The Trump Presidency Feels Like The Closing Scenes Of Rosemary's Baby

There is an unreal quality to what is happening. The media elites and the triumphant Republicans are urging us to follow coach Bobby Knight's advice from a few decades ago where he said "If rape is inevitable, lie back and try to enjoy it."

We are being urged to see Trump as completely normal, something we just need to get used to. The press is busy normalizing him too. Republicans are gathering round him like so many Franz von Papens, believing they can manage him.

I, meanwhile, feel as if we've wandered into the last scene of Rosemary's Baby. We are Rosemary, betrayed, deceived and exploited, and now being encouraged in a kindly way by a group of very gently spoken and normal-looking Satanists, to try to relax and try to be a mother to this electoral abomination we have given birth to. The Satanists even sound like Trump's loyalists, using the same words. God help us all.

(I hasten to add, Donald Trump is not Satan and he is not Hitler. It's hard to tell with the hair, but he doesn't appear to have horns, and anyone can tell you that he is not a vegetarian.)

From Rigging the Election to Rigging the Country

This election was full of disturbing anomalies and deviations that indicate it may well have been rigged to put Trump in the White House.

USAToday calls for an audit of how this election suddenly turned

Alternet calls for the same scrutiny of specific disturbing anomalies in key swing states

The Hill connects the dots between the election result and the Russians who steered that result

How to survive the new fascism.

A scholar who studies authoritarian governments has advice on how to survive the Trump regime

Some wise advice on the same topic from Juan Cole's Informed Comment

Survival tips from the New York Review of Books

VOX explains why fear is the correct reaction to a Trump presidency

Paul Ryan is out ahead of the Trump parade, eager to sell of our public systems to profiteers. Privatize Medicare? Anyone? If he gets this done he’ll probably ease it through by promising those who already have it that they can keep it. He’ll only screw everyone else. This is the GOP method, divide and conquer. We are all potential profit to these people.

Reported by New York Magazine

Privatizing America’s roads and bridges. A troll under every bridge. Which Trump friends would skim off the profits?

Reported by SLATE

Trump wants to muzzle all government employees. Is a loyalty oath next? Loyalty to him, of course. Which translates into loyalty to the man in Russia who pulls his strings.

Reported by The Hill

Trump pays off thousands of college students he defrauded but his fraudulent foundation is still under investigation

Reported in Newsweek

Trump family turning us into a tin pot oligarchy

Reported by FORTUNE magazine (which is no lefty rag)

Our new National Security Advisor is guided by his friendship with Putin. Why are Americans comfortable with this? Is the Republican team really the Russian team?

VOX reports on Trump's Russian minder (straight out of Dr. Strangelove)

But the scariest monster in the box is Steve Bannon. The white supremacist. The former Goldman Sachs dealmaker who’s made millions pitching paranoia to the right half of America.

“Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power. It only helps us when they get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing.” ~Steve Bannon

The New York Daily News gives us the creepy gist of Bannon's cozy chat with Hollywood Reporter

And meanwhile the news media is busy normalizing the abnormal. Playing a game of "Let's Pretend" with the American people. Let's pretend everything is fine. Let's pretend that everything will be all right if we simply sit tight and let it unfold. Remember, Trump paid off those students he defrauded. Once he's president we cannot sue him. We can't sue Paul Ryan for stealing our Medicare and Social Security.

A Surreal Election Year

These Alex Jones broadcast bits are beyond creepy. He’s one of Donald’s biggest cheerleaders on talk radio.

In this one Jones begs Americans to see the danger of Obama and Hillary and bursts into tears.

This Alex Jones bit examines the evidence that Obama and Hillary are sent by Satan.

This next bit is amusing…but is it safe to be amused? Should we satirize? Maybe this normalizes the monster.

From comic Peter Serafinowicz.

Do we laugh or cry? Or hide?

We vote.