That was then, this is now.
There was so much hope for the future, excitement at the possibilities, the dream of being able to make real progress, to stop the chaos of the last 9 years.
In just one moment, the earth cracked, and everything changed. Now there is only grief and loss. And fear. The impossible has become possible, and I’m struggling to accept this new reality where the United States might cease to be a democracy, where all the power is in the hands of an evil madman and his henchmen. We have lost power, we have lost standing; no one will see the US the same again.
The hate and ugliness and stupidity and gullibility and short-sightedness of 1/3 of our citizens have squandered our standing in the world. It has put so many of us in danger.
We know what’s coming, at least some of it. It’s as though we have advance warning that our country will soon be occupied by the enemy. Our dreams have been replaced with nightmares. We’ve seen the blueprints, so we know a lot of what could be coming, and I can’t be the only one who, at any given moment, thinks of yet one more safeguard that will likely be gone, one more terrible thing that may come to pass.
I am trying to stay calm, or at least calm-adjacent, because we don’t have enough information yet. We have had the major accident; we know it’s bad, but we haven’t seen the car yet so we don’t know if it’s totaled or if repair is possible.
Until we know how close the House will be, and have final results for the Senate and key down ballot races, we can’t fully assess the damage. If we keep the House very close, there will still be a lot of damage on a lot of fronts, but we’ll be able to stop some of it. And in two years, when they have destroyed the economy, when more people who voted red will have seen a woman they know die because of their hate, the Senate races could be a bloodbath for the Republicans.
Can we come back from 4 years of total Republican rule? Doubtful. Can we come back from 2 years, if the House is very close to even? I think so. There will be a lot of damage, but I don’t think the car will be totaled.
For this post we can share our worries (civil service destroyed, national guard shooting into crowds of protesters).
I want this thread to be a place where we can share without judgment. Not “I don’t think they will do that” and no “the business sector won’t allow that” or “this is what we need to do abut that”.
Then in a separate thread, A WEEK OR SO FROM NOW, when all the election results are in we can look at that list and better assess what is realistic and what is catastrophizing.
Then we can look at that list and see where there is the potential for real impact, and where there isn’t.
Then we can look at the list and identify what requires near-immediate actions, and what is less urgent.
Then we can work to mitigate the damage, so there will still be a country that can still be salvaged.
Then we can think and talk in a more realistic way about what we can do to protect the people who need to be protected.
Then we can focus on what we can do.
There are dark days ahead, but we are not without agency.
I am working hard at staying calm until we know more about the House, and the senate, and the statehouses. Panic and despair get us nowhere, and calm allows us to be smart and to work to mitigate the damage where we can.
This is not an open thread.
WaterGirl
I started this post last week, and I finished it this morning after my weekend company left.
Baud
Some say we’re the only ones with agency.
WaterGirl
@Baud: You are right about that!
The Unmitigated Gaul
“…we have lost standing; no one will see the US the same again.”
Nooo! Speaking on behalf of the world, we’re as stunned as 50% of the US.
Leto
So, personally, I’m afraid they’re going to gut VA benefits, and other disability pay, which is what I/we (Avalune) are reliant on for part of our income. And if the economy craters, I’m honestly not sure wtf we’ll do. Republicans/conservatives have been after this for forever, so that’s part of where my head is atm.
WereBear
Personally, we’re sick retired people, and all we have is our Social Security, since I had to retire early, it’s not even what was planned, of course, etc. I’ve scaled back the business so it will stay a positive, I hope.
Broadly, there are too many horrible things I fear. I’ve been reading about Nazis since I was a child. It was nothing BUT suffering. For everyone, in the end.
A psychiatrist, maybe even before the war, predicted the situation would end with Hitler’s suicide, but he would try to take “the world” with him. But he didn’t manage that many. Most of them were about saving their own skins, and they stopped his orders.
Also, they wanted to get the hell out and see what they could salvage. That’s just basic criminal minds, not raving psychopaths.
Be aware of which one we are dealing with.
KatKapCC
“Calm-adjacent” is a very good way to put it.
Phylllis
They have been very clear on their plan for ending federal education funding, and I believe they will follow through with it. South Carolina received $266,492,231.35 for FY 25 just in Title I funds, which goes to high poverty schools and predominantly funds classroom teachers. That loss directly impacts kids.
WereBear
@The Unmitigated Gaul: It helps to know it’s a global problem, too. And seemingly for the same reason.
People prefer Candy Crush to real life.
Okay. Maybe that life could use some self-improvement? Never too late to live in the Real.
It comes for all us all, but when we meet it sooner, it does nice things for us.
Nukular Biskits
I can understand the anger. As someone who still has redneck blood running through his veins, boy do I ever.
And there is a place for righteous indignation, and, yes, anger.
But (and I’m struggling with this myself), we still have to treat everyone with dignity and respect, even if they are stupid and hateful (and, yes, I know that contradicts my message).
Music is what is helping me to find some modicum of peace.
E.
I am frightened. I am 59, poor, and now the ward of a very sweet 4 year old boy. I am WAY too old for this, I don’t have finances to leave him when I die, and now this. I have been so excited for Harris, for getting climate change worked on, for him to have a future. Now I have to not think about these things in front of him because I begin to cry.
WaterGirl
Ukraine.
WereBear
@Nukular Biskits: The Tao instructs that I must strive to find the good in everyone.
Animal Rescue gets you face to face with the stupid/cruel, but we stay in because the good so much outweighs the bad. We can’t save them all, but every one we save is a joy for the family who can take one home.
And that is my joy, forever.
So I’ve decided what best works for me is to feel terribly sorry for them, for not having any joy in their life. Every cruel act — though they don’t know it — drives them deeper into the despair that feeds the rage.
That’s why they hate happy people, and helpless animals. That whole “vent your rage” turned out to only feed the rage.
So, in a real sense, they suffer far more than I would have the heart to inflict on them. And if I have a compassionate cell to give, it’s about that.
Jackie
@WaterGirl: And Gaza.
WereBear
@WaterGirl: Yeah, in the top three. It was dead women in red states, Ukraine, and then global warming, for what it’s worth.
