US Politics, July 2024 - "Will you just drop out, man?"

yeah I'm fully aware that message board post(ur)ing is a coping mechanism too!

I agree with Alfred and Neanderthal. I'll say no more than that.

"Notoriously bad ending" in terms of "it ends badly" or in terms of "it's badly written"? Moore clearly hates Ozymandias and I'm not convinced he thinks his plan would work.

― Daniel_Rf

moore hates every character in watchmen except for, like, nite owl

if watchmen succeeds it's because moore gets us invested in the lives of these awful fucking people. if it fails it's that, like, nobody should be invested in the internal life of the fucking comedian. and also he writes women absolutely terribly.

as far as the ending, his real-world political analysis skills are just. not good. i was alive in '86, i know that nobody saw the collapse of the soviet union coming. the ending doesn't work in a world where the soviet union was dramatically weakened by a failed war in afghanistan and collapsed basically of its own accord in '89.

because of the ambiguity of moore's writing i think it's easy to give moore as a writer more credit than is actually due him. i don't think, for instance, he genuinely sees dr. manhattan as a misogynist piece of shit for basically the entirety of the story, even though he obviously is. like i genuinely believe moore is serious about the "thermodynamic miracle" thing.

not really sure what hope we should have in this moment, in the last few weeks we watched the Democratic candidate go senile in full view, then refuse to drop out despite polling showing him having no viable path to victory (which most likely tanks the House and Senate too), while Trump's handpicked judges handed him the reigns to do unlimited crime, seeing one case get dismissed and another's sentencing to get delayed (and likely squashed as well), meanwhile he survives an assassination attempt which not only coaxes the media into dropping the mask and going full MAGA but even makes the Democrats, who were (correctly!) calling him a fascist a few days ago to go all "thoughts and prayers for Trump". worth noting of course that all of this happens as more Epstein files get released confirming that Donald Trump has almost certainly raped children, a story which gets virtually no coverage as the media runs thousands of stories on Biden's age. idk I'm trying not to doomer here but what exactly are we pinning our hopes on right now?

Alan Moore is a classic "dumb guy's idea of a smart guy." And yes, I gendered that description on purpose.

Fwiw I don't think "nothing matters, it's over," I am just slightly more sanguine about our current situation because I believe a lot of what I write— we already live in a fascist state, and while it can get much worse, there's also a lot of room to get better, and so that's where I'm at.

Love u Alfred

"Not reacting with shock or distress feels counterintuitive, because at an earlier point in time that was less tribalist, there would have been greater unity and time for reflection."

maybe i would feel different if i didn't think of Trump as some sort of joke/protest vote President put in power by people who liked his xenophobe pro wrestling-style rallies and Republicans with money who figured Trump would throw them some. and he did. but he never felt legitimate to me. he didn't know what he was doing from day one and he was also dangerous from day one. i would have felt bad if Mitt Romney had been shot! Or Nikki Haley for that matter.

i don't think, for instance, he genuinely sees dr. manhattan as a misogynist piece of shit for basically the entirety of the story, even though he obviously is. like i genuinely believe moore is serious about the "thermodynamic miracle" thing.

I don't think he is, at all, and think he's acuteky aware of what Dr Manhattan is, if only because in a work that is about how different superhero tropes are damaging it'd be pretty weird to have one that's actually fine?

I also don't think the real world state of the Soviet Union matters to a story that is explicitly not set in our universe.

Fwiw I don't think "nothing matters, it's over," I am just slightly more sanguine about our current situation because I believe a lot of what I write— we already live in a fascist state, and while it can get much worse, there's also a lot of room to get better, and so that's where I'm at.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table)

right on

Love u Alfred

― realistic pillow (Jon not Jon),

I love you too.

I mean the one glimmer of hope I had was that enthusiasm for Trump seemed to be really low even as he was polling well, but that's all out the window now

meanwhile he survives an assassination attempt which not only coaxes the media into dropping the mask and going full MAGA but even makes the Democrats, who were (correctly!) calling him a fascist a few days ago to go all "thoughts and prayers for Trump"

Do people think that voters would react positively to the Democrats reacting like "Motherfucker deserved it"? Curious what you think they should say in the wake of an assassination attempt.

Alfred you're the best and most readable poster in this thread and if you weren't contributing I'd have un-bookmarked it months ago.

In re hope, I always fall back on my mom's favorite Pete Seeger quote: "There is no hope ... but I could be wrong." Or Emily Dickinson's "thing with feathers."

