# God help you America.... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 11, 2017, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862 "2017-01-11T08:06:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/41 "2017-01-12T05:01:33Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > The people of a huge part of our country are broken. Trump is a symptom of how broken these people are. So It’s probably 8 years. This is my view. I don’t know if I agree with the 8 years part, but I agree about the people. People keep acting like Trump came out of nowhere, but he and his antics represents the hopes, beliefs, goals and values of tens of millions of Americans. Those people will still be here after Trump leaves office, and they will find someone else to vote for who represents their values and goals. If you tried to implement Swedish or New Zealand democracy on the people of Iraq or Somalia, it will not work. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/42 "2017-01-12T05:03:10Z")
> [@HeweyLogan](#): > > Amazing. > > The sky-is-falling mentality is strong with you. > > What is it with your party that you have to be the grimmest, most fearful people there is? Experience. We remember what happened the last time you people put an incompetent moron in the White House. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/43 "2017-01-12T05:20:11Z")
> [@HeweyLogan](#): > > Amazing. > > The sky-is-falling mentality is strong with you. > > What is it with your party that you have to be the grimmest, most fearful people there is? > > What happened to the party of hope. > > I hoped Obama would work out at first. As much as I disagreed. > > Why can’t you"\* (The Democatic base) > > Why act worse than what your criticized and mocked only a couple months ago Pretty sure **Ryan** is a Brit. As for me, what should I be hopeful for: the fact that Trump has put white supremacists in his administration? The fact that he has bragged about sexually assaulting women? The fact that he’s promised to deny health care to 20 million Americans? Or maybe that he’s promised to start a ground war against ISIS? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/44 "2017-01-12T05:25:40Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > He only lasted 26 years. Just sayin’. [This guy?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joh_Bjelke-Petersen) > [@](#): > > Bjelke-Petersen’s Country (later National) Party controlled Queensland despite consistently receiving the smallest number of votes out of the state’s leading three parties, achieving the result through a notorious system of electoral malapportionment that resulted in rural votes having a greater value than those cast in city electorates. The effect earned Bjelke-Petersen the nickname of “the Hillbilly Dictator”. […] > > Bjelke-Petersen was unable to recover from the series of damaging findings and after initially resisting a party vote that replaced him as leader, resigned from politics on 1 December 1987. Two of his state ministers, as well as the police commissioner Bjelke-Petersen had appointed and later knighted, were jailed for corruption offences and in 1991 Bjelke-Petersen, too, was tried for perjury over his evidence to the royal commission; the jury failed to reach a verdict and Bjelke-Petersen was deemed too old to face a second trial. So he wasn’t actually popular, he just benefited from the ardent support of a vocal minority of reactionaries plus unscrupulous gerrymandering and chicanery. Yes, it does sound familiar. But it also sounds like something we may be able to learn from. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/45 "2017-01-12T05:33:16Z")
> [@HeweyLogan](#): > > Why can’t you"\* (The Democatic base) Hey, I’m happy to support the Trump administration in doing anything that’s actually constructive. At present, though, their only discernible plans seem to be a mix of palaeoconservative attacks on civil rights, reproductive rights, etc., unscrupulous electoral manipulation to suppress political opposition, unrealistic rhetoric about things they don’t actually intend to do and don’t have a plan to pay for if they did do them, and the same old supply-side shibboleths that have been enriching the 1% at the expense of stability and prosperity for everybody else under every Republican president since Reagan. I don’t see any use in being gloomy or fearful about that, but I’m certainly not going to be subservient and unresisting under it. And I don’t think my fellow Democrats should be, either. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/46 "2017-01-12T05:55:20Z")
> [@HeweyLogan](#): > > Amazing. > > The sky-is-falling mentality is strong with you. > > What is it with your party that you have to be the grimmest, most fearful people there is? > > What happened to the party of hope. > > I hoped Obama would work out at first. As much as I disagreed. > > Why can’t you"\* (The Democatic base) > > Why act worse than what your criticized and mocked only a couple months ago Hope is a good idea when there’s good reason to have hope. What possible reason is there to have hope right now? We’ve elected someone as president with no understanding of economics, domestic policy, foreign policy, diplomacy, or anything else, with a temperament well-suited for posting angry things on twitter and not much else. We have been waiting for the promised “pivot” for the entire election, and ever since then. We’re still waiting for him to show any actual competence at his job. What we’ve seen is that he’s nominating people to his cabinet that believe their own department either shouldn’t exist or shouldn’t be able to do their job, holding fake press conferences where he refuses to discuss policy, throwing out in equal measure meaningless platitudes and insults to the news sources covering him (except Breitbart, which at this point is basically Pravda for Trump), and bragging about keeping a thousand jobs here or there in the country while ignoring how utterly insubstantial and meaningless those kinds of numbers are. Why should we have hope? You assholes elected a completely incompetent candidate. And you can call us grim if you want, but god _damn_ is that rich coming from someone whose party was collectively in fucking conniptions about Obama being a secret fascist gay muslim who was going to take our guns and implement martial law. At least what we’re worried about isn’t based entirely on paranoid delusions. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/47 "2017-01-12T06:08:25Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Y’all seem to be assuming Trump will last four years. I foresee he either resigns from office or gets impeached. That’s assuming he doesn’t die first. ETA: One way or another, that’s going to be one very interesting state funeral. In which case, Pence is president, and I’m not sure which is worse. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/48 "2017-01-12T06:15:57Z")
