Now what should people on the left do?

Politics & Elections
401

If the faithful supporters do have any feelings toward him, it is more the kind when you support the alpha male and somehow think he is on your side. A very small group are extreme followers of simply power. The Mar a Lago crowd. A few voters idenfify as patriots. It remains to be seen what kind of patriot Trump is this time. When politicians on both sides sense a loss of power, they will all act.

It will be difficult. And Trump will do a lot of damage in two years. Or even the last weeks before he is sworn in. The Supreme Court may help push extreme small government and social program changes for two years. But we must look ahead, too.

The senators still worry about re-election in 2026 and 2028. I assume they think they can run Vance in 2028.

But Vance is nothing, all bluster. Oh, he would run if there is enough support for him in the primaries. But if the MAGA folks are still intrested in politics in 2028, Vance will carry on. But lose. Or lose the primary.

402

Probably not much at all. Harris had good turnout. If chasing out all immigrants somehow is a disaster or miracle, then 2028 is different. Otherwise pretty much the same as 2024, except Vance will lose 3 states such as…

403

I’m getting a bit pessimistic. Pennsylvania situation is scary…if it is “Floridaised” as it looks likely, then not much hope for 2028. Florida and Texas are now beyond reach…the margins of Republicans keep increasing and Latinos have turned red (or turning red very fast).

I’m skeptical and pessimistic for medium term outlook.

404

Just this morning I read a news article about a lawsuit challenging “Swampbuster” wetlands protection. The landowner is a Chicago resident, retired lawyer and hedge fund director. Owns 1000 acres in Iowa as an investment, to lease and potentially develop. In 22 he bought additional acreage, including 9 acres of designate wetlands. If he farms those 9 acres, he would lose farm subsidies he receives for all 1000 acres. (I note he is not challenging the subsidies he receives as some sort of governmental overreach! :roll_eyes:)

I anticipate he will prevail, and that this is exactly the sort of action we well see countless times over the next 4 years. Wealthy persons seeking immediate personal financial benefits, without a care as to the impact on society as a whole or future generations. With wealthy entities aggressively seeking advantage from a sympathetic administration/courts, it is difficult to imagine what we as individuals can do.

It is far easier to break things than to build or protect them. I feel so sorry for my and your kids, grandkids…

405

This is tiny, compared to the above. But a ‘to be’ neighbor is building across the road. He got a variance that my wife and I fought. He wants to encroach into the wetlands, and the road set back. This is a VERY bad idea. Especially the road set back. The county plows snow to the downside of the road, where he is gonna put his house.

The planning board aproved it. Build a smaller house says I.

406

The implication is that the Democrats failed. What did Trump and the GOP do that worked? Since there was virtually no way to reach MAGA and tell them trump is conning you.
1 2016 crooked Hillary. Comey last day laptop.
2 2020 no Hillary and Trump did not deliver.The working poor were still poor.
3 Trump warns about illegals again like in 2016. Biden goes senile. Price of eggs went up.
Trump, who failed in one term, should have lost by 10%. Harris was not scary. Schools did not turn boys into girls.

Is the country all ADD? We have to have a new president every 4 years from now on? Because Twitter. Because TikTok etc.

407

Yeah, but Breck gets less snow every year. The set back was probably defined 40-50 years ago when Hoosier pass would actually close sometimes in the winter.

/s if it is not clear.

408

I don’t know why or how I missed this thread. Like others, I sort of checked out of all media after the election. Wasn’t the first time and won’t be the last. Whatever. I have to admit I have been struggling with this question for months. Actually years. In fact, I think I had a thread with exactly the same topic back in the Bush years, 2006-2008 maybe.

Personally, I just feel like giving up. While I have a kid that is trans (19 FTM, in college, using hormones but no surgery - I have thought about participating in the GD thread but just haven’t felt it - that said, ask me anything), a 22 yo daughter, 2 nieces (17 and 19), and another niece (20) who is gay; I don’t worry that much about them TBH. My son is an applied math major in a great program at a state university and is not conspicuous. My gay niece is at Georgetown, speaks Arabic, Spanish, and French and has straight A’s. They are not really the targets MAGA is looking for and if they are targeted my family has the resources to get them quickly out of harms way. If my daughter or any other of my relatives needs an abortion or protection from the alt-right, they can take a nice vacation in France or I can help them move elsewhere. Most of them are considering it anyway.

For myself and my wife, we have looked at emigrating to various places but have not felt the need for so radical a change in our mid-50’s even though it is within our reach. While people in our age group are not typically welcomed in most places, we have enough wealth to pave the way. But I also love my country and would prefer that it change rather than I move.

