The Grand Old Meltdown party

ConnorMuldowney

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Someone could say "I'm not a racist, personally" but if they vote Trump, they are giving free ammunition to a racist government. So in that sense. the label "racist" still fits, regardless of if they personally dislike minorities. Though I won't mince words: at this point, if you support Trump, more likely than not you do personally hate minorities whether you admit that or not.

I have family members who are voting for Trump. I don't think they are personally bad people, but it hurts me that they don't seem to care that the consequence of voting Trump will mean enabling racism.
 
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darkprincealain

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Great thread introversion, and Roxxsmom and darkprincealain for generating the initial commentary. It got me pretty fired up.
I respect you all for standing up for your convictions and refusing to bend.
I'll continue to have the faith that someday we'll all realize we're in this thing together and strive to be inclusive instead of exclusive by the way we talk to and about one another.

Thank you for the compliment, but I’m afraid I disagree with the assertion that we’re all in this together. If the last six months has taught me anything it’s that we’re all in the same storm but in vastly different boats. Some people are clinging to driftwood and others are partying in a “nesting doll yacht” to borrow a phrase from AOC. I think this idea that we’re all in this together is clearly attractive to people, but I don’t see any evidence that it is true. Otherwise, why the vastly different death rates from COVID-19 among different sectors of the population?

I think inclusive language and encouraging each other to change our minds can be constructive but it’d be wise to approach it from a more intellectually honest position, in my view.
 

Roxxsmom

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Someone could say "I'm not a racist, personally" but if they vote Trump, they are giving free ammunition to a racist government. So in that sense. the label "racist" still fits, regardless of if they personally dislike minorities. Though I won't mince words: at this point, if you support Trump, more likely than not you do personally hate minorities whether you admit that or not.

I have family members who are voting for Trump. I don't think they are personally bad people, but it hurts me that they don't seem to care that the consequence of voting Trump will mean enabling racism.

I think this sums things up pretty well. Racism exists at many levels, from the sheet-wearing clan members to someone who refuses to acknowledge institutionalized racism as something that maintains a very unequal status quo and instead engages in victim blaming or insists it's all about poverty.

And one of the things that is breaking my heart about Trump's ascendency, and also about what's emerged since Covid-19 struck, is the wedge it has driven between people. I know there are people who say it shouldn't matter, that we should love our friends and family the same and not condemn them for their politics. Then there are others who say they've had no problem or regrets re cutting off people who are Trump supporters, Covid deniers etc. I've always been a middle ground sort of person in how I react. I try to remain constructively engaged, and for frankly selfish reasons, I can't just stop associating with some people I know are likely Trump supporters. It would be awkward and would entail giving up some things I genuinely love doing (like dog agility).

But treading that middle ground is stressful as hell, because I see the awful, misinformed posts on social media, I get that gobsmacked feeling when I see a Trump sticker on someone's car or when someone makes an offhand comment that shows their true colors, so to speak. And I have to decide whether I stick up for my principles and engage them, likely enraging said person and cutting myself off from some things that matter to me (and changing their mind not one whit--possibly even entrenching them more in their views). Or do I ignore it and feel like an enabler and a phony?

I've often been annoyed at men who are feminists who don't stand up to their male peers when they objectify women or say sexist things, but I imagine something similar passes through their minds--they can't fight every battle, and they can't afford to lose that person's tolerance or esteem. So I feel like a hypocrite and a phony.

But I am also uncomfortably aware of ways where I am still racist (and culturally chauvinistic), even though I don't want to be. Because yes, at a certain level, I do think some of my cultural norms and practices are better. For instance, I do find myself a bit annoyed sometimes with the very young mothers in my classes (many, but by no means all, of whom are Black or Latina) who need so many accommodations and extra work on my part to make up exams and assignments they can't complete in a timely manner because of their parenting conflicts. I do think sometimes, "There is a reason why it's traditional to wait to start a family until after college! What were you thinking having a kid so young and keeping them?"

