U.S. Politics, November 2024: GARBAGE DAY!!

No problem with cheerleading, particularly when you were doing work for the cause. The only thing that annoyed me about the discourse here was the buy-in to the "the polls are bullshit" theory, which made us look like the GOP in 2012.

yeah. I'm sorry for that. I legitimately did not see any signs that Trump could come even close to winning the popular vote. it does not match with what I've been seeing in the real world at all.

at the end of the day, Trump did get significantly less votes than 2020. but Harris got way way less than Biden.

xxxxxpost Yeah, I think Democrats are largely allergic to that type of aggressive boldness, which is why Fetterman will probably never be the nominee.

Sorry to be negative but I am sad.

― waste of compute (One Eye Open), Wednesday, November 6, 2024 10:34 AM bookmarkflaglink

nothing to apologize for. we're all feeling it and it helps to feel it rather than hold it in

So many reasons to be disheartened, but again I find myself somewhat astounded by how this guy gets the groups he most despises (and openly despises!) to vote for him in record numbers.

I'm sorry, y'all, for cheerleading the last two weeks. At my buddy's watch party yesterday I started to burrow around 8:15 p.m., not long after the Florida results. I saw him chipping away at Biden's margins and saw the outcome but wouldn't admit it my four other friends.

Now I have to decide how to face the family when what I most want is to scream into their faces until I have no voice left.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, November 6, 2024 10:36 AM bookmarkflaglink

you especially have nothing to apologize for. you did the work. America failed the test.

I thought frogbs's posts this past month were just fine. I will second objections raised to another poster, though, who was consistently condescending, going on ad nauseum about stuff only he understood that the rest of us were to stupid to understand.

Alfred and frogbs and anyone else who's been regularly expressing optimism about the election...please don't beat yourself up and don't let that shit flag if you can help it. That's exactly the sort of energy we're gonna collectively need to get through this thing.

otm

This feels a lot like 2004, where I assumed Bush was going to win for months, until the very late good polling for Kerry, and then there was a pretty big GOP blowout, and suddenly it was hard to imagine how the Democrats ever could have won the election.

So depressing...

I was curious if any of the crazy pet eating rhetoric would have any effect on Clark County Ohio, where Springfield is the county seat. Surely all that bile and hatred would at least turn some people off. Turns out Trump did better in that county this time than he did in 2016.

Lots of Americans just hate women, it seems.

tbf all three of the female Prime Ministers we've had have been terrible

I hate this infantile characterization of things, but among my bigger fears is that there aren't going to be ANY "adults in the room" this time to provide even the most meager of guardrails for his most unhinged demands.

People hate Black and brown folx even more, and we're about to be punished for getting in their way.

thanks, all!

Yes, this very much feels like 2004 -- except Bush didn't threaten to gut the regulatory state.

right, and we saw what happened in 2008. there is a little reason for hope. I mean we all know a Trump presidency cannot possibly go well. they've explicitly ran on crashing the economy and none of the border/deportation shit is going to have any measurable effect on his voters' lives. he will most likely preside over the Gaza situation getting even worse than it is now. he will only get older and more senile and spend every day making the people who voted for him look like total morons.

obviously it would be much better if Kamala won, but she wouldn't have the Senate, and I can assume ridding themselves of the albatross that is Donald Trump might make 2026 the blowout we thought 2022 might be. whatever ghoul they ran in 2028 would certainly win. that is just how it goes in American politics. granted, this is all dependent on having free and fair elections, which I guess is not really a given anymore

former ilxor drew daniel posted this bit from Deleuze & Guattari, which does seem pretty palpable at the moment:

“ the fundamental problem of political philosophy is still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly, and that Wilhelm Reich rediscovered: "Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?" How can people possibly reach the point of shouting: "More taxes! Less bread!"? As Reich remarks, the astonishing thing is not that some people steal or that others occasionally go out on strike, but rather that all those who are starving do not steal as a regular practice, and all those who are exploited are not continually out on strike: after centuries of exploitation, why do people still tolerate being humiliated and enslaved, to such a point, indeed, that they actually want humiliation and slavery not only for others but for themselves?
Reich is at his profoundest as a thinker when he refuses to accept ignorance or illusion on the part of the masses as an explanation of fascism, and demands an explanation that will take their desires into account, an explanation formulated in terms of desire: no, the masses were not innocent dupes; at a certain point, under a certain set of conditions, they wanted fascism, and it is this perversion of the desire of the masses that needs to be accounted for."

"Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?"

Great line.

