# Please tell me I am a fool **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 19, 2020, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999 "2020-11-19T23:31:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/21 "2020-11-20T02:02:24Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > You are not helping! Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/22 "2020-11-20T02:24:09Z")
@ the OP: You’re not a fool, but there is no way it happens, and even if it did, there’s no way Michigan or Pennsylvania electors would comply. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/23 "2020-11-20T02:29:16Z")
> [@Temporary\_Name](#): > > “Citing the well known, but fictional case of State of Alabama v William Gambini and Stanley Rothenstein your honor – I would like to know if you had magic grits for breakfast, and the condition of Marisa Tomei’ biological clock” > > Judge: “WHAT?” > > “Sorry your honor, I am a little rusty so I watched **My Cousin Vinny** as a refresher course on trial law.” …literally true. > **[Rudy Giuliani shouts out 'My Cousin Vinny' at press conference, film's...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2020/11/19/rudy-giuliani-invokes-my-cousin-vinny-films-director-reacts/6346964002/)** > > "My Cousin Vinny" director Jonathan Lynn is reacting after Rudy Giuliani gave a shout-out to the film during a heated press conference on Thursday. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/24 "2020-11-20T02:34:02Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > If Trump has enough power to change three state’s worth of electors without consequence, then the entire election didn’t matter anyway. He could’ve just declared himself Permanent Supreme Dictator and bypassed all the democracy stuff. Even full-blown authoritarians typically amass power in small steps, often starting with a democratic election, followed by more and more illiberal and anti-democratic steps. Numerous examples come to mind, from Hitler to Putin to Erdogan. > [@Leaper](#): > > Also, I put up a poll on this topic. Would OP feel any comfort knowing that those agreeing with their fear is, by far, the tiniest of minorities under the hundred plus who responded? That poll was taken over a week ago. I voted in that poll, and I’m far less sure of my answer now than I was then. Although I still think that it’s more likely than not that Biden will ultimately prevail, I think it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Also, I suspect that many people voted in that poll for what they _want_ to have happen, as opposed to what they fear will actually occur. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/25 "2020-11-20T03:16:12Z")
OP, you are not a fool but you need to get a grip, your worry about what can play out is running away with you. > [@Chefguy](#): > > No, Trump has promised him that he’ll be paid after it’s all over. This is a maneuver Trump has pulled for decades with the whole spectrum of employees from bottom to top. Then he stiffs them if the result is not what he wanted. So when Ghouliani’s tactics fail, Trump will refuse to pay him. One would think Rudy of all people would not fall for that. Even if he succeeds Trump will try to stiff him, get him to settle for far less and have someone else pay for it slowly and by dribs out of _their_ pocket. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/26 "2020-11-20T03:19:40Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Seriously, this is what Rudy is getting $20,000 a day for? It is what he is charging $20K a day for. I rather doubt he genuinely expects to be paid, given Individual-ONE’s long track record of stiffery. But no matter, Miss Rudy will simply write it off as a loss on his tax bill, meaning it will come out of your pocket, and mine, and that person over there, and … ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/27 "2020-11-20T04:30:43Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > > [@Temporary\_Name](#): > > > > “Citing the well known, but fictional case of State of Alabama v William Gambini and Stanley Rothenstein your honor – I would like to know if you had magic grits for breakfast, and the condition of Marisa Tomei’ biological clock” > > > > Judge: “WHAT?” > > > > “Sorry your honor, I am a little rusty so I watched **My Cousin Vinny** as a refresher course on trial law.” > > …literally true. > > [Rudy Giuliani invokes 'My Cousin Vinny,' film's director reacts](https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2020/11/19/rudy-giuliani-invokes-my-cousin-vinny-films-director-reacts/6346964002/) Yes, that story was in my post that **Temporary\_Name** replied to. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/28 "2020-11-20T13:33:17Z")
I think Biden’s victory was sufficiently decisive to make the planned skulduggery impracticable. The real issue, sadly, is this: > [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > America is done. > > A little less than half the voters have proven we do not deserve to be saved. The Republicans are actively working to literally destroy democracy in America with the aid of a foreign power that wishes us ill, and half the population is so in thrall to a tiny far-right propaganda bubble that they’re all either perfectly fine with it or in complete denial about it. Even if we survive the current crisis, it will just prove to be a dress rehearsal for the next attempt, and the Democratic Party seem utterly clueless about this. If things don’t change, America really _is_ “done”. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/29 "2020-11-20T14:26:12Z")
Yeah, America is over. You can’t have a democracy when half the people in your country don’t value it. The tensions that produced Trump are nothing to the tensions that are coming as the impact of climate change becomes increasingly clear and what is coming will be very bad. I’m so glad I never had children. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/30 "2020-11-20T14:34:36Z")
