Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Everybody saw this coming.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

The National Guard is not Batman.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

When we show up, we win.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2020 / Down The “What If” Rabbit Hole

Down The “What If” Rabbit Hole

by | 138 Comments

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I haven’t said much here for a while for a couple of reasons – I’ve been busy in real life, but I also get fatigued by the spinning of wheels that never seems to stop. It’s destructive, but there’s also a sense that many jackals enjoy it and would turn on me if I pointed it out.

But I just saw a Twitter thread that encapsulates it nicely, so here it is.

As my mother used to say: Just. Stop. It.

Reader Interactions

138Comments

  3. 3.

    download my app in the app store mistermix

    I’ll buy the “no swing voters” theory, or certainly, “fewer swing voters than the media says there are”.

  4. 4.

    Ella in New Mexico

    Amen to all of this. Been feeling exactly the same way lately–we all need to stop being sucked into “every single insult” Trump and his Republican goons hurl to keep us crazed and overwhelmed.

    As much as Twitter can be informative, it’s also a never ending stream of doom-laden one liner thoughts and repetition of their ugliness. So are a lot of usually good sites lately, who are fighting for our clicks and retweets with headlines yanking our “sky is falling” collars on a daily basis.

    I think the youngers in my family and their peers got the idea long ago that information overload is not healthy–most of them don’t dwell on internet news sites or even have TV with cable-network news available. Yet they seem to mostly be on track with current events. Certainly better than their elder peers who watch Fox all day.

    We all need a little break.

    Life is beautiful, take in it’s wonders, enjoy our blessings and all that.

  5. 5.

    NotMax

    “People who are interested in power are not interested in people.”
    – John Ward

    “The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it.”
    – A. Hitler

  8. 8.

    terry chay

    Turnout in 2016 was unusually low. Trumps numbers across the board were lower than Romney’s.

    since then Trump’s actions and the Republican Party’s have created unusually high turnout. This has resulted in a massive and sustained vote against their agenda and power.

    if Trump is trying to accomplish the above he is doing a shit job of it. It is actually backfiring.

    which is par for the course for him.

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    “…This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom…”
    – A Christmas Carol

  12. 12.

    The Dangerman

    Sign me up for the Rip Van Winkle pill. Set the alarm for Trump’s concession speech the night of the election, which should be one for the ages (ragegasm won’t begin to describe it). Yes, it’s gonna be ugly on steroids between now and then and I appreciate those better than me that can put up the daily fight.

    Assuming the Dems don’t nominate someone who cannot win, it is almost over and we can go about cleaning up this mess (might take a few more prisons).

  14. 14.

    ThresherK

    ETA: Great post.

    The What If Rabbit Hole I want is for some thumbsucker to be the Anti-Bobo, and ask “Will Trump give up power when he loses?”

  17. 17.

    rk

    I have a co worker who was almost hyperventilating yesterday. She told me she was very upset and could barely drive to work. I thought it was a family tragedy so I rushed to the break room to talk to her. Luckily it was just the two of us. Turns out she listened to Trump’s speech yesterday before coming to work and could not handle how awful it was. We spend the entire break talking about how much we hate Trump and wished Limbaugh a long slow painful agonizing death (no, I don’t care if he gets eaten away by cancer, I have no sympathy for him, ). Most of our coworkers are Trump supporters. One has even said he’d be O.K if Trump were to be president for life. She keeps looking over her shoulder when she talks about Trump. She lived in Romania under Nikolai Ceausescu and thinks Trump will win the election and then suspend elections to make himself permanent leader.

    I told her to stop listening to Trump’s speeches for her own sanity. I don’t how she (or even I) am going to survive another four years  of Trump.

  18. 18.

    Baud

    @NotMax:

    “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

    —-Pride and Prejudice

  20. 20.

    Fair Economist

    I haven’t paid much attention to Trump’s ravings for literally tears. I don’t care what other dementia patients say, why him?

  22. 22.

    WhatsMyNym

    Those 20th century Democracies that became dictatorships had only been around a few years. Throw in the stress of WWI and the recession, some were bound to fall.

  25. 25.

    TenguPhule

    As my mother used to say: Just. Stop. It.

    A: “What happens if the Republicans cheat and somehow Trump beats Hillary in 2016?”