> [@Trancephalic](#): > > And to think the biggest profiteer of political discord in western civilization is Australian. > > More likely a bunyip in a vaguely human guise, methinks. I’ve tried to come up with candidates for ‘bunyip in a vaguely human guise’ but it continues to elude me. Care to elaborate? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/49 "2017-01-12T06:32:03Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > That’s assuming he doesn’t die first. ETA: One way or another, that’s going to be one very interesting state funeral. I’ve got just the Hawaiian shirt for the occasion. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/50 "2017-01-12T06:44:25Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > EIGHT years? Man, I’m trying to picture a 78-year-old Trump, and it ain’t pretty. > > And how will he manage to get his tiny little dick stiff for th’ Russian pee hookers? > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I don’t think the prostitutes care if it’s stiff as long as they get paid. Yabbut you remember that Trump is kinda notorious for _not_ paying, right? ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/51 "2017-01-12T07:02:23Z")
I guess I’m not really focusing on economic or legislative changes (of course, they will have a massive impact too) but more the internationally-recognised ‘ethos’ of America. Americans were always the ‘cool kids’ wot with movies and music, and hamburgers and OMG, just everything cool. Americans were innovators and inventors and architects and engineers. America was the friggin MOON LANDING for gawdsakes! I watched those first steps on the moon when I was 9yrs old. In Australia. In a regional town. On a black and white telly. America was the country that every other country emulated and just wanted to be. In those days you didn’t have a mustard-coloured dick as your soon-to-be POTUS. I wish you well, and hope that your President doesn’t ignite WW3. God Bless America indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/52 "2017-01-12T07:04:34Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > [This guy?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joh_Bjelke-Petersen) > So he wasn’t actually popular, he just benefited from the ardent support of a vocal minority of reactionaries plus unscrupulous gerrymandering and chicanery. > > Yes, it does sound familiar. But it also sounds like something we may be able to learn from. Yep, sorry it seems the 19 years for which he was premier just felt like 26. ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/53 "2017-01-12T13:06:45Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > America was the friggin MOON LANDING for gawdsakes! And now we are the only country able to reliably send probes and robotic explorers to every sort of object in our solar system, especially Mars. Our probe, Voyager 1, is the first man made object to travel into interstellar space. Voyager 2 will soon be the second. Our citizens have pioneered private space travel. Our satellites are the ones finding a vast majority of the extra solar planets that is shaking up our view of the potential for life other than our own in the Universe. We are still the only ones to have sent people to the Moon and will likely be the first to send people to Mars - if we feel like it. We have been so thoroughly dominant for so long that we’ve actually had mind-boggling feats of engineering and science such as the shuttle program that we later decided wasn’t worth it. You can thank the USA for just about every beautiful, awe-inspiring image you have in your head of our solar system and beyond just as you can thank the USA for just about every awesome thing done by humans in space. No other nation even scratches the surface of these accomplishments and what relatively little they have accomplished is basically the result of our work. If you are not in awe of what the USA has done and continues to do in space then you are not paying attention. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/54 "2017-01-12T14:37:17Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > And now we are the only country able to reliably send probes and robotic explorers to every sort of object in our solar system, especially Mars. > > Our probe, Voyager 1, is the first man made object to travel into interstellar space. Voyager 2 will soon be the second. > > Our citizens have pioneered private space travel. > > Our satellites are the ones finding a vast majority of the extra solar planets that is shaking up our view of the potential for life other than our own in the Universe. > > We are still the only ones to have sent people to the Moon and will likely be the first to send people to Mars - if we feel like it. > > We have been so thoroughly dominant for so long that we’ve actually had mind-boggling feats of engineering and science such as the shuttle program that we later decided wasn’t worth it. > > You can thank the USA for just about every beautiful, awe-inspiring image you have in your head of our solar system and beyond just as you can thank the USA for just about every awesome thing done by humans in space. > > No other nation even scratches the surface of these accomplishments and what relatively little they have accomplished is basically the result of our work. > > If you are not in awe of what the USA has done and continues to do in space then you are not paying attention. If that’s what you got from kambuckta’s post, then you’re not very good at reading comprehension. