Nope, not a thing. In fact, suggesting such a thing borders on sous weed talk. Although you can make popcorn balls sous vide with already popped corn.
I totally believe concern trolling is a thing, but I see it as ripe for abuse. “I’m a feminist but I think XYZ approach is counterproductive to the cause” might be seen as concern trolling when it’s me trying to persuade others who share my goals from being so reactionary. In that case it’s just an accusation used to shut someone up.
I don’t think HMS is a concern troll. There’s a sliding panic scale here on SDMB, with me probably being a 10 on that scale. He just sees the glass being half full, but he was clear that he sees there are problems
I personally disagree that this is the time to take solace in the fact that the system ended up working. I think it’s time to panic – but not in the “All is lost, there’s no hope” sense, but more in the “If we don’t reverse this now, we are asking for some very serious trouble, and this will creep up on us sooner than we realize” sense. We should be thinking “What would happen if…” and “What would we do if…”
I think that’s been my “schtick” and k9briender’s “schtick” as others have labeled it the last few years. I see the US at a crossroads. When it gets to the point when we wonder whether someone will refuse to certify an election because he simply has the power to do so, that’s a blaring warning siren. This is not simply part of the sausage making that goes into a democracy; that’s an attempt to subvert and disenfranchise millions of voters. It’s an attempted grand theft of representation for millions of citizens.
I agree. I’m thinking that the next time the Republicans get a guy elected (it will happen eventually) the Democrats have an incentive to stick it to them and delay the transition, both as a retaliatory measure and because clearly there is nothing legally forcing that to happen. If anyone thinks the Democrats are above that sort of thing, I disagree; if it helps fire up their base in doing so or confers any sort of political advantage I don’t doubt they would. That’s politics.
I think part of the reason why there has been this sort of “gentleman’s agreement” is not just because it’s better for the country (I’m too cynical to believe that) but because they don’t want the other side to do it. Now that the agreement has been breached I worry about the wrong precedent being set here.
This is well said. I would add, speaking of “working for everybody,” that if you think the “goodness” of America has changed in a material and permanent, or even a quantifiable, as opposed to stylistic, way in the last 4 years, you are probably not a person on the global margins.
I do think there is a fundamental difference between what the two parties value, in large part because of their demographic makeup and life experiences.
Without question there are democrats who would advocate sticking it to the next GOP president out of revenge for Trump’s shenanigans, but by and large, I don’t think that’s true of the Democratic base as a whole. Look at what Democrats are voting for in this election: they’re voting for a more inclusive democracy; the Republicans, one that’s much less inclusive. Democrats support facts and fair play - I heard few, if any, Democrats say they’d refuse to accept that outcome of the election (short of something outrageous like Russian hacking into voting machines).
I’m not necessarily saying that Democrats are flawless, superior humans, but they value the kinds of things that make a democracy work. Those who voted for Trump may have truly believed that they were doing it for the good of the country, and that he was a throwback who said racist things but really wasn’t all that bad as he was made out to be – I could leave some room for that. But on the whole, we know that there are a lot of voters out there who against the spirit of democracy.
I agree with HMS and others who say that politics has always been messy - no doubt about that. I would agree that there’s a precedent for authoritarianism in American politics. There’s a precedent for racial politics. There’s a precedent for conspiracy theory politics and anti-democracy. But you have to go back a long way in our history to observe what we’re looking at now. The gentleman’s agreement of which you speak came probably as a result of people who lived through those times coming away with the distinct feeling that America couldn’t survive long as a functioning republic unless it learned from its lessons and started down a new path. We have a strong civil service today, for example, because people came to the conclusion that the rewards system sucked and that the U.S. wasn’t going to function well unless something changed. Same reason we have a Federal Reserve. Same reason we had a New Deal, and so on.
Hopefully this is a blip of insanity and both sides realize that being petty around elections hurts both sides equally and America as a whole, and things get back to “normal” relatively speaking. It helps that this has gotten a lot of negative attention across the country and internationally. Rather than this being a new trend, maybe this is just the final outrage from the Trump organization, like a rude and unwelcome guest letting out a noxious blast of flatulence to stink up the room as he’s being tossed out of your house.
Has it, though? At least “a lot” with respect to what it actually represents an attempt to do?
