How Terrified Are You? January 2017

they gave me 4 little pitas instead of 1 big one

PITAs

I am terrified that when my Sir Thomas More moment arrives I won't have the balls to do the right thing, or I'll do the right thing, and then my family as I know it is discontinued.
Now that's ridiculous, that won't happen, and we're not even likely to get to the part where it even has a chance of happening, but I feel that being frightened enough about it is an important ingredient in my morning routine, until we're all safely on the other side.

so you saw Silence again then

I still haven't seen it!

Gonna say 8, feels like a 9 but there's plenty of room for things to get worse.

8 because I'm constantly certain that things are gonna get worse

anxiety has levelled out substantially since October / November though, so that certainty's good for something

id have thought that the pending likelihood of a nuclear war was.... the...defining characteristic of living through the cold war, unless ive missed the point there

― Mother Teresa May I (darraghmac), Monday, January 30, 2017 7:06 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yesterday I was wondering what it was like to live in Germany during the rise of Fascism. Were there days when it was possible to ignore that Hitler fellow's language, because the weather was nice and there was going to be chicken for dinner?

The point of this, is that from what I remember of the Cold War, some days Mutually Assured Destruction was in my mind; other days I was happy or upset because of what was happening in my (sheltered) life.

Similarly, since the election sometimes I have found myself personally happy because things were going pleasantly for me. But I wonder if this is what people mean when they say we need to prevent the "normalization" of Trump and his associates' ways of behaving.

no, that's not what "normalization" means. you don't have to force yourself to never feel joy as long as trump is in office. you've probably run across lots of examples of normalization in the past. when somebody massacres a kindergarten class and the response is "it's horrible, it's too bad we can't do anything about it", _that_ is normalization.

My stress level was already pretty high under Obama and the things that can fuck up my life then aren't necessarily going to be worse/more likely under Trump.

Trump stress is more of a constant low-level tension of not being able to predict the future and the constant news cycle of new insanity, maybe a 4-5.

I'm at 11 now, but it'll be 6 when the shock of this wears off.

I'm kinda glad Trump did it because it was the kneejerk move that a seasoned politician wouldn't have made, and he is so blinded by pride and rage that he just lunged at it.

for me, the anxiety is because on one hand, everything in my actual day-to-day life is still totally the same and normal, but on the other, all these bizarro political things are happening that feel very threatening and very unpredictable. i mean, i grew up in a country (new zealand) that always felt very politically stable to me, i was very ignorant, and i've looked at other countries going through strife - the middle east, russia, even ireland because the IRA bombings and all that stuff was always all over the news when i was growing up - and never imagined i would be living in one of those countries. and it feels like the US is heading that way.

i'm white but i'm still on a green card, so that's also a bit nerve-wracking. like, i can't even imagine how truly scared a lot of people are right now, because of their birth country and religious beliefs. i'm too scared to even participate in any rallies or marches, because if by some small chance i got arrested, it would totally fuck up my green card status, and make it hard to get citizenship. i can't even plan a trip back to nz because i've got that worry that maybe i won't be allowed back into the US. i know it's unlikely, but trump and his cronies are just freaking me out too much to take that risk. i even told my husband we shouldn't make any long term plans or commitments to anything because i don't have any idea what's going to happen with this country. at least we have the last-resort option of moving to nz, which is more than most people have.

The president's closest adviser has an apocalyptic agenda for the world and will clearly do whatever it takes to accomplish it, and he has the most powerful country in the world nearly at his fingertips. This doesn't seem like some average usurpation of power, at least as far as Bannon's concerned. If you're not worried about that, then you've got ice for blood.

My anxiety levels have lowered a little bit seeing people unite, take to the streets, and successfully resist Trump. So I'd say 6-7 right now.

8 because he's so fucking nebulous that anything could happen at any moment. not 10 because (a) i'm shielded somewhat by not being in the usa and (b) after what australia's gone through in the past 3.5 years i seem to have lost the ability to sustain panic.

