How did the Dope help you get through the clusterfuck?

Politics & Elections
1

On this, the last official day of trump’s so-called administration, I want to have a thread to acknowledge the companionship and support that each of us sought and (mostly) found at the Dope during this long, painful slog through the swamp, which BTW got expanded, not drained.

I joined the board in 2010, and for the first several years I NEVER went into the Pit or the Elections forum (as it was called then). Since the trump campaign and <choke> presidency, I’ve visited those two forums constantly, where every day I found good information, breaking news, great (sometimes brilliant) analysis, humor, validation, support, and oh yeah, occasionally an ass-kicking. It’s all good, and I thank every one of you.

We’re not done with trump, but we’re done with the official trump clusterfuck. Now all we have to deal with is a life-threatening pandemic :roll_eyes:-- but somehow that feels doable with him gone.

There will still be plenty to talk/argue/fight about in the Pit and the Politics & Elections forum. Our emotions, sanity, and opinions will still be in play. The Biden administration will be rocky, celebrated, opposed, admired, maligned, and it will face challenges we likely can’t imagine yet, but ultimately it will not go down in history as a total clusterfuck. That shameful distinction belongs to trump alone.

So Dopers, chug those drinks, fasten your seatbelts, and make sure your tray tables are in their full upright and locked position, 'cause we’re cleared for landing!

2

I started relying on this board to be my main social media connection once the work from home order was given by my company on March 13th. The fact that it dovetailed in with the Trump administrations constant escalating of political outrages made it an even better choice in hindsight.

I have found that the people here helped me sort through all of the media noise by providing me with a one stop shop of information from both sides with moderated commentary instead of just shoving one point of view in my face. Granted we lean left here but we haven’t excluded meaningful commentary from the right and have not shied away from fighting ignorance from the far right.

I look forward to the beginning of the end of the clusterfuck and getting back to mostly answering questions in GQ and not getting so much into the P&E/Pit discussions, which generally is distasteful for me.

I look forward to having a POTUS that actually wants to do the job and will take on this pandemic seriously. I look forward to not having to read the news everyday and find out the POTUS is a two faced self serving liar that doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he is in it for his own personal gain and is striving to be a dictator. I look forward to having qualified people in positions of power in DC and having them all hold open press conferences for the world to see that sanity has returned.

Without the contact with the people here at the Dope over the past year to remind that people of good conscience still exist I fear I may have gone even further into depression. Many days the interaction I’ve had here is the best thing that happened all day. Thank you all.

3

I’m pretty crazy. I’d be crazier without youse guys.

4

The Election Day (later week, month, year) thread was a Godsend for assurance that Biden was going to come back from behind in the swing states, like PA especially. The county-by-county analysis of how the voting trends were clearly leaning towards Biden was comparable or superior to what they were saying on the talking head news networks.

Also just the camaraderie was great, and really helped me not freak out that trump might hang on.

And that was just one of too many threads to list that have really helped me get through the past 4 years. Thanks y’al!!

5

I was very active on these boards several years ago but then dropped off due to general time constraints (I’m looking at you, supervisory position and homeownership). Earlier this year, my wife’s involvement with QAnon became extremely visible and totally unavoidable. When the pandemic struck and I began working from home, I felt extremely isolated, as my only companionship was essentially my hyperpartisan wife and her equally Trump-loving friends (our cats do not share their political opinions).

The Dope boards came to my emotional rescue, like some digital Mick Jagger. Just knowing that there are like-minded people who are able to express themselves thoughtfully and with common sense and humor - unlike the comments sections in e.g. The Hill or on Fox - made me feel not so terribly, terribly alone.

6

SDMB has been my most consistent news aggregator and source of intelligent discussion about this administration. This was heightened by the pandemic, which increased my desire to connect with people (not just read news) on line. All of you have been a super resource and sometimes a welcome font of entertaining commentary.