Nukular Biskits
@WereBear:
And there’s my dilemma. Others have expressed this far more eloquently than I, but how can you take satisfaction in the knowledge that the FO part of FAFO is about to bring Trump supporters to a cold (and, I submit, deserved) realization while at the same time knowing beyond all doubt that others undeserving will suffer as well?
I can’t, even if I think that each and every Trump voter, whether through outright ignorance or through hatred of anyone/anything else that contradicted their views, deserves exactly what they demanded 100-fold to be visited upon them.
Geo Wilcox
My daughter and her friends were in England over the election, all voted for Harris as they are liberals to the core. They got so many people coming up to them saying how sorry they were that the election went to shit.
Nukular Biskits
Forgive me, Watergirl, if this isn’t relevant (I think it is but, thanks to cold/flu meds, my brain ain’t working 100%):
Do Not Comply In Advance
Professor Bigfoot
@WereBear:
That right there is an insight. So I’m gonna be happy and take care of animals just to spite the bastards.
Kent
I’ve been doing a lot of retrospective thinking about this election and past ones. And I think a lot of the expert analysis from the NYT on down misses the big picture or is frankly just wrong. I don’t think it was Harris, or any particular campaign strategy, or Gaza, or Liz Cheney, or any of that. It is basically systemic.
I’m 60 and in my lifetime there have been 5 Democratic presidents/administrations elected.
Kennedy/Johnson which I’m treating as one administration
Carter
Clinton
Obama
Biden.
In all 5 of those cases the Democrat ran as the anti-incumbent change candidate against a Republican administration that people had grown weary of. Kennedy was the change candidate after 8 years of Eisenhower and Nixon (as Eisenhower’s VP) was the more of the same candidate. Carter was the change candidate after 8 years of Nixon/Ford, watergate, etc. Clinton was the change candidate after 12 years of GOP rule under Reagan/Bush. Obama was the “hope and change” candidate after 8 years of Bush, public fatigue with Republican wars, Katrina, and the financial crisis. And obviously Biden was the change candidate after Trump’s criminally disastrous response to COVID.
By contrast, every Democratic candidate that has tried to follow up a Democratic administration has lost. McGovern in 1968 was running to follow-up 8 years of Kennedy/Johnson. Gore (who arguably didn’t lose but it was close) was running to follow-up 8 years of Clinton. Hillary Clinton was running to follow-up 8 years of Obama. And Harris was running to follow-up 4 years of Biden.
Point being, it is REALLY REALLY hard to run as the incumbent party candidate when you aren’t actually the incumbent. Americans like change and like to hate incumbents. Actual incumbents have a lot of advantages if they can wield them (Bush, Clinton, Obama, etc.) but neither Hillary Clinton nor Harris were actual incumbents. They were incumbent party candidates running in an environment when the public wanted change. It isn’t just the US. Every single incumbent party in Europe has lost ground over the past two years, either losing outright (Germany) or losing seats (Macron).
Fast forward to 2028 and I think the tables will be turned. None of the things that people are really upset about today (for example, high housing prices) are going to be fixed by Trump short of say a huge recession which would be even worse. And Democrats will once again have the chance to be the change candidate. While whoever is the GOP nominees (Vance, Haley, DeSantis, etc.) will be forced to tread the same tightrope that Harris had to tread which is to defend Republican policies and Trump while trying to paint yourself as a change candidate.
In any event, long story short. I think Harris really had a built-in uphill battle simply by being the incumbent party candidate without being the incumbent. And most of the experts who are are doing post-mortem pontificating are really missing that essential point.
NeenerNeener
I shudder to think what they’re going to do to prescription drug prices for Medicare, and anything Medicare related for that matter. I’ve been on MS meds since 1997, which were largely paid for by my work insurance. I retired last year because I was finally able to get my current medication from Mark Cuban’s drug company for a ridiculously cheap price without going through Medicare. Unfortunately the generic version from Cost Plus Drug may be causing the mobility problems that started 6 months after I retired. If I switch to one of the new medications on the market I’ll have to go through my Medicare Advantage plan and have an enormous co-pay (like 10k a month) that I can’t cover. And that’s before Musk/RFK the Lesser/Thiel start siphoning money out of the government Medicare coverage.
stinger
Here’s one of my main fears: We hand Ukraine over to Putin, who then moves into Poland. The U.S. will have pulled out of NATO, so Europe will fight alone — until things get so bad that the US, at that point under a President Newsom, will finally join the fight, with young Americans dying in battle. Rather than provide Ukraine right now with arms and ammo and no restrictions on their use and no Americans on the ground, which is all Ukraine is asking. After a literal WWIII, we will never regain the international status and respect we once had.
But at least we’ll be able to glory in an unbroken line of male presidents.
(The post’s category is “Open Threads”, despite the admonishment “This is not an open thread”. WaterGirl, I think you may have overlooked that.)
Kelly
My emotional crash was yesterday. Still in the smoking crater.
Harris’s Medicare home care proposal was very salient to me. We spent the last 2 years providing increasingly intense care for my Mom until she died in July. She spent her final 4 months in a memory care facility. It was OK but not her home of 32 years and expensive.
More trees behind our home died this summer. They were scorched in the 2020 Beachie Fire. Looked like thes might survive. Need to call our tree guy to take them down this winter. As with all the other climate change problems the fires will get worse. The best I can hope for is to only deal with smoke.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
And we are always doing it wrong.
JKC
Health care. The system as it is resembles nothing so much as Wile E. Coyote when he’s run off the edge of the cliff but doesn’t know it yet.
And if they manage to kill the Affordable Care Act, they will kill, sicken, and bankrupt millions.
WereBear
@Nukular Biskits: I’d like their wishes for other people to be visited on them, solely. But they take innocent hostages.
They pull the sweet and despairing and the coldly malevolent alike, because they are all people in need. They are afraid to make their own decisions, because they would have to come crawling back if they fail.
Their culture, their upbringing, and/or themselves are all in this conspiracy to make them miserable. But if they blame themselves, they have to change.
If they blame us, they never have to. I’m sick about all the innocents. I was quite a bit upset about the suffering being unleashed in particular torment.
I may feel sorry for the people who voted for it, whether or not they knew what they were getting, because they do get what they want with Trump.
That’s why they keep coming back. Because vaccine killed all those friends and relatives, Trump was a hero. Though they get it twice a year now, and it keeps undermining their health. And making them a little less cogent as a result.
You see how the compassion varies from huge to calibrated?
I don’t have to, or get to, control that. That, my friend, is natural. I’m feeling my real feelings. And still feel that I’m doing my best.
I think of the time I fished a kitten out of a sewer ditch and the moment they started squawking back to indignant life, all cold and muddy inside my sweatshirt tucked into my pants, which is the safe way to get me and the kitten back out of the ditch.
That little guy, who found a home, wanted to be rescued. These people have been slapping our hands away for so long they will have to beg to be rescued.
And I gladly will. But I still won’t trust them as a result. More compassion has to be earned.
Will
World is going to be fine. GOP is riding the high of Obama 2012 thinking happy times are here forever.
But Trump is Obama.
As the smoke starts to clear, Trump won tens of thousands of people who cast votes for Trump and no one else, just like Obama. He also won a few thousand people that voted for him and then Democrat down ballot.
Trump is not on the ballot in 2026 midterm and he won’t be on the ballot in 2028 presidential.
If Democrats can actually recruit some good middle of the road candidates like we did in 2006 and 2008, we will bounce back strong.
Because just like the Obama voter, that Trump voter isn’t coming back.
WereBear
@Professor Bigfoot: Indeed. Our happiness is their misery and I didn’t invent that.
I just take advantage.
Hildebrand
My 22 year-old daughter, who is gay, just crumpled to the floor crying Wednesday morning when she read the news. She is afraid, and so are we, about the potential viciousness of the way this regime will tear apart LGBTQ+ rights and protections.
To add to that, I worry about what happens to the congregation and community I serve as a pastor in Detroit. It’s 100% African American – the members are worried about retribution, a cratering economy, and the rank bigotry so evident in the election results. They are resilient and determined, they will do what needs to be done, but it’s hard not to be deeply disappointed by white people, again.
kalakal
I have a lot of fears for the next few years. The biggest ( though not I think the most likely) is I get deported. Mrs kalakal and I are still in a state of semi-shock.
Steve LaBonne
My take (which will go against the BJ grain) is, put electoral politics aside altogether (unless you are a party professional with things to figure out) for a minimum of several months until we have a better idea of what they will try to do and what they will be able to pull off. If you are an able-bodied, privileged person, get ready to help less privileged people in your orbit as best you can. To that end look for communities of like-minded people, like- broken record again- UU and other liberal church congregations.
WereBear
@Professor Bigfoot:
Win-win.
Sister Golden Bear
Up and not crying (as my Norwegian ancestors used to say). Progress I suppose.
df
@Nukular Biskits: It’s more like cold comfort. I don’t want the undeserving to suffer, but they will no matter what. So, if they (we) are going to suffer, then the MAGAs might as well finally enjoy the consequences of their actions, too. Because MAGA never really has to deal directly with the consequences of their actions, apparently. Sure, some of the J6 critters are in jail (lol for now), but Trump was never adequately dealt with by the judiciary, so here we are.
If we’re going to suffer, at least we will all suffer. Something something Tree of Liberty.
Noah Brand
I can’t figure out a way this series of events doesn’t make sense:
1. Use migrant “raids” as a tool of control. Areas and companies that display loyalty to the regime will not be attacked by Trump’s Little Green Men, they will be allowed to keep their labor force. It’s even better because that labor force will be scared and easier to control. Cut their wages even further and tell them anyone who complains gets turned in. Yes, this will involve Trump not keeping a campaign promise. I’m shocked too.
2. Instead raid major cities that Trump has a grudge against. New York, Portland, etc. This will provide lots of media-friendly “Trump cracks down on illegals!” material without actually messing with the money in a serious way. It will also create some conflicts with state governments that will allow for the legal assertion of dictatorial powers.
3. Those cities will, rightly and necessarily, protest en masse. When they come for our neighbors, we won’t be silent. These protests can then be met with extreme violence, either by the army or just the same Fed boys he used last time, but with live ammo this time. Some people will, in fact, shoot back this time. Maybe not the first night, but the second.
4. The deaths of some of Our Brave Boys will be a convenient excuse for the total seizure of power. Temporary emergency measures, regrettably necessary steps must be taken, you know how this song goes. This would be a good time for Don to die of something unsuspicious, so Thiel’s muppet can reluctantly accept the mantle of President For The Duration or whatever. At that point, it simply doesn’t matter what their other policies do.
I would appreciate someone telling me that this doesn’t make sense or wouldn’t work. Because it feels intuitively obvious to me, but I’m not in the best shape right now.
brendancalling
Your car accident analogy remind me of the song I have had in my head ever since the awful election: “$1000 Car.”
“A thousand dollar car is gonna let you down
More than it’s ever gonna get you around
Replace your gaskets and paint over your rust
You still end up with something that you’ll never trust
A thousand dollar car, its life was through
‘Bout 50,000 miles ‘fore it got to you
Oh why did I ever buy a thousand dollar car.”
I’ve felt, for a long time, that the US is a $1000 car, in so many ways. Physical infrastructure. Norms (not laws) that no longer work. Government dysfunction. My work as a middle school teacher has only reinforced that feeling—my god, our education system is a DISGRACE.
If we win the House—no guarantee—we’ll be doing a lot of work on that $1000 car, and it will probably always run a little off after the wreck it’s been in.
neabinorb
There is so much potential for harm and chaos, but one thing I’ve thought about this weekend is just how quickly republicans will abandon their devotion to state’s rights.
WaterGirl
@WereBear: My big 3 are women with no control over their bodies or their lives, Ukraine, and protestors / people who disagree with them are enemies of the state and can be shot or jailed.
I was already sick over Gaza, even with Dem control. So it’s not one of the 3 that make mme feel literally sick with fear and rage.
BarcaChicago
I just saw Zelensky talking and the implications for him directly, for Ukraine, and for Europe hit me hard and caused me to cry hard. We are abandoning so many people to death, destruction and suffering. It is overwhelming. It is hard to be with this truth. This is much bigger than our own disaster here.
