The first ballot I was old enough to cast was for John Kerry in 2004. After Bush lied about WMDs and got us into a pointless war, a torture program, mass surveillance of Americans, let alone shit conservative social policies. 4 years of that, and Americans knowingly reelected him by a wider margin than his initial election. This time he won the popular vote, which he didn’t do in his initial election. Any of this sound familiar?
But we survived, and we paid attention, and we organized, and by 2008 we had a (by the standards of the time) progressive candidate at the top of the ticket, offering “radical socialist” policies ideas like universal healthcare and just a general vibe of inclusiveness rather than division. The Democratic party rejected the establishment options and nominated the bold candidate, the black guy with the middle name huessain. And we worked our asses off, I was mostly working on local campaigns but did some door knocking for Obama in a swing state.
And we won. The same country that four years ago shrugged off concerns about a guy who lied to get us into a war, turned around and voted for the (comparatively) progressive black guy the right painted as an out and out socialist by a landslide.
It’s not just that we defeated Trumpism in 2018, and 2020, and to some extent in 2022. Democrats turned a country that voted for a moron with little to no respect for democratic norms and the rule of law by wide margins, into a country that voted for a progressive in 2008.
We can do it again. We can organize and fight and convince the working class Americans who are so fed up with the status quo that they are so desperate for change that they voted for Trump, that real change that actually benefits working people is progressive. We can do that.
Two conditions though. First, we can’t let the DNC force another moderate center right candidate on us. Second, we have to make sure elections are still a thing that happens in America come 2026 and 2028. Both are tall orders, but we can do it.
The Supreme Court ruled that he can do whatever he wants with no consequence and American voters handed him the key to the castle. There’s not going to be another election. Say hello to Supreme Leader Vance.
Yeah, I hope that’s not the case but I worry about it. I think the most hopeful take is Trump isn’t running again, he’ll be like 86, so he’s not going to give a shit what comes next. Why bother to use the power of the state to help dipshit Vance? If anything, Vance losing just reinforces how special and unique Trump was, inflates his own ego. In terms of elections, I’m more concerned with the midterms. Trump has an incentive to prevent Congress flipping.
But also remember, W. Bush also had a conservative supreme court willing to let him get away with war crimes. Fuck, he “won” in 2020 only because SCOTUS stepped in to hand him the win. W. Bush was more illegitimate than Trump. But we survived, and we got Obama after. So there’s hope here too.
Trump isn’t running again, he’ll be like 86, so he’s not going to give a shit what comes next.
He’s not planning on running again. He’s planning on being king until he dies. Even if the GQP didn’t plan on doing everything that they laid out to turn the country into a theofascist dictatorship (they do plan on it), the courts will be irreparably compromised for the lifetime of everyone currently alive. Optimism would be nice but the very real consequences of 15million people sitting out this election is that it is the last real one that this country will see and the last one under which many will have civil rights.
We need to get rid of the DNC. We need a different party, one that will fight and not concede the election the way Harris did. She didn’t even fight, she should have gone “wait a minute the Republicans said they were going to do election fraud, we should check those numbers” instead she gave up. The same way it always happens the DNC GIVES UP.
I’m not going to defend the DNC, and I know the “fight from the inside” line gets eye rolls. But look at what Trump did. He took over the Republican party. He represented what the grassroots activists and voters in Republican primaries wanted. It was ugly and gross, but that’s what they wanted. And Trump transformed the Republican party in his image. Traditional Republicans became refugees, “never trumpers”. The Paul Ryan’s and Elizabeth Cheney’s who were willing to go along, without adopting the new maga Republican line, were forced out. Now the old Reagan, country club, fiscal discipline, free trade Republican party is dead. The survivors are exciled to places like the Bulwark, like it’s Taiwan and they’re just waiting for the opportunity to take their party back, an opportunity that will never come because the grassroots won’t let them.