But I have spent the last 25 years fighting the right wing in this country and despairing on the path it is taking. I have voted for tax increases for education and infrastructure, social safety nets, and for regulated capitalism. I have donated, volunteered, protested, and written letters. As a scientist and engineer, I have a particular interest in climate change, energy policy, and the environment and I have striven to make my community take these issues seriously. With family members working in national security and the state department, I have supported a strong national defense policies, diplomacy, and strong international bonds. As a practical capitalist, I have supported free trade, well-regulated capitalism, strong anti-trust laws, workers rights and unions, and opposed rent-seeking at every turn. As a civil libertarian I have promoted keeping government out of personal relationships, defended freedom of speech and expression, and supported individual protections for and from religion. I am not even going to mention the homeless; what the fuck is wrong with us as the richest country in the world?

I am just so tired. I feel like I have lost on every single front. I really do not believe anything has improved in this country since I came of age at the end of the Regan administration. The Democrats have not been great, and the Republicans have been terrible. I think this country has a death wish.

So I feel like giving up. With the exception of my son and my gay niece, a Trump presidency will most likely help me. Tax cuts work in my favor. Tariffs won’t affect me much. I am not likely to be dependent on the government for my health care. I just feel like saying “fuck you” :fu: to my fellow countryman. I am completely lost.

409

Oh, and in response to BorealisCooper and others about cutting off family and friends; I have not done that lightly. I still have many friends and some family members that support Trump but they are smart enough not to bring it up (I don’t bring it up either). I am sure there are things we would disagree on but there are other things we would see eye-to-eye. Others, both family and friends, I have cut off because of the completely hateful things that they said. My son was not out as trans so I am sure they did not know how personal it was, but I can’t have a relationship with somebody who has said the kind of things they have said about my child and what they believed. Similar sentiments were expressed about my gay niece and about my cousin’s adopted children of a different race. Fuck those people.

I also cut off a bunch of friends during the ~2 months following the 2020 election when they called for violence against the government and were painting all Democrats and Liberals as traitors to their country. Look, I know their facebook posts were not specifically addressed to me, but my wife, my sister, my father, are all registered Democrats and you can’t say things like that and just expect a free pass. I questioned their intelligence, their morals, but mostly, their patriotism. I don’t need people like that in my life. It was hard enough to ignore the gentle racism that they always displayed.

YMMV.

410

@Happy_Fun_Ball

I am also tired and completely lost. I find myself in a barren interstitial land that lies between giving up and trying to survive.

411

Well said, @Happy_Fun_Ball , and you’ve pretty much described my state of mind. For me the worst isn’t even T***p, but the sense of betrayal that I feel knowing that 50% of Americans look to a man who is arguably one of the worst humans currently inhabiting this planet for leadership.

I think, inevitably, this isn’t the Boomers’ fight anymore. The Millenials and Gen Alpha are going to have to realize what they’ve lost.

412

Yes, very well said.

I was at a party/open house yesterday. At one point someone brought up the incoming administration. I said - as politely as I could, that the only way I could mentally handle the next 4 years was to intentionally ignore politics as much as I could. That they were welcome to continue discussing Trump and politics, but if they did, I would have to leave the conversation. They continued - I went to another room.

This is going to be very hard.

413

Did you also cut off those on the radical left that destroyed public and private property and supported violence ? Because there was a lot of it.

Personally, I think the radicals on both sides that support violence and destruction, do suck.

414

My friends and acquaintances on the “left” (i.e., what used to be called “normal”) are thoughtful, law-abiding folks who don’t support heedless destruction by anyone, which is partly why they are appalled by the MAGA movement. So I, and I’m pretty sure this is true of most people who do not support MAGA, don’t have any to “cut off.”

You are going to see a lot of “violence and destruction” in the coming years (e.g. the recent mayhem in NOLA, the truck explosion in Vegas, and assorted random mass shootings). My crystal ball says almost all of it will be perpetrated by MAGA supporters on marginalized targets: gays, trans, Jews, Asians, Muslims, brown people, women, children. Those who fight back will be criticized for causing the “violence and destruction.”

415

No, I didn’t, but only because I did not know anybody that destroyed property or supported violence. If I did, I would probably have cut them off.

The protests due to the murder of George Floyd and the BLM movement got wide spread support in the United States and internationally with over 2400 protests in the US alone. In fact, with 15-30 million people that took part in the US, it may have been the largest protest movement in the history of the US. While the movement itself resulted in $1-2 billion in damage nation wide (compared to $750 million for the LA riots following Rodney King’s beating), over 93% of the protests were peaceful and did not result in any damage or arrests. Even though this was the case, 42% of Americans believe that all BLM protesters were trying incite violence and destroy property. This disparity is most likely due to our media polarization with right wing news sources using terms like “thugs” and “mobs” while disproportionately showing footage of property destruction.

I note the reverse happened on January 6 with left wing sources showing disproportionately footage of police officers being beaten and right wing media showing peaceful protest. I understand it is hard to see a clear picture given the current media landscape.