I would never say it to them, because I know I don't know why they made the choices they did, and anyway, done is done and they have to deal with that choice now, so their being lectured would accomplish nothing. It's certainly not my job to punish them for these things. I feel frustrated, though, by the pressure to make heroic and difficult changes in my own teaching practices to eliminate all inequities when I can't control the fact that a young parent has fewer hours to study than a more traditional college student might (instructors are under tremendous pressure from the college and many of our peers right now to eliminate racial and socioeconomic differences in student outcomes). But that's just an example of where many people might go in a darker direction, deciding that we shouldn't bother helping young parents at all, or that the racial inequalities that exist are all about poor choices made by some people more than others without examining the context in which such choices are made or the ways our institutions don't support people enough.

Toeing that line between cultural competency/literacy and social relativism vs feeling that some ethical and moral standards should be universal is hard. I can see why so many fall into "all or nothing" thinking in this respect.
 
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TrapperViper

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Recently came across a couple of things I found relevant to the discussion we've been having.

This article from Justice Scalia's son on his father's friendship with Justice RBG....pretty awesome stuff. If two supreme court justices with polarizing convictions, who never voted the same in important 5-4 decisions, could admire one another so deeply...I'd like to think all of us could attempt to do the same (white supremacists excluded). We are all in this together. This world is ours. If our lives can be defined by the relationships we have with each other...why not effort towards making them the best they can be?

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/ruth-ginsburg-antonin-scalia-relationship-friends-christopher-scalia

And, some other article I read referenced this old quote by Abraham Lincoln in his 1st inaugural address:

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
 

Roxxsmom

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I agree that we should always be willing to listen and to reach out to others who wish the engage in a genuine exchange of ideas and opinions, even if we disagree. Everyone's version of reality will be filtered by their values and experiences.

But what does one do when a high percentage of one's opponents are not reachable?

It's hard for me, as a rationalist who believes in science and logic to admit that these tools are not all powerful in human discourse. There are a large number of people on the Right who are not interested in listening, who are not living in any recognizable or objectively verifiable version of reality, and are certainly not engaging in sociopolitical debate in good faith. The more clever and/or erudite among them are engaging in rhetorical games meant to distract, confuse and sidetrack people the see as "the enemy," not present their views with factual and logical support. The less clever and erudite among them are stewing in bile and venom, so lost in the politics of grievance and conspiracies they think up is down.

Reaching out, engaging those with whom we disagree, is a noble calling. But it's critical we do it in ways and with people who are playing the game, such that it is, in good faith and are open to exchange. Engaging with those who are playing mind games or are lost in a spiral of destructive rage is a recipe for burn out, frustration, even hopelessness, and quite frankly I think it does more harm than good on both sides. And asking people to constructively and compassionately engage with those who quite literally hate them and want them dead is unfair as well.

It breaks my heart to see the things some folks I once thought were nice, mostly rational people say on social media and sometimes even in person. I know these folks still have good in them, but they've shown a really ugly, racist, and extremely selfish side of their soul I lack the ability to reach or fix. Sadly, reaching most of them will take someone who is an expert in deprogramming cult members, something that is not in my skill set. Engaging with them on social media when they say inane or hateful things leaves me feeling sick, sad, frustrated, and hating my own species.

Also consider that it's much easier to see dispute over some people's rights and humanity as a legitimate political position, as a civil and academic debate, when one belongs to a group whose rights and humanity have never been seriously questioned or threatened, let alone denied, by our social institutions and laws.
 

MaeZe

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Friends and family: I have two right wing brothers, one I rarely talk to and one I talk to all the time.

The one I rarely talk to once told me he thought my son should serve time in the military as his duty to the country. The Vietnam war was bad enough for being wrong, but GW's attack on Iraq based on trumped up crap, no way would I ever encourage my son to join the military, and I'd do everything I could to talk him out of it if he suggested it. I don't have a lot in common with that brother and like I say, we rarely talk.

My other brother told me Obama was a socialist and don't try to argue with him about it. Sigh, how did we grow up in the same house?

But that brother's wife is against Trump and I did mention to my brother that "He'd better not vote for Trump!" Other than that we simply don't talk about politics. There's no need to.

All of my friends and my son and his friends are against Trump. My son is a Bernie supporter and we sometimes have discussions about that but I pretty much avoid conflict.