I try to not be either doomer or pollyanna, it's that balance of always knowing the bad things that can happen (and have happened before, and probably will again) but also the GOOD things that have happened before and will again. And understanding that it's mostly about the work. I do work that I think matters in small ways, and I know that everything good that's ever come of human endeavor (in politics as much as art or science or family relations) comes primarily from people working at it. Hope is necessary to keep those engines going, but for me anyway it has to be a realistic kind of hope, I can't be expecting to see anything big happen quickly or even necessarily in my lifetime, and that's OK. Generations of people have come before and fought and died (and sometimes been killed) fighting for justice, liberty, fairness, equality, all of those things. All we can do is carry on that work and eventually hand it off. And enjoy the small victories along the way, as well as the sandwiches.

Do people think that voters would react positively to the Democrats reacting like "Motherfucker deserved it"? Curious what you think they should say in the wake of an assassination attempt.

― A So-Called Pulitzer price winner (President Keyes), Monday, July 15, 2024 10:22 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

look I get it's a tough needle to thread but maybe not doing the "thoughts and prayers" routine for a guy who directly inspired multiple mass shootings as well as an insurrection that put all their lives in danger when someone attempted to murder him with the exact gun they tried to ban is a good start

yeah I think responses like "maybe now the Rs will rethink their stance on these weapons" could be helpful, def not what we're seeing now

I've hesitated before posting this.

Part of my trapeze walking comes from working with local volunteers who having fled autocrats genuinely believe in the American system more than I do and certainly more than ILX. Mostly older Hispanic women. Not Terminally Online but people who watch local news and some cable. No unanimity exists: as many believe Biden should drop out in favor of Harris as those who think he should say fuck you to the same critics who dismissed him four years ago. The terrible debate, the SCOTUS decisions, the shooting -- they remain committed to the Dems because in their countries, according to them, they watched democracy die. A woman told me last week her son doesn't talk to her because he's full MAGA. This belief that "we" can do better binds them.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

i'm not a regular on politics threads. i'm only here for specific purposes. to work through my own feelings, to kind of... reconcile my own feelings with what i see around me.

i'm kind of in the opposite situation from you in that... a lot of the people i talk to are scared and despairing. they're trying to get out of the country. they're terrified of project 2025. they genuinely believe a trump administration will kill them.

i'm not going to tell these people they're wrong, that it's going to be ok. i don't know that. what trans people are going through now is worse than should ever be acceptable. the national democratic party, though, accepts it. accepts what's happening in texas, accepts what's happening in florida.

complicating things is that i've come to realize over the past five years is that trans people are hardly unique in that. this is how america has always treated people who aren't white cishet men. this is _normal_ for america and i'm struggling to accept it as "normal", i'm struggling to figure out how to live under my dramatically altered material conditions. i never learned how to deal with this stuff.

there are a lot of people, i see them every day, who _believe in america_, the myth, the dream. who believe america _can be_ what it's always claimed to be, what it's always wanted to be. and i don't right now. i might again, but i don't right now. that's not to say i have no hope. it's just that my hope isn't in america.

paradoxically, though, my hope is in a lot the people who _believe in america_, not the city on a hill, but the _dream_. because i do share that dream.

that's the thing i always come back to - not just that we can do better, it's that _we deserve better_. a lot of the fatalism is, you know, chickens coming home to roost, the idea that we deserve this, that trump deserves to be shot, that people who vote for the "leopards eating people's faces" party deserve to have their faces eaten by leopards. and maybe i am an idealist, but i don't think anybody deserves to have their face eaten by leopards, no matter who they vote for.

i'm as afraid as anyone, and that comes out maybe as a sort of superficial fatalism, _particularly_ when it comes to electoral politics. i'm struggling. i cry a lot. i am having a _lot_ of trouble getting by at work, at home, in social settings. and the problem isn't _me_, you know, it's not _personal_. i need _help_ and the help i need isn't available to me. not under trump. not under biden. not under, honestly, capitalism. we're all isolated, separated, struggling to survive, and i don't have, honestly, a community i can turn to that can support me. trans people don't, most of us. that's a bigger, more immediate, more _real_ problem to me than republicans wanting to kill all of us or whatever. we're a long way off, i think, a long way off from that happening. i personally don't think it's going to go down like that. but i could be wrong.

what i'm afraid of is... this conflict. it doesn't get resolved through elections. the shootings. the shootings, the fear, the violence. pride locally is this weekend, and we... we do a lot of opsec, we have to. we don't make it conspicuous, but we do what we can in case... i mean, that's how violence is. there's an outbreak and anything could be a spark for more. somebody could look at what happened and blame queer people and... i mean we already had that nightclub shooting. nothing stopping it from happening again. lotta proud boys out here. lotta fascists. the fact that they don't _rule_ doesn't make things _safer_ for us.

