The familiar sound at my door yesterday morning brought a smile to my face. Meat and Tater have been missing in action lately.
I knew the state of the union address would bring them, if they weren't too hungover.
"Morning neighbors, how are y'all feeling this morning!"
The couple looked at each other, then back at me. Meat responded, "We're fine SJ, why wouldn't we be?"
"Oh, just figured y'all played some kind of drinking game last night."
Tater took a drink from her coffee mug. "We quit the Trump drinking games, SJ. Last time Meat was in bed 3 days. That man lies like a rug."
"Yeah we're done with that SJ, never thought I'd say it, but I'm too old for twelve shots in five minutes. So what did you think?"
I gave Meat my best 'what a maroon' look. He stared back at me blankly. Tater gave him a loving elbow in the ribs. "Told you he didn't watch."
"Meat you know I never watch those things. I didn't watch Bill or W or Obama and I'm certainly not watching the Donald. Not for money or shots."
Meat sat down on the couch. Tater wandered into my kitchen looking for more coffee.
"So you missed the rebuttal? Man, you missed the lady who had the Georgia governor's race stolen. The Republican secretary of state, who also happened to be her opponent, threw thousands off the voter roles, didn't open precincts and left half the voting polls in an Atlanta warehouse on election day. And she still barely lost."
"What does that have to do with the speech?"
Tater came back in the living room with the coffee pot. "The first bill coming out of the House of Representatives is a bill to put an end to that kind of stuff. It'll have automatic voter regisitrations, put limits on campaign spending, and stop political gerrymandering."
Meat jumped in. "Don't you think it's weird all those red states with Republican legislatures where the Democrats get more overall votes? If Democrats get 20% more votes in an overall election, how do the Republicans always get the majority of representatives?"
"They cheat?" I responded. "Is the pope catholic? Meat replied.
Tater chimed back in. "Yertle said the bill they're working on is a power grab, like making it easier for folks to vote is some kind of sinister Russian plot."
I sipped my coffee. "And here I thought the Trumpets loved Russian plots. Yertle's taken so much money from Putins pals, he tips in rubles."
"Think about it SJ, a Republican presidential candidate has only won the popular vote one time since 1992. But they've won the White House 3 times. No wonder Yertle hates the vote."
I had to sit back and contemplate that a bit. The republicans want to make it harder to register, to vote, and to take part in our governance. They'd rather throw away absentee ballots from offshore service members and take the money from the Russian mob.
The party of Trump lives by the advice of a man they villify. In the words of Malcolm X, Republicans will reverse the will of the people by any means necessary.