NSFW THE TRUMPOCALYPSE

Status
Not open for further replies.
Spang said:
As we spend the next four years resisting Trump, it's important that we don't also empower the Democratic Party.
Click to expand...

If you're honestly worried about giving the center-left power right now, you've missed the point of this whole thing.

Literally ANYTHING would be preferable to this. George W. Bush waltzing back into office would be safer for a lot of people than this.

I'd hand the Presidency, the majority, and every damn government job over to the Democrats right now on a silver platter if I could. It'd be worth stopping this from happening. This is not the time for petty political grudges.
 
FortyTwo said:
This is not the time for petty political grudges.
Click to expand...
Being opposed to the Democratic Party's treatment of marginalized people throughout the world and in the United States is not a petty political grudge.

Donald Trump is a monster, but we deserve so much better than the lesser evil the Democrats keep giving us every 4 to 8 years, unless this is all we truly want:

tumblr_oc6irbjFWs1sdbhpro1_500.jpg
 
Spang said:
Being opposed to the Democratic Party's treatment of marginalized people throughout the world and in the United States is not a petty political grudge.

Donald Trump is a monster, but we deserve so much better than the lesser evil the Democrats keep giving us every 4 to 8 years, unless this is all we truly want:

tumblr_oc6irbjFWs1sdbhpro1_500.jpg
Click to expand...

Look, I agree with you about this. I've said a billion times that I don't want Republicans or Democrats in power, and I mean it. But what's happening here is a hurricane is coming, and the only path to evacuate everyone from the coast, if there's even a path, leads through a pretty ugly swamp. It's full of mosquitoes and carnivorous plants and surely someone's going to die in there. Now is not the time to be saying that swamps are bad for walking through, that nobody deserves to walk through a swamp. That's not a wrong viewpoint to have. But the alternative is letting everyone stay in that coastal city and having most of them die.

It's a shitty choice but it's the only realistic one we have. The prospect of getting massive Democratic opposition to this is already enough of a long shot. We deserve more than a lesser evil but it's not a choice between two evils and a good, it's a choice between an evil and a lesser evil. And unless you want to engage in some violent political upheaval (which I am also all for, but given that I can barely order a pizza without losing my **** and I can't walk up three flights of stairs without ending up out of breath, I'm not exactly going to criticize anyone for opting out of trying to go up against the strongest military in the world) that's all we're realistically going to have.

Stage a coup if you want and can, by all means. That would be really cool. But for the moment we're stuck with Democrats who give us small victories versus Republicans who are trying to bring us back to the 1600s. The choice is obvious to me.
 
I guess what I'm saying is: incremental change is better than no change at all or worse, regression. We need to demand more, but at the same time, we need to be fully aware of what we can realistically accomplish and we need to avoid sabotaging that due to our principles.

Same goes for third-party voting. It's a nice thought but it's just not realistic and it does more harm than good.

Make the changes you can. Cling to those changes and refuse to let them go. Unless we wipe the slate clean, that's the only way to get anything done.

Inching forward is better than sitting still.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Amy SF
You gotta remember: Quite a lot of people voted for Trump for the most inane reasons, clearly not understanding what the consequences would be. I have no expectation at all that they'd buy what we're selling.

1. I like his hat. Let's make America great again.
2. Let's build a wall to keep Mexican rapists out of the country and make Mexico pay for it.
3. He says what's on his mind.
4. Make America White Again.
5. Muslims are evil.
6. Change.
7. Lock her up!
8. Tax cuts for everyone!
9. Donald Trump can grab my pussy. (A real sentiment coming from women Trump wouldn't ogle for even a second)
10. Make America straight again.

As a reminder, here are the warning signs of what a fascist government/nation looks like. Look familiar?

 Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism
 
FortyTwo said:
If you're honestly worried about giving the center-left power right now, you've missed the point of this whole thing.
Click to expand...

What I am worried about is that the Clinton/Brazile/Wasserman-Schulz/Schumer part of the party now sees this as a momentary setback that can be cured with "more of the same", when they are not busy grooming Chelsea Clinton for her political career or blaming Bernie Sanders voters.

I mean, they are absolutely right. The people who made Trump president were the voters (Republican, Democrat, Third-party) who would have voted for Sanders had the Democrats been smart enough to nominate him. So yes, it is their fault...
 
Those who think that the Trump presidency is going to last four years and that a utopian left government is going to take over in four years are living in lala land. The left can't organize it's way out of a paper bag, unfortunately.

What would be required would be a very organized, widespread effort on the local level that started decades ago.