That leaves work. A lot of firefighters are pro-Trump even now. Normally I wouldn't talk about politics at all at work but I'm giving flu shots and I'm their infectious disease resource. Today for example, masks came up. A couple of the guys didn't have masks on and I told them to get masks or not come in the room. Turned out they had the masks in their pockets. That's when I tell them, "My mask protects you, your mask protects me." That avoids the 'I don't need it' argument at least for the moment.

When the discussion drifted to the edge of US politics and the 'some people don't want to be told what to do' I could have argued a number of things. Instead I shifted to discussing the lack of adequate testing and especially turn around time for the test. That gets into complaining about the incompetence of Trump. Other countries are getting results back in 24 hours and we aren't. We can't do adequate contact tracing and we'll never get back to normal without that. That shifted the conversation from the politically sensitive issue of free choice even though that is a BS reason not to wear a stupid mask. Hard to argue with the infectious disease practitioner when it comes to testing and contact tracing.

This same gentleman expressed his belief we were all going to get it anyway, yada yada. So I told him to do the math. Right now there have been almost 200,000 deaths in the US and only 5-10% of the population is infected. "You do not want everyone to get this virus."

So avoid the discussions, shift the discussion away from political aspects, and present facts when they are simple and easily visualized. Will any of this change minds? I doubt it. But I makes me feel better and I haven't yet disowned any family members. :tongue
 

mccardey

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Reaching out, engaging those with whom we disagree, is a noble calling. But it's critical we do it in ways and with people who are playing the game, such that it is, in good faith and are open to exchange. Engaging with those who are playing mind games or are lost in a spiral of destructive rage is a recipe for burn out, frustration, even hopelessness, and quite frankly I think it does more harm than good on both sides. And asking people to constructively and compassionately engage with those who quite literally hate them and want them dead is unfair as well.

I like this.


Also consider that it's much easier to see dispute over some people's rights and humanity as a legitimate political position, as a civil and academic debate, when one belongs to a group whose rights and humanity have never been seriously questioned or threatened, let alone denied, by our social institutions and laws.

And I like this.
 

Helix

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Recently came across a couple of things I found relevant to the discussion we've been having.

This article from Justice Scalia's son on his father's friendship with Justice RBG....pretty awesome stuff. If two supreme court justices with polarizing convictions, who never voted the same in important 5-4 decisions, could admire one another so deeply...I'd like to think all of us could attempt to do the same (white supremacists excluded). We are all in this together. This world is ours. If our lives can be defined by the relationships we have with each other...why not effort towards making them the best they can be?

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/ruth-ginsburg-antonin-scalia-relationship-friends-christopher-scalia

Yes, there are very fine people on both sides.

But we are not, as darkprincealain and others have said, all in it together.

"One of the most vital issues in this election is the subject of refugees. You know it, perhaps better than almost anybody," Mr. Trump said before questioning how Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar won her reelection in August. "How the hell did she win the election? How did she win? It's unbelievable," he said. "Every family in Minnesota needs to know about Sleepy Joe Biden's extreme plan to flood your state with an influx of refugees from Somalia, from other places all over the planet."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-tells-supporters-biden-will-flood-minnesota-with-refugees/

And he also riffed on how good Minnesotan genes were.

“You have good genes, you know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don't you believe? The racehorse theory. You think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.”

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1307124621389463553

So anyone who heard that and was not repulsed is simply not reachable.


And, some other article I read referenced this old quote by Abraham Lincoln in his 1st inaugural address:

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

That worked out well.
 

Roxxsmom

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This same gentleman expressed his belief we were all going to get it anyway, yada yada. So I told him to do the math. Right now there have been almost 200,000 deaths in the US and only 5-10% of the population is infected. "You do not want everyone to get this virus."

So avoid the discussions, shift the discussion away from political aspects, and present facts when they are simple and easily visualized. Will any of this change minds? I doubt it. But I makes me feel better and I haven't yet disowned any family members. :tongue

I agree this is the best approach, but some people will make it political, even if we aren't. It's so nice to be told you're a mindless sheeple for reminding people how many have died (because, yanno, deep-state fake data at the CDC to discredit Trump), or to be told I clearly only get my news from MSNBC (which I very rarely watch) etc.