    B: Stop it you crazy conspiracy paranioaics! That will never happen!”

    And yet here we are.

    Even the military has made plans for Zombie outbreaks. Because worst case scenarios do happen.

    And in the worst timeline, with increasing frequency.

    We still have concentration camps for young children on American military bases, for instance.

  26. 26.

    RoonieRoo

    I think this perfectly articulates why I am spending less and less time on this election.  I know what I need to do and I will do those things.  The  spinning and outrage is just destructive at the point.

  28. 28.

    TenguPhule

    @WhatsMyNym: Those 20th century Democracies that became dictatorships had only been around a few years. Throw in the stress of WWI and the recession, some were bound to fall.

    Without Franklin Roosevelt, American Democracy might have succumbed to Communism or Fascism during the Great Depression.

  30. 30.

    Crashman06

    @The Dangerman: It would be nice to hear this but there’s no way we’re getting a concession speech out of him if he loses. He’ll whine and complain about a rigged election until he’s dragged out of office in January.

  33. 33.

    TenguPhule

    @schrodingers_cat: Took a trip to Japan. Came back, got hassled by a bunch of Trump supporting TSA screeners and fell into a severe case of depression over the deep contrast between the two countries.

    I figured it was best to stay off the keyboard for awhile until bunker mode wore off, but it stuck around longer then expected.

  34. 34.

    Jay

    The Trump administration is currently withholding approval for at least six commercial orders for arms and ammunition from US companies to Ukraine, together worth roughly $30 million, according to three current Ukrainian officials and a former senior US official who have direct knowledge of the sales, straining an already fragile relationship between the two countries. All four officials said that five of the pending sales from US companies have been delayed for around a year, and one of the sales has been held up for more than a year. The officials said they haven’t been able to get any answers from the Trump administration about why the deals, which typically take around two months to approve and must be licensed by the State Department, haven’t received approval.

    buzzfeednews.com/article/christopherm51/ukraine-us-arms-sales

  36. 36.

    gene108

    I might be naive, but I believe a country, like the USA, which has had the same Constitution and form of government for 232 years, will not be so easily taken down to a dictatorship.

    Democrats won more elections than they lost in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

    I think there’s hope the American government can withstand Trump, and cowardly Republicans.

  39. 39.

    bemused

    Bah on swing voters. I think most of them never really make up their minds until they are in the voting booth and use the voting method of throwing crap at the wall to see what sticks. Voting done.

  41. 41.

    TenguPhule

    @Cheryl Rofer: Sure, let’s ignore the signs of increasing breakdowns in the federal government’s norms and rules. Because we trust our national electoral college system to get it right this time! Surely even Trump and his minions would not be stupid enough to try and overturn the very foundations of our Democratic Republic! Even he must know his limits after being impeached!

    /s

  42. 42.

    VOR

    @terry chay:

    Turnout in 2016 was unusually low. Trumps numbers across the board were lower than Romney’s.

    Exactly. And Trump benefited from the “pox on both houses” voters and the “burn it all down” voters. Nobody is going to be on the fence about Trump in 2020. Yes, his voters will turn out but they did in 2016 too.

    Turnout in 2018 was better. We need to focus on turnout for 2020. We need to get everyone to vote.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    But because he’ll be free to do whatever he wants

    Its a risk. OTOH, he’d be the lamest of lame ducks.  No one will stick their necks out to support him once he’s defeated.

  46. 46.

    Eric U.

    I might have to stay away from twitter.  It turns out I follow a lot of bernibros.  I sorta knew that, but I didn’t realize how intolerable they would get come primary season.

  48. 48.

    JMG

    If he’s defeated, Trump’s henchpeople in the administration will be too busy shredding documents to let him do much of anything domestically. He might wig out on the foreign end though, which would be much more dangerous. Also, if he loses, the Republican Senators will suddenly become much less willing to follow him out on limbs.

  49. 49.

    Chip Daniels

    Imagine we were in a HRC administration.

    And she never broke above 50% approval.

    And every one of the top 5 Republican candidates beat her in head to head polling.

    And she had been impeached by the House, and just finished being acquitted by a couple votes in the Senate.

    How freaked out would the Democrats be?

  50. 50.

    Jeffro

    @VOR: Exactly.