WereBear
Maybe this will break the crowd who wants to pretend it’s possible to get back to the “old normal.” Some of them.
I mentioned in an earlier thread how the vague mind works on superstitions. When people don’t have agency, they make up wishes and charms and spells and “maybe we need a white man as President again. My childhood was full of white men being President and I remember that as a relatively carefree time when I had no responsibilities.”
It is different from the decision-making process of Homo sapiens wingnut. They don’t make decisions, they flow with their crowd. You are living under mob rule, always. No wonder they don’t mind chaos. That is their mind.
How do we know what COVID — repeated COVID — does to a body filled with rage (high cortisol) PLUS hormone imbalance from a diet of processed food (can’t make reproductive hormones that way) PLUS poor education, no mental health support, and a probably a religion that wants you miserable because they tell you tithing and prayer will fix that, and you’ve got nothing else.
You’ve got someone who can’t draw a straight conclusion with a ruler. Now try being an adult that way.
I don’t condone. But I know why they are that way, and why it is so difficult for the intelligent and capable and compassionate to actually grasp the existential horror of their lives.
That’s how I can feel sorry for them and be raging angry at what they do to me. Both legitimate ways to feel, but just like them, I am responsible for what I DO.
The Truffle
@Will: How about progressive candidates as well?
Good comparison of Obama 2012 by the way. I have thought the same thing.
brendancalling
@Phylllis: one of the things that really pisses me off is I became a teacher a few years ago specifically so I could retire. I walked away from my true passion, playing music, and for what? Nothing, it looks like right now.
WaterGirl
@stinger: If you don’t assign a category before you save a draft, it adds Open Threads. I must have saved the post without adding a category. Fixing now. thanks
WereBear
@Noah Brand: You are right about that is what they WANT.
I think it will be a LIT holiday season though. We’ve never tried shunning.
But I’m hearing a lot of people have had it with Trumper relatives. And contempt from their family is a big hurt. That’s why they try to say things like, “let’s not talk politics and just have a good time as a family.”
When their grandchild is crying on the floor, in fear from what they did, on purpose.
You know, it just doesn’t have the same welcoming ring as it used to. Because they want us all to shut up and pretend and I always got into trouble because I either couldn’t or wouldn’t.
So I’m the anti-social one. But know what? The Trumpers in my family have already been cut off, they were lip service relationships, and they never listened to me, anyway, ever. Both are sick and dependent on disability at this point.
That was probably the fourth thing I thought. Because that was how the Nazis started. Propaganda against the “useless.
So if I’m starving in the street I’ll know they are too. Perhaps that will feel like justice, too, but I doubt it.
BarcaChicago
I am feeling an overwhelm at knowing the danger so many are in (not me, but those already targeted – I’m scared for me too, of course) and feeling like they need to be protected and how in god’s name can we do that. I am a child of firm non-believers (from Christian ancestry), and quite happily grew up without any religious tradition, but we did attend our local Unitarian Church sometimes because they welcome nonbelievers and we have shared values. I think I will be joining my local UU, I need the community badly and just reading their stated mission brought tears to me. I am not a joiner or group person, but these are unprecedented times and I can see that community can hold me up but also be resistance.
Citizen Alan
@Nukular Biskits: Well honestly, I don’t think the Trumpers will ever FO in the sense of learning anything as a consequence of what’s going to happen over the next 4 years. 90% of them at least re not capable of any kind of introspection. Every bad thing that happens to them will always be someone else’s fault, usually a Democrat or a minority. Even the ones who get ruined because of Shitgibbon will weep to reporters that they were collateral damage, that Trump accidentally harmed them instead of hurting “the right people.” And they’ll just keep voting Republican.
Scamp Dog
@Steve LaBonne: I’m also UU, and the congregation I’m a member of will be even more important to me now.
BarcaChicago
I didn’t take off my Kamala Harris buttons because I realized I don’t feel any disappointment in her – I feel deep pride in her, admiration, inspiration, respect. So I’m keeping them. I also intentionally am in a “great mood” out in public – I feel defiance and know the Trumpers are gloating and I will not let them see ANY despair or fear. I keep my overwhelming fear and sadness for spaces with my people or my home, period.
karen gail
Personally, I have this scared, sick to pit of stomach feeling. I get this way when my life is about to change in ways that I least expect it to.
I believed from the first time that Project 2025 came to light that this would be the agenda of Trump administration; it provides a path for all the things he and others have claimed to want and will work towards. A lot wasn’t new, there have been cries to destroy nation’s safety nets since they were formed.
I know that many have compared Trump to Hitler, not fair since Hitler took many of the things the US did to Blacks and Natives and applied them to people in Germany. I believe that if we are going to look at history we need to find someone who destroyed everything around them while getting more and more power. I first thought of Mao but he didn’t have ability to start world war; maybe one of Roman Emperors?
Also, I believe that Trump and crew learned from first trip to Oval Office, no more military, no more educated people who might have a clue about how a department works, this time it will be about loyalty and the ability to worship Trump as god/emperor. We need to believe the promises that those to down bow down will be destroyed.
The whole mess makes me ill and sad; the problem with people in a cult is that they believe they will always be “safe, protected and on the side of right.”
Eunicecycle
@Citizen Alan: I mean, they still don’t blame Trump for letting Covid get out of control, so no, they won’t understand any consequences. Plus they will find some way to blame Biden.
Thor Heyerdahl
Billions of dollars of capital has accumulated for regular citizens over the last 75 years. The oligarch class looks at all of that as theirs. Goodness knows what’s in store for market fuckery.
They look at history and say “Pfft, Crassus what a piker.”
Ole Lurky
@karen gail: yeah I’ve been thinking of old Nero a lot.. petulant, vindictive, sociopathic megalomaniac.. good times..
George
@Nukular Biskits:
I think the desire not to have innocent people get hurt, even if it is in conjunction with MAGA people getting hurt, is an obstacle that my fellow liberals and Democrats need to get over.
Let me flip it around: There will be many innocent people getting hurt by MAGA policies. I am all in favor of as many Trump voters/supporters as possible getting hurt as well.
