1) - I've trotted out this, my variation on a W.C. Fields/P.T. Barnum/"Canada Bill" Jones aphorism, before, with another pic (the @tassagency_en photo from the Oval Office of the @WhiteHouse the day after @realDonaldTrump fired @Comey). I've reset it to another photo. Here's why: 
2) - The original aphorism read "... to let a sucker keep his money." It had to do with being conned, and with being an easy mark for a con artist. It's almost a Categorical Imperative for such a scammer, when faced with an easily manipulated/fooled mark.
3) - Now, transitioning the saying from "money" to "country" gives it political relevance today. There are credulous, manipulated people now, just as there were in America's early years, even our colonial times. And there are prosperous and powerful users of the gullible public.
4) - One version of the American success formula holds that the schemers who got to the top - often perfectly legally - are truly deserving of their leadership roles, having been clever enough and ruthless enough to succeed. This is what I'm talking about in a political context.
5) - Unscrupulous powers have used the gullibility of their fellow Americans to rise to the top. Unscrupulous preachers & politicians have lined their pockets legitimizing & accelerating that rise. Why shouldn't they have succeeded, if We the People were dumb enough to let them?
6) - Why shouldn't they? Perhaps because the Constitution, and good moral and ethical principles behind good government, don't just favor the strong or the successful. We as Americans have a duty - whether religion-based or simply compassion-based - to lift up the fallen, ...
7) - ... to welcome the stranger, strengthen the weak, & appreciate the individual - even if that one has not accumulated a hefty stock portfolio, become undeservedly famous, or heard a voice from Heaven telling them a really cool way to bilk multitudes out of their life savings.
8) - In a way, it almost seems karmic, attractive: When a people has been foolish enough to fall for con artists and reject voices of sane, compassionate reason, what more just deserts than to let them be ruled by the gaudy king-wannabes they've so lavishly praised?
9) - But anyone can be fooled, even we. And centuries of psychological, sociological and technical advancement have made fooling people to fuel your rise to profit slick, easy, ... and normal. The word$ of the$e profit$ are indeed written on the $ubway wall$ and tenement hall$.
10) - The Who in a sardonic political song don't hold out much hope that we "won't get fooled again." But we can certainly learn from having been fooled, & I daresay the future of our nation depends on learning. We also must work, be active, to undo what our gullibility enabled.
11) - A first step might be to rigorously identify con artists among us who enjoy undeserved power given to them by our gullibility. Are they politicians? Are they profiteers? Are they prosperous preachers? Would you be surprised or dismayed if they were all of the above?
12) - At least one major religion - I'm thinking of the one in which I was raised - speaks of dire consequences for con artists in preacher clothing who manipulate gullible innocents in the name of a Divine entity. It speaks of a deeper moral wrong in doing so. (matt18:6)
13) - I hope those seated at the Successful American's Table - you know, the one that excludes us - are paying attention.
America is about to go back into the hands of the People, not just the few who have scammed us for over 200 years.
Reject Manifest - and MAGAfest - Destiny.
America is about to go back into the hands of the People, not just the few who have scammed us for over 200 years.
Reject Manifest - and MAGAfest - Destiny.
