I’m sincerely (not sarcastically) glad you’re in a position where all you need to worry about is the volume of political debate, and where you can go back to your normal life after election day, as if nothing happened. I hope you have a healthy and happy family and can go back to a normal 9-5 job where you’re paid what you’re worth and you have a good healthcare plan that covers your needs when you get sick.
However, there are people who are dying, could die, or will die, as a result of the elections taking place in the next few days. A presidential candidate is threatening to be a dictator, imprison his adversaries and political opponents, and has solicited the help of interest groups who are advocating not only mass deportation of millions of immigrants, but also mass firing of hundreds or thousands of government employees. For those tens of millions of people, they will not be glad when the election is over. Some of us may be imprisoned or worse when this election is over, and we wish with every fiber of our being we were in your shoes, where it being over were in any way comforting.
As much as I agree with you, I do not believe it will immediately be fixed if Harris is elected. Some polls show that she will win both the Senate and the House, but that’s a best case scenario and may not happen. Regardless America will still have to contend with the culture and mindset that fostered Trump and his ability to run as the Republican candidate for 3 straight elections. And don’t even get me started with the Supreme Court. I genuinely hope that Harris winning will be a turning point for American politics to stop leaning so right, but this will take years at minimum.
Reading a bit between the lines it sounds like you’ve been very negatively impacted by certain policies that have been enacted. If this is the case, I just wanted to offer my sympathies. Hopefully it gets better for you soon.
Oh I certainly don’t think it’ll be fixed if Harris is elected. This dystopian future doesn’t somehow disappear after the election, no matter who wins, which is why I said we won’t be glad when it’s over.
And yes, I have (and thanks). The Republicans in my state have done incalculable damage to my profession and my family, as well as the security, safety, and sanity of some of my closest friends. Sadly, regardless of what happens at the federal level they’ll continue their stranglehold on our state-level government for years or decades to come, and I’ll continue being estranged from entire chunks of my extended family. I wish just having the election over were in any way comforting, but it’s not. This hellscape is here to stay, and I have my “go pack” and firearms at the ready, should things deteriorate to the point of no return.
I do not believe it will immediately be fixed if Harris is elected.
That future was abandoned long ago.
Currently the fight is to keep the very ability to fix things at all, because the alternative is a future locked-into elitist hate.
It’s going to take A Lot of work to correct the mountain of lies and then help the people dealing with the dawning realization of their patsy role in this. But, with luck, we’ll have the ability to do that.
Sadly, this election doesn’t end in two weeks if Trump loses… he’ll keep it going until Harris is sworn in.
And in three years we’ll probably start this bullshit all over again. Please, if you can, talk to your local state government about the national popular vote interstate compact.
Enough of this doomposting. No, Trump will not be running again if he loses. He’s already completely incoherent. And he will end in prison if he loses. The court punted things past election day, but only they can only delay things so far. If he loses this election, he will die in prison.
And in terms of overturning a win? That isn’t going to happen. The laws have been amended, and the strategy they attempted in 2020 has been completely cut off from them now. Even SCOTUS wasn’t willing to play along with their “independent state legislature” theory bullshit.
Trump will hem and haw, bitch and whine if he loses, but it’s not going to matter. The orange bastard will still die in prison.
I really wish I had your optimism… you are aware that a significant slice of conservatives think the people who showed up on Jan6 were heroes, right? If he summons the mob again there will be throngs of willing martyrs.
Also, the chance that Trump ever sees the inside of a prison cell is extremely unlikely… our justice system is unable to deal with open treason.
They want to come, let them come. We will not have a repeat of January 6th. Last time, Trump was in the White House, and he deliberately left the capital building unguarded, refusing requests for troop deployments. This time, the capital will be a fortress of thousands of heavily armed US service members. If a few thousand MAGA asshats want to throw their lives away storming machine gun nests, so be it. Nothing of value will be lost. This time, we won’t have to worry about prosecuting them, as they simply won’t be leaving there alive.
Democracy is worth dying for. Democracy is worth killing for. If you try to use violence to overthrow the results of a free and fair election, you are an enemy of the Republic. You are the “all enemies, foreign and domestic” every service member swears to defend the Constitution against. If you try to violently overthrow the government, your life is now forfeit, and you fully deserve whatever fate awaits you. I will not shed a tear for any number of MAGA fools that get themselves killed trying to overthrow a free and fair election. We’ll be better off without them.
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I hate the sound of this fire alarm. It’s way too noisy and stressful. I can’t wait for it to stop ringing so I can get back to work.
After it’s been playing for months? Yeah.
This will continue for months after the election. We’re still talking about the last one. I don’t mean this to be mean, but I really feel that you have to figure out a way to disconnect from it, emotionally. There will always be nasty people and crazies out there, that will never change. Politics just brings them out in droves. The real question is how you react to that and if you can come up with a way that is healthy for you. I don’t know what the answer is for you, but there surely is one.
Me too. I just want it to be over at this piont, even though I am terrified of a Trump win. I’m going to vote early but this constant sense of creeping dread just won’t go away.
Probably, you won’t. After the 2020 elections, the tension did not decrease to the levels that were before the elections. It will be the same this time. But what’s worst is that if Trump wins, there won’t be any more elections - just like freedom of speech and many other democratic things. The United States will turn into what Russia has become over the last 30 years. And this is only in the best-case scenario. In the worst case, the political system of the Combine in Half-Life 2 will seem to you not an anti-utopian dictatorship but a very comfortable and even progressive form of social organization compared to what the Trumpists are achieving.
When fascists won in Germany, there was a force that could stop them, and eventually stopped them. If they win in the United States, no one will be able to stop them. Considering that they promise an isolationist policy, all sorts of predatory authoritarian and totalitarian regimes will suddenly feel like they can do anything - and this will start happening all over the world.
I hate this, but yeah, possible. Hopefully we have enough sanity at the top, and enough checks and balances in place, that he will not achieve his goals.
At least he isn’t subtle.
Hope is an unattainable luxury in this situation. Eight years ago, I still didn’t understand much of what would have clearly determined Trump as a personality prone to dictatorial-fascist tendencies until after 2016. If I had had the time and attention back then to understand where it would lead, it could have been prevented very easily by raising a huge fuss and scandal around political advertising on Facebook. This would have significantly disrupted the plans of hostile states for interfering in elections and ultimately led to different results in the 2016 elections. Unfortunately, at that time, I was a completely different person, focused on other things. That’s why I did nothing. I simply hoped that everything would be fine.
I’ve made peace with either result. I’m definitely wanting for one side to win and I’ve already done my part by voting early… in a Red district in a Red state, so my vote is essentially meaningless anyways, though there’s a local gerrymandering issue that hopefully gets through that can help. Otherwise, whatever happens, happens. As hard as it is to see positives, I’ve tried to think about what opportunities might be available should the unthinkable happen, there’s some potential upsides for me personally, so there’s that. The rest of the world will go to hell in a handbasket and we’re all fucked, but there’s the still the potential to find some personal benefit from it.
What are the upsides, if you don’t mind me asking? I’m having trouble finding silver linings here.
They’re probably a white, male landowner.
