'You're an alarmist.' 

And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can't prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don't know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.... 

But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked-if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in '43 had come immediately after the 'German Firm' stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in '33. But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D. 

And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying 'Jewish swine,' collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in-your nation, your people-is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way."

-Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945

The problem with releasing the whistleblower complaint is not that it could blow up in the Dems faces politically; it’s that after the whistleblower is inevitably dragged through the media and sent to work in the US consulate of Siberia, NO ONE ELSE WILL EVER BLOW A WHISTLE AGAIN.

Isn't the whistleblower is a former government employee?

I thought they were still active? If I’m wrong, then fine, lose the part about Siberia but the rest stands.

that's true of every whistleblower ever. oh there are protections on the books but it just feels like almost every one of them is screwed over eventually.

How is this a different outcome than now, where whistleblowing either put this person at risk for professional retribution or set them up to be brutally maligned and slandered by conservative media....but also nobody is bothering to follow up on the act itself? Is this MORE likely to encourage future whistleblowers?

I don’t think no one is following up, and I appreciate that the Dems posturing will pressure that to play out.

And I think it’s quite different from your average corporate whistleblower because this one will experience a level of scrutiny and fear uncharacteristic of the task.

I really hope the whistleblower is Bolton

I actually don't hope for a John Bolton redemption narrative, but maybe that's just me.

Who said anything about redemption?

The #Resistance has already recuperated George W. Bush's image, what do you think would happen if John Bolton blew the whistle on Trump?

It was a beautiful call really

You're not wrong.

My Halloween shirt says so

Ten bucks says that if he's defeated in the election, he'll try to executive order it so the election doesn't count.

i said civil war in the prediction thread long ago...i was off on the date though

Oh, I've been saying all along that he'll never leave the White House voluntarily. And all his gun nut Trumpfucks will be right there by his side. It's gonna be bad.

Imagine four more years of this, but with the last of the guard rails removed