Are you speaking of your next door neighbor, your cousin, some college professor in civics class, or a talking head on CNN or Faux? Remember that the Reactionary Right is claiming everything they are doing is to defend glorious and perfect American Democracy from the predations of the evil Left.
I hope you understand that each of those speakers has different motivations. “Consider the source” has been sound advice since the Ancient Greeks.
Speaking just for me, I’m motivated to speak about anything, be it trivial or profound, because I desire someone to have the information I’m imparting. For the purpose of informing / altering their decisions. Generally to what I predict is their benefit, and usually to mine as well.
I do not give a shit what the info does to their emotions. I want altered behavior, not altered feelings. Feelings are useless until they lead to behavior.
I think the catch is that you’re assuming that the doomsayers know it all and are right. This is clearly not true, if you look at the historical record.
Just look at all the doomsaying that went on back in the day- “the world’s going to end in a nuclear WW3!” It was really shrill, and irrational to the point where some people were so afraid that they were advocating policies that were counterproductive and more likely to let one side or the other feel like they had enough of an advantage to actually start some shit, which would have actually been bad.
But it didn’t turn out that way, did it? Nope. No nuclear war, no WW3, nothing close to that actually happened. So the doomsayers were absolutely, totally, and unequivocally wrong in that case. There’s no reason to believe that they’ll be right this time around either- in all likelihood, there’ll be a path that’s somewhere between the rosiest of outcomes and the worst of the outcomes- probably close to the middle in fact. Sometimes it varies a little bit, but usually the worst does not come to pass, just like the best rarely does either.
So basically there’s always a competing opinion and always alternatives to the doomsaying, so don’t put too much credence in it.
I sure hope @Leaper’s username is not a reference to a penchant for standing on high places considering a leap into oblivion. In the OP they assert they’re fine in terms of suicidal ideation. I hope that is actually true.
Not quite the focus of what I’m asking about. I did in another thread I started, but not this one.
The important part is that the doomsayers in question themselves fully believe what they’re saying. (Though obviously not all do.) What I’m saying is, when I read someone, from a random Doper to a nationally exposed pundit, say something like “we’re screwed” or “American democracy is over if Trump is elected [and he is],” I hear an inherent message they’re trying to send me and persuade me of: it’s hopeless, your life will be ruined, the fascists will come for you and your friends and put them in camps.
It’s not about believing them in this case. I’m saying they are sending and trying to spread that message, whether deliberately or not.
No.
While you didn’t believe me the first time, I suppose you have no reason to believe me now, but no.
Bumping this thread because, for obvious reasons, emotions and fear is higher than ever, and I’m still not sure that certain posters on this very board wouldn’t advise me to abandon my life, smother my kids, etc. If they’ve given up hope, and say so repeatedly, thus actively arguing against having any hope of any kind, what else am I supposed to think?
This is overthinking it, IMHO. Politics has become a sport where there is a winner and a loser. People following politics closely, when on the losing side, will throw-up their hands like that when it’s “game over”. Life doesnt really work that way. You get knocked down, you get up again, no one’s ever gonna keep you down.
Sure, we’re in the process of watching events unfold right before our eyes that we’d prefer to not be happening. There’s not much we can really do about it. We’re mourning what we thought would happen, what coulda been. The game is lost, but life goes on. For anyone catastrophizing about the election, for example, it may be healthy to take a news break. I am, and I am quite confident I feel better for it. That is something each of us can do.
We don’t know what’s going to happen. Don’t try to fill in the blanks with the worst case scenario. Don’t assume, don’t panic, and don’t make a rash decision. That feedback loop leads downward.
Adding to my comment regarding taking a break from news, also dial back exposure to the toxicity of social media. I found this post over on reddit to be of interest (I hope it’s okay to share here) which discusses how effective foriegn actors are at making us divided and depressed and defeated, thus giving up:
They’re not trying to persuade anyone of anything, for the most part. They’re trying to express strong feelings. I kinda wish they wouldn’t, because a) as you say, vulnerable people may take it literally; and b) everybody else eventually gets sick of the hyperbole and tunes it out. (Honestly, that is where I am with a lot of left-wing rhetoric at the moment, and I have to keep reminding myself that some of the stuff Trump is actually doing is legitimately very bad.)
You’re supposed to think that they are not talking to you. They are simply talking to space. To vent, as explained by @snowthx and @Fretful_Porpentine just above.
For every such utter-doom-and-gloom type there are as many or more people arguing for just soldiering on as best we can. It is a shortcoming of your personality that you notice the former and ignore the latter. And it’s that differential attention that causes you so much angst and trouble.