If I were name-your-Republican-hopeful, I think that at this point even in the most optimistic scenario for the country (which is to say, the scenario where there is nothing left to be litigated, inauguration day comes and goes, and Trump is just a guy in a golden scooter somewhere tweeting), I think I would be saying to myself that man, Trump wasn’t even good at any of this! He was good at getting the crazy people to come vote for him, and ignore a lot of his actual actions as a person and a politician, and I would make note of that. But while his disordered personality led to him putting a lot of authoritarian pressure on all the systems he came into contact with, he didn’t have much of an agenda. He didn’t do a good job of trying to do the things that it seemed like he was trying to do, given the stuff that he said.
And, more to the point, I think, I would be noting that the Republicans don’t really seem to be paying that much of a price for not doing anything at all about any of this. They did pretty well, overall, in the election. They’re getting bad press, but I think it’s closer to the same old, same old bad press than the kind of press you would like to imagine a Beer Hall Putsch would get in 2020, when it’s all out in the open and on the internet. It’s not like there’s a general belief that Republicans are in big electoral trouble moving forward; hell, the betting markets (not that those are facts, obviously) think Mike Pence, who is Donald Trump’s running mate and hasn’t said or done anything, has a better chance of being president after 2024 than the guy who actually won the election.
So I mean, I hear you in terms of the fact that you started your post with the word “hopefully,” and we’re on the same page there. But if you were a total scumbag on the younger end of your political career, and you were quietly observing all of this play out, do you think your overall take on it would be that all of it was noxious and unsustainable as a political ethos? Or do you think it would be, christ, if Donald Trump, who doesn’t even know what the government is, could do this…
I say “a lot” because it seems to be dominating the headlines in respectable mainstream media almost to the degree that Covid 19 is. That isn’t going to impact people in a right wing bubble who only trust their partisan sources, who I assume are just talking about how the Democrats are getting away with rampant fraud as evidenced by anonymous anecdotes and doctored photographs. But to the vast majority of people it is not being ignored and there is outrage. Hard news, not editorials, but hard and objective news sources are comfortable calling Trump out for speaking falsely, which you don’t see often. Usually you hear about claims being “questionable” or “controversial”, or things that are “unproven” or where falsehoods are “alleged”. The AP and the like are not pulling their punches in calling out his bullshit.
As far as whether there is a warranted amount of negative attention? Is there enough to match how bad it is? Probably not. What they’ve been trying to do is so bad that I don’t think any amount of media attention is enough. I don’t think any amount of talk is enough. I think such a blatant attempt at subverting democracy needs more than talking about it. Something needs to be done legally in my opinion. What that is, I don’t know. But I don’t feel that talking about it will be enough.
Probably not. As I said, I think that something has to be actually done about it. Consider all the “controversy” that came about during Trump’s presidency, and how so much came so often that people got numb to it. I can’t even say that Trump really had anything amounting to a “scandal” because it was 4 years of outrageous shit from beginning to end. All the bad press didn’t mean anything, because people who liked him were going to like him no matter what, and everyone else who loathes him will still loathe him. No amount of finger-waving and shaming is going to do anything.
I didn’t mean to drop this Pit thread and walk away, but yesterday was busy with some crap. Today is busy too, but at least I’m not preoccupied with a $50,000 bank error.
I really didn’t want to pit you here, and I’m pretty sure this is the first time that I’ve pitted a poster (I think), but there was too much to say that apparently did not belong anywhere else.
I don’t think that that is a fair characterization. I think it is the opposite. Folks have been told so many times, “He can’t do that.” and then he does it anyway, that people are not mollified by the assurance that “He can’t do that.” anymore.
It’s not that we think that he can do anything, it’s just that we are not taking it for granted that he cannot.
I’ll agree that that’s a bit of a fine line, and I can see that one may take the perception that people are being irrationally pessimistic here, but I think that it is perfectly rational concern and, as I like to say, vigilance.
Yes, but, from day one of the dumpsterfire’s administration, he’s has been breaking laws and rules with no consequence. So, sure, there are still laws and rules, but the question is whether or not those laws and rules will apply here in this case, when in so many others, they have not.
The very fact that he even filed those 36 lawsuits is concerning. The fact that every single republican official and politician did not call out the wannabe fascist for what he was is concerning.
He’s certainly trying to pull of a massive heist, and too many of those who should be on guard against that are looking the other way, or even waiting in the get away car.
I think that you are right, I hope that you are right, but the consequences if you are wrong are pretty dire. It’s worthwhile to be prepared.