Wild oscillation depending on how much Updates I'm consuming and how cynically sanguine I'm being as a defense mechanism

just1n3, just wanted to say: as an immigration lawyer that is also living in the u.s. on a green card i got through a spouse, you can attend a protest and get arrested. only certain crimes render an lpr inadmissible to the united states -- they almost always involve either fraud, violence or drugs. and never political offenses.

you can also travel. there's an estimated 13 million green card holders in the u.s. there won't be a blanket ban.

yes 8 is p high, but my job's future is tenuous and i'm sick, not a good pairing in this era.

btw Silence lost 80% of its theaters last weekend, i wouldn't wait.

not quite as worried about nuclear annihilation as i was in the mid-80s yet but on the other hand the possibility of Trump's pirate junta actually getting away with seizing control of the whole machinery of government is fucking with my anxiety fairly steadily, gonna give 'em a 6 today

two threads at top of sna about dr who has pushed me to 8 this morning

what would push you to 9?

being forced to watch that shit

3-4 but I'm sitting in an airport with "Shake It Off" on the loudspeakers, ymmv

it's like watching your parents fight, while one of them is driving the car in a rainstorm.

otm

is it time to finally watch hypernormalization or is it going to push me over the edge?

I was a teenager during Cold War II and the worst I've existentially felt terrified was when the Korean airliner was shot down in 1983. Wargames had just come out a couple months earlier and I was convinced that every political escalation that week was leading down to some KOREAN AIRLINER nuke war plan sandwiched in between ALBANIAN DECOY and AFGHAN MISDIRECTION. I was just about to start college, do I even bother to buy books?

I don't feel the same way now. Everything Trump touches turns into Atlantic City-sized pools of poison and his non-plan for fucking up the government has been and will be completely fucked. Four years of this? I'm thinking that this charade barely lasts four weeks. Perhaps a little bit hoping/praying so. I would have felt like a martian had people *not* protested, and seeing the sheer numbers self-organizing and being out there among it all was good for the soul. I'm not terrified of President Bannon nuking Chicago ("told you I'd send in the Feds!"). I'm not even particularly terrified that the end point of this is when Federal troops square off against protestors - that's just suspense. I'm terrified that 62 million people have joined a cult. They've come to this cult for any number of reasons, but it's a cult and cults all have strange bedfellows .

I voted 7, but my girlfriend's mom is in the hospital - she's 83 and not expected to leave. I'm not terrified of anything.

when trump won i compared the shock to 9/11, but this migrant ban feels closer to it actually. after election night i just felt profoundly hopeless and depressed. right now i feel like my entire body is on high alert. my senses are like fucking tingling. and right after 9/11 in new york the reaction of new yorkers was just incredibly galvanizing and heartening, suddenly this shit-fuck petty city found a wellspring of generosity within itself that no one knew was there. i feel like that's happening now all over america.

I was all depressed and solipsistic but seeing the JFK protests self-organize in minutes was legit inspiring. I didn't see any Trump supporters out in the streets.

Bad:
- TrumpBannon's tactic seems to be to keep the outrages coming at such a rate no-one questions the last illegal manoeuvre because a new one has come along (divestment of business interests, golden showers video, Russian election interference - all off the front pages now)
- the world is now relying on traditional Republican politicians to stand up to a cabal of wannabe-despots
- the new regime, to a large extent not being from a political background, couldn't care less about democratic principles and probably have a long-term plan to suspend the Constitution if they can get away with it
- if not, and if this clown is still there in 4 years' time there is NO WAY he'll accept the legality of an election defeat
- this may have a knock-on effect on European elections, leading to far-right govt in France at the very least and the subsequent annihilation of the EU once and for all
- my personal experience with narcissist sociopaths tells me that predictions are impossible, as even Trump doesn't know what he'll do next (although Bannon surely does, which might be even scarier)
- this may well be a foretaste of how the world will be once the looming environmental crisis kicks in for real in the near-future

Good:
.................cat pics?

Also good: protests, politicisation of many, the same social media that allowed this to happen could also help to defeat it

Wondering what this means for the future. Even if this was stopped right now it has set the precedent that things can go this far. It might have people saying mistakes were made and trying to avoid those specific mistakes.
But you're left with a major mess that has lead to people being intentionally excluded from a supposed democracy. Hate to think what distortions that could lead to in future. If the wrong hands got some popular support and enough apathy from what should be the opposing side.
Interesting times.

IN other words this has shown the extent to which a right wing agenda can be pushed is further than previously assumed. So in more subtle hands might go much further. It is unlikely that a clumsy charlatan would be able to get into a similar position again, if this is stopped now, but somebody with a bit more intelligence might be able to push things a lot further.
So I'd be worried taht somebody might come along in 20 or 30 years and try to push things taht way. Is the Repoublican party going to step back towards the centre after thsi point anyway?

