I’ve been reading posts in this forum for a while. It feels like an intelligent group contributing to smart conversation. I suppose that’s why I feel safe to post. I guess I’ll find out.
First, I’ve been a Democrat my entire life. My parents are blue collar. I lived 15 years in Los Angeles. Recently I moved back to Ohio, my home state. I voted for Hillary. I was excited about the prospect of a woman winning the presidency. I generally agree with the principles on the left. I am starting to see that I was naive, refusing to believe that Hillary was really as flawed a candidate as she turned out to be.
I admit that I for the most part live in a liberal bubble. My contacts on social media, much of the news I ingest, most lean left. As much triumph and hope that Trump supporters feel, the same sentiment is swirling as strongly on the left, but the opposite. Many including myself feel despair and fear. Friends in my circle appear to be turning even more inward, deeper into that bubble. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to not spend any time trying to understand the more conservative viewpoint. I don’t want to blanket label Trump voters as racists, as everyone around me seems to be doing. I want to feel hopeful about the new administration.
Is it possible to have “liberal” principles and at the same time begin to still feel some optimism about the changes coming? Right now I just feel fear, and I don’t know how much I should really be scared vs how much I’m being swayed by my sphere of influence. It’s not lost on me that propaganda is bipartisan. I took the time to listen to the entire Trump victory rally speech from his recent Cincinnati visit, instead of getting bites out of context the next morning on MSNBC. Most of it sounds great. My background like I said is blue collar. I’m well aware of what globalization has done to jobs. What happens to people that can’t find work, and when they finally do it’s for a third of what they used to make. Part of what I do for a living involves working with those people. If he can bring work back to people I’m all for it. It’s all the rest that makes me fearful. I just don’t know what is true and what is blown out of proportion because I spend too much time in a circle that tends to blow all things conservative out of proportion.
I don’t exactly know what I’m looking for. I could very well be in the wrong place. I may end up being laughed at and trolled, but I think it feels good to just write it out. Thank you for reading.
I wouldn’t worry much if I were you. Liberals/Democrats still outnumber, or will outnumber, conservatives/Republicans in this country. And by 2020, America will most likely be so fed up with Trump that all the momentum, numbers, political wealth will be on the left wing. Fact is, 2020 will most likely be a landslide Democratic victory, and the Democrats might control redistricting in the upcoming decade.
Hi Colleen, I’m a leftie and am also new here. I also used to live in Ohio.
I think it’s hard to stay positive because things are so abnormal. Trump spends his time on Twitter, tweeting juvenile insults, instead of having planned press conferences. Trump refused to release his taxes and we have no idea about his business conflicts. Trump’s cabinet picks are also alarming.
You have every right to feel fear at this point.
Trump’s pick for Labor Secretary doesn’t believe in a higher minimum wage, in fact, I think I read he doesn’t believe in a minimum wage at all. I wouldn’t get your hopes up on Trump helping the little people.
My only suggestion is try to stick with credible news sources, like NPR.
(too bad this forum doesn’t have an introduction section)
I disagree with you on some particulars. No, I don’t think ANY optimism is justified yet; a “hope for the best but prepare for the worst” attitude seems more in line with events so far. With respect to blue-collar jobs: those jobs are never coming back in significant numbers, in a way that makes sense for American consumers/the federal deficit/our capacity to innovate. (Also, I’m also a big believer in competitive advantage and global progress; I want jobs for THE WORLD, not just Americans. As I once said to an AFL-CIO person visiting Jakarta, “I think people should have access to jobs regardless of the color of their passport.”)
Overall, though, I agree with your sentiments. I too have been disappointed to see the intellectual and emotional retreat of many fellow liberals. I had always thought we were the ones who were willing to voice common sense principles whether or not a particular situation fit with our preconceived biases, but I guess not, in at least some cases.
I think it is important that we do two things:
Reach out to conservatives/Trump voters and look for common ground. Yes, that is hard to the point of feeling impossible. But somebody has to try. I’ve got conservative friends, and if I want to have a decent conversation with them, it generally works just fine if I start by admitting that Democrats are not perfect and that I once saw a Republican point of view I respected. We may not end up in agreement, but we CAN have a mutually respectful discussion. I’ll certainly respond if a conservative reaches out to me - but I have no problem being the first one to engage.
Stop jumping on every tiny little flaw/mistake of Trump and his team as if it were the end of the world. My fear is that the end of world might actually be coming under a Trump administration. I don’t want to be among the folks who cried wolf so many times that no one will listen to us. Perspective, folks! If Trump is as bad as we think, we are about to be inundated with EVIDENCE that his policies don’t work. Let’s get those facts together before we start frothing at the mouth.