Instead, what we have is a bunch of people who insist on doctrinarial purity who mistake marching in the streets for a few nights for what it takes to build a political party.
 
Amy SF said:
As a reminder, here are the warning signs of what a fascist government/nation looks like. Look familiar?

Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism
Click to expand...
This webpage says the webpage at your URL is less than perfect:
Fascism: Umberto Eco Slam Dunks Lawrence Britt | Chip Berlet's Blogsite: Research for Progress
So recommends this one instead:
Umberto Eco on Fascism |

(We've also previously discussed Fascism in this thread, which refers to the essay in the URL above.)
 
Jonathan Haidt: Can a divided America heal? | TED Talk | TED.com

This is the most negative partisanship election in American history. So you have to first separate your feelings about the candidate from your feelings about the people who are given a choice. And then you have to realize that, because we all live in a separate moral world -- the metaphor I use in the book is that we're all trapped in "The Matrix," or each moral community is a matrix, a consensual hallucination. And so if you're within the blue matrix, everything's completely compelling that the other side -- they're troglodytes, they're racists, they're the worst people in the world, and you have all the facts to back that up. But somebody in the next house from yours is living in a different moral matrix. They live in a different video game, and they see a completely different set of facts. And each one sees different threats to the country. And what I've found from being in the middle and trying to understand both sides is: both sides are right. There are a lot of threats to this country, and each side is constitutionally incapable of seeing them all.
 
Also an interesting read: Megyn Kelly: Fox News Had to Explain to Trump Lawyer Why It Would Be Bad if I Were Killed

In an interview with the New York Times, Kelly said her experience should be troubling to anyone worried about how a free press might be treated and might operate under President-elect Trump’s incoming administration:

“The relentless campaign that Trump unleashed on me and Fox News to try to get coverage the way he liked it was unprecedented and potentially very dangerous,” she said ... If he were to repeat the same behavior from the White House, she said, “it would be quite chilling for many reporters.”
Click to expand...
 
Whether Trump’s election reveals an “inherent malice” in his voters is irrelevant. What is relevant are the practical outcomes of a Trump presidency. Trump campaigned on state repression of disfavored minorities. He gives every sign that he plans to deliver that repression. This will mean disadvantage, immiseration, and violence for real people, people whose “inner pain and fear” were not reckoned worthy of many-thousand-word magazine feature stories. If you voted for Trump, you voted for this, regardless of what you believe about the groups in question. That you have black friends or Latino colleagues, that you think yourself to be tolerant and decent, doesn’t change the fact that you voted for racist policy that may affect, change, or harm their lives. And on that score, your frustration at being labeled a racist doesn’t justify or mitigate the moral weight of your political choice.
Click to expand...

There’s No Such Thing as a Good Trump Voter
 
Mischief said:
Those who think that the Trump presidency is going to last four years and that a utopian left government is going to take over in four years are living in lala land. The left can't organize it's way out of a paper bag, unfortunately.

What would be required would be a very organized, widespread effort on the local level that started decades ago.

Instead, what we have is a bunch of people who insist on doctrinarial purity who mistake marching in the streets for a few nights for what it takes to build a political party.
Click to expand...

That's really what gets me about this, though. Like, what realistically is going to happen that makes shunning the Democratic Party a viable option? It's the most left we're going to get within probably 50 years.

I believe that direct action is the only way to help, and right now, even the best case scenario arising from the most direct of action would be to get Democrats into office. Jill Stein is not going to show up with an enchanted skeleton army at Trump Tower. That would be amazing, but it's not going to happen.
 
Andy_T said:
Yes, they indeed said "OK, let's gut her" and the editor replied that it would be bad for the Trump campaign if she "got killed".

However, I strongly doubt that they were referring to a physical assassination of a person, instead of the character assassination that goes on in the media (and that they were more than willing to perform).
Click to expand...

I don't think that either Kelly or the article implied that the "gut her" was a threat of physical harm.

Rather, both the article and Kelly herself were saying that the kind of language Trump and his people were using could easily incite his followers to physical violence, and that the Trump people were unconcerned about that possibility to the extent that the guy from Fox had to point out that it wouldn't do Trump's candidacy any good if a Trump supporter did kill Kelly.

In short, much like the fact that at least some people are using Trump's words as an encouragement to act against Muslims, people of color, etc.
 
The whole situation with Kelly is seriously effed up. I mean, I don't like her, she's pretty terrible actually. But no one deserves that, and it just goes to show how vicious the orange man's campaign really was and how vicious his administration continues to be.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom