The Retribution Express Is Idling Out There Waiting For Another “Victim:” Ignore At Your Peril
A famous political saying of questionable provenance that is often credited to President Abraham Lincoln touts that you can “fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” Despite its somewhat ambiguous origin, the turn of phrase has been popular for at least 340 years or more from a first usage standpoint.
Which speaks more to the longevity and truism of the phrase than anything else. Modern politics is nothing if not affirmation of the base meaning of this saying, as evidenced by recent political experiences of another somewhat older but still perfect fitting word that has somewhat fallen from favor, “comeuppance.”
Not to digress but the Etymology or study of the origin of such terms can be an interesting time filling experience that often yields fascinating lineages and surprising constructs of use and usage and applications, particularly in law.
Modern political pundits prefer the term “retribution” when the attack dog is at leash wielded by their political enemies, with both sides of the political coin alternatively convinced of their tale of victory or woe, employing the tried and true-but trite-phrase that “nobody is above the law.” Often employed akin to the last bastion of the scoundrel, “Patriotism.”
Amnesia merchants come to mind, wielded by a crew of mostly government officials that show no compunction to lie, cheat or steal and absolutely tolerate those who do. So long as it is done in the service of their goals and objectives, which in my example is the pursuit of the ruination through any means possible-and necessary-to discredit, undermine and torpedo their political rivals or those of their bosses.
Nowhere was this phrase wielded more tritely than in the New York, Georgia, DC and Florida based lawfare efforts against Trump. Where the blatant manipulation of the cited law was so tortured that Lady Liberty eventually recoiled against the load of horse manure piled on the scales of justice by the lawfare efforts of Bragg, James, Willis, Smith and Comey-in particular-that blatantly pursued such non-sensical and counter-intuitive legal tactics that only card carrying Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) afflicted hacks approved of the efforts.
Listening to lefty, democrat leaning TDS afflicted pundits today, one could be forgiven for thinking of the Superman parallel Bizarro-World Htrae (Earth spelled backwards) where evil beings or spirits coalesce to bring about events that are the opposite of reality and nature. In such a world former President Obama can bizarrely blame the Bad Orange Man for all manner of government lawfare and political retribution against his enemies as if it was a first occurrence, violation of nature foreign to political practices.
Decrying the very thing that Obama himself propagated-well-nigh perfected-and in many acolyte’s minds as well, actions that he got away with-against his political rivals and enemies. From the piece:
Mr. Obama also appeared to lay out some specific concerns about Mr. Trump’s second term.
Asked by Mr. Colbert what powers he did not believe a U.S. president should have, Mr. Obama said that the Justice Department should remain independent from the White House and not be used as a tool to go after foes.
The country’s democracy can “survive a lot,” the former president said, but “we can’t overcome the politicization of the criminal justice system.”
Without directly raising Mr. Trump, who has used the Justice Department to target his perceived enemies during his second term, Mr. Obama said that the attorney general must be able to operate independently from the whims of a president.
“The idea is that the attorney general is the people’s lawyer,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s not the president’s consigliere.”
Another word for “consigliere” is “wingman.” Although when Obama does it, it is apparently different:OK.
In fact Obama may be the greatest political amnesia merchant in American political history, he of the lies that are the legacy of the Unaffordable Care Act, also the Arab Spring abandonment of US and Israel ally Egypt’s Mubarak (presented in this article as if it was a natural occurrence, also described here as-from the view of the Obama administration-a fait accompli that the US was powerless to stop,) resulting in the eventual outcome of the even more strongly loathed emergence of the hated military rule.
Cast as outcomes that were inevitable, rather than the Obama led US signaling the abandonment of a clear ally of both Israel and the US for the resulting chaos represented by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Which was inexplicably described to congress at one point by the administration as largely secular, which had to be officially walked-back by the White House. While other articles purporting to investigate the always republican opposition credited “conspiracy” of ties between Obama and Muslim political movements, finding no such apparent links while citing evidence of a lack of “membership” to bolster the point while documenting those exact links he was accused of fostering, but dismissing them as pragmatic and savvy political outreach that is normal.
The problem being that the Obama outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood put the weight of his administration on the scale at a crucial time, in spite of all the warnings and red flags about how unpopular such a regime would be for Egypt.
With the very predictable outcome of Egypt turning to military rule rather than the continued chaos represented by a return to Sharia Law and a 14th century treatment of woman in one of the more progressive societies in the Middle East: Obama did that. Shortly followed by the overthrow of Libya, both of which actions linger today as examples of US State Department led government foibles of the worst kind on a global scale.