Rightwingers have either consciously or subconsciously known that liberals would do what we can to mitigate the negative impacts of rightwing policies, so they have continued to push their agenda with a two-steps-forward, one-step-back strategy.
Other commenters might be more optimistic than me, but I don’t see anything changing for the long-term positive until there is a great deal of pain all around. The system as it is won’t bend and then return to good form. It is just my opinion, but I think the system will have to break. I don’t take any satisfaction in the belief, but we are where we are.
Thor Heyerdahl
@Ole Lurky: MNGA – Make Nero Great Again?
Mike E
@JKC: I’m already there. 61, had prostate cancer surgery last month which my ACA has just denied covering part of the costs with the others “pending”… I am not working and will be on the hook for this year’s premiums plus anything not covered by my insurance. I’m moving back to PA which is where friends and family are so that’ll help me hopefully get on my feet and salvage a workable situation, but I will leave behind my 29 year old daughter who has a raft of her own problems made more complicated now.
Can’t say/see how much a difference I can make to this nation’s zeal for self-destruction but I will try to embrace my new opportunity to make a fresh start, be it as it may.
Steve LaBonne
@Scamp Dog: This morning’s service at mine was lovely and did a lot for my mental health (and everyone else’s). And there were several new visitors.
bjacques
Living abroad, I worry Trump’s win will encourage the Eurofascists (which it already has—that fucking blowfish Orbán was chortling about “big plans”). I’d really hoped for a Harris/ Walz win to take the wind out of their sails.
(“All I can say is ‘mandate, my ass’”, but it’s not much use n explaining a 65% voter participation and a split of only a few points when the results are so spectacular when viewed from afar.
I guess my second worry is House Minority Leader Jeffries’s caucus members losing their nerve and negotiating with the terrorists or bailing out Moses when he stands for Speaker again in January. Maybe not, if Speaker Emerita Pelosi chose her successor well.
ema
One of my worries is that people who’ve never experienced living in what’s about to hit us have unrealistic expectations and don’t know how to survive it. The orks own us now, best to be prepared.
For example, if you have young children (up to and including teenagers), you need to stop discussing any serious topics in front of them today.
Not tomorrow, not in January, not soon, but To-Day. And try your best to make them understand that what is said in the home stays there.
The reason for that: They will be interrogated and pumped for information to be used against you by various adults tasked with that job.
Children shouldn’t be at risk of going through life carrying the guilt of causing bad things to happen to their parents, but that is the new reality in the glorious, best of all, magnificent world that’s coming our way.
Ole Lurky
@Thor Heyerdahl: instead of his violin, trump will be working his fat idiot fingers , whining over social media and stuffing his face with fast food while the nukes get launched..
lafcolleen
Ukraine and Gaza will be left to their own devices.
Shawn Fain put a target on his back. The UAW is still under a monitor due to past corruption. the Trump admin is going to try to break the back of the labor movememt and will not defend the NLRB against claims that it is unconstitutional.
Worker safety will be gutted.
Rural.hospitals will shut down at an even faster rate.
Annie
I hate it that I’m thinking so selfishly but my first and greatest fear is for Social Security and Medicare. I retired earlier this year and they are major parts of my retirement finances. Republicans have wanted to repeal SS from the moment FDR signed the legislation and now . . .
Also, if you want an early dose of schadenfreude, there’s a Reddit thread “leopards eating faces” with posts about people who didn’t realize til after the election that Trump policies would hurt them.
WereBear
@George:
I think you’re right. I know people rely on Democrats to be the “adults in the room” and now the toddlers have taken over the daycare.
E.
@Noah Brand: That’s been my prediction so far too.
sentient ai from the future
so as mentioned elsethread, I am the parent of a trans child. We are fearful of what might happen (withdrawal of puberty blockers from insurane coverage, or worse) but are in a blue city in a blue state.
At the 30,000 foot level I worry about the status of the economy, particularly if the rest of the world decides we should no longer be the reserve currency because we are capricious unreliable shitbags. That would seriously curtail my last-ditch plans to flee, but I’m not sure what other currency would be appropriately resistant to have in my go-bag.
Ohio Mom
I agree with the commentators who said that the Trumpers who FA will never FO, they are unable to get through any cognitive dissonance. They will find some excuse, maybe that Trump didn’t go far enough.
I sat through all gazillion hours of the movie Shoah. One of my memories is of the interview of a train conductor, if that’s the right title, who worked on freight trains — he wasn’t an engineer, his job was overseeing what was behind the engine.
Before the Reich, it was various types of freight, during the Nazi era, it was humans, then after the war, back to freight.
I think the viewer was supposed to be horrified by his lack of horror but I took it as an example of going along to get along and keeping one’s head down.
Nukular Biskits
@Citizen Alan:
I fear you are correct.
Nukular Biskits
@George:
Agreed. And I think they count on that to mitigate the damage their actions cause … and then, at the same time, to be able to blame liberals for not doing ENOUGH to stop the damage.
Will
@The Truffle: We will need good progressive candidates in states where it works. 2006 and 2008 were amazing because we picked progressives for the right seats and middle of the road candidates for a lot of the tougher swing states. Roy Cooper should be recruit #1 for North Carolina. Time for us to get to work.
Steve LaBonne
@WereBear: If you have a fire or flood in your house you hire a disaster cleanup crew, but you don’t invite them to stay and live with you after they’re done. That’s how a lot of voters have been using the Democratic Party for years.
George
@Ohio Mom: The film “The Zone of Interest” raises similar themes as you describe.
Americans likely now will either be of the sort who sees the continued gradual erosion of standards and morals or the sort who is incapable or unwilling to notice, and therefore won’t counteract, the downward spiral. Or will accept that downward spiral with glee.
I used to wonder how Germany descended from being among the world leaders in technology and science and industry and arts to the Germany run by Nazis that, in the end, resulted in its own destruction. I don’t wonder about that anymore.
There is no institution apart from the Democratic Party in the U.S. that outright supports small-d democracy. The media have become half-witted stenographers at best if not outright sycophants for the rightwing. Organized religion tends to be rightwing. Business is, of course, the same. And no one in the Republican Party, apart from a few House members who ended up being voted out by their own party, has dared to speak up against MAGA.
