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this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2024
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Well it looks like we can both agree that round 2 Fascist Trump Boogaloo won't be a positive thing and will instead be profoundly negative.
Let's be clear your hope he won't get anything real done is misplaced wishful thinking at best. Even if he can't reach his goals he is an enormous piece of shit and those in his orbit that will be assisting him are often even worse.
It is allowing life to be breathed into a astro-turfed political movement created by the wealthy to openly oppress our citizens.
Stroking racial and gender divides does not settle tensions and instead ramps them up. Think about the next gay man who gets beat to death because of these bullshit culture wars. Think about the next young mother who dies because politicians are deciding their health options. Trump and his party own this shit.
Trump winning will just be another misogynist dagger in half our population continuing to set back rights and progress. The example we are setting for our daughter's by even allowing this man to run is disgusting.
While I can appreciate your impartiality historians are not going to be half as kind as your are. In fact, I would say a lot of what you said felt more like an apology, giving the benefit of the doubt, and hand waving.
A lot of it comes from Hanlon's Razor:
We can substitute all manner of things here for "stupidity," like narcissism, shortsightedness, or laziness, and I think it would hold true. And when I look at what Trump did during his first term and compare this campaign to his previous campaign, it has the same sense of throwing everything into the kitchen sink hoping something will resonate with someone to get him elected. In his first term, he did and almost none of what he talked about in his first campaign. He barely scratched the surface on perhaps his #1 campaign promise: build the wall.
Everything looks like it's coming from the same place: narcissism. Trump wants to be President because he wants the title, not because he has some larger plan to transform the US into something else. I don't think he cares about Project 2025 at all, he just wants to be known as the "great deal-maker" who rescued the country's economy and put it back on track. I don't think he honestly cares about women's reproductive health, LGBT issues, etc (in neither a good or bad way), he'll pander to whoever he needs to pander to in order to get elected, but once he's elected, I think his main focus is on leaving a legacy, and that means mucking about in the economy, not leading a coup and campaigning to make life suck for women and LGBT folk.
To be clear, I think Trump is absolutely dangerous, I just don't think he's dangerous in quite the same way as liberals make him out to be. I agree with economists that his policies (tariffs esp) will be dangerous for the US economy and could lead us into another recession. But I think there's a good chance that either he'll get gun-shy about the worst of the tariffs (we're in a bull market, so he has no need to go hard to look like he's "fixing the economy") or the judicial branch will block the worst of the tariffs arguing that there's no legitimate national security concerns. He'll probably pass some sort of tax cut, which will increase deficit spending and cause some inflation, he'll probably pass some BS laws that benefit Musk's companies, and he'll probably let Republicans get a token social issue bill through, but all-in-all, it'll probably be a disappointing term like his last one.
I could absolutely be wrong, but I honestly do believe he just wants to play President again.
I do think a Harris presidency will be somewhat better, but only because she's not speedrunning tariffs. I think she'll also increase inflation a bit if she tries to do anything to ease it (i.e. "price gouging," first-time homebuyer assistance, etc). But she doesn't seem to be aggressively pushing for anything in particular, so as long as she doesn't mess with things too much, we'll probably be fine. Even her tax changes probably won't mess with stuff too much, though I am worried about her tax on unrealized capital gains, but there's almost no chance that's actually getting passed, at least not in the form she seems to imply it will take (she's been short on details).
Maybe this sounds like an apology, idk. I think Trump is dangerous, but not "democracy is at stake!" dangerous. He just wants to be in the spotlight once more. I also think Harris is dangerous, but only if she actually does what she promises, and I seriously doubt she'll get anything near what she's promising through Congress. So on the whole, Harris would be way better for both the economy and social issues than Trump, but even if Trump is elected, he's not going to turn us into a fascist state or anything, he's just going to drive up inflation a bit and maybe trigger a recession.