How to Survive the End of the World
From A Climate Strike Sermon by the Rev. Molly Housh Gordon
Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbia, MO

Sleeve that was beautiful and is how I've been inclined to think today too.

No one is coming to save us. We're it. We're going to have to be so much more radical and strategic to keep each other as safe as possible.

I'm reluctant to talk about some of what that might involve on the internet. Find marginalized people in your communities and friendship networks and ask what they need to be safe and then help with that. Stockpile things that might be needed. Build trust with people.

I met someone last night, introduced by someone I deeply trust, who is a neighbor and community member of a progressive project that I'm involved in. I think that she probably voted for that guy, but she's also a Black woman who exists at a lot of intersections. Nobody said community was easy.

Why people vote against their own best interests isn't a new question, see 2004's What's the Matter with Kansas? (book) for instance.

<3 xp

although this time the economy WAS part of it (xpost to myself)

Thank you Neanderthal, thinking of you. I wrote & deleted some bleaker posts, so I'm trying my best here.

Missouri voted for a $15 minimum wage, paid sick leave, and abortion rights yet Democrats can't win a big race there. Should tell us something!

Yup, people will vote for rights and benefits for themselves, but also vote for people who promise to take them away from Other People.

I already feel my brain trying to dissociate again and I just can't. not this time.

I'm reluctant to talk about some of what that might involve on the internet. Find marginalized people in your communities and friendship networks and ask what they need to be safe and then help with that. Stockpile things that might be needed. Build trust with people.

This resonates with me a lot.

xp also that a lot of ppl will never vote for Democrats ever bc doing so is anathema to them

bleak posts are ok OEO - we only objected to the inflammatory posts of one poster who was unnecessarily triggering everybody.

much love

One thing I think I'm going to do is finally follow my tech-bro's advice on getting set up with VPN, Signal, all that stuff that I kind of shrug off. The combination of Musk-Trump running the government with the other Silicon Valley barons mostly on board doesn't give me warm feelings about any kind of privacy protections.

I'm finally ditching X, I've already hated myself for sticking with it but I did find it useful for some specific things. Of which I'll learn to live without, probably moving to Bluesky.

yeah I am going to do the same

I got rid of x and TT this morning

the divide I see is that conservatives tend to be fundamentally miserable people. the difference between liberal spaces and conservative spaces always astounds me - like we have what is very much a "hipster coffee shop" here in Sheboygan, it's full of pride flags and signs with all sorts of cringeworthy slogans, most of what they serve is gluten-free and vegetarian (but still good!), but people are happy there. they're involved in art, they read, they talk music, they've got tattoos and fun hair colors and dreams. I'm not saying I fit in with those people, but I appreciate them.

conservative spaces are so much different. everyone griping about everything, talking about how dumb everyone else is and all the best ways to screw your fellow man over. you don't even need to talk to these people to know the way they vote. and online culture has exacerbated this so much. it used to be you needed FOX News for that constant stream of rage - now it's just on your phone. I think this is a real problem. Even the massively popular Joe Rogan podcast - it's part of it. it's all predicated on the notion that everyone is lying to you all the time. that the world is a shithole full of nothing but con men and liars. so Trump isn't anything different, he's just the one they perceive to be on "their side".

if you can let them browbeat you into becoming like them, then they will have won. I'm not really sure how to maintain any hope right now. but we have to.

it's really hard to overlook the damage of received wisdom. The conservative mediasphere has always significantly dwarfed that of the left. you fish around on your radio dial, what are you more likely to come across, a conservative talk radio show, or a liberal one? You go to the Dentist and sit in the waiting room - how often is Fox News on?

People who AREN'T deep red get influenced by this shit too. Conservatives have successfully pushed the following narratives for decades:

*Republicans are much better with the economy than Democrats, so you're sacrificing your own financial wellbeing voting for them
*Immigration is out of control and immigrants take from American citizens, and also murder and rape them en masse, so we shouldn't allow them in.
*Being a Christian is not tolerated in this country
*Minorities have more rights than white people.

This reaches so-called 'independents' and 'undecideds' even if they fundamentally don't consider themselves conservative - literally cannot tell you how many people I've known who have claimed to not have a political home, but they repeat these lines. they might not go full tilt conservative and disagree with some of the more batshit stuff - but they believe some of these core elements.

Then there's the element of hypermasculinity, where caring about other people is deemed 'weak', voting D makes you a 'p***y', and....sad to say, lots of men are still heavily controlled by this shit. they'll stand in the booth and picture their 'alpha' friends mocking them (ain't suggesting THAT'S what swung the election but just pointing out some of the obstacles we face Day 1 no matter who the candidate is).