    He riles up his base and riles ours up even more.  2017 (NJ and VA), 2018 House and Senate, 2019 VA and other legislatures all showed this trend.

    It’s absolutely vital that we all work to make sure people are registered to vote between now and November.  Even people who have voted religiously (like me) need to double-check, given the kind of people we’re up against.

  51. 51.

    gene108

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    What’s more, the period between the election and the inauguration would be dangerous.

    ETA: Not because he won’t leave. I think he will. But because he’ll be free to do whatever he wants

    Trump and his gang will be too busy destroying hard drives, including the bin Laden server, shredding and then incinerating papers, etc. to get much else done.

  52. 52.

    Barbara

    Thanks Cheryl.  I am avoiding more and more of the doom and gloom and what if cycle that seems to populate the news cycle.

  53. 53.

    Cacti

    I couldn’t disagree with the OP more.  Our Republic is in mortal danger.  Sticking our heads in the sand about it may be comforting for a moment, but ultimately plays into the hands of the bad guys, who want us to feel demoralized and powerless.

    If all of this is too stressful for you, maybe take a break and find your resolve.

  56. 56.

    Barbara

    @TenguPhule: Bad things have happened and will continue to happen.  Stipulated.  Wringing your hands about them does NOT A FUCKING THING to stop them but, and I think this is Cheryl’s point, it can generate feelings of hopelessness that paralyzes people and keeps them from doing WHAT THEY CAN to avoid the bad thing from happening, which does not mean it certainly won’t, but that, to whatever degree, will be less likely to happen than if you did nothing.

  57. 57.

    Brachiator

    I just came across the “No Swing Voter Theory” article this morning and look forward to reading it more thoroughly later.  So far. a lot of it makes sense, but I got some issues with it.

    I did not watch the State of the Union Address, and don’t pay a lot of attention to what Trump says, but I do watch what he does.

    We seem to be in the middle of a strange situation where a good chunk of the voters are happy to overthrow democracy in favor of a right wing Christianity tinged autocracy that still could not succeed without the active interference of the Republican Congress.  I am a spotty student of history, and don’t know whether this has happened on a national scale before in the US.  It can certainly be argued that this outcome has been achieved before in the post Reconstruction South.

    Coming back to the “no swing voter” thing, while I certainly think that Trump can be defeated, I don’t think it is as simple as “we have more voters than they do.” Voters don’t always simply vote based on party loyalty.  And Trump picked up disaffected people who had not voted for either party in years.  And Trump will obviously campaign on the idea that the good economy and job growth is due solely to his magnificence. I don’t know how many voters might agree that he is a totally shitty human being, and even dangerous in the long term, but vote for him anyway because they mistakenly believe that he has been good for their pocketbooks.

    Trump is a con man.  And like Madoff and other con artists, they most succeed when they get the very people they are exploiting to be their strongest defenders.

    I also will throw in that I have been avoiding any “deep analysis” of the crazy Iowa Caucus and believe that the eventual nominee will be able to kick Trump’s ass, as long as voters turn out.  A few stumbles doesn’t change anything.

  61. 61.

    Brachiator

    Coming back to the Teri Kanefield musings mentioned here, I enjoyed the positive FAQ Kanefield provided in one of the Twitter messages.

    It really is up to us to save democracy.

  62. 62.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Baud:
     

    No one will stick their necks out to support him once he’s defeated.

    I expect a huge amount of document destruction after the election. I hope the Democrats are prepared to pursue to the max.

  63. 63.

    rk

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I haven’t watched TV in years. I catch up on the news by reading. I have not listened to a single Trump speech. Why should I? I know what he is (100% evil moron). It’s not possible to hate him any more than I do already. It might be cowardly to shut out the world, but that’s where I am right now. It’s the only way I can deal with my life and my coworkers. People are not tired of talking BS. I’m just exhausted listening to it.

  64. 64.

    lol chikinburd

    The local awesome-but-Busted-orbit radio station just had a guest on its midday public affairs program who, speaking of Iowa and Shadow and arglebargle, literally said the words “Conspiracy fact!” unironically.  I love almost everything else about living here.

  65. 65.