7

What susan said. :slight_smile:

8

Me, too. I don’t have the stomach to read RW news and boards, so I’m eternally grateful to Dopers who have waded in there and shared their findings.

9

The SDMB definitely helped me keep my sanity during the ongoing clusterfuck. My biggest complaints are that (a) between all the Trump threads, and Stupid Republican Idea of the Day, and others, it was often hard to keep up, and (b) I would remember a brilliant post from somewhere, but then when I went back to look for it I could never remember what thread it was in.

10

First, let’s not count our chickens before they’re entirely hatched. There’s still a lot of potential for some kind of shenanigans today and tomorrow.

That said, I think the Dope gave me a sane place to discuss these things when a lot of the other people I know were losing their minds about various things, be it the onset of the pandemic in March and the subsequent lockdown, the George Floyd/BLM protests of the summer, the second wave of the pandemic firing up in the fall, the ongoing dumpster fire of Trump’s presidency and the events of Jan 6th.

I could always count on finding calm, sane and well-reasoned voices to be heard here, if nowhere else. Even if I didn’t agree with them entirely, it was something of a mental refuge to be able to calmly discuss things.

11

@Daithi_Lacha, I think I remember you mentioning that about your wife in another thread. If I didn’t say it then, I just want to express my sympathy now for your predicament. I have it bad enough with an 18 year old son, living at home with no college plans and no job prospect at the current time, who is a hardcore trumper, loudly and frequently expressing his opinions about how the election was stolen, trump is the best President EVAR and how Biden is an eeeevil commie puppet of China.

I’m very grateful my wife and I have mostly the same political views. Even with George and Kellyanne Conway, I think she is not really a true believer and knows what BS she spewed in service to trump. I cannot imagine being married to a MAGA / QANON true believer.

Here’s hoping she can eventually see the error of her ways in the coming post-trump era! I read that disinformation about the campaign dropped 73% after trump’s socMed feeds were cut off, according to Zignal Labs. So I think a lot of this CT craziness in general has been fed oxygen from having trump’s support, and will fade in the coming months and years.

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/534587-internet-misinformation-dropped-73-percent-following-trumps-suspension-from

12

Thanks for the kind thoughts. She keeps darkly hinting that big things are coming but I’m hoping that’s wishful thinking on her part as well as continual-goalpost-moving on the part of shadowy others.

What makes this so awful is that she’s Irish and when we first met and started dating, she was exceedingly proud of Ireland’s semi-social structure and robust ‘safety net’ programs. Now she excoriates Ireland almost daily. She has essentially become the mirror image of the woman I married 25 years ago.

I am fully expecting a phone call/knock on the door from the FBI for an ‘aiding and abetting’ conversation one of these days.

13

Yeah, this. Y’all kept my spirits up for four years, then you kept my blood pressure down when it looked like Trump would win at the polls, and later when it looked like he’d win by treachery.

Thanks, gang.

14

I’ve been registered here about 15 years, but hardly used it much (was mainly just reading Cecil’s columns) and never looked at Politics. In summer 2016, I deleted facebook, in part because the politics there were getting nasty and personal and badly feeding my anxieties. After browsing around, SMDB became the perfect balance of intelligent discussion, immediate news (y’all filter Twitter so I don’t have to), reasonably like-minded, generally analytical before raising anxieties, and much less of an echo chamber than places like Reddit. Really kept me sane these past 4 years, thanks all!

15

Same here – except sometimes our conversations devolve into “who hates Trump more.” I’m not ashamed to say I frequently bring evidence from the SDMB into our talks to “see” her outrage and “raise” her with more info and insight. :grin:

16

I seldom post in the Pit or P&E, but I read them at least daily. I find it odd that the BBQ Pit has been my main news aggregator and pressure relief valve. I would only pop in very occasionally after finishing reading the other forums I’m interested in in the pre- Trump times. When he was elected, I became a full time reader, looking for solace and like minded commentary, which I mostly found.