and i know why the democrats don't do anything. i know why they don't even _talk_ about gun control. because the second anytime tries to stop the shooting, well. the NRA has made it very clear what they're going to do. i see that as _inevitable_. armed conflict, of some sort. i don't know what it'll look like or how it'll turn out, but i see it as inevitable.

until and unless that happens... nothing the democrats do _means_ anything. because the republicans have claimed for themselves a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. and if you're not gonna challenge that, well. you're ceding ultimate power to them. ultimate authority.

i don't want that kind of violence. _i'm_ not going to challenge them personally. i'm not one for physical violence. somebody is going to _have_ to, at some point. i don't know when or how. it's not up to me. but i can't imagine it not happening.

Alfred, I greatly appreciate your perspectives and I think your brand of hopefulness is essential if there's any chance of turning things around. My own feelings of hopelessness are largely centered around national-level politics in the US, which I basically expect to be nightmarish for the remainder of my life and which I honestly just need to stop paying attention to altogether for the sake of my own well being. It's something I have no control over beyond how I respond to it. There's a lot more hope to be found on the local level and among people who just want be people and live their lives without wrecking everyone else's. There are a lot of those people left in the world. I just need to recalibrate my focus while the federal government slowly morphs into a scale model of hell.

I dont think I scolded anyone but the classified docs thing did seem like the one thing even Trump couldn't do, my bad I didn't realize how deeply unserious and stupid our country is, nor the way the universe just always bends to the will of God and Jeff Epstein's special boy Donald Trump

fwiw, my comment was meant to indict anyone here on ilx (although there were def some scolding posts, but that kind of goes with the territory around here) - just in general, even in other conversations elsewhere online and offline, when I expressed skepticism about him seeing real consequences there were usually people that figuratively jumped down my throat for being "doomy". I'm mean, sure, I've struggled my entire life with innate pessimism, but it genuinely didn't feel like doomcasting to watch all the obvious ways the courts were leaning and stacked to see he'd continue to skate.

anyway, count me in with the Alfred <3 - one of the posters whom I most respect and really helped me keep my head a few times

I don't think he is, at all, and think he's acuteky aware of what Dr Manhattan is, if only because in a work that is about how different superhero tropes are damaging it'd be pretty weird to have one that's actually fine?

if he's going that deep, than he's underexplaining. i don't think the majority of watchmen readers _see_ the world in that way. as far as the so-called "thermodynamic miracle" - well, it's personal to me, because he genuinely portrays the later relationship between eddie and sally as consensual. look. when you're a sexual assault victim and then you get into a "relationship" with the man who sexually assaulted you, that's an _extremely complicated subject_ and i would say that at the very least moore does _not do it justice_. and if he wasn't going to do it justice, he shouldn't have made it an essential fucking plot point. like i say, this is personal to me, because i married my rapist.

I also don't think the real world state of the Soviet Union matters to a story that is explicitly not set in our universe.

― Daniel_Rf

hard disagree... all stories are on some level about _our world_. so much in watchmen depends on actual real-world events. the kennedy assassination, the vietnam war, the cold war. if you portray a real geopolitical entity in ways that are incongruent with that actual entity without _explaining or justifying the difference_ in some way, i'd call that bad writing.

There's a lot more hope to be found on the local level and among people who just want be people and live their lives without wrecking everyone else's.

Right on, Old Lunch! That's where I found the most fulfillment.

anyway, count me in with the Alfred <3 - one of the posters whom I most respect and really helped me keep my head a few times

I love you too, so long as you accept I've probably picked on you too ;)

there have been times the picking on was deserved!

hey i love alfred too! he is the glue that binds...the book...that is...the story...of...us.

i genuinely believe that decent americans outnumber maga scam by a significant majority. but decency doesn't mean perfection and there is a lot of self-righteousness and snobbery that complicates decency, as a byproduct of holding oneself up to lofty standards if for no other reason. the maga scum on the other hand have no shame and are LOUD in compensating for their minority status. that's seemed to me like the political dynamic in this country that i first encountered in grade school when all of a sudden some (most often RICH) kids were fucking CRUEL and has still played itself out every election cycle after graduation. what that means for any election is that it's up to the decent to prove once again that we outnumber the obnoxious magats by at least showing up to vote and even better getting involved in organizing early and often