    Chris Johnson

    @Eric U.: You totally should stay away from Twitter. I only follow a select few artists and musicians and such, chosen for their ability to not pile onto social-media political messes. NO social media place is safe for getting an accurate picture of how things are. Not even blogs, really, but especially not Twitter and Facebook and Reddit gets an honorable mention for being explicitly gameable.

    r/chapotraphouse literally got quarantined for messing with other subreddits, brigading and gaming upvotes/downvotes using Russian trolls. It was so bad it was too ugly for REDDIT, which is hilarious.

    Social media is fucked. Use primary sources, be stubborn, don’t be swayed by what ‘people think’ because you’re being lied to on a massive scale and don’t fall for it.

  66. 66.

    Psych1

    Balloon Juice is a Bernie-Hate Web site.

    The influence may be negligible but every little bit can make a difference. So, if we really are committed to getting rid of Trump, and electing a Democrat in 2020, the best action this web site can take would be to shut down until after the election.

  67. 67.

    Chris Johnson

    @Cacti: Yeah, Cacti, but I had you pegged as a paid troll a bunch of times, and would’ve made a big fuss except that I need to not be doing that and I get all paranoid about it :D

    Sooooo… WHY exactly are you coming onto this thread to literally insist that people panic, be very afraid, and think all is lost? Share ;) how come we’re supposed to be doing that? It seems, as a Buffy character put it, not of the good.

    I stand with OP and the tweet/blog thread it linked to. That’s reality. For whatever reason you are not advocating for reality.

  68. 68.

    Baud

    @Psych1:

    the best action this web site can take would be to shut down until after the election.

    We tried that with the whole 504 Error Cloudfare thing, but it proved unpopular.

  70. 70.

    gvg

    OK, I checked that I am correctly registered to vote!  Who else?

     

    Last night I made garden seed order lists, which really calms me down. I also did a jigsaw puzzle. The weather was stormy, so it was time to stay home.  If anybody else finds gardening orders soothing, google Geoseeds and look at their list. I suspect my want list is hundreds of dollars so I have to prune it a bit. After work I will see if Bluestone perennials 50 for 50% off friday sale has anything I want.  I wish I could help everyone. The waiting is driving us all nuts.

  71. 71.

    Chris Johnson

    @Psych1: LOL

    I was a key Bernie Balloon Juicer, so I got a real close look at coordinated trolls trying to shout me down, back in the day when all that seemed really important and I had a Cause to Argue For.

    I got suckered. There were real Bernie supporters, but a lot of them peeled off when other alternatives became available, and I was one of them. I then watched some of the sites/groups I trusted, get totally Russian-trolled to where I couldn’t even believe it. Chapo was a real wake-up call for me. Its community is now indistinguishable from /pol/, which also means its numbers are dwindling for the same reason that 4chan trolls suffer setbacks: you overreach and end up exposed. Charlottesville was a major setback for the alt-right, for trolls, for Putin.

    It’s pretty unlikely that Bernie will be the nominee. He’s getting run, again, as a stalking horse. I find it hard to forgive the way he accepts that, but old white men have a way of failing upward.

    You are just trolling, and ought to consider that there are better trolling opportunities here than simply saying the site should die for the glory of Saint Sparrow (let me offer that one, seeing as I still think it’s Russians who came up with ‘Wilmer’, because they knew better than anybody that it was true).

  72. 72.

    logjam

    I have found that unfollowing my “all rage, all day” Twitter and FB feeds keeps my blood pressure down. Two straight years of political campaigning is just too much.

  73. 73.

    Chris Johnson

    @Brachiator: More than that, it’s entirely possible. Things are not nearly as bad as twitter would suggest. Operating working systems, running a basically competent government, is simply not THAT hard, especially if you can pick yourself up, fix problems, try again.

    We absolutely can do this.

  75. 75.

    Sloane Ranger

    I think this is sensible advice (although I don’t always follow it). Panicking and running around like headless chickens doesn’t help win elections.

    None of us (at least I don’t think any of us) are in positions where we have to plan strategies or tactics. Many jackals have been saying that they trust Pelosi, respect and admire Schiff, Nadler etc and that even Schumer has come through Trust that they’ve gamed this all out and keep calm. In the words of Winston Churchill (not a universally popular figure on this blog, but hey!) “Keep buggering on” doing the important work on the ground and keeping your eyes on the prize.

