So, this is what it looks like before the war.

The BBQ Pit
1

I am struck by how many people are living in a fool’s paradise, talking about this election like it’s just another election. The news speak happily of the orderly transfer of power. Jon Stewart says he’s not worried; after all, Nixon didn’t like Jews and used slurs in private, and somehow that’s the same in Jon’s mind as someone having actively promised mass deportations on the campaign trail. Dave Chappelle said he’d “give him a chance.”

Let’s be clear. Trump ran as a political racist from Day One. He is still talking about immediately deporting or incarcerating 2 million people. His closest adviser, Steve Bannon, is a professional bigot.

This most likely is what it looks like. We just put Hitler in the White House.

The Republicans will go along, because they can see that in theory, eliminationism will work. They know they don’t do well with minorities, and decreasing the number of minorities can help win elections. This is how the vaunted “rising demographic tide” is defeated.

The USA may well be a one-party state shortly. Nazis don’t tolerate dissident parties. We can transfer power to Herr Hitler in “orderly” fashion, but he won’t leave in such a fashion.

Now, there are still courts. But courts move slowly. And in the end, it’s not black robes making life-&-death decisions on the streets, but our American blackshirts, our police forces. The same blackshirts who strongly endorsed Donald Trump. The same blackshirts whose families shouted “Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!” on the streets of Ferguson.

And in any case, we are not really a “nation of laws.” Congress is supreme over the law, and Congress is right-wing now. The Voting Rights Act is a dead letter, and Congress will be right-wing until a military defeat.

I suppose California, and other states with large Chicano populations, will attempt to leave the union given this state of affairs. But even if they don’t, we are in the opening stages of some kind of civil war. Let’s hope it’s not a fascist curb-stomp victory and the beginning of a millennium of unchallenged White Power.

2

Very good point. At infowars or reddit/conspiracy, some of them act like there will be a cataclysmic event on the day Trump takes office, whether it be from numerology, various prophecies, or a combination.

On the other end, you have those taking a very blase, business-as-usual stance.

Similar to the current political climate, there isn’t much in-between.

3

This is precisely the same sort of hysterical exaggeration that we heard after Obama was elected. He was going to turn into a socialist dictator, tear up the Constitution, the right needed to take up arms and prepare for the coming civil war, etc. It had no basis in reality then and it has no basis now. No states are going to secede, Congress isn’t going to forget about the Constitution nor would they support Trump if he suddenly turned into Hitler.

This sort of talk really sells the US short. One of the oldest and most enduring democracies in the world isn’t suddenly going to fall apart because there’s a right-wing President.

4

It matters who the President is.

Dubya was a disaster, and he’d actually held elective office before. Trump is inexperienced, incompetent, and a bigot–a dangerous combination. And the party will follow him off a cliff the same way they did Dubya, only this cliff will involve purges of the domestic population. Some conservatives are just that dumb, some are craven, some really believe in white supremacy, and some are cynical enough to embrace purges as a means to keep power,

5

I blame our schools for this thread.

6

Did Obama campaign on a platform of mass deportation and ethnic profiling?

7

I’m struck by how many people are acting like their party of choice has never lost a presidential election before, and have completely forgotten about the way they freaked out about how 2000 was the end of American democracy.

Specifically, he’s talking about deporting or incarcerating 2 million people who have committed crimes. Is it your belief that we shouldn’t be arresting criminals?

No we didn’t.

Yeah, just like it was after 9/11 and Democrats never held office ever again.

Now you’re just plain being hyperbolic. The police are not “blackshirts”. They’re the ones arresting people committing racial violence in Trump’s name, not the ones perpetrating it.

Remind me when Marbury v. Madison was overturned, again?

They’re eight Senate votes short of being able to enact policy unilaterally.

I’ll bet money that the talk of California seceding comes to about as much as the talk of Texas seceding did four years ago.

So in other words, Trump is going to give us a thousand years of darkness? Funny, I’d swear that sounds familiar…

I’ve lived through Clinton Derangement Syndrome, Bush Derangement Syndrome, and Obama Derangement Syndrome. I’m afraid you’ve fallen victim to the latest strain of the malaise that hits this country every four years.

8

Well, he certainly delivered mass deportation and ethnic profiling. In fact, he deported more people during his term than Trump is currently promising to go after.

