As you all (probably) know, my dad was a Naval officer. I grew up in the Cold War. For most of my life, the United States was ‘The Good Guy’. The Soviet Union was ‘The Bad Guy’. As an (official) adult, I railed against ‘Ronald Slay-Gun’. I disagreed with George H.W. Bush, but at least he knew what he was doing. Bill Clinton was a great President, and the United States prospered. George W. Bush? An idiot. I could not imagine anyone worse. Under Obama, again the United States prospered… and regained some respect that was lost under ‘Duh-bya’. And then came Trump.
Nothing could have prepared me for someone worse than ‘Duh-bya’. Oh, how I wish someone as stupid as Bush 43 was President now!
For all the shady shit previous Presidents have done, I am horrified at Trump’s two administrations – especially the current one.
I’ve studied the causes of WWII and the rise of Fascism under Mussolini and Hitler. Heck, I grew up watching movies about how nasty Hitler was. And now we’re seeing a rebirth of Mussolini and Hitler in realtime. I’ve gone from ‘Reagan is bad, but we don’t all support him’ to ‘Trump is a modern-day Mussolini, and there’s nothing i can do about it.’
I’m too old for this shit. [Full disclosure: Yes, I’ve had some wine.]
The United States, under this administration, had become a repugnant bully state, led by a bunch of ignorant fascists. The only thing sadder is the vast amount of idiots - devoid of any self-awareness or knowledge of the wider world - who gladly voted them in and will remain in lockstep.
We’re living in an absolute horror show, and at some point we’ll need to stand up or roll over.
For all the old-timers who can remember Kennedy and whatnot, I can’t help but think of it from the opposite angle: for Millennials or American born after 2000, this insane state of politics is the only thing - or most of the thing - they’ve known.
They had 8 years of Bush’s ignorance, 8 years of a normal and presidential Obama, 4 years of insane Trump, 4 years of normal Biden, and now 4 years of more-insane Trump. But more importantly, since some point in the 2000s, American politics was never really normal again. The extreme craze and vitriol is all young Americans have ever known. This is their normal.
I know that on this board some Dopers know exactly who I am, or if they have had IRL contact with me they could root out my ID. But as time goes on I think I’ll keep my mouth shut, and if the situation warrants it I’ll be able to do some undermining of the regime that is building.
As someone else on this board has said “I’m old enough that the threat of a death sentence or life in prison doesn’t bother me that much”
The three great presidents: Washington, Lincoln, FDR: had an understanding of the complexities of their situations, an understanding of how significant even the most subtle changes anywhere could alter the entirety. AND they simultaneously held firm, well-considered yet not inflexible core convictions.
The next tier: where you find Eisenhower, Cleveland and TR: a reasonably good command of the complexity, with solid though not profound depth of understanding; but still strength of character well above average.
The failures: LBJ and Nixon: masters of the complexities, but ultimately bewildered when confronted with great issues.
My father fought in the South Pacific in WW2 on a battleship that was almost sunk 3 times and was proud to fight for America and what it stood for. When he died in 2001 and he told me that this was not the country that he fought for and was ashamed of what we had become. I now understand and agree with his assessemnt.
I will be leaving the United States and becoming an expat in the Philippines in the next two months. I am sick of what I see happening to our formally great country and the sellout of the politicians to the oligraths on a daily basis. I’ll sit back and enjoy a simplier life for the rest of my days if possible since there is really nothing more I can do to affect what is happening, the dismanteling of our democracy.
The best comparison I can make is that we are Anakin Skywalker turning into Darth Vader. If that happens, the rest of the free world will be helpless. China will absorb Asia, Russia will absorb Europe, and we will absorb the western hemisphere.
I’m old enough to remember when John F. Kennedy was elected. There was palpable hope that we would see prosperity and equal rights for all. Today, if you’re not one of the ultra rich you just don’t matter.
I can either flee or hunker down and hope I die before the country collapses into chaos. Not two options I thought I would ever have to face in my lifetime. How quickly things can change when a narcissist autocrat is elected president… twice!
I share the sadness, dismay, and horror expressed in this thread. I was 12 when JFK was elected. I was also a military brat and grew up in a post-WWII country that was stable and admired in the world-- indeed, the envyof the world. Maybe I didn’t live in a real world-- maybe I was just lucky. And deluded.
