How has the Trump phenomena changed you?

[Mickey]

I would like to think that we can all care about our local, immediate, and material concerns while disdaining the hypercommodified #resistance grift-economy while also recognizing that the Trump administration's policies and messaging perpetuate and amplify racist and xenophobic worldviews while also recognizing that some of the people who voted for Trump are not intrinsically bad without also pinning this as an anti-left sentiment.

That's basically what he just said.

In important ways it is not, but I've never pegged you as a nuanced reader.

Curious what else you took from my post. Your post is an accurate representation of what I was trying to say.

I think you are painting this as an anti-left sentiment, which means collapsing the broad spectrum of "the left" into Nancy Pelosi, Rachel Maddow, or Tim Kaine. It comes across as a sort of both-sides-ism, which I think is a mistake, insofar as the worst abuses of the Trump administration are pretty objectively more grave than the most hysterical takes on MSNBC.

[Mickey]

I mean if you want to talk shit about Democrats, by all means--if I didn't live in a swing state I would never vote for Joe fucking Biden on principle. But what I described above was essentially the premise of the Sanders campaign--a focus on material concerns, a disdain for #resistance, a recognition that Trump's policies hurt people (and hurt some people more than others), but also a refusal to say that Trump's voters are bad human beings. So if you're walking swiftly away from "the left" in general it's at the expense of agreeing with what I've outlined here.

[Orpheus]

I've been thinking about this thread a lot, and I'll say that the reaction to Trump's presidency has fundamentally rewired my brain for the better. In short, I reject the #resist movement to a slight degree more than I reject Trumpism itself.

This #resist thing is so far out in left field that I can actually understand what would compel someone to vote for Trump.

I would love further explanation of this phenomenon because it is 100% stupid and nonsensical to me and always has been.

People are annoying yeah, but the best way to combat that is doing something harmful and stupid in response? How does that make any sense?

Be more specific? I think I get you but not entirely sure.

I guess my questions are: do you think Trump and his influence are not worth resisting? What specifically about the anti-Trump movement is so left field that it outweighs the awfulness of Trump himself?

To me its like people saying they hate meat so much that they're going to shove a pineapple up their ass. The first part is understandable, but how it leads to the second is...not.

[Mickey]

That is quite the metaphor.

[Orpheus]

It comes across as a sort of both-sides-ism, which I think is a mistake, insofar as the worst abuses of the Trump administration are pretty objectively more grave than the most hysterical takes on MSNBC.

This is what I'm trying to communicate, you said it much better. People screaming in cars doesn't really stack up to fascism, corruption and xenophobia, for me at least.

[washing machine]

[BurtReynolds]

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[Orpheus]

That we can agree on, it really fucking is.

[Mickey]

Good news: it's only going to get worse forever!

[washing machine]

I guess, to answer both of you, the general idea that Trump is an evil human being who must be vanquished to save the world is a non-starter for me. I have spent four years watching the media and a vocal sect of the left become unhinged to the point of hysteria. This has done much harm to idea of discourse in this country. Trump isn't the cause. He's a tool that hammers in the effect. The direction the conversation about Trump is going will be far, far worse than whatever the hell Trump decided to do with his time in the Oval office for 4-8 years.

I do think Trump is a bad president, but I do not trust that his critics are being fair when they describe the effects of his policies. I do think that he stokes the flames of division for his own gain, but I do not think that he is unique in any way in this regard.

[Mickey]

I guess, to answer both of you, the general idea that Trump is an evil human being who must be vanquished to save the world is a non-starter for me. I have spent four years watching the media and a vocal sect of the left become unhinged to the point of hysteria. This has done much harm to idea of discourse in this country. Trump isn't the cause. He's a tool that hammers in the effect. The direction the conversation about Trump is going will be far, far worse than whatever the hell Trump decided to do with his time in the Oval office for 4-8 years.

I do think Trump is a bad president, but I do not trust that his critics are being fair when they describe the effects of his policies. I do think that he stokes the flames of division for his own gain, but I do not think that he is unique in any way in this regard.

This post is relatively baffling to me, even though I share many of its premises. I do not think Trump is uniquely evil, I do not think his vanquishing will save the world, I do not think he's the cause of a lot of what we're seeing (sorry, that's still capitalism!). I don't even think Trump is the worst president of this century--that's easily W and he has the body count to prove it. And yet--the idea that the "harm done to discourse" is worse than the mishandling of the pandemic, the multiple incursions on civil rights, the egregious amount of wealth transferred upwards by the tax cuts, the attacks on the ACA which continue to leave millions of Americans without healthcare coverage, to say nothing of giving the green light to cut women's access to reproductive health (via SCOTUS) or the environmental rollbacks which will probably play a (small) role in the way that all of us die? Discourse? Civility? That's your takeaway?

[Norah]

yeah reid wtf

[BurtReynolds]

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

[Orpheus]

The hysteria angle is interesting because I think if anything, Trump's actions have been continuously normalized. People in other countries would have probably marched en masse for his removal ala South Korea, but Americans are too scared or lazy (or both). The things pile on top of each other so they seem normal. This is a president caught on tape admitting to a crime before the election, which is actually easy to forget at this point.