2scoops does not have this election in the bag. people are PISSED about the outlawing of abortion, the incompetent and deadly mismanagement of covid, the general rudeness directed in conveniently stigmatizing the vulnerable, and are sick to death of 2scoops and his rodney dangerfield heel routine and his many trials besides, even while life for most of us has been much calmer since 1/6/21. my hope is that once both conventions are over the contrast between decency and whatever the "conservative" movement is in this year of our lord 2024 will be stark to enough of us that once just like in 2018, 2020, and 2022, democrats will way overperform the polls

just like in 2018, 2020, and 2022, democrats will way overperform the polls

this cannot be repeated enough

decency doesn't mean perfection and there is a lot of self-righteousness and snobbery that complicates decency

the quiddities of NPR

hard disagree... all stories are on some level about _our world_. so much in watchmen depends on actual real-world events. the kennedy assassination, the vietnam war, the cold war. if you portray a real geopolitical entity in ways that are incongruent with that actual entity without _explaining or justifying the difference_ in some way, i'd call that bad writing.

Yes but all those events are seen through the prism of how they are perceived within mainstreamsuperhero comics, and within that prism the Soviet Union 100% was still seen as this scary megapower, with some honourable exceptions (JLI). The objective being to highlight the fantasies behind the archetype of the supersmart boy genius, I don't really see why a realistic depiction of the Soviet Union would be at all necessary. It's just not what the book is about - it's about our world in that it is a screed against the ideologies behind mainstream comics, it is not about our world in terms of wanting to say anything about 1980's geopolitics.

This does make it a somewhat parochial work - it is not in my top10 fave Moore books and the fact that it's a lot of people's first comic (or "graphic novel") is a bit of a shame.

I think the fact it is also a million degrees outside in most of North America is not helping our mental state either. Hot weather makes me anxious and edgy.

hey i love alfred too! he is the glue that binds...the book...that is...the story...of...us.

― scott seward, Monday, July 15, 2024 11:58 AM

and everyday I bind the book

Yes but all those events are seen through the prism of how they are perceived within mainstreamsuperhero comics, and within that prism the Soviet Union 100% was still seen as this scary megapower, with some honourable exceptions (JLI). The objective being to highlight the fantasies behind the archetype of the supersmart boy genius, I don't really see why a realistic depiction of the Soviet Union would be at all necessary. It's just not what the book is about - it's about our world in that it is a screed against the ideologies behind mainstream comics, it is not about our world in terms of wanting to say anything about 1980's geopolitics.

This does make it a somewhat parochial work - it is not in my top10 fave Moore books and the fact that it's a lot of people's first comic (or "graphic novel") is a bit of a shame.

― Daniel_Rf

i just don't think he's... i mean i kinda see alan moore as the comic book equivalent of david foster wallace. to be completely honest.

I'm pretty sure this was already discussed upthread, but I was struck by it again this morning - it feels so weird for the attempt to be such a non-event, in a way. Sure the media won't let this go and it will certainly have a long tail effect on the election, but it feels like people are barely talking about it at all. I just can't imagine an attempt on say, Obama, just fading into the background so quickly. It's almost like this is the exact kind of chaos that people expect from Trump's orbit that it's not surprising or barely even worth a lot of thought.

(which isn't to say I long for a proactive period of performative grief or w/e bullshit, just you wouldn't expect a sort of collective shrug because of course this would happen to Trump!)

I've never read David Foster Wallace. Just from vibes I'd guess the comics DFW is Seth or Chris Ware or one of those 90's/00's indie guys, but who knows.

I'm pretty sure this was already discussed upthread, but I was struck by it again this morning - it feels so weird for the attempt to be such a non-event, in a way. Sure the media won't let this go and it will certainly have a long tail effect on the election, but it feels like people are barely talking about it at all. I just can't imagine an attempt on say, Obama, just fading into the background so quickly. It's almost like this is the exact kind of chaos that people expect from Trump's orbit that it's not surprising or barely even worth a lot of thought.

You all made fun of me yesterday when I said nobody was talking about it in my little Montana town. This morning I was on a Zoom call with coworkers in Idaho and nobody was talking about it then either — I mean, obviously people are gonna tiptoe around political shit at work for the most part, but there wasn't even a cursory "Did you see what happened this weekend?" before everyone was talking about their kids' summertime activities and how hot it's been. Off the internet, no one cares.

I think AMerica has become so normalized to gun violence no one bats an eye

Maybe it’s because a looooooot of people genuinely wish the gunman had succeeded and are shocked at an uncomfortable over that feeling. Like, not us, but everyday people offered a glimpse of a world where there was no Trump.

