US Politics: A small step from going viral to going postal

[Jaxom 1974]

Got a weird text from an Iowa number today telling me it looked like someone with my name was removed from Wisconsin's voter rolls... 

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Again, your issue? I know my Nazi lore, man. The dude deserved to hang. Practicality only goes so far in alleviating guilt for mass crimes against humanity. He didn't hang.

There were courts and trials and they hanged a lot of people. They decided they weren’t going to hang him. There were a lot of others they didn’t hang as well. I’m not defending any Nazis for stuff they did, but I’m not going to defend Russians who killed just as many people as the Nazis.

[Jace, Extat]

13 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

There were courts and trials and they hanged a lot of people. They decided they weren’t going to hang him. There were a lot of others they didn’t hang as well. I’m not defending any Nazis for stuff they did, but I’m not going to defend Russians who killed just as many people as the Nazis.

I know. We're agreeing, I think. He wasn't hanged. That's his reward. The Soviet Union had two redeeming qualities and one of them was a zero tolerance policy on Nazis.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

36 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

Everything is not irrelevant. People have been getting screwed so long, that they're trying anything new. A lot of vocal Trump supporters are clearly racist, but so many of them also have rationalized this choice as not racist. Choosing Hillary would not have helped a huge majority of people. Would she have been better than Trump? Yes, there are places she would have been better. Blaming people for being fucked over for decades is pretty arrogant. Trump is what the system has produced. This isn't some "meta level" point. This is just what it is. Trump, for all the damage and long-term problems he has caused, was, for many, a clear choice that bucks the broken two party system. All Trump is doing is saying out loud what many politicians, including Democrats, won't say. He's a prolific liar who hits on several truths within his base. 

So, the American people were entitled to vote for a an openly racist and mysogynist pos, because the system has not worked for them? Is that your point, or do you mean it just absolved them from any responsibility and blame?

Again, he did never hide who and what he was. I agree with @Kalibear for 100% (or maybe he agreed with me). You can't explain that away, like that parody of a high school teacher, it's all just the circumstances. They consciously voted for that racist, sexist, and stupid piece of work all by themselves. And you can't explain that fact away. You can point out, what contributed to it, but to say nobody deserved Trump is just outrageous. It makes you sound like one of those Republican voters, who voted for him in the GE, and are now exasperated and confused over how he could ever win the election.

There's a clear causal relationship between vote and outcome of an election.

[Kalbear]

Conversely, if the response to 'things suck for me' is 'destroy it all with obviously horrible person', it really doesn't matter what the reason is. That is a huge problem with American populace. If all it takes to turn to authoritarianism and openly racist isolationism is people hurting, that is the thesis.

So yeah, it is irrelevant why they did so, or possibly it is most relevant - that in times of crisis and pain Americans instinctively turn to the most racist, bigoted, least factually capable person they can find. 

[Martell Spy]

2 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

I agree with Woodward.

The American people voted in the person that kicked off his campaign by calling Mexican rapists, drug dealer and murderers. That was not a deal breaker. Then that candidate bragged about his sexual assault of women. Oh, and his major campaign promise was his monument for racism, aka the wall.

Which civilized country, would let any such person anywhere near a position of power? Apparently nothing of that was a deal breaker for a significant number of US citizens.

You can try to push the discussion on to some meta level, where anything becomes irrelevant in the bigger picture. But that doesn't change the fact, that the US decided he should be the guy to lead it.

We already failed the morality test and don't deserve to survive. This election is a test of stupidity. If we vote Trump back in we are likely too stupid to survive, a Darwin award winner country.

[Mindwalker]

With any other person - particularly if they were a Democrat, more so if a woman and/ or black - all these scandals would accumulate - with Troomp (he keeps mispronouncing Harris' name, so ... quid pro quo) it's almost as if one scandal was erased by the next one...

ETA: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/11/1976675/-Trump-gets-to-kill-Americans-on-5th-Avenue-and-every-other-street-with-the-help-of-his-gang

As for redemption, I like a good redemption story, too. It depends on what the person has done before, but more so, on how they supposedly achieve that redemption. (For example, I saw the beginnings of a redemption arc with Jaime on GoT, but it never went anywhere, while others thought he was redeemed for whining a bit while taking a bath with Brienne.)

Stopping with the shit only when they are caught or thrown under a bus, then making a shitload of money from the whole thing does not suffice in my book. Now, if the biggest chunk of the profits went to a good, non-profit cause... that would be a start.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Kalibear said:

No; we did. Enough US citizens thought that he was the best choice, and Clinton was not. It's a stupid outdated system, but the mere notion that enough people in enough states thought he was good enough is enough of an indictment on our culture and population. 

If you don't even secure a plurality, you weren't really picked by the country at large, and that's further exacerbated by the fact that we had a 20 year low in turnout in 2016. Just slightly over a quarter of the country picked him.

[Altherion]

32 minutes ago, Kalibear said:

Conversely, if the response to 'things suck for me' is 'destroy it all with obviously horrible person', it really doesn't matter what the reason is. That is a huge problem with American populace.

That property is not restricted to the American populace -- it's pretty common in most human societies, but it usually suppressed by a combination of forceful repression and hope that if the system is kept as it is, eventually things will become better. When you have neither one nor the other, the people for who things suck will indeed eventually go for destruction of the system.

That said, we are still far from that scenario. I think the fraction of people who voted for Trump with the intention to "destroy it all" is vanishingly small -- this was not what Trump promised and it's certainly not what he delivered. Trump was at most a warning of things to come in this direction.

