The atmosphere is so heated, and the statements are getting more and more extreme. Let’s just assume Harris wins the election. After a campaign like this, how could you ever have a normal relationship with your pro-Trump neighbor/father-in-law/Uncle/Barber or what ever again?
Boomer generation will be dead soon. And Gen X isn’t too far behind. This bullshit is already time-limited.
This is the new normal. It’s everyone angry all the time until something snaps or the culture changes. Personally I believe you have to wait until the older part of Gen X is dead before we get relief.
There hasn’t been any normal for 8 years plus now. Somewhere between 30 and 45% of the population are openly trying for fascism.
Realistically it’s only a matter of when unless we make some pretty damned sweeping changes which they are going to fight tooth and nail.
We need to unrig the judicial system. We need to unrig the voting system. We need to put guardrails up on media disinformation. And we need to start holding some of these fucking politicians accountable for openly lying in campaign. We need to roll back the dictator privileges they managed to shove in at the last moment for the president. We need to hold some of these oligarchs accountable for crimes.
They should lock Musk up for a month. Go ahead and have him shit himself that he’s not above the law.
I don’t know who the next Republican president will be. But you can bet money there’s going to be plenty of bloodshed once they decide to do whatever they want with complete and total immunity.
That’s the funnest part of all: we don’t
I think it’s fantastic because know it is very clear who I need to exclude from my life.
how could you ever have a normal relationship with your pro-Trump neighbor/father-in-law/Uncle/Barber or what ever again?
…Why would I want to? Seriously, why would I want to have a relationship with people that have shown me that the things they value are antithetical to the things I value? I don’t give a fuck if people are nice to me; I want people to be kind across the board.
You don’t. Most of us have already either fully cut-off contact with Trump supporting family members or limit our interaction with them heavily. Our country is rotted to the core, and this election won’t be the end of it. Even if Harris wins, there will be contestion of the results. There may even be a successful coup by the Republican party. A civil war is not out of the question.
There is no normal. There won’t be ever again.
This has been the norm since 2016. Until the GOP unilaterally rejects Trumpism, this will be how it is every four years.
You sure there is a ‘every four years’ then?
Yes, things tend to calm down. If you read history books about US history, there were times in the 1800s where brothers were killing each other over slavery and where people were killing themselves in the 1950s over their children’s sexuality. Time heals wounds, and people tend to swing in a pendulum from progressive to conservative and back again (the 50s, the 90s, the 10s).
I recommend The Lavender Scare by David K. Johnson. It’s a fascinating book back when the US government shared a frightening similarity to the CCP. It shows how a community develops in the postwar period, how a moral panic gets set off, how people are affected, and how a social movement starts and heals the country over time. It is almost a word for word copy of what is happening in the US right now, and how people in the past defused a situation that was even more loaded in some ways than today’s world. If you are looking for reassurance, it’s a great read. Many of the landmarks in the book are still standing, by the way :)
this is normal. half the country is composed of backward degenerates.
24% is backwards degenerates. That’s the percentage of the population that voted for trump in 2020. No where near half, no matter how much they may claim to represent half.
Non-voters are complicit in what is happening. Maybe saying they are as bad is a stretch, but they clearly either don’t care or are ignorant about it.
Yeah. I was sloppy in my choice of words.
You don’t. You accept the fact things are progressively getting worse and move on
You live through enough of these “Most Pivotal Elections” and the effect is muted.
I remember Bush winning in 2004 vividly, the soul-crushing realization that Americans were ready to continue the relentless slaughter of Arabs for another four years with a fuck-you kicker to anyone LGBT looking to come out of the shadows and get married. (Nevermind the shady vote counting in Ohio).
That was after the 2000 election was stolen in full view of the public by a nakedly corrupt court.
“How could so many people be so blaise about this shameless disregard for democracy, civil rights, and rule of law?”
But then 2008 rolls along and suddenly I’m surrounded by conservative revanchists who want to talk about secession, because a black guy just won the presidency. And it begins to occur to me… “Oh, I’m just living in a fascist country”.