This is what breaks me. Even if we could hop in a time machine or wave a magic wand…eventually we’d wind up in this same mess again. There’s nothing to save.
I personally may be okay. But I have kids and grandkids. I don’t think they’re going to be okay at all.
I have a lot less hope that things will get better than I did back in the Bush Jr. days. And it’s not all just on Trump and his followers. I see it from the Democrats as well. There just doesn’t seem to be any fight left in the party, with a few exceptions like Bernie and AOC.
Let’s consider a comparison with a movie character Trump is sometimes compared with, Biff from Back to the Future. If Trump is Biff, then Democrats used to be Marty McFly and Doc Brown. Now Democrats are a bunch of George McFlys who seem clueless and lack the will to fight back. That, more than anything Trump himself is doing, is what has taken my hope away.
I am beginning to believe in The Great Catharsis. Good point that young people have never known what boomers grew up with – a stable decent government, plentiful jobs, political crises solved by judicious application of checks and balances, and a sense that it would ever be thus. I read an essay this morning about the sense of stunned amazement that has fallen over the country. No one, not the MAGAs nor its opposition, has any direct experience of fascism. No one had any idea how quickly a constitution can be destroyed and a dictatorship set up in its place. There are plenty of countries that do – but no one in the US ever thought we would come to the same place. Trumpists by and large just wanted some things to change in their favor – not every fucking thing we relied upon destroyed. They said they did – but they didn’t know what it meant. It will take them a while before they do, if they ever do. Actually I think most will. Because this will destroy their way of life as well as all the people they wanted spat upon. And then what?
Then what indeed.
But I notice the rising swell, the many efforts to circumvent or protect against what is coming. I think the opposition will not come from mainstream Dems, who have been caught utterly flatfooted. It will be from a wholly different political movement.
I’ve almost completely checked out, but It’s difficult to ignore all of the bad things that are happening. I’m old and don’t care about myself. But I have children and grandkids too.
My body is in no condition to offer much resistance these days. I feel useless and hopeless too. Yay.
It’s also worth mentioning that the same young people who only understand this maelstrom and shambolic ‘form of government’ also refer to themselves as the ‘mass shooting generation.’
Lovely.
Thank Og that RFK is going to ‘make them healthy again --’ the irony being somewhat reminiscent to Melania Trump’s “Be Best” anti-bullying campaign.
The quote appears on the SDMB rather frequently, because … it should*:
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
–Lyndon B. Johnson
“Thanks, Lyndon. I’ve got it from here.”
–Donald J. Trump
*IMHO, quite a few of these memes and tropes are easily thought of has hackneyed and done to death. I disagree. I think they’re useful as mantras in pretty much every discussion about the incremental slide toward authoritarianism that most of us see.
The thing that makes me want to smash things and run through the streets screaming obscenities is the stupidity of it all
Of course we all knew there was the possibility of someone harnessing America’s darker impulses to become fascist dictator. You can’t move for warnings about how America could become a dictatorship, be they fictional or otherwise.
But there was always the assumption it would take a teensy bit of skill to overturn American democracy and destroy the Republic. That it would take both a great economic catastrophe combined with a wannabe dictator able to be convincingly “wrapped the flag and carrying the bible”. Someone who did a good job of appearing to be an evangelical Christian and dedicated patriot. Who was able to at least some degree, hide his fascist ambitions behind a veneer of a honest god-fearing American patriot, and appeal to majority of the voting public.
Trump did not do any of those things. He barely pretends to be either Christian or Patriotic. He is patently hilariously incompetent and ineffectual. His first term was an unmitigated disaster. His fascist ambitions could not be more blatant. The economy was not collapsed in 2024, it was ticking along perfectly well.
And yet still America said “yup, let’s make this incompetent fascist idiot president”. That’s the bit that’s infuriating beyond belief, he was objectively a fucking terrible candidate.
The thing is, the trend toward Far-Right Nationalism that’s led to trumpism is not exclusively American-- it’s been a trending movement in several nations throughout the world. I’ve kicked around making a post discussing why this is, but I don’t think I’m enough of a world history scholar to do it justice.
