Doing my usual morning routine, I could not help noticing a loudspeaker going outside. For a while, I thought it was the usual annoyance: a recycle/secondhand shop truck making the rounds, promising all kinds of stuff about what they’ll take off your hands for free (until you actually try to give them something and it turns out you pay through the nose).

But then I noticed that it was going on for a long time. And it was not changing in volume, as you would expect in a moving vehicle. Nor was it talking about what you could throw away.

Finally, I decided to check it out.

It was a politician. I had no idea there was an election. I don’t think there is one.

Nor was this guy on a truck. He was standing in front of my house speaking into a bullhorn.

I have seen this before in large apartment and condominium complexes, where hundreds or even thousands of people live.

But in front of my house? There were maybe a dozen residences where people could understand the idiot from inside their homes. We’re on a small street. Almost no traffic.

It’s almost like the guy figured, “Hey, let’s go annoy that foreigner and his immediate neighbors!”

I have never felt so close to buying a bullhorn, finding out where that politician lives, and going on a 20-minute tirade in front of his house about how politicians are pointless irritants in this society.

But yeah, I know… compared to what politicians in the states are doing, this guy was a mosquito next to a case of flesh-eating bacteria. Still, an annoyance is an annoyance.

Why? Because they caved in on filibuster reform. They allowed Republicans to continue the 60-vote supermajority rule without cost.

Complete. Fracking. Idiots.

What are they thinking? What do they think they have accomplished?

They have just guaranteed that Democrats will be able to accomplish less than nothing for the next several years. With filibuster reform, they would have been able to get important presidential nominees passed, instead of just low-level positions they made room for here. They would have been able to pass legislation and at least force the House to face it. And were it possible for Democrats to take the House in the midterms—not likely but still possible—real progress could have been made. Vital progress.

What, do they think Republicans will be nice and not obstruct any more? Idiots.

Do they believe that if they lose the majority in the Senate, then Republicans will let them use the filibuster? On anything?

What’s a word stronger than “idiots”? Imbeciles? Schmucks? Chumps? Dumbasses? Nothing in the thesaurus seems to do justice.

If Republicans take control, the first thing they will do is make damned sure that Democrats can’t pull the same crap that the GOP has been getting away with and will continue to get away with. Democrats win nothing by being weak now. Not a thing.

In Virginia, a single Democrat goes to the Inaugural and Republicans ram through a non-census gerrymander. In Virginia and other key states, Republicans are gearing up to go nuclear on the gerrymander and rig the electoral votes so that even if a Democrat wins a striking majority of votes in the state, the Republican candidate will still win most of the electoral votes.

In short, they are now planning, overtly and outright, to literally steal the next few presidential elections—and you jackasses believe that they will play nice and fair with the filibuster?

Oh, you poor, brainless, pinheaded…. There are no words. You have failed us. Maybe there would not be much you could have done even with filibuster reform, but at least there was a glimmer of a chance. Now you have pretty much caved in and told the Republicans, “Go ahead, roll right over us. We’re stupid. We’ll let you.”

Am I over-reacting? Maybe. But like I said, if nothing else, this is at the very least symbolic.

Republicans are destroying this country. And Democrats are letting them.