I think conversations tend to be more civil in person, even when people disagree (though I can think of a couple that turned nasty on climate change). The problem right now with the lockdown is that those of us who don't have critical jobs that require us to be there in person are only interacting with others on social media, aside from our personal inner circle (which with me is quite small). Things always seem to be so much more toxic on social media, aside from moderated forums like this one.

Still, we get some volatile family discussions too. I had one cousin who told me that college turns people into communists and that Jewish people run the country, and his spouse is a religious fanatic who hates gay and trans people. Note that this cousin was not raised this way--that side our family is quite liberal overall, and my aunt and uncle had a number of friends who were Jewish (and in fact, my cousins had their swim lessons and summer day camps at the Jewish Community center) and even a couple of friends who were gay.

I get the impression he feels he was robbed of something, or denied something he deserved, but I never saw anything more than half-assed effort on his part to accomplish the things he wanted, and he fell into a job via a friend who mentored him and trained him. He never even tried to go to college in spite of having good enough grades in high school.

If I can't even understand my own cousin (and we were close growing up), I don't know how I can understand more casual acquaintances who post memes about BLM protester not supporting our troops or who are still sharing gaffes Biden made months ago when he was debating Harris (and talking about how stupid he is when their own POTUS makes 20 gaffes a day and never even admits he screwed up).
 
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MaeZe

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I agree this is the best approach, but some people will make it political, even if we aren't. It's so nice to be told you're a mindless sheeple for reminding people how many have died (because, yanno, deep-state fake data at the CDC to discredit Trump), or to be told I clearly only get my news from MSNBC (which I very rarely watch) etc.

I think conversations tend to be more civil in person, even when people disagree (though I can think of a couple that turned nasty on climate change). The problem right now with the lockdown is that those of us who don't have critical jobs that require us to be there in person are only interacting with others on social media, aside from our personal inner circle (which with me is quite small). Things always seem to be so much more toxic on social media, aside from moderated forums like this one.

Still, we get some volatile family discussions too. I had one cousin who told me that college turns people into communists and that Jewish people run the country, and his spouse is a religious fanatic who hates gay and trans people. Note that this cousin was not raised this way--that side our family is quite liberal overall, and my aunt and uncle had a number of friends who were Jewish (and in fact, my cousins had their swim lessons and summer day camps at the Jewish Community center) and even a couple of friends who were gay.

I get the impression he feels he was robbed of something, or denied something he deserved, but I never saw anything more than half-assed effort on his part to accomplish the things he wanted, and he fell into a job via a friend who mentored him and trained him. He never even tried to go to college in spite of having good enough grades in high school.

If I can't even understand my own cousin (and we were close growing up), I don't know how I can understand more casual acquaintances who post memes about BLM protester not supporting our troops or who are still sharing gaffes Biden made months ago when he was debating Harris (and talking about how stupid he is when their own POTUS makes 20 gaffes a day and never even admits he screwed up).
Yeah, my family is smaller, not big enough for too much drama.

You teach at a college and your cousin tells you they are turning people into commies?
:Jaw:

There has been so much damage done in this country. I don't see how we will ever turn things around.



“You have good genes, you know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don't you believe? The racehorse theory. You think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.”
Do you suppose Trump seriously asked anyone in Minnesota where Lake Wobegon was?
 
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Roxxsmom

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Yeah, my family is smaller, not big enough for too much drama.

You teach at a college and your cousin tells you they are turning people into commies? :Jaw:

Oh yes. That was some years ago, but it's still a very popular talking point of the Right--how we professors are poisoning America's youth with our liberal agenda. And when you see the world in absolutes, someone is either a capitalist or a communist. There is no in b



There has been so much damage done in this country. I don't see how we will ever turn things around.

I get the impression some of the anger and fear is because a group of people, people who were conditioned to think of themselves as the real, or "regular" Americans, feel the rules are shifting on them. I get that this is unsettling. I know many of the things I assumed would always be a certain way when I was growing have changed beyond recognition. And even as someone who believes change is a part of life, I can't say I like all of those changes.

