One tidbit of info I learned the other day, of note, via a tweet from Asha Rangappa, is “… one of the talking points pushed by Russia’s troll farm was that there would be a civil war if Democrats tried to impeach Trump”. And this particular “coinkydink” just happened to be mentioned in the Mueller Report.

https://twitter.com/AshaRangappa_/status/1178648079450464256

You must wonder, and I admittedly ask myself, I really do, why am I so fixated on this? Why is all this mayhem and madness down yonder in the land of my birth caught a hold of me? Why do I write about it, watch stuff about it, read stuff about it, look at it from different angles, write about it from different angles?

I mean, politics in the U.S. has always had more joie de vivre than its Canadian counterpart, well, till recently. Though, call it the #TrumpEffect, but some of that crazy circus has managed to seep into our rather staid and dry politico scene.

But why am I so drawn, why was I once even moved to tears at the thought of America losing its way so disastrously? If you had asked me if I was a patriotic American I would have balked at the question, as that statement just on its own seems so unCanadian to my ears, so I would have said probably, no not so long ago.

Lately though? Well, I mean, sitting at my door two springs ago washing off the dirt of many winters, listening to Simple Gifts, and that song touched something inside me, triggered this grief, this sadness, at what America was about to face. Oh, I knew, I knew, spring of 2017, and I was well aware of what lay ahead.

And here we are.

So, I have no other choice but to finally admit it, why I am passionate about, so dedicated to, like this deep thing that lays in my DNA I inherited from my father – I have to name it, Patriotism.

Strange thing, that. Canadians don’t generally say that sort of thing, patriotism is just so, well, American.

Thing is, since that day he was inaugurated, even before I suppose, Trump has touched off this domino effect of corruption and chaos – and I watched it, day after day unfold, get worse, and worse. He has rocked and roiled, stretched, gutted, poked and pulled many institutions to their limits. The entire Intel community, one would imagine in this climate of chaos, is now walking on egg shells. Practically every day we watch as the gulf between the left and the right, the Democrats and the Republicans, stretches farther and farther apart.

The place of my birth is in crisis, and no one knows what will happen next. No one.

The news either side of that expanding divide watch and read, the things they believe, the coups and whose who, what’s what, isolated in their own bubbles of propaganda, catered to by their own bespoke feeds.

And, let’s not forget, contrary to the right-wing talking points, Trump was NOT EXONERATED by the Mueller Report. Listen to right wing media, and you’d think they all lived in an alternate universe.

In that report it clearly lays out 10 instances of Trump Obstructing Justice, reportedly telling his various minions to lie or deny some factoid of guilt.

Mueller himself testified to Congress that he DID NOT EXONERATE TRUMP. But that wasn’t enough, the loyalists for the most part seemed to have been fogged over in a barrage of misinformation by right-wing pundits on Fox News and alt-right rags, and maybe they just don’t know anymore, maybe they don’t care anymore, or maybe they have taken the path of the least resistance and believed the lies wholesale.

This whole exchange, this diatribe and misinformation campaign, it has never been about if this or that talking point or tweet is fact or fiction, but for you to “doubt your critical thinking” (@SykesCharlie).

“You’re seeing this weaponized BS in a world where it doesn’t really matter whether something is true… The point isn’t really to convince you that one thing is true or false, it’s to make you doubt your critical sensibilities.” – Charlie Sykes

MSNBC

And it has most definitely worked, I have spoken to many colleagues at work who have voiced their confusion at the news coming out concerning anything related to Trump and his crew. They have in some cases just turned it off, ignored it basically.

Although I can’t blame them, its like a convoluted epic drama, complex associations, shady characters, conspiracies, coups, and lies and overblown pundits on cable news, all the pomp and ceremony of a full blown cluster f*ck, and some couldn’t care less.

Yet, too, of course this is Canada and I guess we have our own right vs left battle of ideas taking place over our current Federal Election on October 21st.

Interestingly, Canadians exhibiting their propensity for dry wit and wool socks, have been entertained of late by many Conservative’s waging a war with a sock, and the sock is winning (@edthesock).

So, there’s that.

Patriot that I am, my heart does in deed straddle that 49th parallel, eh!