Ohio Mom
@Annie: I don’t think that’s selfish because should the safety net be shredded, it won’t just be you who is hurt. You just understand the threat on a personal level.
One thing people don’t realize about Social Security is how much it strengthened younger families. It’s hard to give your children a leg up when you are nursing frail grandma crashing on your couch.
As I have noted too many times before, Social Security is a lifeline to the disability community. Sad to say, many disabled people are Republicans (some because they are sure they would have been aborted, they don’t seem to understand time moves in only one direction). Frankly, that is a group I would enjoy watching suffer.
Thor Heyerdahl
Wondering how this will affect the Canadian election, after the Liberal minority government falls in a non-confidence vote.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is a smarmy, Orban wannabe who many Canadians dislike as much as Trudeau. Trudeau (and non- conservative opposition) pushed the confidence vote until after the US election. It will be interesting to see how Canadians square their feelings of Trump vs trust of Canadian leaders to handle it.
Due to Canadian winters, elections are rarely held in the winter. 1980 was the last time it happened (February). The only January election was in 1874. The last December elections were in 1917 & 1921
stinger
I figured it was something like that. Especially as you had to set the post aside for a few days.
taumaturgo
@Phylllis:
No one can predict what the future will bring, no matter the amount of knowledge of hubris one may possess. What only truly matters is now, today, this moment. Think of what one can do about now, not later or tomorrow that may never come.
A moment at the time, a day at the time.
gene108
People are terrible at understanding cause and effect. It’s only getting worse with the fractured media environment and unchecked misinformation and disinformation floating around social media.
I don’t what Democrats need to do to recover, but hoping Republicans step on their dicks and make way for Democratic victories is not a sustainable political strategy.
karen gail
For some reason I am reminded of an old house; sometimes the whole thing needs to be torn down and start from the basement up, because the original “bones” no longer hold.
When I was younger an elder told me that our government is like a house, we keep patching and adding while ignoring the rotting mortar holding the fieldstone foundation together.
That is what the Democrats have been doing for years, repairing the damage and adding on; maybe the time has come to stop patching?
currawong
A lot depends on what the billionaires’ plans are for Trump.
if Trump lasts 12 months it will be a disaster for Ukraine and Palestine. Trump will do whatever Putin tells him. Putin has owned Trump for at least a couple of decades.
Donestically, it will be a horror show for women and POC. TBH, it won’t be too good for his white supremacist base either with rising prices and less certainty.
However, the big question is, how long will the GOP, under direction from their paymasters, take to invoke the 25th amendment and remove Trump and install their puppet Vance.
I think their plans are more opaque. They may revert to a more normal GOP foreign policy or they may align themselves with Putin. Domestically, they’ll be looking to recreate their happy place, apartheid South Africa, with women’s rights severely restricted as well.
i only hope the 2026 midterm elections go ahead but they may engineer an emergency to indefinitely postpone them.
The world that has existed since 1945 is gone and the rest of the world needs to decide on a future that doesn’t depend on the USA. Australia is stuffed because both major parties are tied to the US. We’ll go down whatever mad road you take us.
That was depressing to think about and write. I hope I’m wrong.
i didn’t even mention climate change. Any chance there has gone and our children and grandchildren will pay the price.
TheflipPsyd
I have so many fears about what is going to happen, but my main fear is for the world my two 14 year olds and my 16 year old face. Climate change, the fall of Ukraine and Europe afterwards, my daughter living as a second class citizen, without even the rights I had at her age. My sons becoming fodder for war. Continued lawlessness by the right people and punishment for the wrong people, etc.
I’m going to apologize in advance because this will be a bit long. Last night I went to see the “liberal redneck.” One of his bits dealt with DEI. And he was talking about the way it is treated by too many people in this country. It’s like you’re on a first date and you said to your date, “I believe in variety, fairness and being welcoming.” And, in response, the date goes , “variety, fairness and welcoming others? Fuck that.”
So been thinking about that bit a lot all day.
Which brings me to shame. The US culture doesn’t do shame anymore. And God I don’t want to go back to the days when people lived in shame. But maybe the culture needs a bit of shame. Which I think is one of the reason Walz was chosen. Because he brought the shame by calling out how weird right wingers are. Remember when that was resonating with everyone? And then I never heard it again.
I think Harris ran a really great campaign. She ran a joyous campaign. I think the mistake is this belief that if you are a Democrat, you can’t run a joyous campaign and continue to call out the weirdness of the other side. Maybe anger isn’t the only way to motivate the population, maybe laughing at the other side, maybe shaming would have been the way to go. I honestly don’t know, but maybe a tool for the future.
Thanks if you read to the end.
Chris Johnson
So, this post is for calling out predictions of what will go wrong, without a bunch of ‘no it won’t’. Perhaps also ‘what the hell happened’ in the sense of what will become clear? I’m game. To some extent I can do that as I’m going full normie and advocating it. This might provide some reasons why I advocate that.
I think it’s been Russia, but it’s not quite that simple anymore. Melania is probably Trump’s minder, and smart but deeply fed up with his shit. She vanishes when it seems like he’s not going to come through for Russia, but is right back to remind him who his owner is. Elon Musk enjoys the excitement of being a traitor and enjoys plotting out how to award the world to himself and build more companies to the glory of Russia or whoever. He controls stuff that could hurt Russia, but for now he’s all in. He’s also on drugs and not entirely to be trusted.
Vance is Thiel’s guy. If Vance is around it means Thiel is in there too: he has something both the old kings want. Immortality, or at least life extension. He’d be a fool to NOT sell them that. It’s possible he’s even got something: whether it’s ethical, well… not a concern to him. Thiel is Dark Enlightenment. He’s totally scornful of democracy and at this stage I see his point: it’s mighty breakable through malice. He doesn’t seem to want to be King. I think he wants to be Rasputin. He’s behind Trump, but that doesn’t automatically mean he’s behind Putin, and that’s gotta worry Putin. Putin owns Trump, impresses Musk, probably does not impress Thiel very much. Putin and Thiel are about equally cunning and smart and ruthless, but Thiel is a lot younger.
What will we see?
