The atmosphere is so heated, and the statements are getting more and more extreme. Let’s just assume Harris wins the election. After a campaign like this, how could you ever have a normal relationship with your pro-Trump neighbor/father-in-law/Uncle/Barber or what ever again?
There hasn’t been any normal for 8 years plus now. Somewhere between 30 and 45% of the population are openly trying for fascism.
Realistically it’s only a matter of when unless we make some pretty damned sweeping changes which they are going to fight tooth and nail.
We need to unrig the judicial system. We need to unrig the voting system. We need to put guardrails up on media disinformation. And we need to start holding some of these fucking politicians accountable for openly lying in campaign. We need to roll back the dictator privileges they managed to shove in at the last moment for the president. We need to hold some of these oligarchs accountable for crimes.
They should lock Musk up for a month. Go ahead and have him shit himself that he’s not above the law.
I don’t know who the next Republican president will be. But you can bet money there’s going to be plenty of bloodshed once they decide to do whatever they want with complete and total immunity.
Way longer than 8 years. Depending on your perspective and level of privilege, it’s been decades, generations, or the entire history.
Things got bad after Obama got elected in 2008 and the racists lost their shit. But they were also bad after Bush started two wars, or when Bush got installed as preznit in the first place in 2000. Or when Gingrich went after Clinton’s penis in 1998. Or when Gingrich took over the Congress in 1994. Or when Clinton first got elected in 1992 and the racists and militias lost their shit and started bombing things. Or the year before that when the other Bush started a war. Or when Reagan broke multiple laws and got away with it, thanks to Ollie North. Or when Reagan got elected in the first place in 1980. Or when Nixon broke enough laws flagrantly enough to get impeached in 1974. Or when he bombed the shit out of SE Asia. Or when Johnson started a war in Vietnam. Or… I mean it just keeps going endlessly. But that’s just my lifetime. If you are Black or Native American the fuckery goes back as far as when white people first stepped foot here.
If you just tweak what you’re looking at a little bit you can easily move that statement back to all of recorded history.
I’m sure the sentence for everything Musk has done has to be far more than a month (the election stuff aside, he has some shady financial stuff surrounding the purchase of Twitter and probably Tesla stock, etc). They need to lock him up as long as they would lock up the rest of us if we did that.
how could you ever have a normal relationship with your pro-Trump neighbor/father-in-law/Uncle/Barber or what ever again?
…Why would I want to? Seriously, why would I want to have a relationship with people that have shown me that the things they value are antithetical to the things I value? I don’t give a fuck if people are nice to me; I want people to be kind across the board.
Our inability to compromise is deliberate.
We can’t organize if we can’t compromise.
We are supposed to hate our neighbors. That makes any kind of organizing impossible.
There are some things that you just can’t compromise on.
You don’t. You accept the fact things are progressively getting worse and move on
You live through enough of these “Most Pivotal Elections” and the effect is muted.
I remember Bush winning in 2004 vividly, the soul-crushing realization that Americans were ready to continue the relentless slaughter of Arabs for another four years with a fuck-you kicker to anyone LGBT looking to come out of the shadows and get married. (Nevermind the shady vote counting in Ohio).
That was after the 2000 election was stolen in full view of the public by a nakedly corrupt court.
“How could so many people be so blaise about this shameless disregard for democracy, civil rights, and rule of law?”
But then 2008 rolls along and suddenly I’m surrounded by conservative revanchists who want to talk about secession, because a black guy just won the presidency. And it begins to occur to me… “Oh, I’m just living in a fascist country”.
Now, having familiarized myself with US history a bit more, another fascist winning in one more corrupted and propaganda soaked election cycle makes perfect sense.
I don’t think Bush ever sunk to the depths of the Hitler-like rhetoric that Trump and his cronies have been using, however. Maybe the guardrails will hold if Trump wins again (or loses again) but this is not normal.