I’m not saying this is a model. It happened in large part because fox news let Trump run wild because he was good for ratings, and by the time they went to quash him with Megan Kelly as hitman during a Fox News debate, it was too late, the base was with him and it was Kelly who was sacrificed as appeasement. It was overall a hostile takeover of the party based on the force of personality of one person, not a takeover based on differing policy ideas or a general vision for the party and country. I don’t think we can, or should want to, replicate that. But still I think there might be something there, some nugget we can replicate, for the grassroots to force change from the inside.
It’s a whole lot easier to take over a party than to build a new one.
But… Do you want to? I don’t feel like this is a country I want to contribute to anymore. I’m not going to leave (because that’s very impractical) and I’ll still support myself, but the goodwill I had towards my fellow Americans is very much diminished.
It’s easy for me to say that because I could leave if I needed to. The situation is very different for the people who can’t. Maybe I should have more concern for them than I do right now, but instead I just keep thinking how one upside of Trump winning the popular vote is that whatever happens, most Americans will deserve it.
I’m right here with you. I have completely lost all faith in my fellow Americans. The facts to repudiate all of Trump’s lies are easily and readily available, and they are willfully ignorant. They deserve the misery Trump plans to bring to them.
The US adult population is something like 260 million, and Trump has like 73 million votes.
Tons of those people also had to deal with votor suppression, and I even had to manually cure my ballot this year because my “signature didn’t match” supposedly (as did 5 other people I know who dropped off at the same location).
We’ve also been under a huge amount of propaganda and some people are literally living in separate realitites where their enemies are ridiculous evil characatures.
Like… I get it. It’s hard to feel good towards America right now, and lots of those people who didn’t vote deserve a lot of this blame. But is it really that rational to throw the rest of America under the bus?
At the very least, just help the people around you. Just be a person and participate in your community. You don’t need to put a bunch of time and energy into political activism, but work done to help local communities is never wasted.
Yea, it is. This isn’t a normal election. The danger is incredibly high for all kinds of terrible outcomes: civil war, famine, a collapsed economy. All these things seem readily possible now in a way they have never felt before.
and by the time everyone realizes just how bad things are, it’s going to be too late to do anything about it. Canadas borders will be closed and Mexico is already a failed state. Get out now while you still can. Before they enact exist visas to try and stop the brain drain
I hear you for sure, but keep in mind “all americans” is still barely a plurality of registered voters who voted so far as we know.
Sure, that number goes up the more cynical one is. Which. Yeah. But still.
Plenty of good people, kids, women who are married to assholes and so on need to have support because they didn’t ask for this and also it’s very wrong.
Sorry, too late! I gave up yesterday morning. I’m going to focus on me and my family for a while.
It’s okay to start your resistance by just surviving. And helping your kids grow. And looking out for those dear to you. Sometimes you gotta just work on the “Outlive” part.
Thank you.
I don’t want to “just get through it”. That’s some passive bullshit. Shit needs to happen. These shitheads supporting trump need to know that we will not accept their oppression.
Heck yeah go get 'em.
There’s a lot of people with too much on their backs to do it though. Kids, parents, money, jobs, love, etc.
For them (not you or the go getters) spare a thought, as they say.
And this is why we’re going to move to Canada. Not like the oh we’re going to move, like I’m prepared to do literally whatever it takes including moving my family into a studio apartment in the middle of nowhere in order to protect them from the nightmare that is about to befall my country
I never thought I’d say that, but my fellow Americans have let me down in a way I honestly didn’t think was possible anymore. We have learned nothing from our past and the people who voted for sweet potato Hitler are going to get what they deserve. The problem is that everyone else is going to get what they deserve too
Maybe it’s just a fractal of earlier empires but with a shorter time on top and a faster decline. Whatever the case I’m not going to wait around for a dude in a guy fawkes mask to start a revolution. I’m outta here
Cool. I hear Canada’s great. And it’s pretty diverse, so you can live in New France or Super-Oregon or Canadian Alabama, or Alaska For Reals. They have a true love for doughnuts and fries and rail service and some beautiful landscapes. Plus hardly any drop bears or any of those Australian things that will murder you horribly for no particular reason because they’re primoridal and you built a house on them.
Good call, IMO.
Canada has it’s own right wing bullshit brewing, running away from the problem doesn’t seem to be the answer.