There will be hunting of scapegoats whether or not they have to be made up out of crisis actors. Don’t volunteer to be targets, say I. They’ll come up with something, as the reign of terror has to be initiated but it can’t be anyone anybody knows and likes: just as the threat is always somebody else and somewhere else, the retribution is never enough and is always somebody else.
The audience is Trumpists and normies. Trumpists are actually not the best at being death squads because they’re nuts and mean and will scare the normies, so if they really get power to act, they’ll turn off normies. I have friends who are already jittery because they probably voted for Trump, thinking the world’s being overrun by Antifa and they were making a principled stand that wouldn’t work, and suddenly there’s Nick Fuentes on TV gloating and saying all the stuff their libtard friends told them was gonna happen. One of these people is pro-choice: jesus, I don’t blame her for how jittery and freaked out she obviously is. Can’t help her with that. She done fucked uuuuuuup.
Too many people will just check out, because the table’s been set for just a massive throw-up-the-hands, a massive FUCK IT. I spent money I probably shouldn’t have, on Kamala Harris, and a LOT of other people tried to win with money as we’re used to thinking is the way, and it absolutely didn’t work as it should’ve. The amount of disgust and resignation will be colossal.
That poses a problem for the Trump regime which needs to continue to be fought. If it’s not fought, it then has to deliver on its promises, not just run with its Project 2025 that was totally fake you guys and then suddenly surprise it was real the whole time you guys! That’s a pretty obvious rugpull.
The Trump regime will be left with its dick in its hands, having to actually govern and run things, with an infrastructure that ONLY is able to swing elections and control the whole fucking media and major social media sites (Twitter). And so we’ll see a continued blanket of trolls, trying to start fights, and a continued barrage of Pravda, and behind that, raw panic. These people are not really qualified to do anything but smash the country. That’s what Putin wants, but to do so without obvious enemies to blame it on would provoke a normie backlash. So it’s gotta be a decline.
I wonder who’s gonna be the new empire, ‘cos it ain’t gonna be us. I predict that local grassroots support and self-help will be effective as long as it is not also resembling ‘enemies of the state’, and that there’s gonna be a real desperation to manufacture enemies out of the normies or whatever scapegoats are to hand.
And things will go to shit but the lying about it, by WAY more of the mainstream media than you’d suspect, is going to be hilariously brazen. And anybody who has been actually poor, and who has OK community connections and keeps their nose clean, probably repeat probably will get through without their standard of living dropping more than say 90% from what it was. So, not quite third world, everything is said to be fine, and your supermarkets get to be like Soviet ones for a time, while Tucker Carlson goes and enthuses about how awesome Russian supermarkets are. Again. Just to rub it in.
I won’t be tuning in to that official all-American state broadcast, thank you. I already knew we lost, and expected as much. And his shit will be fake anyway so they needn’t be too proud of themselves. Everything will be fake, very quickly.
DougL
@Steve LaBonne:
l think your comment at #31 is one I’d sign on to. We need to see if this is gonna be true fascist shock and awe ( in which case things will move quickly) or if this is really Trump 2.0 with all of its implied incompetence and focus on revenge. Obviously the latter is to be fervently wished for.
Betty Cracker
One of my near-term concerns is that our post-election actions are contradicting what we said in the campaign. If elected Dems really believe Trump is a fascist, maybe don’t fucking congratulate him on his win! Don’t pledge bipartisan cooperation beyond a peaceful transfer of power. Don’t attend his fucking inauguration!
We’ve prided ourselves on being Team Normal, the people who respect and work within norms and traditions. Maybe that’s made us the defenders of an unpopular status quo?
We sure as hell won’t get any brownie points for congeniality. Perhaps acting like this is a national emergency is more appropriate.
I don’t know. Interested in hearing what others think.
Emily B.
In no particular order—and with the admission that some of these may cancel each other out—here are things that I fear:
1) Surveillance and harassment (IRS audits; law enforcement visits, arrests, prosecutions; deportations, etc.) of those who protest and of opposition political leaders.
2) National abortion ban. Medical surveillance of women. SCOTUS overturns Griswold, allowing contraception bans by states. Application of the New Jim Crow playbook to women: Use criminal anti-abortion statutes to convict, imprison, and then disenfranchise women (since in many jurisdictions people with felony convictions cannot vote). Men are empowered to harass and control women on a personal level.
4) Loss of Ukraine. Weakening of US ties with allies, resulting in less sharing of intelligence and declining US influence in the world.
5) US withdrawal from NATO. Putin has a free hand to move against the Baltic states or other European states. The European Union responds. World War III.
6) Massive tax cuts for the rich drive up federal deficits. Gutting of Social Security and Medicare because “we can’t afford it.”
7) Trump tariffs produce widespread inflation. Trade barriers here and around the world depress the economy, leading to years of stagflation.
8) Regulatory cutbacks, cryptocurrency speculation, tax cut windfall for the rich produce a giant market bubble, followed by a crash.
9) Protections for LBGTQ+ people rolled back, including gay marriage rights and right to medical treatment for trans people.
10) US withdrawal from Paris accords, unrestricted drilling on federal lands, cancellation of clean energy programs, etc. Climate change accelerates, leading to unprecedented storms, droughts (and subsequent food shortages), disruptions of natural environments, species loss. Some areas of the country become uninhabitable within 20 years.
11) Climate change drives increasing migration worldwide, giving more fuel to xenophobic far-right parties and locking in authoritarian rule globally.
12) Gutting of the education system and continued decline of journalism result in an (even) less informed citizenry, reinforcing authoritarianism.
13) Continued attacks on rights—for example, attempted repeal of birthright citizenship—that will ultimately fail but that will keep the left playing defense and will further normalize the erosion of democratic norms.
14) Israel annexes Gaza. Iran-Israel conflict heats up. World War III.
15) 2028 presidential election cancelled because of “national emergency”
NutmegAgain
@Nukular Biskits: From the link you sent, a thought: “Their #2 hatred is LGBTQ+ people. Their main objective is promoting and strengthening patriarchy. They’re terrified about a shrinking population and they’re ready to outlaw abortion (Trump said he wouldn’t sign a national abortion bill, but he’s not known for telling the truth about anything). And then birth control. And then make divorce all but unobtainable. They want to move the country back to the 1950s and they’ll use Trump (who’s easily manipulated, as we saw in his first term) to do it.”