The Bush administration pioneered the theory of the unitary executive, which is the idea that the president can do anything because he is the president. They’re the ones who kicked over the guardrails, they just did it in the context of an endless war that they started. For more on this I recommend Sheldon Wolin’s work.
Not rhetoric, but deeds. I bet Bush killed far more people than Trump did, even including COVID mismanagement.
Great point about the relentless slaughter of Arabs. So easily forgotten how many innocents America slaughtered during this time period. America is morally rotten to the core, high on its own supply of hatred and cruelty.
I wish you were wrong, but I know you’re not.
This is the new normal. It’s everyone angry all the time until something snaps or the culture changes. Personally I believe you have to wait until the older part of Gen X is dead before we get relief.
You don’t. Most of us have already either fully cut-off contact with Trump supporting family members or limit our interaction with them heavily. Our country is rotted to the core, and this election won’t be the end of it. Even if Harris wins, there will be contestion of the results. There may even be a successful coup by the Republican party. A civil war is not out of the question.
There is no normal. There won’t be ever again.
this is normal. half the country is composed of backward degenerates.
24% is backwards degenerates. That’s the percentage of the population that voted for trump in 2020. No where near half, no matter how much they may claim to represent half.
Non-voters are complicit in what is happening. Maybe saying they are as bad is a stretch, but they clearly either don’t care or are ignorant about it.
Yeah. I was sloppy in my choice of words.
hope my older relatives fucking die or figure out it’s time to change. on a more serious note, protest and try to help build coalitions against this but idk it seems quite grim.
This has been the norm since 2016. Until the GOP unilaterally rejects Trumpism, this will be how it is every four years.
You sure there is a ‘every four years’ then?
You’re right, the other side of the coin that I forgot to mention is, “Trumpism wins and turns America into a fascist dictatorship”.
Only on day one he said
Ah, so we’re only going to be subject to the whims of a fascist dictator for the first 24 hours? What a relief! And it’s a good thing he’s got a track record for voluntarily and peacefully giving up power, or else I might suspect he wouldn’t think twice about holding on to that power until his dying breath. /s
Hmm due to text based communication, what I said was in no way meant to be pro trump, I wanted to clarify
Ah, your comment reads to me like you were emphasizing “only” day one, implying that he would relinquish that power the following day. Happy to hear you elaborate on what you meant.
Yeah, I see how it could have come across as making an excuse for him. Of course being a dictator for a day would be all he needs to make it eternal.
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Don’t worry, there’s the insurrection and riots next.
My wife is predicting a civil war. I can’t help but wonder what our role will be in it.
Any countries who are not sliding into fascism that would be interested in hiring two well-educated adults? I really love Germany, and despite some German heritage, it’s too far removed to be of value in gaining citizenship or a passport. We visited Germany in the spring of 2016 (and heard, several times, “WHAT is going on in your country?”) and she loved it, too.
Here in germany we’re sliding into facism as well, again x.x
Our second most voted party here is super disgustingly far-right and gets more and more votes each election - even tho multiple states declared them unconstitutional and there are talks to ban the whole party because it’s a danger to democracy and our constitution.
The most voted party is conservative-right and at least by name based in Christianity. They see themselves more in the center, but tend to be a bit to the right from it, at least in my opinion. And some of the top politicians there are saying some really disgusting right shit as well. The party isn’t really fascist, but populistic and a bit right-leaning, known for corruption, power-hungry)
Therefore I think germany might not be the best choice if you want to flee facism
(Disclaimer: Constitution = Grundgesetz. Please don’t nitpick that our constitution is technically not a constitution. Thanks)
Yeah I saw that about Germany. Unfortunately, if even Germany is sliding that way, it’s hard to imagine anywhere else not doing the same…
How far away are they really? German rules about that are fairly lenient and courts have expanded them a bit recently.
Maybe any other EU country you could qualify for? Ireland is often a route some US citizens take - once you have their passport you are free to move wherever you want.