It's unsettling to see entire professions disappear without being replaced by something equally lucrative that the displaced workers can apply their skill set and temperament to. It's frustrating to play by the rules and do what you thought you needed to do to enter a certain profession and discover there aren't enough jobs and you're stuck on an endless temporary employee treadmill without job security or benefits. It's also frustrating as heck to feel like your job gets harder every year, that more is expected of you and you have more and more demands on your time, yet your pay and standard of living are not increasing. And it can indeed be unsettling to find out that a word or turn of phrase or mascot for your sporting team you thought was innocuous, or never thought much about at all, is hurtful or offensive to some people.

Many Americans are experiencing these things, including me. But I don't blame immigrants, or people of color, or people with disabilities, or affirmative action, or feminism, or sexual harassment laws, or regulations, or youth culture, or environmentalism. Evidently, many people do, or have been convinced to do so.

Do you suppose Trump seriously asked anyone in Minnesota where Lake Wobegon was?

I doubt it, because he has probably never listened to public radio in his life, and he's certainly never read a book.
 
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Marian Perera

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If two supreme court justices with polarizing convictions, who never voted the same in important 5-4 decisions, could admire one another so deeply...I'd like to think all of us could attempt to do the same (white supremacists excluded). We are all in this together.

Just the white supremacists?

My father (who is not white, but who is a religious fundamentalist) once told me that the Jews murdered in the Holocaust deserved it. I asked him why. He said it was because they said, "Let his blood be on us and our children" when calling for Jesus's death. Ergo, the Holocaust.

I said, "So if I married a Jewish man and we had children, would you be fine with someone murdering your grandchildren?"

He didn't answer, just turned the television on.

White supremacy is far from the only repulsive, dehumanizing attitude out there. I don't feel there's anything to admire about people like this, or any common ground we share.
 
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mccardey

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White supremacy is far from the only repulsive, dehumanizing attitude out there. I don't feel there's anything to admire about people like this, or any common ground we share.
Yeppers to this. I'm not a fan of bullies.
 

BenPanced

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Recently came across a couple of things I found relevant to the discussion we've been having.

This article from Justice Scalia's son on his father's friendship with Justice RBG....pretty awesome stuff. If two supreme court justices with polarizing convictions, who never voted the same in important 5-4 decisions, could admire one another so deeply...I'd like to think all of us could attempt to do the same (white supremacists excluded). We are all in this together. This world is ours. If our lives can be defined by the relationships we have with each other...why not effort towards making them the best they can be?

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/ruth-ginsburg-antonin-scalia-relationship-friends-christopher-scalia

And, some other article I read referenced this old quote by Abraham Lincoln in his 1st inaugural address:

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Yeah, I think we're running out of time for that, if we haven't already. With the way that Don Fuhrer and the rest of his mob are shotgunning for a replacement on the Supreme Court at the sake of everything else, please excuse me if I don't share this sentiment. As a gay man, my life is on the line here. I've never felt more frightened and I'm starting to lose all hope. All the signs are there we've slid backwards into a horrible time warp of destruction, dehumanization, and depravity, but I don't think "we're all in this together". Some of us are in boats, some of us are hanging by the fingernails to a piece of driftwood. If that outlook isn't sunny enough for you, maybe I should get a better prescription for rose-colored glasses from the optimist's office.
 

mccardey

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As a gay man, my life is on the line here. I've never felt more frightened and I'm starting to lose all hope.

<<snip>> I don't think "we're all in this together". Some of us are in boats, some of us are hanging by the fingernails to a piece of driftwood. If that outlook isn't sunny enough for you, maybe I should get a better prescription for rose-colored glasses from the optimist's office.

Yep. The blinkers of privilege can seriously warp the view.
 

Roxxsmom

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Yeah, I think we're running out of time for that, if we haven't already. With the way that Don Fuhrer and the rest of his mob are shotgunning for a replacement on the Supreme Court at the sake of everything else, please excuse me if I don't share this sentiment. As a gay man, my life is on the line here. I've never felt more frightened and I'm starting to lose all hope. All the signs are there we've slid backwards into a horrible time warp of destruction, dehumanization, and depravity, but I don't think "we're all in this together". Some of us are in boats, some of us are hanging by the fingernails to a piece of driftwood. If that outlook isn't sunny enough for you, maybe I should get a better prescription for rose-colored glasses from the optimist's office.