As an example, some people jumped all over Trump for the Carrier thing. I totally get that it was bad and unsustainable, but there are legit arguments to make and those are where we should stay focused. Whining that, “Well the jobs never left so they don’t count!” or “it was 800 jobs not 1100 jobs” is trivial. It’s the BIG PICTURE that matters. If this is a sign of crony capitalism to come, or an indication that tax breaks to big business will swell the deficit, let’s talk about that instead.
I’m guessing you’re pretty young, right? I don’t think anyone over 30 would talk about a “safe” place to post. if you really think your day-to-day life is dependent on who sits in the White House, then there’s probably nothing anyone can say to make you feel better. But seriously, go about your life the way you want to, and you’re going to get to vote again in 2 years in the mid-tern elections, and then in 2 years after that for a new president. We didn’t elect an emperor for life.
Aside from ancient memories of “Liking Ike”–I was raised by a Democratic mother. In Texas. So I was never in the legendary “liberal bubble.” I know that more Texans preferred Trump to Clinton–but my county went for her with a greater margin than we went for Obama. And the down-ballot Democratic candidates did quite well.
I don’t strike up political conversations with strangers. But I’m less concerned about learning to love Trump’s policies than with surviving them–and combating them as well. My idiot ex-governor was named to head the Department of Energy; he is not very bright but is skilled at garnering influence & cash. Especially from the oil & gas folks. And the proposed Secretary of State is another Texan–a Russian-leaning Exxon exec. The late great Molly Ivins called Texas The National Laboratory for Bad Government. These jokers (& the rest of Trump’s cabinet) are not dedicated to bettering the lot of the little guy. Nor are the general Republican policies.
Worry less about how Clinton was a “flawed” candidate–you seem to have picked up the vocabulary of the right. Flawed compared to Trump? Flawed compared to the other Republican “hopefuls”? (The more hopeless of which will get to be in the cabinet!)
Pay attention to what’s going on in Ohio–do find some like-minded folks to discuss the reality of being liberal in a Red state. Do try to get along with the folks who believe Trump–there are other topics for conversation. Read more history to get some perspective–is Ohio history as, umm, “interesting” as Texas history?
Well, that’s a pretty condescending response. We sure do like to welcome our new posters here!
Note she didn’t refer to a “safe place to post,” a la “safe spaces” that are all the rage on campuses today. Her exact words were: “I’ve been reading posts in this forum for a while. It feels like an intelligent group contributing to smart conversation. I suppose that’s why I feel safe to post.”
I took that to mean she was hoping for intelligent conversation, safe from the annoyances of 4chan style wild-assed invective. That’s something posters of any age can value.
And where did she say her “day to day life is dependent on who sits in the White House?” I don’t see it. Further, there are segments of the population for whom that is not an entirely unreasonable concept. An example: my husband’s job is funded through USAID. How likely do you think it is that Trump and his associates are going to promote further expenditures of aid money, especially in Muslim countries (he’s an Indonesia specialist)? Not so likely? Well then, I guess my husband will be unemployed as soon as Trump’s policies take effect. Does that count as my family’s day to day life being dependent on who sits in the White House?
And guess what, John Mace? I’m 58, not a kid, and yes, while I certainly go about my daily life the same as I would if Clinton had won, I AM heartsick about the election results and it DOES affect my outlook on life. For me personally … nah, we’ll be okay, we have savings and we’re getting pretty old. But I have an 18 year old son and I am genuinely worried about the world he is about to enter. Just the impact the Trump administration may have on climate change issues is enough to make me seriously concerned.
As a parent - and even if I didn’t have a son, because I’m one of those bleeding heart types who cares about people I’ve never met - I feel bad because I honestly believe, based on my values and knowledge of the world, that life will be worse for people for many years to come.
Now, you don’t have to agree with my reasoning on that. But to sneer at people whose feelings may very well be predicated on genuine concern for others (and who can offer up well-supported reasoning for their viewpoints), seems unkind. It’s the sort of attitude I struggle not to be discouraged by when I want to reach across the political aisle and find common ground.
A lot of people in the tech field who were strongly pro-Hillary and equally strongly anti-Trump spoke positively and enthusiastically about their hopes and expectations for business and innovation under a Trump administration during a meeting with him Wednesday.
I’ve followed Donald Trump fairly closely over the last 25 years or so and have felt all along that the person he is in reality is considerably different than the one he presented himself as being during the campaign. Still, he said enough that was troubling to me, and enough that made me feel I truly had no idea what he’d really do once elected, that I did not vote for him.