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/55 "2017-01-12T15:59:03Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Maybe he’ll pull a Len Bias. He doesn’t even drink, much less snort coke. People keep ascribing his behavior to being high. No, his behavior is who he is. Trump’s sobriety is extremely well documented. [QUOTE=nearwildheaven] In which case, Pence is president, and I’m not sure which is worse. [/QUOTE] Trump is worse. Trump is not a little bit worse; he is not, like, ten percent worse. He is orders of magnitude worse. If you arranged all the Presidents who ever served in a list, with Abraham Lincoln or Washington or whomever at #1, someone like GEorge H.W. Bush around the middle, and Franklin Pierce at #44, Pence would probably end up below #40. Donald Trump’s name, however, will come after ten or fifteen blank pages beyond your list. There’s only 45 Presidents if you could Cleveland twice, and Trump will still be 593rd. Michael Pence is a cruel, small-minded bigot and would be a bad President. He would, however, be a President; he is sane and level-headed, and would do the best job he knew how to keep his country stable and safe. He would not sell state secrets and American policy to a foreign government, as Trump will or has already. To borrow from P.J. O’Rourke’s comparison of Hillary Clinton to Trump, Pence may be wrong, but he’s wrong within normal parameters. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/56 "2017-01-12T16:02:13Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > And now we are the only country able to reliably send probes and robotic explorers to every sort of object in our solar system, especially Mars. > > Our probe, Voyager 1, is the first man made object to travel into interstellar space. Voyager 2 will soon be the second. > > Our citizens have pioneered private space travel. > > Our satellites are the ones finding a vast majority of the extra solar planets that is shaking up our view of the potential for life other than our own in the Universe. > > We are still the only ones to have sent people to the Moon and will likely be the first to send people to Mars - if we feel like it. > > We have been so thoroughly dominant for so long that we’ve actually had mind-boggling feats of engineering and science such as the shuttle program that we later decided wasn’t worth it. > > You can thank the USA for just about every beautiful, awe-inspiring image you have in your head of our solar system and beyond just as you can thank the USA for just about every awesome thing done by humans in space. > > No other nation even scratches the surface of these accomplishments and what relatively little they have accomplished is basically the result of our work. > > If you are not in awe of what the USA has done and continues to do in space then you are not paying attention. To be fair, the Europeans landed on a comet, which was an amazing achievement. Scientific achievements are not exclusive to Americans. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/57 "2017-01-12T18:09:37Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > And this coming from an Australian atheist no less! Don’t get too complacent. If American goes down we’re dragging the rest of you lot down with us. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/58 "2017-01-12T18:33:20Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > And this coming from an Australian atheist no less! > > Fucken hell…I hope you guys can survive the next four years, and come out the other end not totally broken. > > ☹ We won’t, but thank you. My late husband and I came extremely close to moving to the top of the South of NZ in 2004. He was a native, also had Aus citizenship but we preferred NZ. I nixed the move at the eleventh hour and we moved to Oregon instead. I love Oregon, and NZ may well have kicked me out when (if) my husband had died there. All the same, in recent times I often think it was the dumbest thing I ever did. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/59 "2017-01-12T18:45:33Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > A new Great Depression will change most people’s lives. As will the imposition of a new version of Jim Crow and replacing secularism with theocracy. > > And it’s Trump and the Republicans, not just Trump. > > Hope is dead; the monsters have won. Everything of value in this nation will be destroyed. The Democrats will be disenfranchised, imprisoned or executed as part of the religious, ethnic and political purge that is coming. There’s no hope there. > > The future of America is a tyrannical plutocratic theocracy ruling over a starving, terrorized populace and a collapsed economy. Buy gold! ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862/60 "2017-01-12T19:07:44Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > If that’s what you got from kambuckta’s post, then you’re not very good at reading comprehension. No, you’re not very good at reading comprehension. I won’t tell you why either. > [@BobLibDem](#): > > To be fair, the Europeans landed on a comet, which was an amazing achievement. Scientific achievements are not exclusive to Americans. Not exclusive, especially when you move out of space science/tech, but we are in a category of our own when it comes to accomplishments in space science/tech and we’ve been way ahead since the first moon landing. I’m not looking down on other nation’s achievements. I enjoy them every bit as much as I enjoy our own. But if you looked up to America with the cool stuff in technology and culture in the past, then there is no reason based on the pace of our accomplishments to cease doing so now. We are being prayed for precisely because our political culture is a fucking mess. We’ve let the southern and midwestern degenerates get too loud. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-help-you-america/776862.md?page=4)