The life of Donald Trump is one perpetual 'come at me bro'. The only surprising thing about someone finally coming at him is that it took this long.

With regards to what happened over the weekend, I have been struck (unlike trump) by just how people were sort of eh about the whole thing. When the news broke there was this brief since among myself and the people I was with that this would be a big deal, and then it just fizzled pretty quickly. I don't even get the sense that outside of a few hardcore maga types that anyone is really feeling particularly angry about what happened. That may be because the shooter wound up being a registered Republican without much political motive, just another in a long line of apolitical loner types wanting to make a mark. But mostly I think everybody feels just exhausted, like it's just another annoying story beat in this stupid chapter of American history.

*brief sense

for me i guess the similarity is that alan moore and dfw were the two cis white guys i was most into when i was full-on into my "clever white boy" phase, people who wrote stories about "everything". and nobody's qualified to write stories about "everything". particularly when they talk about people who do kinda embody "the archetype of the supersmart boy genius", i think there's kind of a tendency to conflate self-doubt with cultural critique. i don't think either dfw or moore are particularly adept at critiquing the archetypes they embody, _particularly_ when it comes to their treatment of women. moore is interesting because he's _not_ a liberal yet his perspective has some of the... challenges i associate with liberalism, to me. that tendency to think that one has a _universal voice_.

i don't know. i'm not sure there's an argument for _reading_ alan moore at _all_, unless one is a certain type of obscurantist. he's a niche creator who people treat like the God of Comics. i mean the _idea_, not that they treat him like he's tezuka.

The disappointing part is that the general public shrug is likely to discourage copycats. I mean, if you won't even be famous/a subject of public discussion, why bother?

no ex-president has ever been in our faces like this in any of our lifetimes. people just want him to go away

I think AMerica has become so normalized to gun violence no one bats an eye

― | (Latham Green)

it's a survival skill. if i didn't deliberately deaden myself to mass shootings i'd have a hard time functioning. just because i don't talk about it doesn't mean i think it's _normal_ or _ok_.

The disappointing part is that the general public shrug is likely to discourage copycats. I mean, if you won't even be famous/a subject of public discussion, why bother?

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson)

i don't see how this is _disappointing_. i admit that i'm not totally all-in on electoral politics, but i don't particularly think we should have an assassination-based political system.

I don't even get the sense that outside of a few hardcore maga types that anyone is really feeling particularly angry about what happened

Those people aren't even angry. They're celebrating his survival by sharing pics and memes about it on social media, bragging about about how they've wrapped up the election.

Prove them wrong.

Fwiw I don't think "nothing matters, it's over," I am just slightly more sanguine about our current situation because I believe a lot of what I write— we already live in a fascist state, and while it can get much worse, there's also a lot of room to get better, and so that's where I'm at.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Monday, July 15, 2024 11:13 AM bookmarkflaglink

definitely, and tbh you've never come across as "nothing matters, it's over", I've appreciated your takes. sometimes we react like some of these threats are new whereas they've always been here and needed acting on, we just waited until they could no longer be ignored.

I was just in Ireland for about 2 weeks, and I'll tell you that while I don't doubt there are plenty of homegrown problems over there at I wouldn't notice. The sense that there was not an ever present under current of aggression permeating throughout the entire society was vv refreshing. I am certain someone from Ireland might come and correct me on that, but keep in mind I'm coming from America, where every time I take a drive to the grocery store I feel like I'm going to see a violent act on the road or in the parking lot. And that's because I have on both counts, multiple times.

it's a survival skill. if i didn't deliberately deaden myself to mass shootings i'd have a hard time functioning. just because i don't talk about it doesn't mean i think it's _normal_ or _ok_.

― Kate (rushomancy), Monday, July 15, 2024 12:22 PM bookmarkflaglink

this is me now too. I stopped generally talking about most political/news items outside of this thread. everybody else is too galaxy-brained or addicted to performative despair (note: I am very much not talking about anybody in this thread, remember I have a lot of theatre people in my circle so performative kinda comes w/ the territory)

Watchmen always looked boring to me. I could never figure out what it was about. I knew people loved it. I picked it up a few times. But, yeah, not for me. I never read anything else by him i don't think. He's after my comix time. wait, no, that is so not true. I totally used to buy and read 2000 AD when I was a kid. And Captain Britain too. so i probably read stuff that he wrote. though i don't know when he did Captain Britain. oh and i did enjoy those 80s Swamp Things but that's cuz i enjoyed the work of Stephen Bissette.

*curtain drop*