Anyway, all the people I associated with were horrified by both what happened to George Floyd (as well as Trevon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, etc…) and the destruction, looting, and riots that occurred in places like Portland and Minneapolis. I was also horrified. Nobody I know supported violence or destruction of private property. When you say “there was a lot of it”, do you have a cite that defines what this means?

The closest I came to cutting of somebody that was “radical left” (what defines the term “radical left” anyway?), was a friend that had the opinion that all Republicans were evil. She thought (thinks) that Republicans leaders want to actually enslave women and subjugate the poor and people of color in some kind of Neo-feudal society. I argued with her that people like George Bush are good people that are trying to help all Americans but are just misguided in their beliefs and methods, but she would not budge. Never once did she advocate for violence or stripping the rights of people. Instead she wanted to de-program the brainwashed electorate and expose the misinformation, lies, and propaganda of right-wing media. In the end I told her to keep her opinions to herself and we have never spoken about politics again. I think she is nuts.

As far as the people on the right, it has been a different story. I cut off two of my uncles when they strongly expressed to me that trans and gay people should not be allowed to be around children and should be effectively registered as sex offenders (FYI, my son wants to be teacher and has already worked as one). Another ex-friend of mine I cut off when he crowed over covid killing liberals and immigrants in New York City early in the pandemic. (WTF? More than 50,000 people, mostly Americans, died there.) I cut off another couple of friends for calling for revolution before January 6 and saying horrible things about Democrats being traitors deserving of capital punishment. These friends were kind of on the way out anyway as I felt like all they would talk about was what was said on yesterday’s Tucker Carlson show or whatever. Pretty exhausting to be honest.

I cut off another uncle for his climate change beliefs. I am a scientist and engineer and was giving him and his son a tour of where I work (one of the world’s leading labs for remote sensing including instruments that study climate science). In the middle of the tour he started an argument with me that climate change was a hoax and that all my co-workers were either liars, incompetent, or corrupt (paraphrased). Seriously. I was taking them into labs where ESD protection is required giving them a personal tour of multi-million dollar facilities explaining all the work we do while surrounded by other engineers, students, and scientists and he just started ranting loudly that it was all a hoax. I should have filmed it and put it on YouTube except it probably would have violated ITAR. I saw him a couple years later and he asked why I cut him off and I explained that I was offended by this event and he just doubled down. I don’t get it how people think you can say stuff like that without consequences to the relationship. YMMV.

416

This is interesting to me. You took time out of your day/week/month/year to give your uncle a tour of the place where you work. And during this tour, he basically labels you and your life’s work as a hoax. And then he is surprised that you cut him off?

What does your uncle do for a living? Maybe when he talks about his job, you should attack him and label his career choice as a hoax right in front of him, and see how he feels.

Wow.

417

My uncle (S#3 - 3rd son of my Grandparents) is a civil engineer. It was really sad to me when all this happened as I had always looked up to him as my rational/scientific uncle in my teens/twenties/thirties; he was the uncle (IMO) that was most like me in disposition and outlook. He spent the early part of his career working for cement plants (as far as I know; I toured a couple with him in my teens) followed by a stint as a soil engineer for various counties, and has spent the years since his retirement stamping drawings for various residential projects. He actually consulted for a neighbor when they removed a bearing wall and replaced it with a steel beam; I didn’t even know about until he dropped by out of the blue one day and told me why he was in the neighborhood (2012? 2014? I don’t know).

His eldest son is a electrical engineer that works in alternative energy. I am still in contact with him and he was horrified by his father’s behavior that day. He and his family have an uncomfortable relationship with my uncle / his father. His granddaughter (19 yo and may be gay, I don’t know) tries to avoid him and his daughter in law (mid/late 40s) has a real problem with him. They live ~1700 miles away from the city my uncle and I live in and visit once every year or two. I try to keep in touch with them.

My uncle’s other son lives on the other coast (~1000 miles away) and visits less. In fact he spends most of his time in Europe and Africa to my limited understanding. He is a good guy and I enjoy seeing him every 3-5 years. We are not close.

And this is exactly what I mean. He was completely and utterly clueless and didn’t think he had said anything wrong. It was unreal and I was left without words. While I never attacked his career, I explained to him how offended I was (~3 years after the event) during a conversation where he approached me and asked me why he had been ghosted by my family and his brother, my father. I explained that he had attacked my entire career and called me a fraud or incompetent and that he had done it in my workplace (which is, again, a world leading facility) and in front of my coworkers and students which I mentor. He just didn’t understand and re-iterated that climate change was a hoax, a lie, and a fraud. I, who have spent >10 years in college and have worked in this field for >15 years tried to question him on where he gets his information. I tried to reason with him about easily observable things like snowfall, temperature, lake freezing dates, etc… (we are both natives of Colorado). I talked about physics and energy balances with him and how CO2 and other green house gasses transmit the vast majority of solar energy but reflect and scatter earth radiation. He just repeated that it was all a hoax and I didn’t know what I was talking about. I tried to explain how offensive it was, asking him how he felt about people that express ACAB (all cops are bad). He was offended by people who felt that (even though he is not a cop) but could not make the connection how I felt. I finally, exasperated, left the topic.