This is it exactly.

The folks who can afford to hunker down and wait until the political climate improves again are, for the most part, white, straight, cisgender, Christian males. There are far more people in this country whose full humanity, whose rights to everything from marriage to housing to work, people whose personal safety even, have historically not been codified in our laws and social traditions. Sometimes changes in legislation moved things forward, but often it was the courts that ruled a law was unjust and unconstitutional when someone (like Thurgood Marshall, or RBG) challenged it, or that a law (like the Civil Rights Act) did, in fact, apply to a particular group of people almost no one thought about at the time it was passed.

It hasn't been that long since pretty much everyone who wasn't a white, straight, Christian male in this country were treated as second-class citizens under the law, or not even citizens at all.

There are people who have been pissed as hell since the sixties and seventies changed this, and they have been tirelessly working to turn the clock back. The GOP welcomed these people with open arms.

Liberal vs conservative is no longer just about more vs less taxes, or about disagreeing about the correct amount of social services, or even a matter of agreeing about how social equality is best enacted. The left and right are not simply two groups of people who want most of the same things but differ on how best to get those things. It's about deciding who deserves agency and human rights and protections under the law.
 

Helix

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So Brian Karem asked Trump whether he would agree to a peaceful transferral of power after the election. Trump said, 'Get rid of the ballots and we'll have a very peaceful — there won't be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation.'

Video here: https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1308902276187262978

Brian Karem had a follow up question, which he never got to ask because Trump cut him off: Does he owe someone in Russia money.

https://twitter.com/BrianKarem/status/1308942152286851073

I still don't understand why people would still vote for this clown.
 

Diana Hignutt

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So Brian Karem asked Trump whether he would agree to a peaceful transferral of power after the election. Trump said, 'Get rid of the ballots and we'll have a very peaceful — there won't be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation.'

Video here: https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1308902276187262978

Brian Karem had a follow up question, which he never got to ask because Trump cut him off: Does he owe someone in Russia money.

https://twitter.com/BrianKarem/status/1308942152286851073

I still don't understand why people would still vote for this clown.

That's easy: They want a right-wing, fascist dictatorship.
 

Roxxsmom

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That's easy: They want a right-wing, fascist dictatorship.

Basically, yes. Or at least they're not at all fussed by the idea.

I think a number of people have been angry since the sixties and seventies, when the Civil Rights movement, the women's movement, and the LGBTQ-rights movement started to gain prominence. They regard civil rights as a zero sum game, and the idea that America might not just be for white people, and more specifically for anyone besides White, straight, male people, fills them with terror. And the gender thing is a source of fear too, particularly for men. Men have long been taught that being male is something one takes pride in, that one achieves and holds onto by being the opposite of feminine (the whole man card thing). So the idea that gender roles are flexible, that sexual orientation is variable, and that gender identity itself isn't set in stone makes some people (often men, but sometimes women too) afraid. Fear leads to rage and hate.

Sadly, the thing that's really hurting the working (and middle) class, White and PoC alike, are things we need to work together to solve. The pie is not shrinking. The well off are doing better than ever while the middle class is shrinking, but working class people are taught that their check is getting smaller because of taxes and because of social programs, regulations, environmentalists, affirmative action etc.

The White Working class doesn't resent the rich, though. The rich are shining beacons they worship from afar,. They hate and resent educated professionals, though, because the educated professionals are the better-off people they do encounter most often in their daily lives--people they believe talk down to them, manage them, tell them what to do, judge them, lecture to them (when teachers), and tell them things that are counter intuitive in some cases.

So there's a lot of fear and insecurity, and frightened, insecure people want "strong" leaders who tell them what to do to make things the way they used to be. That leader can be a complete idiot, but if he postures, purses his lips like a howler monkey, puffs out his chest, and promises to hurt those they fear, that's good enough for many people. Too many people.

And it's happened over and over throughout history.
 
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