However, in the aftermath of the election he is behaving much more like the Donald Trump I felt that I’d come to know rather than the one from the campaign. He backed off on his “send Hillary to prison” stance, for example, and he appears to be a let-bygones-be-bygones kind of guy when it comes to former adversaries, whether they be former competitors in the primaries or staunch Hillary supporters such as Jeff Bezos.
And he’s certainly proving himself to be a man of action. Literally hundreds of people, friends, strangers and former foes have been summoned to meet with him to discuss a wide variety of issues and virtually every one of these people has been impressed with Trump’s interest in finding a successful solution to their concerns or ways to make things work better.
If you knew more about Trump’s history of promoting women to powerful executive position in his companies (he assigned the construction of Trump Tower, the building he lives and works in, to a woman named Babara Res, one of three high-ranking women in his company at the time way back in the eighties. To be honest she is no longer a supporter, but she worked and thrived as a powerful and highly paid executive in his companies for 19 years beforehand) you may not feel so strongly that he’s sexist in his attitudes where it really counts.
We’ll have to wait and see, but I think Trump is going to be a much different and much better president than people think. Democrats will still loathe him because he differs from them politically, but I think he’s going to be much more of a uniter than people expect, and that he’s going to usher in a new age of innovation and economic growth not seen since the 50s and early 60s. He seems to be quite charismatic in person and quite the charmer when he wants to be, and I expect these qualities to serve him well in bringing people on board with his programs and goals. He can certainly play hardball too when the situation calls for it, and as Harry Reid once said, “Never, ever, ever underestimate Donald Trump”. Or to put it another way, his ex-wife Ivana, a former executive herself, who, in the midst of divorcing him and fearful of the results despite having a team of highly educated and high priced lawyers on her side, once said: “You can’t win! He will always find a way to outsmart you!”
Anyway, the wise course of action right now is to take a wait and see attitude. No one really knows right now exactly what Trump is going to do or how effective he will be at doing it. You might wind up thinking that even though he differs from you politically he’s really doing a pretty good job, or that he’s just so-so, or you might wind up thinking he’s the worst thing to happen to the country since the Civil War. But I would advise you to think and to come to your own conclusions and look to this board for anything approximating a realistic assessment of his thinking or his actions, because this board doesn’t just lean left, it’s fallen all the way over. And I can pretty much guarantee you Trump and everything he does will be criticized bitterly and relentlessly for his entire term in office, as will any comment made here in support of him.
Some liberals understand conservatism more after reading some Jonathan Haidt because he goes into the psychological and moral underpinnings of their beliefs. Here and here are decent overviews.
IME, actual leftists, progressive/socialists/demsocs whatever you want to call them, weren’t so optimistic about Hillary’s chances. They were the ones contributing to her low approval numbers. It was the liberals who were caught off guard. Probably because leftists focus more on class issues, whereas liberals nowadays seem to focus on race and sex. Guys like Chris Hedges, Chomsky, and even Michael Moore were on top of this a long time ago. I think you’ll find this board mostly consists of managerial liberals who thought the GOP was about to undergo a demographic collapse. Already such a prediction in this very thread. As it is the Dems are the ones who just collapsed. Better hope white Hispanics don’t start voting like white people as they get richer.
As for trying to feel positive, maybe Trump will usher in more infrastructure spending. Probably not though, since the other Republicans aren’t on board. Maybe now that there’s a Republican in the White House again the anti-war left will dust off those old “no blood for oil” signs if starts saber rattling with Iran or something. Trump probably can’t do anything too crazy since he’ll be constrained by various institutions. I’m mostly worried he’ll rubber stamp whatever the GOP puts in front of him and America will go through a Kansasification process.
Good post. Do you have more info on the above? (Please take that as a genuine question, not a SDMB “CITE?!!!?” attack.) I would like to read about this. If there is reasonably in-depth coverage illuminating what you say, I will be heartened by it.
I, too, was very much hoping to see someone quite different than the idiot who was campaigning. Desperately hoping so. Even when it started to become clear that it wasn’t going to happen, I still sent optimistic emails to a few people about his meeting with Al Gore. Maybe it won’t be so bad, I said.
Know what happened after that? He appointed a staunch pro-oil climate change denier to the EPA, with the wholehearted approval of another climate change denying imbecile who was overseeing the EPA transition, and another environment-hater to head Interior. Another moderate and “former foe” that he summoned who might have helped redeem him was Mitt Romney, rumored to be considered for Sec of State. Know what happened after that? Yeah, he appointed a lifetime oilman and sycophant to Vladimir Putin to head up the State Department.
But guess what – he got all these “former foes” to say positive things about him afterwards in the immediate aftermath of the meetings – the inevitable sucking-up phase – and then got his revenge by humiliating them with rejection, thus killing two birds with one stone: getting his former enemies to praise him, then throwing them under the bus. I have to admit, even Machiavelli would be proud.