I’ll say this, one of the interesting bits of knowledge that stayed with me from graduate study, in this case Demography, is about Romania under Ceausescu. When they instituted violently pronatalist policies, kids in horrific orphanages were not the only outcome. The generation that moved, 30 years later, to overthrow the repressive regime, had been born of this wave of “extra” kids. In other words, a movement rowing so hard against the tide of modernity contains the seeds of its own destruction.
Being a not-young, I may not actually live to see this kind of outcome in the US. But I do think it will happen.
K-Mo
In my personal life, they will come after my trans son, who has just under a year before hitting majority status. We will protect him at all costs. In my professional life , they will cut our funding and run us through various gauntlets. We’ll be under the thumb of some assholes they dig up from some haunted crypt. We’ll do the best we can.
More broadly, Ukraine will get sold out, Palestinians will suffer horrific abuses, and lots of Latinos will live on the run and then get thrown into captivity. Their children will be caught in the crosshairs.
And to top it off, the economy will be thrown into tumult, and lots of people will be impoverished.
Nukular Biskits
@Betty Cracker:
No disagreement with me.
Team Trump has already thrown all societal and electoral norms out the window. What are we gaining by trying to keep them?
Ksmiami
@Nukular Biskits: no we don’t. They deserve our enmity- fuck them forever
The Truffle
@Chris Johnson: I have too many friends talking about getting out and fighting. So I don’t know how many will really check out and how many will be pissed and eventually get back in the ring.
i jus suspect one of these goons will be the next Steve Bannon: a blow hard who does not last. And when/if the economy goes bad they get the blame. Hate to say it but it would be Hoover 2.0.
AM in NC
So I am trying to think of things to DO so I don’t despair. Things we can do as individuals that, together could help move the needle.
media is billionaire-owned and broken, so how do we work around it in the real world?
things like having stickers of Trump’s ugly mug saying ‘I did that’ that come out every time gas goes up – millions of them stuck on gas pumps across America so people associate high gas prices with Trump.
same with every time a woman dies of pregnancy-xerox 100 copies of the article, write ‘Another mom killed by Republican lawmakers’ and go into WalMart and Target and tape them to diaper and formula packages and tape them to women’s bathroom stalls everywhere.
I think We need regular, meet people where they live campaigns like this because our media is now almost completely billionaire owned and so siloed that MAGA has little connection to reality. They don’t see these stories in their media. We must bring these realities to them.
every day. In all their spaces. Somehow, we need to pierce their bubble. Bad things will happen under Trump-we need to get that info to our fellow Americans in creative ways that meet them where they are.
just a thought.
Daoud bin Daoud
@Nukular Biskits:
Music and cats give me peace.
Daoud bin Daoud
@WereBear: Cruelty ends up being its own punishment finally. It’s not like spiritual teachers have been warning us about this problem for the last 2000-3000 years or so.
Ksmiami
@AM in NC: the sorry antivaxxer website did a great job during Covid of showing the stupidity and failures of the anti vaccine/anti mask brigade. We can start with day 1 of the fake economy
Ken
Want something to do? Make money. Whatever idea you’ve been sitting on, executive it. The social systems in this country are going to fail, but not capitalism. There will be lots of oppression, but the stock market is going to go crazy and there is going to be ALOT of money flowing around. I’ve been at this site for under 20 years, and there are alot of amazing and intelligent people here. Whatever underground work is going to occur, it will take money.
Chris T.
@WereBear:
Pretty much, yes. I’m not at all certain this will develop the same way though: Hitler was aiming to conquer Europe, and Trump is way too lazy (and scared of everything) to do aim that direction.
To that end: when Trump inevitably keels over (regardless of the cause), Vance is next in line. But Vance is a rudderless vacuum clinging to Daddy Figures. Currently that’s Trump; once he’s gone, who will Vance suck up to? How quickly will the backstabbing infighting that accompanies all Trump enterprises take out Vance himself?
In my mind, Miller is the one to really watch out for.
WaterGirl
@AM in NC: Be sure and chime in for the followup post once all the results are inn – where I suggested we look at the list we’re creating here in the comments. Then look at which things we can impact, and think about how to best do that. And how to protect the people who need protection.
Gloria DryGarden
@Noah Brand: your 1,2,3,&4 are definitely concerns. It’s so weird to recognize that might be possible.
Im also thinking of firing squad executions. And internment camps.
Im worried about personal finances, finding work that is healthier for me, getting healthcare as my health has been flailing.
im worried about religious oppression, which I would take very personally.
my worries range from bigger picture, to the community, to the personal.
im worried for all my friends and extended family who are LGBTQ+ or are immigrants, or BIPOC. Their worries are already rippling over to me and making it trickier to build stronger friendships. I’m worried that people will be less available, more isolated by their personal struggles, and that building community will be much harder.
Im worried we will be so damaged that we won’t have elections for a time, as promised by whozit.
im flashing on the inquisition, and the hitler exterminations, the poverty, the military coups and corrupt governments we learned of in history class, in far distant lands.
Im worried about the big weather systems, the disasters ensuing from climate change, the collapse of the AMOC, and Europe therefore dropping 30degrees colder.
im almost screaming inside about Ukraine/ Putin/ Europe. I’m concerned about international relations, as we get pulled out of nato, stop having Allies, and send incompetents and bullies out to do our “diplomacy”
im worried about women dying from medical neglect, and medical malpractice resulting from these legislative abortion bans. I’m worried about women’s lives, and rights, our safety, and our sovereignty.
im worried about my mental health, and most everyone’s, as we drift into ptsd, or numbness and apathy. Indifference leads to inaction, and I’m starting to think it’s a form of evil, leaving a trail of damages, and not caring about them.
I’ve been personally hanging on by a thread, trying to make things better. Already problems and issues have been more than I could scramble ro keep up with. I worry that I’ll never be able to retire.
Grateful for this post, so beautifully written, WaterGirl, (helped me cry) and so important for us to say our fears and concerns. I know it’s a dead thread, I just didn’t have internet for a few days, but this was important.