Trump has all but stopped trying to win the election, and we're still days out. He openly speaks (in debates for the re-election that he's given up on) about just stealing it in the court. He's downplayed a deadly pandemic as it literally sat in his lungs. As long as that's happening, is anything hysterical? It's hard for me to take that argument seriously when the president himself doesn't agree to a peaceful transition of power, and says it openly.

[Norah]

Remember when he wanted to walk across the street so he gassed hundreds of American citizens to clear the way?

[Strat]

Remember when he wanted to walk across the street so he gassed hundreds of American citizens to clear the way?

Hysterical

[washing machine]

I guess, to answer both of you, the general idea that Trump is an evil human being who must be vanquished to save the world is a non-starter for me. I have spent four years watching the media and a vocal sect of the left become unhinged to the point of hysteria. This has done much harm to idea of discourse in this country. Trump isn't the cause. He's a tool that hammers in the effect. The direction the conversation about Trump is going will be far, far worse than whatever the hell Trump decided to do with his time in the Oval office for 4-8 years.

I do think Trump is a bad president, but I do not trust that his critics are being fair when they describe the effects of his policies. I do think that he stokes the flames of division for his own gain, but I do not think that he is unique in any way in this regard.

This post is relatively baffling to me, even though I share many of its premises. I do not think Trump is uniquely evil, I do not think his vanquishing will save the world, I do not think he's the cause of a lot of what we're seeing (sorry, that's still capitalism!). I don't even think Trump is the worst president of this century--that's easily W and he has the body count to prove it. And yet--the idea that the "harm done to discourse" is worse than the mishandling of the pandemic, the multiple incursions on civil rights, the egregious amount of wealth transferred upwards by the tax cuts, the attacks on the ACA which continue to leave millions of Americans without healthcare coverage, to say nothing of giving the green light to cut women's access to reproductive health (via SCOTUS) or the environmental rollbacks which will probably play a (small) role in the way that all of us die? Discourse? Civility? That's your takeaway?

It's interesting that you bring up W. I think I agree with you that a lot of capitalism's worst tendencies thrived under him. Particularly crony capitalism, which I'm beginning to think is the real foe here.

Repealing ACA, women's reproductive rights, environmental and fiscal regulations on businesses...those are all things that can and should be discussed through civil discourse. They used to be. It feels like any and all conversations that start with those things today quickly turn into something else, and that's what I'm noticing and lamenting with more frequency every damn day.

[Orpheus]

Do you remember that Trump very literally ran on the idea that political correctness and niceness were un-American, and his supporters accepted that idea and ran with it enthusiastically? This is what they wanted! They hoped for an environment where they could freely hate and treat their different-thinking neighbors like shit and get away with it, and they only started talking about civility again once they realized a majority of people actually found their views and behavior abhorrent and became unafraid to say so. So pardon me if I'm unsympathetic to the awful climate we're in now. Its what they wanted, and now we're all getting shit on by it.

[Mickey]

I guess, to answer both of you, the general idea that Trump is an evil human being who must be vanquished to save the world is a non-starter for me. I have spent four years watching the media and a vocal sect of the left become unhinged to the point of hysteria. This has done much harm to idea of discourse in this country. Trump isn't the cause. He's a tool that hammers in the effect. The direction the conversation about Trump is going will be far, far worse than whatever the hell Trump decided to do with his time in the Oval office for 4-8 years.

I do think Trump is a bad president, but I do not trust that his critics are being fair when they describe the effects of his policies. I do think that he stokes the flames of division for his own gain, but I do not think that he is unique in any way in this regard.

This post is relatively baffling to me, even though I share many of its premises. I do not think Trump is uniquely evil, I do not think his vanquishing will save the world, I do not think he's the cause of a lot of what we're seeing (sorry, that's still capitalism!). I don't even think Trump is the worst president of this century--that's easily W and he has the body count to prove it. And yet--the idea that the "harm done to discourse" is worse than the mishandling of the pandemic, the multiple incursions on civil rights, the egregious amount of wealth transferred upwards by the tax cuts, the attacks on the ACA which continue to leave millions of Americans without healthcare coverage, to say nothing of giving the green light to cut women's access to reproductive health (via SCOTUS) or the environmental rollbacks which will probably play a (small) role in the way that all of us die? Discourse? Civility? That's your takeaway?

It's interesting that you bring up W. I think I agree with you that a lot of capitalism's worst tendencies thrived under him. Particularly crony capitalism, which I'm beginning to think is the real foe here.

Repealing ACA, women's reproductive rights, environmental and fiscal regulations on businesses...those are all things that can and should be discussed through civil discourse. They used to be. It feels like any and all conversations that start with those things today quickly turn into something else, and that's what I'm noticing and lamenting with more frequency every damn day.

Leaving aside the fact that repealing healthcare coverage or banning abortion should probably not be a "civil" conversation, when is this "used to be?" Because saying this relies on both a short memory and an active ignorance of how and where social change is produced.

[BurtReynolds]

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.