Pretty sure my great great grandparents were German. I’d have to double check that. My grandmother’s maiden name is pretty German Jewish, but I can’t recall at the moment whether she was a first generation immigrant or not. I did some research on this a few years back, and I would have to look at my notes to confirm.
It’s a little confusing because there’s a actually some German heritage on both sides - the grandmother above was my father’s mother, but there’s some on my mother’s side, too.
Americans are obsessed with genealogy, and I spent some time on it during the pandemic, so I can tell you I’m some odd fraction German, which you usually can’t get to, like 5/8ths, because it comes from both families.
Damn, that is exactly one great to mTuch. If you’re great grandparents (mainly your great grandfather)would be born on German soil it would have been easy.
If your heritage is (even partly)Jewish(or you can prove that there was prosecution for other reasons) and you can prove that they lived in Germany (and left before the war ended) there are special rules and you might be eligible.
My wife is predicting a civil war.
I don’t think the police or the military are particularly divided on who to support. A coup maybe.
But liberals won’t be putting up a fight once the media starts labeling them Hamas/Hezbollah and you can’t post your pink pussy hat on Instagram without getting put on a list.
Any countries who are not sliding into fascism that would be interested in hiring two well-educated adults?
There’s always Ireland. Mexico is looking pretty good right now, given the flood of cheap imports and the resurgent manufacturing sector.
Depends on who wins. They’re only insurrections and riots when brown people and leftists do them.
The next J6/Charleston will be covered more favorably than the '64 March on Washington was, now that Bezos et al have shown their colors.
I think it’s fantastic because know it is very clear who I need to exclude from my life.
I’ve cut out all Trumpers after Jan 6 2021 basically except for maybe my wife’s parents. I’m afraid to ask them. All of us have a spoken agreement to not bring up politics because we all have to see each other and don’t want to fight. A major caveat to that is that we see them as little as we can though.
It is now easier to identify political whackadoos and disengage.
I moved to the bluest neighborhood in a blue town in a purple county in a bluish purple state. I actually enjoy talking to my neighbors about politics now, I can out out positive messages without getting my house egged.
It is now easier to identify political whackadoos and disengage
I would have said that four years ago, but between Elon’s Twitter and COVID anti-vax hysteria, it feels like crazy people are coming out of the woodwork.
I don’t want a normal relationship with my Trump loving neighbor. He and his racist wife can go fuck themselves. Their signs and banners told me who they are. I’m choosing to listen
What you see in the news and on social media doesn’t paint a true picture of what daily life is like here for people. Most of Trump’s supporters aren’t the hateful bigots that the Internet makes them out to be, they’re just convinced that he’s the lesser of the 2 evils. This is why you see that his rallies are empty and he’s still polling at ~47%.
Most of the deepest Trump cult fanatics live in communities where that is more prevalent, like rural Alabama, so if you don’t live where they live, you just don’t really encounter them. And if you do live in those areas, you’re already used to the rampant racism because it’s always been there.
So me and my immigrant wife will still go visit my pro-trump uncle for his annual pig roast, because he’s not a bad person, he’s just a moron. I’ll still call my conservative mother every week because she’s not threatening to kill me for voting blue, she’s just consumed too much anti-Kamala propaganda. My religious sister is still welcome to visit because even though she’s an idiot, my nieces are freakin adorable and I love them.
I assume you’re not in the crosshair of Trump policy once he gets elected? Because for some people threats to their life and voting Trump are about the same thing.
You continue to tolerate your family tolerating and even choosing hate and bigotry, even if they themselves don’t exhibit them to your face. Your uncle IS a bad person.
So say they cut their family off and now have no support network. Now what?
You continue living without having to entertain hateful bigots? It’s worked out pretty great for me.
There’s a middle ground. Not talking won’t convince anyone, either.
But realizing that certain people are bad people because they express their values through certain votes is important.
E. g. you can not attend the roast and cite their political views as the reason, especially with the recent (and constant) hate on immigrants. That doesn’t mean they’re cut off.
That’s the funnest part of all: we don’t
