History really, really sucks sometime. If you were a resident of Berlin watching the Reichstag pass the Enabling Act of 1933, or if you were a woman in Tehran staring down the barrel of the new Islamic government, or if you were a student in Yangon facing the failure of your 8888 Uprising, you would have been viscerally aware that the coming years would be extremely bleak. Some people survived by compromising their beliefs and their values in the name of safety. Some people survived by fleeing. Some people survived by sheer good fortune. And some, indeed, did not survive.
In the long view, the great wheels of history cannot turn the same direction forever. But they do turn the wrong way from time to time, and people get ground helplessly beneath them. Then they turn again. That’s how wheels work.
This would perhaps be a good time to remind people that this same variety of “AMERICA IS OVER, ALL HOPE IS LOST” posting was also happening eight years ago.
There were, of course, naysayers who were mocked for their optimism.
Sure, fine, whatever. If the best thing to do is to upend my life or even just prepare for the end, that’s that. My life is over whether I think it’ll happen or not. Then we should be doing something that’ll make our short time easier. If trying to find solutions and not wanting to wallow in a feedback loop of depression is sugar coating, fine, go ahead and believe I’m going to die in a concentration camp and my current life is futile. Like I said, if it happens, it happens whether I believe in it or not.
Trying to find one instead of just bouncing doomsday scenarios off each other.
And as mentioned elsewhere, I’ve also noted a common theme of getting involved with and building local communities. A friend was inspired by the election to look into volunteer opportunities. I’m strongly considering following his example. It’s small potatoes, but the point seems to be that the small potatoes are easier to find, easier to achieve, and easier to see an impact, which obviously improves one’s mood. It also creates more ties between people, the importance of which is self evident.
But I realize this isn’t the OP’s purpose. I was just saying that bouncing doomsday scenarios back and forth alone probably wouldn’t accomplish much except making everyone involved miserable. But I’m not the boss of anyone; if the thread goes onto that path, I’ll just stop reading it and y’all can have at it.
Well, if you believe that Trump wants a dictatorship, it might also mean that we’d be in it right now without even the flimsy guardrails we can put up. And Ukraine would be dead instead of “only” in critical condition. So it’s trade offs.
So back to the topic at hand…
This brings to mind a point I’d been considering. I can see the possibility that we’re so wary of the big fascist gestures that we may forget about the dangerous “merely” self serving actions that are even more likely, and that we should pay attention to in case we still have a country in the medium term. Like the idiots and assholes who’ll have access to classified information. Is there anything to be done there, for the Heritage Foundation and Musk, if not Trump?
I have a feeling the Georgia case is going to get squashed and this election will be the reason why. In 2020, Trump wanted to find 11,780 votes. Because he weasel-worded it and because Raffensberger didn’t ask for clarification, “find” has been parsed by the Justice Department in a manner that gives Trump the benefit of the doubt even though we all know damn well that he meant “make it up”.
However, in 2024, Trump took Georgia by approximately 116,000 votes. To Trump, this means he was right all along. The vote was stolen in 2020. The huge margin of support proves it. If he won by 116k in 2024, he could not possibly have lost by any amount in 2020. I would not be at all surprised if he makes this argument, as ludicrous as it would be. We already know from the Sharpie hurricane map that he has no hesitation when it comes to literally rewriting history.
Edit: the board pulled this reply over from one thread to another, no idea why. But I think this is just as valid for “compendium of horrors” as it is for the original topic.
I’m just waiting for Trump to claim that this election was rigged because he should have gotten 80, 85, 90, maybe even 100 million votes. Trump is a guy who just doesn’t know how to quit when he’s ahead because he’s spent most of his adult life in massive debt and bankruptcy, and actual success is a completely foreign concept to him.
The clusterfuck of infighting has already begun. There was a story yesterday, apparently leaked by one of Trump’s advisers, that suggested a not-completely-horrible outcome for Ukraine. The idea as I understood it was to freeze Ukrainian territory at the current front and establish a buffer zone along the front lines. The US would continue to supply Ukrainians with weapons to protect against Russian incursions provided they agreed not to join NATO for 20 years.
The Trump campaign immediately denounced the leak and by now has probably fired the advisor, thus initiating the signature policy of the previous Trump administration that will undoubtedly continue into the next one: firing everyone in sight. And the policy on Ukraine will probably now be the exact opposite of what was leaked, just out of spite, because … why not?
So we have two ego maniacs fighting. I mean Trump, Putin’s boot licker, and Putin.
Trump has to look like he’s fighting, but of course he isn’t. God only knows what kind of dirt Putin has on Trump. And Trump admires him anyway.
That’s a start I suppose, but screw that. Russia should give up tons of territory and Billions of dollars for what they did. Not that that will dig anybody up from their graves, but they need punished. And hard.
On the latter statement, I believe the EU is already in discussions to do exactly that.
On the first part, I hope you’re wrong but when it comes to Trump I always seem to end up being much too optimistic. After his first election in 2016, there still seemed hope that he would be rational and presidential, and I was encouraged by the fact that many outside advisors, like Al Gore, were coming to see him. Maybe, I naively thought, Trump would finally acknowledge the reality of climate change.
Little did I know that was just a display of Trumpian narcissism, enjoying having these folks grovel before him and then ignoring them.
Still, there’s faint hope that he may be rational about Ukraine.
If you were dumb enough (sorry, but that’s the appropriate word) to vote for Trump (or not vote at all) because you thought he’d help Palestinians more than the Democrats have, here’s what you get in return: worse than nothing. This was so obvious, yet you blew it — for everyone.
Expect show trials of Jack Smith and Merrick Garland. Possibly courts-martial of Mark Milley and other senior military officers who spoke out against Trump.
Even Elon Musk (mostly a bystander in the Justice Department investigations) has called for Jack Smith to be punished.
Right now, retribution is just an abstract concept; next year it will become real.
I’d expect any number of covert operatives overseas are doing whatever they can to get themselves home.
Would also expect to see quite a few retirements across the bureaucracy - but especially at State and Justice. It is one thing for a standard bureaucrat to administer policy they don’t love - goes with the job. But to actually have to go into court and prosecute people requires a little more.
The brain drain will likely be impressive. But I’m sure they will be replaced w/ only the best people!
Delivering a telegraph machine by river is very slow @Superdude . And I don’t have a land line anyway.
It is weird. I put a cell phone antenna on the roof, and it works quite well. I suggested to my wife that we should drop our land line, it was very undependable. And became pointless.
So she did.
Now in this golden age of everyone can get in touch with you at anywhere at any time we at least don’t have to deal with the land line too.
The Office Of Government Efficiency head is talking about getting rid of VA Housing & Medical Care.
My Brother is a disabled, homeless vet, currently in psych care.
God help us all.
