American politics is like some sort of warped nature show, about animals behaving in impossibly self-destructive ways that upset everything we believe about evolutionary survival instincts. You can almost hear the gobsmacked British narrator, wondering why on earth that herd of wildebeests is lapping up that hydroxychloroquine spill.

Hey everybody, we’ve got a brand new sponsor here at Shower Cap’s Blog! Please give a warm Resistance welcome to MANHOOD, the forthcoming tome on “masculine virtues” scribed by lynch mob-inciting Senator Josh Hawley, who famously possesses neither masculinity nor virtue.

Joshie’s gonna sell a ton of these. To his own campaign, sure, maybe a couple crates to the RNC, assuming they can actually get out from under the Deposed Dotard’s legal debt, but loads n’ loads, I assure you. Like, even the incel community Hawley is targeting here will have no trouble recognizing the author’s lack of expertise on the topic at hand.

Anyway. Yet again, we don’t get to just sit back and laugh and laugh and laugh at Josh Hawley, which both he and we so richly deserve, on account of all the Nazi shit. Even Hawley’s shit is Nazi shit, really, albeit of a largely harmless, and decidedly amusing variety. “Manhood.” Lordy.

A little on the scarier side are Trumpworld’s fast-congealing plans, to rot the federal government out from within, by staffing it with obsequious, amoral thugs, should the Turd Reich rise from the fashy ashes in 2024. Thugs like Jeffrey Clark, who’ll either be Attorney General or disbarred, depending on how the Rust Belt swings, which I suppose makes as much sense as anything in our gameshowified politics.

Read the whole Axios two-parter on this shit, if you haven’t already, but…keep the lights on, y’know? Because the hoods’re starting to come off, have you noticed that?

Seriously, what does it take to get a fascist disinvited from CPAC these days? (Read that in a Rodney Dangerfield voice if it helps.)

Viktor Orbán has never been a particularly subtle fellow. Everyone knows what he is: the prototype for every racist, fear-mongering, wannabe autocrat in the West. That’s why he got invited to CPAC in the first place. Behold the Tyrant in His Splendor. Gather at his feet, and learn of his secrets.

But now, a longtime advisor has resigned, comparing him to Goebbels for his objectively Goebbelslike statements on the undesirability of “race-mixing.” See? No hood on Vikky. He’s proud of what he is. So fucking of course he’s still speaking at CPAC. Probably getting a nicer gift basket now. Artisanal bath salts, and an advance copy of MANHOOD, autographed imperceptibly by the author with his ink-dipped pencil dick.

Now, you know democracy’s firing on all cylinders when you find yourself within a single calendar week containing multiple stories about Republicans refusing to condemn the literal, actual Nazis in their ranks. Yes, the High Priests of DeSantistan sure get mad when you point out the swastika flags that keep popping up at their events, but they never seem to get mad at themselves for throwing the sort of parties that attract Nazis in the first place, don’t you find that strange?

And as much as I would love to move on from this distressingly specific topic, Doug Mastriano won’t let me. It is truly obscene, the amount of public pressure it took to make this freak, who wants to be Governor of a whole-ass state, distance himself ever so lightly from his ally and associate Andrew Torba, founder of the social media hate site Gab, who unapologetically hung a No Jews Allowed sign on their shared “movement.”

Always on the bleeding edge of ascendant American fascism, Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to know, what’s so bad about Christian nationalism anyway? Which is not even the vilest thing she said this week, from her perch in the United States Congress, where she was sent by the voters of the Georgia 14th, in their infinite wisdom.

Gleefully snatching the dominionist taunting baton from Marj was Justice Sam “I Am the Boss of You, Actually” Alito, who’s clearly feeling saucy about the way he gets to impose his puritan will on all us heathen peasants. Have your fun, old man. Today is not forever.

Do not let these fucks troll you, by the way. The louder they crow about all the shitty, unpopular things they’ve done, and all the shitty, unpopular things they can barely wait to do, the quicker they build the coalition that’ll reverse their work.

Honestly, how long do these asshats imagine the American public will tolerate these abuses of their stolen, illegitimate power? These assaults on our fundamental human rights?

Not long. The generic congressionals are swinging exactly as hard as you’d think they would in the face of a hostile takeover by a vindictive, fanatical minority. And, with the January 6th commission’s stupendous work piledriving Trumpism’s ballsack into powder, suddenly Republican bigwigs are starting to wonder whether fielding a sackful of buttholes as their Senate slate was really such a good idea.

For example: J.D. Vance, who qualifies, terrifyingly, as the GOP’s least insane swing-state candidate, turns out to be not only the sort of fellow who believes women should stay in violently abusive marriages, but one who believes it so much that he presents it, in public, as a Very Good Idea of His That Other Folks Ought To Adopt, as he seeks election. That’s all it’ll take to make America great again, folks…just a little more domestic violence. Makes perfect sense.

So yeah, the We’ve Made a Huge Mistake articles’ve begun mysteriously cropping up around that campaign. Herschel Walker’s is at the My God What Have We Done stage. Meanwhile, Dr. Oz wanders to and fro, dazed and clownlike, in the background, seemingly oblivious to his opponent’s extremely effective (and frankly hilarious) campaign to define him to the electorate.

New data from the fashometer reveals that nearly 1 in 3 Americans think it’s just about time to do some violent insurrecting/Capitol rioting of their own. And that’s a spine-chilling statistic by itself, but the trouble is, we all know these pollsters need to ask a few follow-up questions here. Like, say, “How many hours per day do you spend fantasizing about murdering your personal and political enemies? In these fantasies, do you use a hatchet, an AR-15, or, I dunno, that sex pillow you had custom-made to look like your cousin?”