Sadly, also true.
Yeah I keep hearing that but I think at least you gotta keep trying to get to higher ground while you can
Canada may have problems but they’re not like this, at least not yet
https://newrepublic.com/article/188119/transcript-top-trump-ally-reveals-alarming-plans-day-one
I hope the let us in 🙏
They’d be perfectly right not to. Ugh.
Edit: “us” being Americans, I mean.
Organize labor. General strike. Halt the economy. There are so many ways to resist that don’t require you to wait four years and plug your nose to vote for the Republicans of 20 years ago.
Sabotage their agenda
Be kind to the elderly and children and women. Most women. Okay I dunno that last one is tricky. Whatever.
That’s all it’s saying. Not “Hooray everything’s great”. Just - hey - we can figure it out. And in the meantime, be cool and take care of your people as best you can.
We can still push for positive climate policies on the local and state level. If Trump and his cronies try and say states can’t acknowledge the climate in their policy, then we double down and push for it anyways for the reasons of grid resilience and pollution/health instead
“We.”
The popular vote spoke volumes. This is what they wanted.
Yeah I’m mad AF too. But everyone I know is a good person who didn’t vote for the rapist.
Unfortunately they will suffer at least as much as the people who deserve what’s coming
Well, I’m still going to be nice to them.
Or roubdhouse kicks a right wimger into the sun. Your choice
Also good.
meh, it’s over.
decent will never win over indecent. and in or towards the end, only the indecent will survive.
Decent sometimes wins over indecent. And sometimes (certainly far too often) it doesn’t.
To those of us spared, when decency won, it was worth it.
I mean, I get the sentiment but I disagree with it factually.
Decent has done pretty well overall in the last few hundred years. YES with some notable exceptions.
Do you know that quote about the “arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice”? I thought it was an MLK quote, and it is, but it apparently came from Theodore Parker who I didn’t know. A look over his wiki page gives you some perspective on where we are right now.
it’s important to somewhat dissociate what we think history is from what we absolutely know it is from experience.
Anyway. Fuck Trump I hope he chokes on a hamberder on tv and dies hilariously.
I get the attempt and appreciate the response, but the ol question comes back, what periods of time were considered decent by all?I can’t name anytime in last several hundred years where there wasn’t human imposed sickness via slavery, greed, war, desire etc that affected millions of other humans and decent humans “had temporarily won” I’ve heard some mention the summer of 1969 but that accounts for small % of humanity. I cling to the not-so-shitty moments too and maybe I’m jaded, but it doesn’t seem like any decency has won, despite having some decent leaders along the way. say Obama and I meet you with rabid Rs lambasting his tan suit and Healthcare ideas as if he was the antichrist. Pepperidge Farm remembers Obama.
I’ll read on the arc of justice, but IMO the universe has never had an objective morality where it gives a shit about right or wrong, so can make no cause for justice. because you see justice is derived from laws, and laws are derived from ethics and morals which are subjective. there is no subjectivity without an individual (human).
but overall, yes I agree; fuck trump with hamburgers, hilariously.
what periods of time were considered decent by all
A good question - I think you’d have to define “decent” and “all” before we could hazard a guess though.
And agree on the morals of the universe, I think that was an artifact of the time it was originally concieved. The more common version I see omits “morals” and just says “the arc of the universe” which isn’t so jarring. In other words the morals either are omitted from the concept or their inclusion is implicit in whatever morals exist in the universe to the listener - which in our case would be none, but others may see some.
This opinion piece has a similar view that moral isn’t useful here and “justice” is only what we actively work to make it. IMO that’s an unfortunate countering of the phrase’s popularity and sort of robs it of some of it’s inherent optimism by demonizing ‘magical thinking’ - which is a whole other bag of worms I have no intention of opening up.
I prefer the sort of basic idea that the unknowable is geared to good, we just have to see it. I disagree that that’s ‘magical thinking’ in the pejorative, I just think that it’s not wrong. Context is all of course, and in the largest context we can concieve, good is either the default or it’s moot to the point that it may as well be for what we can know now.
Nope. Burn. It. Down.