    At least you have elections this year and a set of leaders prepared to take on Trump. We will have to wait five years for another chance to take on Johnson and undo the damage he and his Britain First Ministers are doing to this nation and, as for leaders…err I’m struggling to think of any!

  76. 76.

    lol chikinburd

    “Your best contribution to the discussion would be to cease to exist” merits no more response than “The feeling is mutual”, and we can all move on with our Friday.

  77. 77.

    Cacti

    @Chris Johnson: Hey new guy who pretends he’s a long timer.

    You’re perfectly welcome to find a nice ostrich hole next to Cheryl for the head burying.

    People should be afraid of what’s happening.  But more than that, they should be angry about it, and let those feelings motivate them to action.

    If you don’t have a stomach for the fight that’s coming, then get out of the way.  Don’t try to play board hall monitor on the rest of us.

  78. 78.

    Eljai

    @rk: I made the bad decision to watch Trump’s unhinged rantings yesterday.  I don’t usually do that.  But I noticed something.  I felt out of sorts and depressed all day.  I felt like giving up.  It wasn’t until evening that I realized what had happened.  I believe that speech actually affected my sense of well being.  I’m glad you were there to listen to your co worker.  What Trump and republicans are doing is insidious.  But they’re not infallible.  They are, in fact, beatable.  I find it useful to read about people who are doing good and try to follow their example rather than dwelling on the monsters, because the monsters want us to feel helpless.

  80. 80.

    Chris Johnson

    @Cacti: This is me

    balloon-juice.com/2007/10/06/how-to-wear-a-lapel-pin/

    New guy, huh? I concede I’ve gone through some rough times, for instance in my Bernie days or when I went by ‘Applejinx’ and got really strident in my Bernie support. I stopped that when I figured out I had been suckered and that Sanders wasn’t really very good, though his chosen rants still resonate with me.

    You are wrong to instigate panic. Stop it.

  81. 81.

    Jay

    Following story about 4chan users clogging Iowa call lines, we are now seeing reporters from major outlets posting in chans, saying they are working on a story and sharing their contact info.

    If this is indication of how major outlets are gonna engage with disinfo, we're doomed.— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) February 6, 2020

  82. 82.

    Jeffro

    @rk: It’s a good approach.  I watch a little football, but I skip the cable news networks…they’re just too stupid and designed for outrage-generation (even CNN and MSNBC)

  84. 84.

    Quiltingfool

    So easy to get caught up in all the horrible things coming out of this malAdministration.  I make the news rounds morning and evening and there are days I just have to walk away.  Doesn’t mean I’m ignoring things or sticking my head in the sand; I just get overwhelmed and start thinking everything is hopeless.  I can’t do that hopeless thing.  I won’t.  What I have come to realize is that we can’t ever, anymore, become complacent.  We can’t say, “Oh, the President will fix everything, so I don’t have to pay attention, or vote, or be involved.”  I honestly think Democrats thought President Obama was going to magically fix everything, so we ignored voting in midterms, we ignored state races, frankly, we did a piss poor job supporting him.  And how did that work out?   That shit ain’t gonna fly anymore.  If we can get that traitor out of the WH, we can take a brief breath of relief, and then we go back to work.  We be vigilant and proactive, not complacent and reactive.

    Now, I’m hopping off my soapbox and the cat and I are going to work on a quilt while watching Agents of Shield (and heaven help me, I am beginning to equate Republicans with Hydra, lol).

  87. 87.

    Jay

    @Chris Johnson:

    Cacti isn’t trying to create “panic”.

    There is a lot broken in American Democracy, that isn’t going to suddenly be all better when Dumph is voted out in November.

    MSM and even much of the Blog coverage is “all Dumph, all the time”, barely noting all the other things being broken or the rats  inside the walls.

    Cacti is pointing out that the heavy lifting just starts November 4th.

  89. 89.

    Citizen Alan

    @Psych1:

    I don’t know about Balloon Juice, person whose nym I’ve never seen before, but I hate Bernie Sanders and I don’t care who knows it. And it is in large part because he cultivates authoritarian cultists like you!

  91. 91.

    Chris Johnson

    @Jay: Far from it: exposing chans and such places is guaranteed to make regular people horrified. 4chan is only useful as a secret base in which to plot stuff that messes with The System. It’s anonymous, but it’s not really secret.