9

Dude, why would you visit shit like that? Seriously, there’s nothing of value there. At all.

10

Another “Trump is Hitler” thread.

YAWN!

Moving on.

11

The fact that Donald Trump does not represent a threat to democracy itself. The fact that an increasingly large number of voters simply do not value participation in democracy does. And the fact that those who do participate seem to have values that run counter to both liberty and democracy absolutely does. Democracies die when people living in democracies begin supporting undemocratic ideas. We’ve been behaving in undemocratic ways for at least a good 15 years, and probably longer than that. It’s true that there have always been individuals and groups within our democracy who have been skeptical of our system, but the degree is what marks the contrast between now and a generation ago. I think we are in real danger. Not so much in danger of becoming an entirely new country, but in danger of returning to some of the darker chapters of our own country’s history. Liberty for some, but not for all. Opportunity for some, but not for all.

12

I think this is absolutely fair to point out, and we need to be careful about always connecting Trump (or any demagogue) to Hitler and Stalin – those are not accurate or likely parallels. Indeed, Obama has actually become the Great Deporter (and let’s be clear, we’re talking about immigrants who are out of legal status. I’m not in support of mass deportation either, but let’s be accurate. Moreover, George W Bush mass profiled Muslims and detained a great number of suspicious Muslims who were non-citizens. We’ve had anti-semitic presidents before, Nixon among the worst of them.

Do we need him to be Hitler to be an atrocious leader? No, we don’t. We can find parallels in American history that can easily reveal how horrible a renegade populist with little regard for our political norms could become. Trump’s administration could be a nightmare, and right now it seems to be. But I don’t think we’re going to become Nazi Germany, which is not because I am being a Pollyanna, but because I don’t see Trump supporters as having that kind of character. The most likely outcome is that local governments will have a lot more power, and private entities will have a lot more power. They’ll have the power to discriminate, the power to enslave, the power to bully and harass. And the national government will reinforce that new balance. And, as in the Cold War era, the national intelligence agencies will probably continue to allow dissent but won’t hesitate to make its presence known from time to time if people get too far out of line. Not saying it’s good – it’s not. But hyperbole isn’t good either.

13

Oh, for crying out loud.

I just watched a campaign, an election, where (a) one side stood up and made the wacky assertion that we should treat lawbreakers like lawbreakers, and (b) the other side said, whoa, hold on; that’s a really tough question.

And even now – after the folks on the side of mere tautology won – you can’t bring yourself to launch into the rest of some parade of horribles without making sure your go-to rallying cry, the first thing on your tongue to deride a comparison to Nixon, the italicized ‘detail’ half of a general ‘racist’ barb, the attention-getter chosen twice from among all others to kick off the first post of a thread, is oh, no, you guys; he said he’s gonna treat lawbreakers like lawbreakers! Can you imagine?

You still open with that, for a running start at ‘bigot’ and ‘Nazis’ and ‘Hitler’?

14

Well, I hope so. But large parts of the USA have only been democracies for around 50 years, and the incoming Attorney General is very likely to gut the part of the federal government that keeps those states free.

I think some people have been overly negative about the likely outcomes of what happened last week, but the idea that we’re immune from those kind of outcomes is total BS. It’s not something that can’t happen here. We aren’t special. Progress isn’t guaranteed.

15

Rant.

Off to The Pit.

16

“We”? Those of *you *who could have voted to prevent it, and did not, are responsible.

Now tell us more about how Bernie would have won but the Democrats are just too corrupt etc. Give us all a laugh.

Then STFU.

17

Trump = Hitler. :eek: Why has no one thought of that before?

18

[QUOTE=The Other Waldo Pepper]
I just watched a campaign, an election, where (a) one side stood up and made the wacky assertion that we should treat lawbreakers like lawbreakers, and (b) the other side said, whoa, hold on; that’s a really tough question.

[/QUOTE]

It’s still early, but I’m awarding this one the coveted Ray Bolger Strawman of the Month prize, along with Politifact’s extremely rare “Pants Full of Shit On Fire” rating. Take a bow!

19

Which part do you take issue with? That one side advocated for treating lawbreakers like lawbreakers, or that the other didn’t?

20

It’s the fact that your amazing perception of the last year is shared by much of America that keeps the OP out of paranoid fantasy land. It’s not highly probable yet, but it’s certainly more likely now than it’s been for eighty years or so in this country.