Thank you to everyone who would help me shape my opinions, look at the right wing news sources, or actually watch Trump on TV, something I couldn’t make myself do.

17

Yep, same with my son-- he’s saying now that the 20,000+ Guard troops in D.C. are actually there for trump, and tomorrow are going to arrest or execute Biden and reinstall trump as the rightful heir to the throne. Or conversly, if by some chance that doesn’t happen and Biden does become President, a new civil war will break out, and well, ya know which side has more guns.

I’m hoping after inauguration, and after a few weeks go by in which we settle into a normal, relatively boring Presidency, people like my son and hopefully your wife will gradually come to their senses.

18

Once he was elected I shut down all US broadcast news sources, it was ‘all Trump, all outrage, all day, all week’ etc. WAY too much for me! I began taking all my news from Foreign sources, much better! (BBC,SCMP,CNA,etc) I Still gets one story about the reigning stupid, but it’s short and to the facts largely. That helped a lot.

I also jettisoned most Canadian broadcast news because, American shenanigans overshadowed most Canadian stories, nope, nope, nope!

So, the dope proved very valuable. I could (if I so chose, was in the mood…) catch the latest insanity, in short blurbs, with solid documentation, and often important details NOT mentioned in the news. At minimum a breakdown on why X is actually horseshit, and Y is only misleading.

Pretty much the only broadcast news I’m doing these days is the top 15 mins of our local broadcast. Sometimes it nice to see your mates on the news, ‘Hey! I know that guy!’

I have to say it’s been a big improvement and I don’t foresee making a change back any time soon.

19

I’ve been around since maybe 2003, not posting much, and the amount of time I would spend here would wax and wane over the years. I would also frequent other forums, mostly revolving around hobbies, but the Dope is the place I’ve found and never left.

I’m not sure when my period of intense, daily multiple visits began, but it was very likely early-to-mid 2016, when Trump’s campaign/shenanigans began a steady flood of outrage (okay, maybe it was 2015). I would check in every few hours to see the latest crap (and he spewed enough crap that six hours ago was old news); many days I felt like if I didn’t keep up, I would somehow be losing something, or failing.

From time to time, I worried if I was being overly influenced by the Dope’s leaning to the left. Others have used the term ‘echo chamber.’ Since I don’t frequent other forums, maybe I was only getting half the story, or I wasn’t being open-minded enough. But then I remember there are no monolithic opinions here; no one is in lockstep. There are some intelligent posters here, offering differing opinions that all have some degree of sense to them. Plus there’s all of these links to news stories, from all kinds of sources, and the resultant discussions.

THEN I remember that there is a subset of conservatives that never does what I constantly do to myself: they never question what they believe, what they’re told. They’re supremely and unshakably confident that they’re in the right (no pun intended). I am definitely the opposite of all that. I don’t always recognize that I’m doing it, but I tend to mistrust or oppose authority. If there’s an argument going on, I knee-jerk fall on the side that’s NOT being loud and aggressive, at least at first.

So if I worry that I’m being exposed to a single viewpoint here at the Dope, I remember that this place is composed of hundreds of posters, no two alike (again, no pun intended about snowflakes). If I worry that I’m in the wrong regarding my own beliefs and feelings, I have to remind myself that that’s a GOOD thing; the ‘bad’ guys never question themselves. The ‘good’ guys can generally be identified by their assertion that they don’t have all the answers.

So if my (lurking) presence here at the Dope the past 5 years or so has bordered at times on obsession, and my involvement in the tangle of politics has never been more intense and informed in all my 60 years, well…that’s a price the ‘good’ guys have to pay. We ain’t saints, but we are trying to fight ignorance.

Thanks to all of you.

20

This:

And this:

But especially this:

And kudos to whoever it was that created the spreadsheets that were tracking the minute-by-minute voting results, especially the one in Georgia. As those numbers got updated and it became a little more apparent that Biden was going to carry that state, I began to breathe a little easier.