Fine, let’s grant that Biden isn’t going to make any structural changes. In the meantime, he instead is likely (IMO) to reinstitute the environmental protections that Trump rolled back, strengthen the ACA instead of undermining it, and appoint someone to lead the DOE who will protect the system instead of undermining it and the efforts of health officials for personal profit. You seem to think that those actions are worthless because the underlying problems remain, but those will positively affect the lives of literally millions of people. I don’t think that’s worthless.
It depends on the timescale you’re looking at. If Biden wins, yes, the next 4 years will be drastically better than under Trump, for some Americans. But the next 20? Probably not much different, especially when you consider climatic impacts on the world population, and the resultant instabilities from a combination of mass refugeeism, changes in arable land, rising geopolitical tensions, bottlenecks in rare earths and clean water, etc.
Stalling that will require far greater sacrifices than either major party is willing to do, and thus they are both enemies of humanity at large. If Americans have to bear a greater share of the burden, well, it’s largely us and China who caused it in the first place.
I look at this way: best case scenario? A few tens of thousands of American casualties upfront, with all the Trumpers using the opportunity to commit mass murder, followed by a decade or so of decreased industrial output and societal upheaval, resulting in a splintered series of smaller regional states, probably stabilizing into regional 4-5 blocks within a few decades, with some better off than others. Is that a lot? Sure, but Trump has already killed more Americans than all the terrorists combined. That’s the “do nothing” cost.
I coincidentally just watched the Designated Survivor series, a political fantasy where the federal government was decapitated in an attack, conveniently wiping out all the politicians except a moderate, benevolent independent. It’s enjoyable enough escapist TV, if only because nobody – not even me – believes such a thing wouldn’t preempt even more widespread violence and opportunistic warlordism.
The thing is… if you’re really asking about the math… there are what, 280M Americans vs 8 billion around the world? We’re 4% of the world population. Even in the worst case scenario, where every single American died, that would still leave the rest of the world much better off climatically, if not geopolitically.
Does climate change warrant the execution of 280 million Americans? Of course not. Does it demand orders of magnitude more action than Biden would ever take? Absolutely.
Did I want it to come down to Biden and Trump? Of course not. I also didn’t want it to be Hillary vs Trump, or Obama and McCain, or Bush vs Gore. Trump arguably was caused by our electoral system, in which a two-party gridlock combined with gerrymandering and the E.C. stole an election, again, from the popular mandate. The longer we let this go on unaddressed, the worse the consequences will be. If Trump handled the last 4 years poorly, with American still near her peak of power, how will the next Republican strongman handle the next pandemic combined with a mass refugee crisis combined with a much-stronger China combined with our allies following similar paths of nationalist-isolationist-racist policies and not having much to help us with, combined with a population that grows less healthy with each passing year domestically, combined with an ever-widening wealth gap, combined with weaponized artificial intelligence in all aspects of politics and life… etc.? Our democracy is utterly unequipped ot handle the future, as it stands, and it will fall whether by our choice or by just rotting from the inside, as it is already doing. We can accept it and prepare for it, or just keep carrying on in denial and pretending like the next Biden-Hillary-Obama-Clinton will fix things, when they’re the exact reason we got Trump in the first place.
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At the end of the day, I do not believe the average American has any interest or appetite in seeing harm come to another of us. But we somehow manage to empower sociopathic leaders through a broken electoral system that was always designed to concentrate, rather than distribute, power. It’s purposefully anti-democratic, and today’s outcome was not a mistake, but the inevitable consequence of our systems. It will happen again, and it will be worse next time, and we don’t have an infinite supply of next times. It has to be broken completely at some point if it’s to be fixed, and sooner is better than later given the state of the world and climate. We’re living through a historic junction, and sadly opting out and pretending like everything will be alright simply isn’t one of the options.
He wants Trumpism with a less incompetent leader. This whole thread is a giant “both sides suck, let’s blow it up” which is precisely the narrative the Russians used to manipulate us in the first place. Clearly it has metastasized.
They are not worthless, they are just fragile and temporary when they need to be strong, permanent, enforceable, and funded. It’s 2020 and we are still fighting the same defensive battles of the 60s and 70s? That’s not progress, that’s bending over. We are an economic superpower – for now – hamstrung by an ancient electoral system that continually produces some of the world’s worst leaders. You can’t just keep on tackling the symptoms forever and hope that somehow cures the cancer.
I’m not sure how to parse “Trumpism” in this context. Certainly the Right is far more skilled at using the bully pulpit and evading the law to push through their corrupt agenda despite the opposition.
Some things are worth breaking the law for. Those are not the things Trump broke the law for.
If we must have a power-abusing strongman as a leader, then yes, I would rather that strongman abuse power for the public good rather than private gain. Seeing as how reality doesn’t like to give us benevolent dictators, I’d rather we not continue to leave structural social failings of our society in place, since when the next strongman comes – and come he will – Putin will indeed be laughing.
You know what? If these things weren’t true, Russia’s interference would not have worked. They knew how to dig up our skeletons and amplify all our grievances to 11, but those grievances weren’t caused by the Russians. They were caused by the structural failures of our society over the past few decades, watched over by people like Biden. It wasn’t Putin who gave us Trump, it was Hillary and Obama.
Ah yes, there it is.
So is doing it better than not doing it? Or are you arguing that doing it is worse because it somehow prevents the bigger battle? If so, I think about the people who will be that much worse off with another term for Trump, whose lives would’ve improved, even incrementally, under Biden, and I can’t help but think they’d probably not appreciate other people choosing to sacrifice them on the altar of a hypothetical greater future good. How would you convince them otherwise?