I run a business, and one of the reasons that I have been successful is because I prepare for all contingencies I can imagine, even unlikely ones, as even the unlikely happens from time to time. I don’t like being caught flat footed. Bad things happen, and that’s life. But when bad things happen that you are not prepared for, that’s time for panic.
I entirely disagree with this assessment. There is a huge swath in between all and nothing here. At the very very least, we are left with a weakened nation and democracy, we are left with less confidence in our electoral system, on both sides. And, to be honest it is not a given that this works out in the end. The fat lady is yet to sing.
It’s not “woe is us, all is lost”, it’s “holy shit, that’s fucked up.”
It’s not the explanations as to why he cannot win that are what I consider to be some form of trolling, if not necessarily concern trolling, it is the descriptions of the mental states of other posters. It’s frustrating, and not very helpful, to have concerns dismissed as just hand-wringing or terminal pessimism, or any of the other descriptors you choose to use. I see it as pretty insulting, it definitely irritates me, and seems to have really bothered @Snowboarder_Bo. As I said in ATMB, his response was out of line, but it wasn’t really unprovoked.
And most of the time, I agree with you. You do have 2 paragraphs in that thread that actually touched on the subject of the thread, explaining what you felt would hold the shit gibbon at bay, but pretty much everything else was putting people down for having concerns.
If you are not concerned about the mental state of other posters, then don’t describe the mental states of other posters. If you are concerned about the mental states of other posters, then that’s not your job.
Just lay off the personalizations, the descriptions of your impressions of other’s mental states, and dismissing out of hand other’s arguments as people freaking out.
As a white cishet male business owner who primarily caters to the 1%, I personally could end up being slightly better off.
The problem is, I want democracy to be healthy and to be working for everybody, and I think that the last few decades have seen quite a bit of progress in that direction. We still have a ways to go, but if we look where we’ve come from, I’d say we’ve come a long way.
What I see is that progress of American democracy has faltered in the last ten or so years, and has actually started to take a few steps back in the last four. If we do not get it back on track, then I see some problems cropping up, not just for minorities or other marginalized demographics, but for anyone who values this experiment of self governance kicked off a couple centuries ago.
I don’t know that this leads to civil war, but I don’t know that it doesn’t either. I don’t really want to have that happen, though I know that there are an unfortunately large number of people that are looking forward to that.
Nah, I think you started at a 10, and broke the scale from there. 
At the risk of undermining what I said previously, there were some times that I was a bit worried about your mental state.
Strangely, as some of the things that you were worried about came to pass, you seemed to calm down. Which goes to my idea that you panic about the things you are unprepared for.
I don’t like describing that as “panic”, but other than that, yeah.
At the very beginning, around the time of the inauguration, I described him as an authoritarian. I got a bunch of pushback on this, being told that he would not be allowed to be. I pointed out at the time that I didn’t say that he would succeed at implementing an authoritarian govt, but that he was an authoritarian. If you look at how he ran his businesses, how he ran his family, how he simply orders people around and expect them to know how high to jump, he is an authoritarian.
I did not think that it would be healthy to have him in office, but I was assured that I should have confidence in our institutions to keep him in check. And to some extent, it has worked. That is the “Deep State” in action, the very checks that have kept him from oozing his way through our democracy is the very thing that he attacks the most. Our institutions have held up, so far.
He’s no mastermind, you can see that from the string of failed businesses he left behind, you can see that from how he has managed to grow the wealth that he was given by substantially less than he would have if he had just invested in index funds. That doesn’t mean that he’s not dangerous. Rot and termites are not that smart either, but they’ll bring down your house. He seeps into and corrupts everything that he touches, he tests the restrictions on his power, and pushes against and tries to corrode them.
If there is any crack in our democracy for him to exploit, he will. I think that we have a solid foundation, we paid for the vapor wrap and everything, but he is relentless and if there is any flaw that he can exploit, any weakness he can take advantage of, he will.
Gaming out scenarios is not pessimism. It’s not fatalism, or “woe is me”. It is practical and useful. It is to give us confidence that we take a flashlight into the basement and look for cracks, and it gives us time to be prepared if we find any.
This is a money quote right here, and very true. I’m in full agreement: Trump is a dim bulb intellectually, but he’s smart like a career street criminal. And like a criminal, he frequently operates on impulses that are self-destructive, but he has a radar for human weakness, and he is on it within seconds, like flies on fresh shit.
