Even if this is true, how is it helpful to proclaim at every turn that we are doomed and American democracy is already dead? If THAT is true, then there is no reason for anyone to vote again, ever, or to work to make things better in any way at all.
It’s helpful to point out when institutions have failed us so people will stop supporting those institutions and work on creating alternatives. It’s utterly irrational and counterproductive to keep doing the same things and expecting different results.
Also, in spite of ourselves, we are normalizing Thump’s behavior. When he first started tweeting his Presidential proclamations, many of us were appalled. But now we’re used to it. When he shows up at Christmas dinner with his underpants on his head, people will just nod and smile and go on eating. Someone has to keep saying, “This is not right! This is not normal! This man is not harmless!”
YMMV, but in my experience, it’s people who are basically hopeful who are doing new things. Voting, donating, calling their members of congress, volunteering, running for local office. People who believe we are now DOOMED FOREVER and sliding inextricably into fascism are the ones not doing anything different, because they don’t believe anybody can do anything that matters.
I am an attention-whoring pessimist because I want people to stop living in the delusional bullshit world in which people walk around and say to each other, reassuringly, "This is America. We’ve been through this before, so it’ll all work out eventually."That is how dictatorships are born. And we’re pregnant with one now, precisely because most of us have lived with this assumption for far too long.
I’m not saying to stop voting or to give up hope, but I am definitely saying that shit is getting very real. I’m probably not even speaking to people like John DiFool, but more so to those who think that they had the luxury of wasting votes on idiots like Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders, or other alternative candidates who have no chance of winning. I’m also speaking to those who are foolish enough to believe that a little authoritarianism is a small price to pay for getting to keep an extra 3, 4, or even 10% of your income. Authoritarians will turn on their right wing brethren and eat them alive just as they’ll devour their left wing nemeses - ask Bob Corker, Jeff Flake, Mitch McConnell, Arlen Specter, Eric Cantor, John Boehner, and the Bushes. It’s just a matter of time before they fail some ideological litmus test and find themselves being chased out of the party.
Think the Mueller investigation is going to save us? Nope. And we should stop deluding ourselves into believe it will. It’s PEOPLE, ordinary voting PEOPLE like you and me (not necessarily us, but a lot like us) who have gotten us into this mess over the course of the past 2 or 3 decades. People sitting out mid-terms and then blaming a sitting president for not being a superman. People sitting out presidential elections because their ideal candidate wasn’t on the ballot, despite that the fact that a nightmare candidate was. People falling for Swiftboat commercials. People voting for an incumbent president because for whatever reason there’s some phony tradition of not voting against a president during wartime. Point is, Americans don’t even understand how their own democracy works anymore, so how can we expect things to change? There is absolutely no reason to be optimistic about anything. But people nevertheless keep hope alive with the latest Mueller news. They’re going to be stunned when the investigation just gets shut down. They’ll be even more stunned when after a few weeks, things just go back to business as usual. The only thing that will change minds and alter the course of history between now and the end of 2018 is a severe economic downturn. It seems that the economy is the only real yardstick we use to measure legislative success.
I’ve been hopeful long enough, but unfortunately, I’ve been repeatedly outnumbered by a coalition of the fascist, the clueless, and the apathetic. I’ll be hopeful again when enough people see that what I’ve been warning of all along is true, but we will probably be at a low point then. If being a realist is being a pessimist, then I guess I’m a pessimist too. Sorry.
Because it’s HIS ENTIRE SCHTICK. He expresses this defeatist attitude in just about every post he makes.
Maybe I can come over to your house and bang on the same piano key, over and over, all day long.
In any event I see Trump as simply shining a beam into the dark corners of the right wing, causing all sorts of things to scuttle out and be noticed. The more conservative people in this country will be forced to examine themselves and their beliefs, sooner or later. And we don’t necessarily need them all to do so (and recent polls are showing that enough are doing so). AND THIS WAS SOMETHING THAT HAD TO HAPPEN so that the Old Order would finally die, once and for all (and change into something else). Trump was simply the most convenient way to pull it off.
As far as Mueller is concerned specifically, under what mechanism do you see it all just fading into nothing? Someone pointed out that the investigation would continue even if he is canned.
I guess I am by nature an optimist. So sue me. Doesn’t mean that I am all eyes wide shut when it comes to the shite I see him and his cronies and fans doing on a daily basis. I’m simply saying that it is an unstable house of cards that will inevitably collapse at some point. Just thank Og that it was Trump and not someone who actually has a clear and coherent plan like ol’ Adolf did.
Your optimism is based on assumptions.
“I’m not a pessimist, I’m a REALIST!” is one of the oldest cliches in the book. Just saying.
A cynic is an optimist who was exposed to too much information.
Yes, a lot of assumptions.