We then talked about my father, his brother, that had cut him off about a year before I did. I advised him to explain to my father where he was coming from and why he believed what he did about Trump (his support for Trump was why my dad cut him off). After all, I believe that many people have valid (if misguided) reasons for supporting Trump and to me, and my father, it is not necessarily a deal killer. Personally, I believe that Trump support, Occupy Wall Street, and the Tea Party movements are all coming from the same place. People are rightfully pissed (thanks Regan). But when I said that to him (to explain to my dad, not about Regan and the roots of civil unrest) he started talking about how liberals and Democrats are evil, child-molesting criminals and need to be purged. After a minute or two of trying to get him to clarify his stance, I told him to fuck off, told him not to bother contacting my dad (or me) ever again because it would be a waste of his time, hugged his wife, said bye to my cousin and his family, and told my family we were leaving… That was the last time I saw him. It was sometime in 2022. Maybe 2023.

Right wing media is a poison IMO.

418

Wow, that’s quite an awful story, and I’m sorry you endured that.

My mother is a stone-cold MAGA-Head. I told her back around 2017 or so that Trump was a lying criminal, and over the next 3 years, we had a few disagreements. Finally, after the 2020 election, she started going down the “it was stolen” rabbit-hole. I told her that we shouldn’t talk about politics anymore, in order to preserve our relationship. We have both observed that since early 2021, and we get along fine now.

I despise her politics. She sits in her house all day watching Fox News & Newsmax. There’s nothing I can do for her on that front. So, we agree to get along by avoiding the topic.

419

Here’s an article by Freddie deBoer that attempts to answer the prompt.

420

Yeah. It is clear to me that uncle #3 has gone down the QANON rabbit hole.

The other two uncles (#2 and #4) I think were just trolling me when they broke out the anti-LGBTQ stuff. It was late in the first Trump administration at my gay niece’s high school graduation IIRC. These uncle’s have always known my and my sister’s (who is a raging liberal; I am a moderate independent but strong civil libertarian) political leanings and seem to find pleasure giving us shit about them. My sister is easily needled, but I have always attempted to steer clear, change the subject, and stay neutral.

I do not think there was any way they knew about my son’s or niece’s orientations at this party. My niece, while driven and a bit… maybe standoffish?.. was not out and I had no idea she was gay at this point. Even now I would not think she was gay if I met her at party or whatever. She is pretty girly in a hippyish sort of way, but she is also incredibly driven and smart and will probably end up as secretary of state (mark my words). She has wanted to be in the foreign service since she was twelve and started learning Arabic at 14. Model UN and all that stuff. I know of nobody like her and constantly worry about her burning out. I say this as somebody whose friends and coworkers went to MIT, CalTech, and Stanford. I collaborate regularly with people at Johns Hopkins and JPL. She is a freak, albeit in a really good & exciting way.

My son was not out to us at all either at this point and I had no idea he felt uncomfortable with his gender. He was probably 16 at this time, was incredibly nerdy, somewhat androgynous, a gamer, a birder, loved to camp and backpack, liked math, and was passionate about archeology. I figured he was just a late bloomer sexually as neither he nor his older sister expressed any interest in sex or dating until after they were 18. He did not come out to my wife and I as trans until the month of his 18th birthday and immediately thereafter he contacted doctors and started hormone treatments. My wife and I would have supported him before this (we are the type of parents that played Dan Savage to them as teenagers and talked about the content), but he didn’t want any complications or potential interference. It was his decision and his alone and he wanted to keep it that way. He had always been very smart and reserved and minded and kept his own business if you know what I mean. We are (otherwise) super close (my whole nuclear family) and always have been…

Anyway, at this party back in 2019(?), maybe my uncles picked up on something about my son or niece because they just hammered on the topic of trans/LGBTQ being a danger to children. They just wouldn’t let it go. I really think they were trying to push my buttons and make me angry knowing my civil libertarian/mind your own fucking business orientation. Maybe I unconsciously knew about about my son and niece and they smelled blood in the water. I don’t know. There had been other times they tried to piss me off in the past; dropping the word feminazi every other sentence back in 2008 when I was trying to contrast Romney, Obama, and Clinton comes to mind, but this conversation really took the cake. They were playing off each other and clearly enjoying my reaction.

I have never spoken to them again and won’t unless they try to make amends (which will never happen). I just don’t need that kind of shit in my life.

How about you BorealisCooper, how would you have reacted to this?