Yeah it does sound like an apology. You sit here hemming and hawing over the two-sides of the same coin fallacy saying one is perhaps slightly worse than the other.
You can't even compare the two logically as candidates or human beings. I guess when you had a daughter who was raped and the police won't take it seriously because of our fucked up culture it changes you.
I won't sit here and listen to a detached armchair comparison of the economic outlooks if one gets elected over the other. Like that is what even fucking matters and in fact plays into decades of bullshit rhetoric the right has been pushing. The conservatives have never been better with the economy and that is objectively verifiable.
You pretend that Trump can't break this country. That putting a buffoon in charge doesn't denigrate our place in the world. That the women in our country will ever feel safe, that discrimination won't reign supreme.
You act like it is no big deal because you are privileged. You think it won't affect you and you know the fucked up part. It may not.
But it will affect a lot of others. People you probably don't think about. If you did you wouldn't be worried about the economics and status quo.
The fact that we're even talking about the economy in a presidential race is honestly pretty ridiculous, the only impact the President has on the economy tends to be negative. Economic policy is a mix of the Federal Reserve policies and legislation, neither of which the President has a ton of control over. That said, Congress usually lets the President champion a bill or two.
Also, economic policy usually has a delayed impact, usually by a few years, so it's often difficult to attribute economic changes to specific presidents. Yet, for some reason we give the sitting president the credit or blame for whatever happens, which encourages the President to take short-term measures to delay a recession.
It's possible he could, I just don't think he'll try to. He'll certainly try to interfere w/ the economy (i.e. tariffs and other trade war nonsense), but I honestly don't think he has plans beyond that.
I highly doubt he'll have any impact on women, aside from perhaps those in the White House with him. He really doesn't seem interested in getting involved in any of those issues, and he has even pushed back on legislative changes to abortion policy. It just doesn't seem to be something he really wants to touch, but he'll certainly take credit for the actions of others when he thinks it'll benefit him (i.e. him bragging about overturning Roe v Wade, as if he actually had a hand in that at all...).
It is a big deal, and I'm really frustrated at the awful choices we have this year. Harris was dead last on my list of preferences when she ran for President, and her record as VP hasn't changed my mind. I think she's a terrible candidate, not because she's a woman or any nonsense like that, I just think she doesn't have good policies (or honestly any policies at all). In fact, I don't even know what motivates her, she seems to also just say whatever she thinks people will like, but I guess she wins because she's not nearly as extreme as her competitor. So it's like picking between a soggy sandwich and obviously undercooked pork, one will make me regret eating it for the next hour, the other will make me regret it for the next day.
That said, Trump is way worse. Biden was my first vote for a Democrat for President ever, not because I liked him (he was almost my last pick when he ran for President), but because I thought he actually had a chance at winning my state since Trump is so disliked here. But no, he lost by 20% or so like every other candidate in my red state. I usually vote for a third party I agree with, but Trump's first term changed that.
I'm absolutely with you that Trump is terrible. I just think he's being made out to be a lot of things that he's not, and that causes people to dismiss criticism against him. I think Trump is dangerous, not because he's fascist or anything of that nature, but because he's a narcissist, and not a particularly bright one at that. He seems to actually think crippling tariffs are a good thing, which is absolutely nuts! He would absolutely cause problems, but ones we can manage. On the bright side, hopefully it'll demonstrate, yet again, that high tariffs are a terrible idea.
I totally agree that talking about the economy is just stupid. It has been a conservative talking point for decades now and is ridiculous to bring up for most of the reasons you cited.
You can't deny he tried to overthrow our rule of law. You seem to think he is so inept that if he tries again he will fail. This is akin to letting an arsonist play with fire in your house because last time he couldn't keep the fire going.
As I was explaining your privilege keeps you from seeing what it means to women to have a serial rapist in the white house. The kind of guy who jokes about sexual assaults and walks in on underage girls dressing just because he can.