    Source: I was a /b/ drawwhore around 2006 or so. The idea of reporters flocking to chans and covering the mood of the dregs, RUINS the effectiveness of chans as an adversary. This is good news if they’re turning over that rock and covering what they find.

    Chans is basically broke incels with no connections and far too much free time. It’s not a good look, and it’s not persuasive: can only do stuff undercover, or by interfering with things like the Iowa process, and that only when the process is implemented naively. If you know an ordinary phone number is going to be swamped by channers, you don’t use an ordinary phone number.

  92. 92.

    Baud

    @Mallard Filmore: 

    The self-pardon would occur during that period, but any state criminal proceeding would be after he was out. That’s where Trump would raise the issue, and Barr would be irrelevant because he’d be out as AG.

  95. 95.

    Jay

    @Chris Johnson:

    they are not “reporting” on the ‘chans, they are engaging with the ‘chans, which amps up the ‘chans messaging.

    Anti-extremist researchers have over the years, created careful protocols for researching/reporting/monitoring the social media cesspools, specifically designed to not amplify “the message”.

    The reporters are breaking every single protocol and amping “the message”.

  96. 96.

    Chris Johnson

    @Major Major Major Major: I think there’s an extra-hard troll/distract push anytime the blog comes around to ‘whoa, take it easy, breathe, we got this’.

    Trump 2016 was down to a LOT of hard and at the time unobserved Russian work, a LOT of unforced errors, and Hillary still won. We don’t have to make all the same errors: in fact we’re not making all the same errors. We’ve been building up.

    I see the sudden explosion in nyms and trolls as a direct reaction to the message of ‘don’t panic, just work and do the next right things’. They pretty much have to get us to panic, and to believe all is lost, or they won’t even get away with an election-steal (which itself is not a given: it’d be very heavy lifting at this stage).

    Too much has been exposed. Some treachery only works in darkness. We’re fixing that.

  97. 97.

    Ohio Mom

    TenguPhule: Ah, the TSA! They are almost always very interested in my breast prosthesis. I love being felt up out in the open like that.

    One day I am going to fish that sculptured piece of silicon out of my bra and start juggling it in their face.

    I came here to distract myself and it isn’t working. I’m anxious about Ohio Dad being unemployed, how expensive my Medicare (starting March 1st) is going to be, and five other household matters, and yes, the future of my country.

    I think I’ll go look at decorating sites. See you all later.

  98. 98.

    Chris Johnson

    @Jay: Lots of the media are literally complicit with those forces. They can insist on various messages and amplify them: are already doing so. But if they have to go to the chans for backup, they’re running out of other options.

  100. 100.

    Luigidaman

    You have got to be kidding me. It doesn’t matter how much people tear apart each others’ candidates or argue and show discontentment – it’s the American way of vetting. Let everyone argue for their favorite candidate. And then we all get out and vote for the Democratic presidential nominee who, then, will win if we all get off our asses and vote for him/her. Personally, I would not hit Sanders or Mayor Pete with a dog in the ass, but if they win the nomination they will get my vote. And I will stand behind them. The worst Democrat is far better than the best Republican.  Assuming, of course, that you could find a good Republican.

  101. 101.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Jay:

    Cacti isn’t trying to create “panic”…

    …Cacti is pointing out that the heavy lifting just starts November 4th.

    From what a casual observer can see, Cacti is attacking a fellow BJ’r in a derogatory and overly personal way not to fix things, but to create bad feelings HERE. As if THEY AND EVERYONE ELSE HERE DON’T KNOW EXACTLY HOW SERIOUS ALL THIS IS. Followed by a smart assed “get lost, newguy”  if they don’t wanna sit here and writhe in agony outrage over the latest Trump Twitter storm or how hopeless the world is all day for the next 9 months.

    In other words, not really doing anything at all to help with the heavy lifting on November 4th.

    Quite the contrary. This behavior is, if I’m correct, precisely what the Twitter posts above say is the EXACT STRATEGY OUTLINED FOR TRUMP TO WIN. And, might I add, gets us to attack each other which FURTHER de-energizes our ability to defeat he and the R’s.

    Attacking each other here is troll behavior. So if you’re not a troll try treating the folks in this place who have genuine but not destructive positions like they were a real live human being you care about.