Donald Trump is probably gone from politics for good, and he may be gone from public life for all we know, having suffered a humiliating defeat. But Trump has shown other authoritarian figures what they can get away with. I don’t think it’s too late to save our republic, but we’re running out of time. The next 2-4 years are going to be critical.
Hey, let me edit that for you.
“Trump is a dim bulb … career street criminal”
There, better. But in all honesty, this is what he is, he is cunning (not smart but has good gutter instincts) and vicious and attacks anyone who crosses him. Sure he uses lawyers to do it, but it’s still applied violence. He isn’t smart, or he would have been able to grow the money given him much more effectively, but he is convinced that he is the smartest person around. So yeah, a street thug who has a bunch of money, and therefore lawyers to weasel his way out of being in the pokey.
And, back to the issues brought up with HMS in the OP, and echoed by many other posters. It isn’t wrong to worry about a street thug who thinks about using violence. Whether it is a literal one, or one dressed up in a cheap suit and orange dye. Especially when you see said street thug has been repeatedly arrested and released in your neighborhood, while the cops seem to be cheering him on for being such a cool guy.
Exactly. I lost sleep throughout this October because I was worried that Trump would thread that 10% needle fairly and squarely (as he shoved a rope through the 30% cleet in 2016, mostly fairly and sqarely). Sure there are some concerns about shenanigans if it was really close, but if Trump had won, I’d be extremely sad…but not adamant that he’d actually “lost.”
Democrats are rightly disturbed that so many Trumpists really do exist. We don’t have some illusion about their numbers, or ours.
Failure isn’t proof that it was impossible for him to pull it off.
Sorry for the double-post — but I think this needs emphasizing (maybe in its own thread).
Maybe it’s obvious, but it just occurred to me that, by denying the factual result of an election, that person is saying that CERTAIN HUMANS LITERALLY DO NOT EXIST. It’s quite bizarre. It’s like denying the existence of Austria, or Zimbabwe, or Sri Lanka.
Like so many of the deplorables’ “thoughts,” it is a sickening blend of anti-factual stupidity, and insulting (often racist) sociopathy. They’re saying that millions of actual, living, breathing people DO NOT EXIST.
Biden voters do not think such things. They are appalled, disheartened, and bewildered that 73 million deplorables walk among us, but the don’t deny their very existence (nor that their geographic distribution happens to magnify their power — including their chances of winning the presidency — in our current system).
Why do you think this is probable? I think it’s probable that he’ll take his millions of salivating cultists and continue his cult, perhaps through personal appearances, perhaps through a new TV network. He will continue to crave attention and seek to get it in the most destructive manner possible. It may constitute a constant political insurgency disrupting the normal flow of government. Why do you think he will just disappear?
He might get his own TV show on OAN or Fox and troll the libs and insist that the election was stolen from him every time he appears - I could see that. But the man is 74 and he lost on a national stage. He’s also very likely going to have a mountain of legal issues to sift through over the next few years.
I appreciate that big deconstruction and it’s too much for me to take on all at once, so I’ll just share some choice responses here.
Anybody can file a lawsuit. There’s nothing we can do to stop people from filing lawsuits, nor should we. I find it concerning that the President of the United States would behave this way, and the Republican party wouldn’t stand up for him, but we know all of those entities are fucking garbage. The fact that these lawsuits are getting squashed like flies on the windscreen should be both heartening and informative. We knew Republicans are garbage, but we know the system is working.
No, I am absolutely and 100% correct on this. Trump cannot steal the election and he will not, full stop. All protestations to the contrary follow the “underpants gnome” theory of manifestation, to recap:
- Steal underpants.
- ???
- Profit.
Nobody has ever showed me a realistic step 2 for this, and I’ll be entirely vindicated on or before Jan 20th. Nobody will congratulate me for it, but you’ll know I’m right, unless your definition of right involves “technically correct but not scared enough.”
I didn’t state I’m concerned about their mental state because I’m not. Actually I’m annoyed by it. Their mental state subjects the rest of us to these panicked underpants-gnomes reactions that are literally impervious to reasoning through. And not only that, when people express the view “OMG he can do anything and he’ll win”, his adversaries take this as encouragement. So it’s annoying and harmful and I’ll continue calling it out, but not in such a dick fashion anymore.
Anyhoo, that’s out of the way, I’ll agree that damage to institutions is a very big and separate worry for me. But not the election. The election and its aftermath are proof of what worked, not proof of what failed.