A revolution would be so handy right now. Hoping that the truly evil would form an orderly queue to be first in line for first up against the wall.

Wondering if there's anybody in the UK who might be able to pull a similar trick? Not Boris Johnson, surely, or any of the grey suit trad Whitehall types. But it's not like the country isn't going down the shitbin at an accelerating rate, and that's when tyrants can poke their heads out of the mire if armed with the right promises.

Russell Brand, maybe. Doesn't seem any more ridiculous than Trump managing it.

A glass haff full scenario is that Trump crashes and burns so badly that some of the sheen gets taken off right wing populism - unfortunately this is what the German Communist Party thought about you-know-who in the 30s.

(xp) Lord Protector Clarkson

- this may well be a foretaste of how the world will be once the looming environmental crisis kicks in for real in the near-future

My suspicion that this already in progress. It's not just Exxon - *everyone* knew that this was coming and global capital responded accordingly - going as global as possible while these horrible right wing id monsters swoop in to fill up the power vacuum. Elon Musk is legit going Alternative 3, and that was one of the wackiest conspiracy theories ever.

I'd say I'm about a 5 rising to 6 occasionally, it's more a constant feeling of dread and uncertainty than actual panic or fear, and a lot of the time I don't really it at all. It's easy to feel insulated in London though (which in regard to our own issues was part of the problem in the first place).

i'm at about a 4. maintaining this precarious position through weed and hugging my cats

Idk I voted 3 because I don't feel any identifiable fear but otoh I am exhausted all the time so maybe it's just taking itself out on me another way.

It's easy to feel insulated in London though

won't be saying that when Bannon nukes us to demonstrate America's iron will

"Happy Independence Day, motherfuckers"

I'm far more terrified for people who differ from my own demographic profile (cis, white, not an adherent of one of those scaaaaaaary non-Christian religions, able-bodied, relatively mentally healthy, college educated, urban, native-born American male living above the poverty line) than I am for myself. Probably a 3 for me but like an 8 for them which kinda nullifies the 3 for me.

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2017/01/30/military-convoy-trump-flag-rolls-through/97255844/

everything is fine

nitpicky but maybe anxious would have been better wording just because terror is such an extreme emotion that to say "I'm about 4 or 5 terrified" sounds weird

only an idiot would be sanguine about nazis in the white house or about what they've been doing, I'm not thinking too much about possible nuclear apocalypse right now vs stuff like my family possibly being targeted which seems a lot closer to happening

voted 8

As long as I remain employed, 3 for myself. But feeling a 10 for the future of everything else.

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2017/01/30/military-convoy-trump-flag-rolls-through/97255844🔗/

everything is fine

I'm disappointed they didn't put coal rollers on their shitty army surplus trucks

i go about my everyday political reading thinking it's a 9 or 10, then come across something about supreme commander bannon's rise to power and think huh i guess that wasn't so bad after all

I don't get the posters on here saying they're not personally worried, because they're not targets. If you're an intellectual, a liberal, a left-winger, an aesthete, educated, a city-dweller, free thinker, weirdo, bohemian, hipster, any of that, you're as much of a target as any POC, Muslim, LGBT person, you're just a little lower on the list. Doesn't matter if you're white, Christian-born, male, straight, etc.

So a whole lot of you aren't going to get a pass if the patterns of history about these movements are correct.

you are greatly misquoting what a lot of people in this thread said but w/e

i mean i'm terrified because i'm a bleeding heart but even as a chronically mentally ill weirdo i'm still not at the top of anybody's list. i'm less afraid for myself than i am for the people i love.

Say Trump and Bannon somehow consolidate power and had their wish of anything. You don't think the Pepe Deathsquads wouldn't go after leftist SJW hipsters from the city who think they're so smart? That's like, their #1 target, listening to these people, Muslims aren't even as high. These fascist authoritarians have some fascination with destroying the types of people you find on ILX, they just lack the guts/opportunity.

This is a dark timeline I'm imagining here, but reading history about these movements, the ILX demographic tends not to do very well in them, is all I'm saying. So we all do most certainly have a personal stake in this even if you're typically not in a traditionally targeted group.

curious what other message board communities existed prior to the 1990s