I might have titled this essay “The Three Stages of a Morally Corrupt Ideology,” but the three descriptors listed above project more bloody truth, while they accurately reveal the grotesque visuals associated with the ideology at issue. The antecedent to each descriptor is circumscribed by the inner sanctum within which those who honor it must absorb its oozings while trying to slash you and me to bloody pieces with their actions. I am, of course, referring to the lunatic fringe of conservatism. I also write from observations and experiences from within the United States knowing that similar conditions prevail throughout the far reaches of this planet that we all call home.

Ad hominem attacks are not generally a part of my verbal arsenal, so I will immediately back up my words with a factual list of objectives and/or outcomes already realized by those who sport the empty hats about which I write.

To begin, they occupy positions of trust in the public domain. They swear allegiance to uphold the tenets of our Constitution couched within the core values of equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Many also claim to be guided by a moral compass, a belief in Providence, and by the heavenly pursuits of peace on Earth and goodwill toward all. Their actions, however, reveal a stunning disrespect for all of these principles and values in favor of following an entirely different set of objectives.

Their allegiance is to the ultra-rich who fund their puppets’ political campaigns. We know their benefactors as Charles and David Koch, Sheldon Adelson, Rupert Murdock, Paul Singer, Ken Langone, and Peter Theil, to name but a few of them. These benefactors put up the money with the expectation that the candidates who receive it will enact legislation that assures the wealthy will maintain or increase their favored financial positions in life. This objective boils down to taking from the bottom 90 percent and giving to the top 10 percent—and to hell with who gets hurt in the crushing rotations of their steam rollers.

Nearly 40 years ago the ultra-rich and their cohorts began laying out a framework that was dishonest by design, despicable by evaluation, and diabolical in its implementation. This grand plan involved taking control of state and national legislatures. For example, we already had a rigged election system that favored land owners over city dwellers. It was put into effect via an electoral system that shifted election results toward the wealthy (who, not coincidentally, were also slave owners). Our latter-day legislators realized they could harden the electoral system’s results by a term we now call “Gerrymandering.” This gimmickry involves “stacking” and “packing” voting districts such that land owners could nevertheless assert their desires with candidates even when such candidates received substantially fewer actual votes than their opponents.

As this fakery produced a growing number of legislators, these legislators began to fiddle with voting laws and procedures that increasingly made it more and more difficult for large numbers of opposition voters to find voting locations, or to actually vote once having found the shifting locations, with tighter and tighter identification procedures, with shorter and shorter voting hours, and with longer and longer waiting lines. The net effect was once again to lower the actual number of votes cast and countable for their opponents.

Repeat and refine these rigging procedures, back them by packing of our legal system with judges and justices who also reflect the values as revealed by the ultra-rich and we see a ragged history of increasing wealth for the few, and increasing poverty for the many. The land of the free and the home of the brave is now the bifurcated home of the ultra-wealthy and squalor for the many—take it or leave it.

This year revealed the crown jewel of a national moral code that quickly jumped from despicable to diabolical. A candidate for President surged to the fore who embodied all the ghastly traits of wealth, and power, and lies, and cheating, and contradictions, and ineptitude, and crotch grabbing; who was also supported by an international ring of corrupt gangsters and thugs the likes of which would have titillated the soulless heart of Adolf Hitler. This latter-day rat and his cohorts are climate deniers, education deniers, truth and fact inverters, who resort to lying, blithering, blathering, and bloviating while hellbent on trying to satisfy an unquenchable thirst for more power and money that their moral code will never allow to be satisfied.

Will his reign come to an end with massive impeachments and trials on an unparalleled scale, or will we all have a last glimpse of existence as hellish nuclear fireballs engulf us and evil draws down the final curtain to this tragic tale that has no earthly winners?

Karma is a difficult lady to hold at bay for very long. Stay tuned.