Personally, I just feel burned out. I’m still outraged and angry in theory, but after eight years I think I’ve lost the ability to maintain those emotions 24/7.
Yeah this is where I am as well. Things are worse, but I’m burned out on fretting about it.
Plus, it’s not like 2016, where the race was close enough, and the Russian interference was blatant enough, that it seemed like the difference was made by underhanded means that could be legally remedied. America decisively expressed that it wanted 4 more years of Trump. There’s no getting around it. This country is every bit as bad as it’s always seemed.
Yeah. it’s hard to panic if you don’t know exactly what to panic about. It will be something, but not the thing you expect.
If this makes any sense, of all the predictions I made about Trump, more than 50% were wrong because Trump was Trumpier than I thought. Just when I’d resigned myself to think he’d do the most evil thing possible, he’d break in the direction of stupid, mean, and greedy, with no small measure of trolling the libs. It just seems like purposeful evil because it’s so gleefully harmful. But his real priorities are:
- Protect his own ass
- Gain as much admiration, wealth, and power as possible, by any means possible.
- Delight in antagonizing and punishing whoever challenges #1 and #2, as viciously and publicly as possible.
It’s that last item that worries me most. It’s what drives most of the harm, and it’s the easiest thing for him to do. I really do fear that we will face loyalty tests at the DoJ and DoD early on, putting them on the back foot from day 1. Within 6 months we’ll be praying for this corrupt SCOTUS to intervene and halt the ideological purge.
If I had to guess how the above is wrong due to not being Trumpy enough, then he might be so excited about deporting migrants, and deluded about its feasibility, that he pursues that on day 1, which will be a lot harder to pull off.
At any rate, Liz Cheney and all the feisty never-Trumpers need to be seriously weighing their options right now. They’re not safe.
But…she has a Presidential pardon, and the undying friendship of her new Best Gal Pal, Kamala Harris! What could go wrong? The Constitution will protect them, right?
Stranger
Trump won the popular vote by a very small margin. I expect him to overestimate and over play his mandate. He needs to provide his lower income white supporters and his lower middle income white supporters with better economic numbers. I do not think he can. I do not think he cares.
I don’t think this poses a meaningful challenge for Trump, primarily because nothing about those ‘economic numbers’ has to be even remotely true.
MAGA!
Hell, the dysfunction and infighting is our best hope for democracy. The GOP controls all three branches of government, even if by just a few seats in Congress. If they get their act together and start actually passing laws that Trump wants, we’re screwed. Our best hope is that their internal contradictions are sufficiently deep and solid that they don’t get their act together.
As it stands, there’s very little that the Democratic Party can do (legally) to stop these guys. Lawsuits won’t do much when the Supreme Court is in Trump’s pocket. Does the OP want the Democrats to just say, “Fuck it”, and start the civil war? Sorry, democracy in the US may be on its deathbed, but we’ll leave it to the GOP to actually kill it off, thanks.
People magically think the economy is already better from October to November. All of those narratives about people hurting were essentially bullshit. Take a look at the chart in this substack called Personal Financial Situation Compared to Five Years Ago. Trump will just take credit for the economy that was already good, but people thought was bad.
I agree with the sentiment behind the OP. When the election had wrapped, I went into a pretty depressive and started thinking about all the things I could do to prepare for the new future. Buy guns? Stock up on supplies? Start making arrangements to move out of state/country?
Shortly thereafter I found a post on a leftist prepping subreddit that was basically targeted at people like me, and can be summarized thusly: You’re not going to consume your way into preparedness, you prep now by learning how to be poor. Learn how to live off bulk rice and beans, do your own canning, etc. Think back to the shortages during COVID and figure out how you’d live without access to basic necessities. It made a lot of sense, and it also highlighted how ill-prepared I really am mentally to live with some of these possible futures.
That’s kinda how I feel about Democrats on the national stage. Nobody’s really doing a lot, but also nobody really seems prepared for how to handle this. Elon Musk and Trump tweets are still dominating the conversation, but meanwhile, the Project 2025 architects are working with the Trump transition team to come up with lists for every executive department. Lists of who’s loyal and who needs to be purged. There are going to be high visibility actions, like attempts to round up and depart immigrants en masse, but there are going to be thousands more small changes to departments across the federal government that are going to have effects lasting for decades. That’s what we need to prepare for – the erosion of our government and decades of incompetence leading to us (collectively as a country) being more poor.