Under the amnesia category because these are disasters of Obama’s making that somehow escape mention when pundits breathlessly talk of his “scandal-free administration.” I haven’t mentioned the outreach to the Iranians that reportedly started in 2009 but documented as early as 2011-prior to his reelection campaign-resulting in the disastrous JCPOA dialogue that funded Iranian worldwide terror operations for years. All surreptitiously begun during a time when the Iranians-under IRGC head Qassam Soleimini-were killing Americans and allies throughout the Middle East and Afghanistan with increasingly sophisticated Improvised Explosive Devices.
None of the Obama dialogue with Iran was conditioned on stopping the killing of our military and civilians.
Culminating in Obama going after Trump with both-hell, all-barrels of the US lawfare capabilities starting 9 December 2016 in an effort to stop-if possible-but to undermine, if not-Trump’s presidency. I could go on-and on-and on-about Obama, but prefer to reference here, here, and here.
Which is why I like the term “comeuppance,” rather than “retribution,” although in general usage they have come to be synonymous terms with retribution the far more commonly applied description that has a stronger vindication tenor. While comeuppance-to me-has more of a connotation of something earned, but deferred, a justly deserved outcome, somewhat of a just reward sense.
The difference between the two is admittedly in the eye of the beholder. For instance, the recent and speedy demise of Eric Swallwell is a classic comeuppance of epic proportions: he was long overdue to have a knot jerked in his tail. Political amnesia-also known as overlooking or disregarding the facts-can account for him being elevated by Nanny Peloozi into positions of increasing responsibility in the congress that included judicial as well as intelligence committee postings. And-yes-some true idjiots have pointed out that-in their beliefs-he was “suspiciously” singled out by the Trump Administration because he was a continuous advocate against Trump.
But nobody can deny-given the evidence that has emerged-that it took a whole bunch of overlooking over the years that looks like amnesia but translated to a cocky congressman with hubris dementia who thought he was above the law and untouchable. While the bulk of his advocates in congress and politics and staff are guilty of overlooking some 13 year’s worth of troubling behavior.
Comeuppance better describes the fate of recently outed republican representatives who trifled with Trump’s control of the republican party via the MAGA movement one too many times. It is one thing to have somewhat infrequent disagreements or votes of conscious on political issues from time to time. But when you are engaged in a dog fight and you have dogs that don’t want to fight, it is time to get different dogs.
Many will regard the recent demise of many Indiana republicans, Congressman Thomas Massie and Senator Bill Cassidy as “retribution.” When voters have a say in the matter it is clearly debatable.
Cassidy has long been overdue for a comeuppance since he opted to be a spoiler in the Trump January 6th impeachment, which was such a rushed hatchet job that it took place before most of the facts of the day were established. At a time when folks like AOC were talking about DC Capital police and security guards being bashed to death with fire extinguishers and up to 10 personnel being killed: all of which turned out to be lies and mistruths. The only ones who died during the riot were Trump supporters.
One of the supporters of Cassidy’s reelection was former Utah Senator Mitt Romney. Who also voted to impeach Trump for January 6th. These two likely represent the opposite case of amnesia where the electorate remembered-in both cases-their impeachment votes.
Thomas Massie is another case where it looks like retribution on the surface, but he has been a consistent critic during Trump’s second term and has degraded considerably from a reliable republican base issue supporter to voting less than 74% for republican issues, but nearly 100% against his party on the biggest issues. Vice President Vance recently pointed out that Massie could not be counted upon for any recent important republican issues and there comes a time for a reckoning. Massie has also been over the top on Epstein issues, crossing the line by accusing the administration of all manner of malfeasance regarding the Epstein files.
We can discuss at length the importance of being free to vote your constituency desires, but it is a stretch to believe that Massie was taking positions based on the people he represents, and the election results prove that point: the same as what happened to Cassidy.
The amnesia factor is high regarding these last 3 examples in Indiana, Kentucky and Louisiana. The bottom-line truth is that the mid-terms are going to decide the fate of Trump in his second term. If the democrats take back the house because of RINO inactions or whatever, President Trump will be impeached by late January 2027: it will totally unspool any momentum built up in his first two years and any big plans for his last two years.
These losses can be attributed to comeuppance or retribution (revenge) but in the final analysis what matters is what happens in the mid-terms and the republican party does not want to go into that battle with dogs that are not reliable and won’t fight.
Amnesia is one thing-political inactivity is another-but reality is the above. It is an all-hands on deck battle that can’t be left to chance to RINO squishes who can justify stepping out of the party-line for their own seemingly personal issues, vice those of their party, but more importantly the constituents they represent.
Good luck, fare thee well, don’t let the door hit you in the rear! But you gotta go.
Read the room: it is no time to be questioning what is at stake.
Max Dribbler
21 May 2026
LSMBTGAN: Lamestream media echo chamber (LMEC-L) social media (SM) big tech tyrants (BT,) government (G,) academia (A,) non-government officials (N) and foreign(F)
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