The general pattern has been that just about everyone he’s appointed to head any agency is someone with an ideology that is directly opposed to the purpose of the agency along with an astounding degree of inexperience or incompetence. Among the most mindboggling of the lot is Betsy DeVoss for the Deparment of Education, who has spent most of her life trying to destroy public education, and Rick Perry for the Department of Energy, who once pledged to abolish the department then famously forgot what department he wanted to abolish during the previous presidential debates. Rick Perry thus demonstrating the very best of the Trump Cabinet secretary criteria: (a) believes the department he’s supposed to be managing should not exist, and (b) is comically incompetent.
Really, the only hope is that he will be prevented from doing anything big due to his short attention span and lack of knowledge of anything bigger than a real estate deal. Having said that, as liberals there are some things we can do:
Stop going bugfuck insane over stuff that should have disqualified Trump from being elected. Yes, I know “grab 'em by the pussy” was awful. But that ship has sailed. He’s been elected, and nobody is going to impeach him for having a creepy personality.
Stop going on about how stupid or racist Trump voters are. It may be true, but it won’t advance your cause.
Forget about his campaign promises. The few things that weren’t outright lies are grossly impractical or unconstitutional. He’s not going to deport 2 million Mexicans or go around punching black people in the mouth. None of his voters gives two shits whether he’s actually draining the swamp or locking up Hillary. Terms like “racism” and “white supremacy” have been sapped of all meaning. Let it go.
Stop getting distracted with symbolic, meaningless bullshit. This includes when Trump tweets his unconstitutional opinion about flag-burning, and it also includes the dumb million-woman march. Yes, we know more than a million women hate Trump. Got it. The focus on meaningless symbol accomplishes absolutely nothing except to deflect attention from real, actionable news that could damage Trump.
Focus on Trump’s real failings. Until he’s inaugurated, there isn’t much to go after. But for now, put attention on his abominably stupid cabinet picks. Keep digging into conflicts of interest. Keep a hawklike watch on nepotism. He’s potentially exposed to insider trading charges every time he tweets about a company, industry, or fiscal policy. Never relent on his Russian collusion. Above all, sound the alarm on foolish strategic military moves.
Do resist, obstruct, and criticize everything he says and does without re-fighting the lost election. Act in the here and now.
If we do this right, he and his intimates could end up penniless and incarcerated before the next election. Do it wrong and he gets another term. Choose wisely.
It’s easy to be a liberal in Trump’s world. I was a conservative in Obama’s. Elections are just one event in the political process. They are the most important event, but far from the final word. Democrats still have the power to stop some of Trump’s agenda, and state Dem AGs are already gearing up to file lawsuits when Trump does things that are legally questionable. Democrats will also call for investigations and some AGs with jurisdiction will also do investigations.
Everything is going to work exactly as it should over the next four years. Keep fighting for what you believe in, turn out in the freakin’ midterms for once, and by all that’s holy, nominate a CLEAN outsider Democrat who won’t be such an easy foil for Trump the way Clinton was.
A typical politician is more vulnerable on corruption issues than an outsider. That’s just the way it is. Plenty of Democrats without major baggage, Joe Biden among them, and he’s been a high profile guy since 1988. He’s got like no money, so it’s almost impossible for him to have a real scandal.
While I think it’s easy to say that the pendulum swings both ways, and things will be different in 2020, I believe that we’ve so thoroughly stomped on quite a few centuries long norms in American politics that there may be no recovery regardless of what happens in the voting booth.
Does it now require a filibuster proof majority to confirm any Supreme Court justice? Is overt sexual assault no longer disqualifying? Is threatening to lock up your political opponent now fair game? Should presidential candidates no longer be expected to release tax returns? Can a presidential candidate simply make shit up?
I think we’re now on the wrong end of all of these, and more, now. I don’t see a way back. I left the Republican party about 15 years ago, but always anticipated coming back when they got their shit together. I don’t anticipate them getting their shit together anymore.
And by “to be honest she is no longer a supporter” you mean “This woman I keep citing as evidence that Trump isn’t sexist has spoken in clear terms about how much of a blatant sexist Trump is”. And I also note the bizarre modifier of “where it really counts”. Because it’s okay if he’s blatantly sexist to women he doesn’t know as long as he’s professional to his executives, I guess.
Seriously, “not sexist where it really counts”? When do examples of sexism NOT really count? I guess sexual assault doesn’t really count, either, huh?
And citing this one woman over and over as evidence that Trump isn’t sexist is a pretty classic “I’m not racist! Some of my best friends are black!”- gambit.