    Getting Trump out of office and possibly remaking the Senate is within our reach but not by being immobilized or making ourselves sick with anger. We’re better off staying mindful, focused, and working our asses off TOGETHER.

    So Cacti, and anyone else, if you really want things to turn out well in November, fall back with the personal aggression on a blog where we all are part of a community that is fighting for the very same things

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    LOL. Paul Campos at LGM has a similar take:

    Love it.

  102. 102.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Jay:There is a lot broken in American Democracy, that isn’t going to suddenly be all better when Dumph is voted out in November.

    Trump highlighted the problems. This might be the oppetunity to fix them since Trump is so repulsive. Do note, the Right loathes Trump as much as we do, just they are to caught up in fear and POWNing the libertards.

  103. 103.

    H.E.Wolf

    Thank you, Cheryl.  Amen.

    Full moon coming up, folks – emotions run high at that time, and it shows up in Comments sections.

    For anyone who’s feeling utter despair, I invite you to sign up with postcardstovoters.org/

    and write along with the Seattle BJ postcard meetup on Sunday afternoon, Feb. 16th!

  104. 104.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Hey everyone! This is mostly a good comment thread, but we’ve got a few naysayers/trolls/ unhappy people who feel they have to stir the shit. If you want to proceed as a happy warrior and get away from the wheelspinning and rabbitholing, ignore them.

    That’s what the pie filter is for.

  105. 105.

    Steeplejack

    @Chris Johnson:

    Here is the origin of Wilmer (Jim, Foolish Literalist, December 16, 2016).

    After the 2016 election, some Berniebro trolls apparently set alerts to remind them to come here if their sainted leader was mentioned, and they would swarm in and trash the threads. So the Wilmer protocol was offered as a stealth measure to avoid the name trigger. It has long outlived its usefulness, but it continues as a bit of Balloon Juice lore.

    And, no, it has nothing to do with Wilmer in The Maltese Falcon. I think that angle actually originated with one of the trolls screeching about how it was homophobic to use “Wilmer” as the nickname.

    I still think it’s Russians who came up with “Wilmer,” because they knew better than anybody that it was true.

    What does this even mean?!

  106. 106.

    mdblanche

    I mostly agree with you and the thread you posted. My one big quibble is I don’t think Trump is sowing chaos, distraction, and division as part of some conscious grand strategy. He’s just being who he is and doing what he naturally does.

     

    In a nasty coincidence I’ve had a lot of personal shit to have to deal with since the fall of 2016. I’ve been trying to tune out the outrage churn and the what ifs as an act of self care. I know it’s bad out there but I don’t need the excruciating detail about things I can’t change and the people telling me to panic about it. Instead I try to keep my focus on the things I can change or at least influence and the people who know to focus on those too.

     

    @VOR: Turnout in 2018 was the highest for a midterm since the 19th Amendment was passed and the 15th Amendment started being treated as more than just a suggestion.

  107. 107.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @mdblanche: I agree that it’s likely that Trump is just being Trump. But it doesn’t matter. The chaos and distraction damage our game, so we have to deal with them. Ignoring a lot of the chaff is one way to go. Engaging with everything isn’t.

  110. 110.

    Jamie

    This thread is awesome for identifying super negative people I need to pie filter. First time I’ve used that thing, and I gotta wonder what took me so long.

  114. 114.

    Llelldorin

    @Chris Johnson:

    I think that’s exactly right. (And I’m a bit amused that we’re now in total agreement, given I remember arguing with you four years ago under your old “Applejinx” nym.)

    What we have to do isn’t complicated—we have to pick a plausible nominee (and honestly all five leading candidates count as “plausible” for these purposes—I’ve seen enough elections to have exactly zero confidence that we understand “electable” well enough to make decisions on it), we have to fight vote suppression so that we can get our vote counted, and we have to get everyone to vote.

    Because it is simple, and because we can win, we’re going to see a never-ending tide of distractions to keep us from doing It over the next nine months. This post sums all that up nicely.

    It’s not that we should ignore Trump’s actions over the next nine months—it’s just that we can’t allow ourselves to get distracted from the fact that there’s really only one way to win this. When Trump find a novel way to piss us off, we have to—find a plausible candidate, fight voter suppression, and turn out the vote. That’s really it.

  116. 116.