Now, having familiarized myself with US history a bit more, another fascist winning in one more corrupted and propaganda soaked election cycle makes perfect sense.
Great point about the relentless slaughter of Arabs. So easily forgotten how many innocents America slaughtered during this time period. America is morally rotten to the core, high on its own supply of hatred and cruelty.
I don’t think Bush ever sunk to the depths of the Hitler-like rhetoric that Trump and his cronies have been using, however. Maybe the guardrails will hold if Trump wins again (or loses again) but this is not normal.
I wish you were wrong, but I know you’re not.
In previous elections, I’d have been able to give you an answer.
For this election, the crazy will absolutely not be over once all votes are counted. This is a pivotal moment in American History and either result will cause a lot of distress for our collective psyche.
there is only forward. no reverse.
Don’t worry, there’s the insurrection and riots next.
My wife is predicting a civil war. I can’t help but wonder what our role will be in it.
Any countries who are not sliding into fascism that would be interested in hiring two well-educated adults? I really love Germany, and despite some German heritage, it’s too far removed to be of value in gaining citizenship or a passport. We visited Germany in the spring of 2016 (and heard, several times, “WHAT is going on in your country?”) and she loved it, too.
Here in germany we’re sliding into facism as well, again x.x
Our second most voted party here is super disgustingly far-right and gets more and more votes each election - even tho multiple states declared them unconstitutional and there are talks to ban the whole party because it’s a danger to democracy and our constitution.
The most voted party is conservative-right and at least by name based in Christianity. They see themselves more in the center, but tend to be a bit to the right from it, at least in my opinion. And some of the top politicians there are saying some really disgusting right shit as well. The party isn’t really fascist, but populistic and a bit right-leaning, known for corruption, power-hungry)
Therefore I think germany might not be the best choice if you want to flee facism
(Disclaimer: Constitution = Grundgesetz. Please don’t nitpick that our constitution is technically not a constitution. Thanks)
Yeah I saw that about Germany. Unfortunately, if even Germany is sliding that way, it’s hard to imagine anywhere else not doing the same…
How far away are they really? German rules about that are fairly lenient and courts have expanded them a bit recently.
Maybe any other EU country you could qualify for? Ireland is often a route some US citizens take - once you have their passport you are free to move wherever you want.
Pretty sure my great great grandparents were German. I’d have to double check that. My grandmother’s maiden name is pretty German Jewish, but I can’t recall at the moment whether she was a first generation immigrant or not. I did some research on this a few years back, and I would have to look at my notes to confirm.
It’s a little confusing because there’s a actually some German heritage on both sides - the grandmother above was my father’s mother, but there’s some on my mother’s side, too.
Americans are obsessed with genealogy, and I spent some time on it during the pandemic, so I can tell you I’m some odd fraction German, which you usually can’t get to, like 5/8ths, because it comes from both families.
Damn, that is exactly one great to mTuch. If you’re great grandparents (mainly your great grandfather)would be born on German soil it would have been easy.
If your heritage is (even partly)Jewish(or you can prove that there was prosecution for other reasons) and you can prove that they lived in Germany (and left before the war ended) there are special rules and you might be eligible.
My wife is predicting a civil war.
I don’t think the police or the military are particularly divided on who to support. A coup maybe.
But liberals won’t be putting up a fight once the media starts labeling them Hamas/Hezbollah and you can’t post your pink removed hat on Instagram without getting put on a list.
Any countries who are not sliding into fascism that would be interested in hiring two well-educated adults?
There’s always Ireland. Mexico is looking pretty good right now, given the flood of cheap imports and the resurgent manufacturing sector.
Depends on who wins. They’re only insurrections and riots when brown people and leftists do them.
The next J6/Charleston will be covered more favorably than the '64 March on Washington was, now that Bezos et al have shown their colors.
It won’t be over when it’s over. If Trump loses we’ll never hear the end of how he was cheated and maga people will get extra weird, maybe violent.
If Trump wins, we’ll have trump for president, which from experience is also not normal.