For one, that’s a hard thing to prepare for, as I now know. And two, I think there’s a sense among Democrats of, “Yes, let’s watch the country get ruined, because maybe that’s what it will take to finally wake up Republicans and turn the political compass.” Because… what else can we/they do?
I also saw a truism recently about, “Americans can’t fix their country’s problems so they work to get rich enough that those problems don’t affect them.” We may be seeing some of that among the left as well, now.
Apropos of steronz’ excellent post, I’d like to share this wisdom from the highly recommended Skepchick blog:
You could just go out and buy a gun right now, which would immediately increase your risk of dying by homicide or suicide, and also increase the risk of those around you. Or you could go to your local gun range and take a lesson. Meet some people. Join the gun club. Personally, I think that BECAUSE guns are so common in American society, every adult should go out and learn how they work, how to disassemble them, and how to safely handle them. Now instead of increasing your risk, you’ve joined a community and learned new skills. It’s a win-win. And yeah, if the Revolution breaks out, you can still go buy yourself a gun and join your neighborhood militia if that’s what your heart desires.
No he doesn’t, he is now President for life and never has to run again. He has no reason to care or keep any of his promises.
No he doesn’t. He just needs to make sure they’re doing better than the people they hate. It’s not necessary to build them up, he just has to tear down the Others.
I understand the impression, but I question how much anyone CAN do until they have a specific action to respond to. I am confident that Dem leaders - nationally/statewide/local - will do whatever they can to minimize the harm Trump and others can do, and improve their chances in 2-4 years. It is near impossible for me - sitting in my armchair - to intelligently opine what they ought to do. They are far more expert as to their options than I (or, I suggest, most dopers.) For the time being, I’m putting a great deal of faith in the efforts of Dem leaders. So far, Gov Prtizker seems to be doing what he can.
That describes me as well. And it isn’t just 8 years. I date my personal disillusionment back to at least 9/11.
Right now, I feel my greatest focus needs to be on protecting the mental health of myself and those nearest to me. That takes considerable effort on my part. I tend not to be the most positive, happy-go-lucky of guys even when things are going well. And I do not have a “happy” and fulfilling job. I’m not sure what being “angry” will accomplish - other than making me less happy and less pleasant to others. I don’t see that there is much need to even discuss Trump. He is a horrible person and will be a horrible president. His administration will enable many horrible persons/entities to do many horrible things. I’m not pretending that that won’t happen, but I am not going to allow that to dominate my mind.
One of my kids is VERY angry, and has expressed his disappointment that his mother and I do not share his anger. But I’m not sure how he perceives his anger as helping anything, or how he is translating that anger into productive action. He does not tend to be the most positive individual in the best of circumstances, and his angry response does not impress me as improving any aspect of his life, relationships, or mental well-being. I hope he is intelligent enough to not express his anger in manners that have significant unfavorable implications for his job, etc. (He works for a large defense contractor.)
I think a lot of us feel the same. I very rarely get angry or worked up by anything Trump says or does and it’s been like this for years. Once in a while his antics will get to me, but for the most part I just accept this as a normal aspect of life. For a relative value of normal at least.
Trump’s lower income and lower middle income whites will know whether or not they become better off during Trump’s second term. Trump can fool them about a lot of things. He will not be able to fool them about pay checks that buy less, and jobs that are harder to find.
But will they know? Suppose inflation spikes because of his insane tariffs but the sheep are told it’s all the fault of Obama and Biden. The MAGA base are the dumbest people on the planet and it is yet to be seen where the bottom of the barrel is. They might just lap up any excuse that is put in front of them and keep voting red because- well because of trans people. Or fentanyl. Or the border. Or Greenland not surrendering.
But they will also not blame T***p for their problems. It will be the Jews/Blacks/immigrants/feminists etc the same as it always has been.
Ages ago I read how sometimes orca would bump into a baleen whale harassing and distressing it until it would give up and let the orca eat its tongue. I didn’t understand how the whale could just give up like that. I do now.
Then all the people on the SDMB who insist that Biden was unfairly blamed for inflation, because the President has absolutely no control over the economy, will change their minds.
By and large, the president has virtually nothing to do with the economy, unless he does something absolutely batshit crazy like imposing what amounts to a national sales tax on imported goods and material. If you can name a specific thing that Biden did to cause inflation please share with us.
Does it have to be true?
If not, then how 'bout Biden’s War on Energy (11pp PDF)?
[One more time, Kids: correlation <> causation]