Maybe he'll die....before his term starts, during his term, idk. but the toxic jetstream that created him is still creating waters warm enough for a hurricane, even without him. the only hope is that he was such a cult of personality that a lot of his voters permanently lose enthusiasm for voting after he's gone and nobody as "charismatic" (barf) as him turns up in his wake.

I'm not really sure how to maintain any hope right now. but we have to.

I don't have any hope really. but my attitude is - whether or not I have hope, I have life, and I am not going to let my lack of hope erode the last of myself. Survival is defiance.

i can't rely on hope anymore because hope abandoned us. I just gotta be.

I doubt Trump will be in charge for long. The ones who wouldn't have gotten elected on their own (Vance, with Musk and Thiel and Putin guiding) won't want to share their power or put it up for a vote in four years.

I can't understand/handle how people are still on X. I wanted to read that Jack Herrara thread up there but couldn't. Why are so many journalists posting interesting content to X and nowhere else? Get off the site already, or at least mirror the posts to Bluesky or threads or your own blog or something. (yes bluesky and threads are terrible too, but not X levels of terrible)

i can't rely on hope anymore because hope abandoned us. I just gotta be.

Pete Seeger (although he was actually quoting a bumper sticker, but it's more fun to quote him): "There is no hope ... but I could be wrong."

Reich is at his profoundest as a thinker when he refuses to accept ignorance or illusion on the part of the masses as an explanation of fascism

The last time Trump won, I spent the next few weeks reading Reich's "Mass Psychology of Fascism", Adorno's "The Authoritarian Personality", Marx's "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" and Trotsky's "The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany". Not that it did me much good. Time to revisit some of those though.

xxpost

the average x thread:

Expert10203: Studies have proven that X is true.

JohnEverybitcoin: Lol clown take

MikeHoobastank76: lol, bullshit (types slur of some form)

BitcoinButthole93: i will give $1,000 to the first ten people who RT me!

KyleLibTrigger: uhh u sure? (links to Youtube video titled "MAGA hero OWNS Expert10203", video contains no actual ownage)

HerzogZweiGoodGame: wtf that video is complete horseshit

KyleLibTrigger: doxxes HerzogZweiGoodGame

like it's a nightmare of a cesspool

I didn't agree 100% with what William Tyler posted, but this part really resonated with me this morning:

"Most of us are feeling raw and fragile today. Let's please not let that slide into even more despair or anger. There's a difference between fragility and vulnerability. One can be vulnerable and yet strong as steel.

We have to be there for each other - let our guards down, be resolute, be empathetic, be of service. And remember what Emma Goldman said the working class needed. They needed both bread AND roses. Our basic needs must be serviced but we also have to make room for beauty. For roses. If we have lost our sense of wonder we have lost our sense of hope and then 'they' really have won the battle."

xp - Neando, that is pitch perfect, though missing a few random OnlyFans bait tweets in the mix.

stealing that W Tyler quote, thx jon

agree, great quote.

I will not apologize for being optimistic — angrily optimistic — about the election America just lost. I was wrong, but I shouldn't have been. This country should not have shoved a shotgun in its own mouth and pulled the trigger, but it did.

I don't know what I'm going to do now. My wife is a US citizen, but what will that be worth? She has a last name that codes Italian rather than Spanish, and a white man to speak on her behalf, but who knows. We have (some) money in the bank and good credit, and I have a job (for the moment) in what is (for the moment) one of America's few profitable industries (health insurance). We live in (relative) isolation, on a quiet cul-de-sac, and I don't think my town is likely to fill up with pickup trucks full of gun-toting vigilantes, but after last night what does anybody know?

We need to be somewhere with a decent arts and culture scene for the work we've been doing since 2010 to be remotely sustainable/worthwhile. Colorado seems like an option. So does Edmonton, so thanks for that suggestion.

Re: Twitter, I still have an account, though I took it private when the blocking function was gutted, and I'll probably never use it again. It doesn't generate traffic, or CD sales. I'm on BlueSky as burningambulance if anyone wants to find me there.

uh, dude, the shotgun stuff is a little too gruesome for me

Too bad Kurt wasn't alive to see this election

The apt analogy I saw earlier this morning was having a tumor removed, confirming that is indeed cancerous and asking your doctor to put it back in.

"Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?"

the deep, dark shame of this is killing me more than Trump, to be honest. failed society https://t.co/ucroDnfX44 pic.twitter.com/xiIXZPBviR

— CIA election influencer 🛰️ (@youwouldntpost) November 6, 2024