When you get the chance, run that poll by Clay Higgins, who certainly gave America an illuminating peek inside his skull, at his, um, shall we say, “detailed” cop-killing fantasies, during a congressional hearing on gun violence. At the risk of editorializing, the only thing a raving maniac like Clay Higgins needs less than a firearm is a seat in the House of Representatives.

Speaking of that madhouse, ‘twas a busy week for Congressman Gaetz, as he struggled to work his way through history’s skeeviest bucket list, before the feds close in, and he begins his new life, as a celebrity child rapist in prison, sure to be a lengthy tale if nothing else.

He joined the creepiest creeps in his creepy creep caucus in voting against an anti-sex trafficking bill, for essentially the same reasons Betty Crocker would vote against a bill banning cake.

Oh, and, attempting to emulate his Turd Emperor, young Matthew made some snide, snickeringly infantile comment, demeaning women’s looks, as though the entire world doesn’t know his own sex life consists of paying to rape children.

Elsewhere in the House, some subpar twerp called “Glenn Thompson” voted against gay rights before tromping cluelessly off to his gay son’s wedding, but it’s only that second part that might get him in trouble with his party’s base. Those shameless hypocrisy seminars with Scott DesJarlais have served Republicans well.

So, on the eve of the defamation trial that will hopefully bankrupt him, Alex Jones went on Steve Bannon’s podcast, and oh shit, I forgot to mention that you shouldn’t read this paragraph if you’ve eaten in the last hour. Bannon called Jones “one of the great thinkers,” and Jones returned the favor, complimenting the unsettling, but undeniable grandeur of the bizarre ecosystems that have formed in the primordial layers between his host’s shirts.

Congratulations to Rand Paul and Tulsi Gabbard for landing on a list of prominent Russian propagandists; you can stick that on one of the many shelves in your office that aren’t full of Legislator Who Did a Good Job Serving Their Constituents awards.

The massive corruption scandal in Mississippi has reached the doorsteps of former governors and Very Important Football Men, so naturally, they’re firing the investigators. Yeah, they’re really draining the swamp down there, which means they’re gonna need to find someplace else to bury all the folks Tate Reeves got killed during the pandemic.

The enormous, Soros-funded, deep state conspiracy against all thing Real and Murican runs even deeper than we knew, all the way up the goddamn phylogenic tree of life, y’all. Or so says Sean Hannity, anyhow, in an entirely rational, extremely normal, not-at-all loony diatribe, about the coronavirus unfairly singling out Donald “Drink Bleach” Trump for a meaner version of Covid than Joe “Actually Don’t Drink Bleach, That Would Be Silly and Ineffective” Biden caught.

Yes, all is well and good in the United States of America, where some purchase their own, personal, private dinosaur skeletons, while others are asked to exchange their labor for fried chicken. Don’t let the lamestream liberal media tell you there’s an income inequality problem, though. Take your MyDewormer and go to bed.

Buried as we are ‘neath this avalanche of scat, surely only Andrew Yang’s vanity project can save us, says Andrew Yang, fooling Andrew Yang and no one else. Oh man, it’s gonna be so fun, seasoning this struggle to save democracy with a bunch of fruitless internet arguments with toxic third party bros. Again. So fun.

I know there’re folks out there who worried that Merrick Garland spent the last year and a half playing Minesweeper, so I hope everyone’s resting easier now that we officially know DoJ has been investigating Donnie One-Term’s role in the Stoopid Coo.

‘Specially since they’ve got Mark Meadows’ phone records. I guess there’s not much time to worry about OPSEC when you’re doing lines with Junior, so you can stay up one more hour, brainstorming ways to sneak Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell onto the Supreme Court, but goddamn, that guy left one helluva trail.

You’ll be pleased to learn that U.S. veterans exposed to toxic burn pits while risking their lives in service to the nation, those filthiest of takers, shall suckle no treatment from the teat of your government, thanks to the great patriots of the Senate Republican Caucus.

This was part of the larger GOP tantrum in response to the week’s unexpected deus ex Manchina, when a certain West Virginia Senator decided that actually, he’d quite enjoy using reconciliation to pass the most significant climate bill in American history, thank you kindly. And there was much rejoicing.

…except amongst Mitch McConnell’s decidedly un-merry band of obstructionists, of course. They always get pissy when Democrats do that Democrat thing, where we solve the problems we’re elected to solve, instead groveling before reality television personalities, or mucking out the DeVos family stables. Highlights unflattering differences between the parties, y’see.

So it’s time once more for the ol’ How Dare You Wield the Power You Earned at the Ballot Box meltdown, which I don’t remember hearing during the heady days of SCOTUS heists and tax cuts for the rich. Susan Collins, dissatisfied with her existing shameful place in civil rights history, poutingly threatened to withhold support for the LGBTQ rights bill, because Susan Collins will always find the path to simpering fecklessness; it’s simply what Susan Collins does.

But yeah, Biden’s actually doing pretty damn well these days, (for a deepfake hologram man, anyway) deftly outmaneuvering the Party of No with razor-thin congressional majorities. Why, it’s almost like it’s not his first rodeo.

Good, cuz we could use the wins. And I could use a beer, now that I think of it. So I’ll sign off till next week. Stay safe out there, chums.