The damage has already been done and now it is insult to injury. It really is hard to describe a world to men where women live in constant fear of sexual violence. This is what having Trump as President means. Make no mistake that women are not the only group that will suffer.
The psychological damage alone of having a abuser represent our country is a bridge too far. The damage his first presidency did will be felt for decades. Another will snuff out the dreams and desires of so many Americans along with emboldening the worst of our society.
There is no comparison between a narcissist felonious rapist and our current VP. Like I was saying logically you can't compare the two despite your attempts to. I really do think your take is pretty ridiculous.
It is like you have already fallen for their shit rhetoric and now you have to fight to justify the garbage reasoning in your head.
We are not voting for Trump, we are voting for his apparatus. Your belief he won't go after women when his apparatus has already set their rights back several decades is ludicrous.
I get you can't blame Trump personally because he is self absorbed and incompetent. I generally agree. But just like with Reagan the president is just a figurehead and their mind can be completely gone because it is their apparatus that is really running things.
This is the crux of the whole issue. If Trump is a figurehead what does he represent? What does Harris represent? Look at what they claim, say, and have done. If Harris is a soggy sandwich then Trump is two pieces of asphalt with a turd in between them.
We can't manage the damage and your resignation just shows you are unwilling to fight for what is right. When they are done othering everyone else who will defend you?
Perhaps you are counting on your privilege to save you. Sounds like you may manage but millions of others whether it be the dreamers, LGBQ, transgender, POC, immigrants, Muslims, or women won't be able to.
All I really hear from you is, "I will survive another Trump presidency". Well good for you, but you are missing the point.
It's more like telling all of your friends to avoid MLMs using easily falsifiable or overly exaggerated reasons, and when they end up meeting with an MLM rep, they're more likely to sign up because the rep can easily explain away those concerns. A lot of what I see about Trump is akin to "don't vote for Trump, he's going to Auschwitz your LGBT friends!" If they actually research him, they'll quickly see that's not the case at all, and they'll wonder what else you're exaggerating about.
I think a better approach to convincing someone Trump is dangerous is less about alarmism and more about revealing who he actually is. He's a narcissist who doesn't listen to his advisors and doesn't seem to understand economic policy (plenty of evidence of both), so he's more likely to confidently do things that will hurt the nation, not out of malice, but incompetence. Running an economy is very different from running a company, yet Trump seems intent on doing that. Case in point, economists are pretty united in saying his tariff plans will be harmful for the American public. If they can view Trump through that lens, they'll understand a lot of why he says what he says, and decide that maybe they don't want someone who just wants to see their name in headlines and instead someone who will listen to experts.
Going along with that theme, I really don't see a reason for Trump to attempt to stay in office after his term. He's a narcissist, so he wants his name to show up among "best presidents ever" instead of "traitorous presidents put in jail after a failed coup." He has already said he's not interested in running again if he isn't elected, which is completely different from his messaging 4 years ago. He wants a legacy, not power.
I'm comparing their proposed policies, which is absolutely relevant here. Harris will be decidedly better for the economy, but still pretty bad IMO. However, I think Congress will stop the worst of Harris' agenda, whereas Trump seems confident he can accomplish it without Congress, so in general I'd prefer Harris. That said, I'm not voting for her, because my state will elect Trump by ~20% regardless of what I do, so I might as well vote my conscience.
Then it makes more sense to push for non-Republicans in Congress than the executive branch. Point out that Trump is temporary, but Senate and House seats can last much longer. They're the ones who will be approving justices, writing laws, and potentially impeaching the President.
No, I just have more than the next election in mind. I'm much less worried about Trump and more worried about whoever comes after Trump. Maybe it'll be someone else piggy-backing off his ideas, but they're younger and more interested in control. We can only cry wolf so many times...
My SO is a POC immigrant, as are some of my best friends.
I am white and well off. I will probably survive another Trump presidency. I am also bisexual and I care about my fellow man. I don't know if I really will or not, and I know many won't.