John DiFool, on what do you base that this house of cards will inevitably fall? As good as an investigation that Mr. Mueller is conducting, there’s a lack of what I want to see. Mainly, where are the republicans who are against this administration? What are there, three of them? One senator retiring because he doesn’t like the administration is as heavy as cotton candy.
The GOP is loving this. They got their religious rights - a big thing with financial support, cutting health care, cutting welfare, tailoring the budget and taxes to fit their needs… This is a fantastic time to be a republican senator, period.
What I expect is for the GOP to make sure this investigation ends or is stalled and Mueller is fired. The investigation won’t proceed much if there’s actually a replacement for him. And at what level? It won’t be paid for by us taxpayers anymore if they somehow block it. If they do, I’m sure the GOP will insist on prosecuting those already indicted to make themselves look good.
I honestly do not believe any of this investigation will go all the way to the Orange Fartbasket or his family or his finances. As far as him resigning? Really? 100% no on that. He’s riding the taxpayers for virtually all of his expenses and future financial growth.
A year ago, I thought the GOP was dead. Their last election before the party splits and go their own ways. The fact that so many people support this shitstain of a man is a hard thing to swallow, but it does get swallowed. It happened. This past election proves this country doesn’t have some problems, it proves that we’ve got over 40 million problems-- people who think this is a good change. A lot of these 40 million people would LOVE it if they never had to hire a black or gay person. They would LOVE a white dominant country. A lot of them don’t care about equal rights whatsoever. This is how I see the majority of Trump supporters. They might not hate everyone, but they think, “Yeah… that’d be nice. Whites first.”
If anything happens to their beloved pumpkin, they are NOT going to be happy and take it sitting down either.
Let me guess: you’re white.
If you’re not, believe me, what I’m saying isn’t ‘defeatist’; it’s just an ugly reality that you don’t want to see. Not everyone has the luxury of just turning off the TV and tuning out. Some people are going to end up living a nightmare the likes of which you probably can’t imagine. Sorry you don’t like what I’m saying, but I’m going to keep saying it. And I’m going to get louder and louder. I’m going to keep banging my drum until people take it more seriously.
And while you’re banging on your sad drum, others are getting up off their asses, going out, and working to make the world a better place. Why? Because they remember that the Trumpists aren’t the majority in this country. They’re just louder than usual right now. We can shut them up if we all do something.
BTW? Your sad drumbeat? Not doing something. Put up or shut up.
You are assuming that when the light is shined on the scuttling and scurrying figures in the dark corners, that the republicans will be repulsed, and forcing them to examine themselves and their beliefs will cause them to reconsider.
That’s a big assumption. When the light shines into the dark corner, they just say, “Oh hey, that’s where I left that.” When the examine themselves and their beliefs, they find that they like them. The light was shined during the primary and the general, they have had the option already of reconsidering their party’s ideology. They didn’t, they doubled down.
Mueller is tasked by congress. Congress can rescind his authority, even if trump doesn’t. Congress can shut the investigation down entirely. It could still continue on at the State AG level, but they don’t have the same resources, and can be bullied by the fed.
I don’t disagree that it’s an unstable house of cards to come down, I just don’t know that it is the ones who built it that will be the ones hurt when it happens.
Yeah … nobody hates Donald Trump more than I do. And nothing makes me happier than other people telling Donald how much they hate him. I mean, I would tell him, but I’m a fat forty-something woman, so he won’t care. But he’s going to care that the Bush family en masse has declared their disdain for him. That’s going to sting.
And I like that! I like that Donald is going to be unhappy about this.
But I’m not convinced it’s really helping anything.
(I did especially like GHWB, who raised from birth in the art of the polite evisceration, using Donald’s own trick of saying, “I don’t know much about him …” I suspect that’s going to cut even deeper than the follow-up, “… but I know he’s a blowhard”.)
Maybe take a nice long walk in a park. Pet a few dogs and feed the ducks. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.
You’re going to be okay.
If it makes you feel any better - that’s still on the menu.
Now that we’ve all had a lovely dose of self-righteousness (asahi isn’t doing anything to change the current situation! but we are doing oh so much!), perhaps it’s time to get back to the topic of the thread: Trump and his Clusterfuck.
As for example: I agree that Carter Page didn’t come up with the idea of doing the rounds of talk shows to offer proof that Jeff Sessions lied before Congress; he was put up to it. The plan is to replace Sessions with someone who will fire Mueller, of course. So: what odds that Carter Page was promised that he himself would be awarded the Attorney General spot?
AF1 lands in Hawai’i, is greeted appropriately
Nah, if anything, I think Page was told he wouldn’t get a pardon unless he shopped Sessions. Always go for the intimdate check, with these clowns.
In other news - Donald just landed in Hawaii, where he was greeted with protesters bearing** “Welcome to Kenya!”** signs.