So Trump is the fault of Democrats. Not Republicans, not racism, not a general tide of worldwide authoritarianism… Democrats. (Edit: apparently so.)
And just to ask, if you really do think we need to blow it all up, why NOT directly support Trump? Isn’t the whole point to make things so bad that reform is necessary? If so, don’t we agree that Trump is more likely to make that happen?
See…the Libs are responsible for all bad things because by losing they enabled it…not, you know, the people actually doing the bad things.
Not sure if @Reply knows he hauling water for Trump of if he’s just too poisoned to see it.
When does Reply tell us all about the benefits of Chewlies Gum?
CMC
I take it you disagree.
I’m arguing that Biden is merely a placebo, that he doesn’t really solve anything, and the more times we place our faith people like him – as we have many times before – the worse the real problem, structural corruption and electoral malfeasance, gets.
I doubt I could convince anyone. I can’t even convince a single person on this board. And none of the presidential candidates I’ve ever voted for have ever won. Still, I don’t believe I’m wrong. 
I suppose it’s a good thing I’m just some dude on the internet, with no power.
I definitely don’t think Trump is the fault of just racism (against Hillary and Sanders?) or worldwide authoritarianism, both of which were parallels but not causes. Yes, I do blame the Democrats (as well as the Republicans; thought that was a given, but in this context it may not have been, and I apologize). I believe Trump is as American a phenomenon as it gets. He’s every bit the president we deserved, because we have been unwilling to face our failures. Trump, like Bush, was the inevitable result of both electoral corruption and working-class despair. There is no future for America under either Trump or Biden.
Because he’s Trump. I can scarcely think of someone more worthy of contempt. Were he were any other person, I’d seriously consider it. Not all forms of “burn down the system” are equal. There’s a difference between America undergoing a revolution, America undergoing a civil war, and America being conquered by someone like Trump or Hitler or Putin. I’d rather it come from a populist uprising than a self-serving dictatorship/oligarchy.
What’s that?
Aside from the fact that the question you seem to be answering is what specific actions you think we should take (are you seriously suggesting that instead of voting for Biden we should start murdering each other??), and aside from the fact that I doubt “all the Trumpers” want to commit mass murder (some of them, sure; but not all of them): why on earth do you think that would be an environmental improvement? Sure, there’d be less industrial output. There’d also be untended wells leaking methane all over the place, uncontrolled pollutants escaping into the air and the water tables, all sorts of damaging crap. We’ve got some of that now, and Trump’s encouraging it. We need to do less of that shit, not do more of it.
Of course they are fragile and temporary. They can’t be anything else. There is no way to make such gains permanent; anything that can be done, by any system of government, or any non-system of anarchy for that matter, can be undone by somebody else at some point in the future.
We have to fight these same battles over, and over, and over again until we either manage to evolve into a more sensible species, or until we lose too many of them and destroy ourselves, unfortunately taking a lot of others with us in the process. Blowing up the US government, or even all the people living in the USA, isn’t going to change that a bit. Trying to do so just means that you’re on the wrong side of the battle.
CMC
Sorry, that was my bad. Got mixed up in the multi-quotes.
As to “what alternative actions”, I’ll repeat from earlier: my preference for action is a populist uprising, effectively a revolution. I am not allowed to say more than that per board rules. Failing that, the complete destruction of the Democratic Party in favor of a representatives who are actually willing to do what it takes to fix this system, not simply toss the ball back and forth every 8 years. It will get messy, it will ugly, but it will get messy and ugly no matter what we do; and all else being equal, sooner is better. Time is finite.
No, of course not every single Trump voter is going to be standing in line waiting to shoot someone. Nor do I have desire to see harm come to them. That’s already happening enough with their suicidal tendencies re: COVID. They are still my brothers and sisters. But I don’t doubt that the moment any actual change comes, widespread violence will be forthcoming, especially from the better-armed conservative whites. They went hard on the Panthers for a reason, while the Bundys didn’t even get a slap on the wrist.
As for industrial output… sure, not having good pollution controls in place will also be bad, but it’s quite a bit less drastic than halting industrial output due to societal collapse. Mind you, that’s not my preferred outcome, but you asked about numbers. I do think the rest of the world would be better off without the United States, environmentally. At least until the power vacuum starts WW3.
Heh. Actually pretty funny.
Nah. Time, at least for all human intents and purposes, is infinite. It’s people who are finite.
And sooner most definitely isn’t better. We’re fighting a holding action, here. If we hold on to enough for long enough, there’s some chance that we’re not entirely screwed, along with most of the rest of the species on the planet. If we don’t hold on long enough, there’s no chance at all.
You just said it was.
Sorry, I need to step away from this thread for a few days. It’s emotionally exhausting. I’ll have to check back in next week. Thanks for all the thoughts and real talk. I appreciate it, even if I don’t necessarily agree with everything being said.
Fair enough. I appreciate that you’ve been engaging with what everyone else has been saying. (As befits your name, I guess?)
He was far from my first choice in the Dem primaries, but I’m OK with him being the nominee, and in his favor I will say:
He is not personally corrupt
He loves his wife and family
He has considerable political experience
I agree with him on most if not all major public policy issues, including abortion rights, gun violence and environmentalism
Barack Obama thinks highly of him
He has committed to picking a qualified female running mate
He accepts the best medical and scientific advice
He says goofy things sometimes (too often), but does not routinely lie
He doesn’t tweet hateful, boasting, bullying or flat-out wrong stuff
For any of these reasons, he would be a helluvan improvement over the incumbent.