To quote Jiminy Cricket, you’re no fool, nosiree. I can’t say the US is dead, but it is severely wounded. These wounds will never heal as long as Facebook, Fox, OANN, and Hate Radio insulate people in alternative reality. Over 70,000,000 of our fellow citizens voted for fascism, meaning they hate “the other” a whole lot more than they love democracy. Fascism is just fine as long as they’re not the ones to suffer. White women voted Republican, meaning they were okay with the government forcibly taking kids from their families as long as they weren’t white kids and white families. Losing loved ones to covid was a price worth paying to get the satisfaction of owning the libs. We have 40% of the population for whom democracy is completely unimportant compared to having one of their own be in charge. Personally, I think democracy’s days are numbered in the US. Republicans are never going to be a responsible opposition party, they must be disbanded if democracy is to survive. ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/31 "2020-11-20T14:56:04Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Republicans are never going to be a responsible opposition party, they must be disbanded if democracy is to survive. Apparently the OP does need to worry about anti-democratic forces favouring a totalitarian model of government. He just got the party of the totalitarians wrong. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/32 "2020-11-20T14:56:51Z")
Here’s a relevant post I made in “The American Coup” thread. Bottom line-- I don’t think there will be a coup, but you’re not a fool to be concerned. > [@The American Coup: 11.9.2020 -](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/581): > > Yeah, when I first saw this thread, I thought it was a bit hyperbolic. I still don’t think an actual coup will take place, but the fact that things have gone as far as they have is just insane. American Democracy has been severely damaged already, no matter what happens now. trump is really scorching the earth on the way out. I’m deeply embarrassed for my state of Michigan: first the 2 Repub Wayne county canvassers refuse to certify the Wayne County vote (I mean, the Detroit portion-- they wer… ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/33 "2020-11-20T15:00:01Z")
Look who just discovered the “Paradox of Tolerance”. There are more than two parties in America, and there can be more. When one of the existing ones is bent on destroying the system, it is not “democratic” to let them continue doing so. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/34 "2020-11-20T15:14:29Z")
If the US is not resilient enough to weather the forces of social media and the radicalization of the GOP, then it will not survive. Those forces are not going away and will only grow. ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/35 "2020-11-20T15:16:56Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Look who just discovered the “Paradox of Tolerance”. > > There are more than two parties in America, and there can be more. When one of the existing ones is bent on destroying the system, it is not “democratic” to let them continue doing so. Look who just discovered the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/36 "2020-11-20T15:22:05Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Yeah, I guess ultimately it will “all be okay,” but in my lifetime? I’m 72 years old. I think maybe not. Do you dye your hair? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/37 "2020-11-20T15:24:51Z")
And look who’s building strawmen. Again. ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/38 "2020-11-20T15:26:59Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Do you dye your hair? No. I don’t. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/39 "2020-11-20T15:35:59Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > This is not going to happen. There will be some ugly incidents for the next 7 months or so. **But we’ll move on from this horrible insanity of Trump.** I would not count on it. Democracy does not depend on agreement - in fact it functions better when there is frequent disagreement, with healthy, spirited debate. But democracy _is_ built on mutual cooperation. Trump is behaving absolutely no differently right now than he did the previous 3 years and 9 months - longer if you go back to the campaign. What he’s doing right now won’t be dismissed or forgotten because 73 million people voted for precisely what he’s doing right now. If Trump were getting ‘Barry Goldwatered’ or ‘George McGoverned’, that would be one thing, but he’s not. He’s got a very wide and intense base of support. And when a model is successful in politics, guess what: that model is going to be copied again and again until people figure it doesn’t work anymore. Republicans, as a whole, are beginning to figure out that they aren’t good at winning the popular vote, but they are also figuring out novel ways to get around that problem, chipping away at democracy bit by bit. If you think it’s bad now, wait until a massive economic crisis happens when a Democrat is running the country. The Trumpanzees will be demanding autocracy. I personally think that we are on an inexorable path toward the destruction of American democracy. I give it about another 4-12 years. They might fail this time, but they will find ways to make Democratic leadership fail even when they are not in power because they will refuse to cooperate, which is the essence of democracy. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2020, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999/40 "2020-11-20T15:46:26Z")
I think our best hope is dissolution. Blue state America simply can’t keep carrying red state America, not when red America is actively hostile to science , education, and inclusive democracy. They simply contribute too little and cause too much harm and they actively fight our efforts to keep them alive. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-tell-me-i-am-a-fool/925999.md?page=3)