    Chris Johnson

    @Sab: I got better :)

    Also, evidence that while bernie BROS (as in Russian trolls) are unreachable, you can be really passionate about the platform Bernie sounds off about, and still end up seeing better paths to such a platform, and end up ditching Bernie.

    I was wrong. I hold many of the same values: it’s Sanders who is unworthy of them, for all that he harps on them every day.

  117. 117.

    Bill Arnold

    @rk:

    She lived in Romania under Nikolai Causescu and thinks Trump will win the election and then suspend elections to make himself permanent leader.

    It did not work out for the Ceausescus.

  120. 120.

    Cameron

    @Psych1:  Not everybody. I like Bernie. I like his ideals, and I believe there’s a place for a finger-wagging scold from a state with a population less than half the size of the city of Philadelphia. But he’s already in that place, which is the Senate, where there are 100 people and a variety of views can be presented.

  125. 125.

    Chris Johnson

    @WaterGirl: Again, I got better. I was wrong. I allowed myself to get really worked up… see OP.

    I experienced that myself. I heeded all the calls to panic, listened to all the cries that we were all doomed, and I got good and obnoxious and bitter and I had to stop… once I figured out, eventually, that I was in the wrong. I’m sorry. Working on not being that easy to excite and upset.

    Which of course is the point of the thread. I feel like I can speak to how important this message is. You gotta take a breath, and not work yourself into what my Mom used to call a ‘swivet’.

    Or you just might find you’d been doing some of Putin’s work for him, and I’m damned if I’m making that mistake twice. Somebody WANTED me to get really upset for justice, it wasn’t just an accident that everyone I was talking to had expectations that I get really upset. This shit is real, and I’m lucky to have escaped the brainwashing.

  127. 127.

    Applejinx

    @WaterGirl: It will not recur. That was me, I am sorry, and I’m learning from my mistakes.

    Also, certain people were threatening to expose my other nym, people whom I thought were Russian trolls that didn’t like me disrupting their preferred trolling techniques on this site. Same basic message: ‘everybody must panic and freak out’ and if I got in the way of that, I got little cryptic notes to scare me: don’t remember exactly what, just that I went ‘whoa, yikes, they know who I am!’

    No more getting scared of such things, no more acting like I did in 2016. I was wrong and am learning from the way I got sucked into the second-order troll world.

  129. 129.

    Cameron

    @Elizabelle: Why, thank you!  I sort of bought into Bernie back in 2016, although I couldn’t figure out then (and still can’t) why somebody who basically endorses Scandinavian-style capitalism would antagonize American voters by describing himself as a “socialist” who advocates for “revolution.”  I’m afraid I’ve moved much further to the right…well, sort of.  I’ve been a Georgist for about 30 years, and never found a place to land until I discovered the Democratic Freedom Caucus (WARNING: most of these folks have a strong libertarian streak, which I don’t share).  I’m voting Dem no matter what, but I’m a whole lot more DFC than I am Our Revolution.

  131. 131.

    WaterGirl

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:  Yep.  Today I am going back and forth between reading/commenting and cleaning up and prioritizing the existing to do lists for the developers.  Haven’t gotten to that one yet, but I know it’s on the list.

  133. 133.

    brantl

    I think people are missing that Trump is alienating more and more people, each and every day. And he is driving them off in DROVES>

  134. 134.

    Llelldorin

    @brantl: I don’t think we’re missing that. The danger is that Republicans, and particularly Trump, are very, very good at starting side-arguments and getting our side depressed and pissed off at one another. Driving voters off in droves doesn’t matter if they get depressed and don’t vote at all.

  136. 136.

    brantl

    @Llelldorin: I think depressed is different than pissed off, I am seeing people being pissed off, they want to do their share to bloody his nose. I certainly do.

  137. 137.

    ziggy

    @Eljai:

    That was me yesterday also. Watching that rant, and the trained seals cheering for him, was seriously bad for my psyche. Then I got into an argument with my husband (Trump is bad for our marriage also!). Day did not go well. Today was much better because my phone broke and I couldn’t even look at news! Sometimes a news/media vacation is a good thing.

  138. 138.

    ziggy

    Has anyone read that book How Democracies DIe? I’d like to read it, sounds really interesting, but I’m afraid it will be too depressing.

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