[Castellan]

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/11/politics/donald-trump-joe-biden-electoral-college/index.html

depressing hints of Trump comeback.

I think when he looks like he is on the ropes and Democrats and commentators look gleeful his supporters return to the fold

[HoodedCrow]

Most of the Americans that I know, are Democrats and they did NOT vote for Troomp. Some of them worked for Hillary. And then there is a woman’s husband who has tripled down on Troomp. At first I thought Troomp was like Triumph the Insult Dog, and about the same ethically as Ted Cruz. That was well before the 2016 election. And then I realized he was just that bad through and through. Now I think he is monster whose only skill is Division and abusiveness. Some people are coded for that. If lack of responsibility and dumb were illegal the jails would be full and color blind. It’s not going to help that I think that they are deplorable. I was starting to wonder if we would be rounded up.

Bob Marley, I love that song:) I guess I’m a hippie, count me in. I’m younger than George Martin, but I get him. I cheered for the Giants, just because he would be made happy and I had no other compelling reason.

My opinion of Jaime changed because I learned about his thoughts. Before I just thought that he was all villain. He does rescue people, like Brienne. He seems to be on the cusp...stay tuned. People do change, too. I like the switcheroo.

My background is a mixed British bag but all left and changed their accents. You can tell that I’m not European anymore because I don’t love soccer but will watch big games:)

[Horza]

Guys, guys, relax: Americans are terrible and stand condemned in the court of world history both because lots of you voted for Trump and because you allow and condone the godawful electoral system that allowed him into office with less votes than his opponent.

In fact both things are two aspects of the same phenomenon, so maybe instead of trying to exonerate the awful system or the awful voters start unpicking the things that bind them together. 

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

If you don't even secure a plurality, you weren't really picked by the country at large, and that's further exacerbated by the fact that we had a 20 year low in turnout in 2016. Just slightly over a quarter of the country picked him.

A quarter is too much. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Horza said:

because you allow and condone the godawful electoral system that allowed him into office with less votes than his opponent.

Allow? None of us had a single say in it, and there's literally no way to realistically change it. 

56 minutes ago, Kalibear said:

A quarter is too much. 

Is it though? I wouldn't be surprised if most Western countries have a quarter of their populations voting for truly awful people. 

[Horza]

8 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Allow? None of us and a single say in it, and there's literally no way to realistically change it. 

Not with that attitude there isn’t.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

4 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So, the American people were entitled to vote for a an openly racist and mysogynist pos, because the system has not worked for them? Is that your point, or do you mean it just absolved them from any responsibility and blame?

Again, he did never hide who and what he was. I agree with @Kalibear for 100% (or maybe he agreed with me). You can't explain that away, like that parody of a high school teacher, it's all just the circumstances. They consciously voted for that racist, sexist, and stupid piece of work all by themselves. And you can't explain that fact away. You can point out, what contributed to it, but to say nobody deserved Trump is just outrageous. It makes you sound like one of those Republican voters, who voted for him in the GE, and are now exasperated and confused over how he could ever win the election.

There's a clear causal relationship between vote and outcome of an election.

And you ignored the point, twice made, that over half the votes went to Hillary. So be mad at those Trumpers, I don't give a shit, but this whole notion that people have the free will to truly decide anything outside the hegemony is just fairy tale BS. We're not special. Nor are you. Had you lived in the US, the outcome would have been the same, whether you voted for Trump, Hillary, or didn't vote at all. It sure is easy to point your finger at the "stupids" for this mess, but this mess is way more complex than what you're arguing. Trump was inevitable. And this is not the first time in history where a country in decline put a demagogue in power. That indicates a systemic issue within society, not an issue with people getting what they deserve.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 minute ago, Horza said:

Not with that attitude there isn’t.

What attitude? The correct one? Do you even know the process it would take to do that? Even the constitutional end-around seems unlikely right now. 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

4 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

We already failed the morality test and don't deserve to survive. This election is a test of stupidity. If we vote Trump back in we are likely too stupid to survive, a Darwin award winner country.

See, this is what I mean. This is pure nonsense. Most people eligible to vote do not have to cast a ballot for Trump, and he can still win. So they deserve it? For voting for the Dems? For not being able to vote due to voter suppression? To be under so much financial pressure that taking a night off work to vote would cause real harm? 

[Horza]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

What attitude? The correct one? Do you even know the process it would take to do that? Even the constitutional end-around seems unlikely right now. 

Oh, geez damn, if only I knew how much work it  would take to dismantle the scaffolding of centuries of institutionalised white supremacy.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

3 hours ago, Altherion said:

That property is not restricted to the American populace -- it's pretty common in most human societies, but it usually suppressed by a combination of forceful repression and hope that if the system is kept as it is, eventually things will become better. When you have neither one nor the other, the people for who things suck will indeed eventually go for destruction of the system.

That said, we are still far from that scenario. I think the fraction of people who voted for Trump with the intention to "destroy it all" is vanishingly small -- this was not what Trump promised and it's certainly not what he delivered. Trump was at most a warning of things to come in this direction.

In fact, they believed he would "fix it all." Ludicrous, of course, but they aren't rooting for the country to die. They want him to dismantle the corrupt political system, but they don't want the country to burn. Unfortunately, for many of them, fixing the corrupt political system has something to do with race wars and all kinds of shit that came back out of America's basement.