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What I'll say about the US election (angry)
9 years ago
This was not an election between a left-wing candidate and a right-wing candidate. Hillary Clinton is not, in any way, shape or form, anwhere near the actual political left. Nor is the vast majority of the Democratic Party. The United States does not actually have a Left. You dismantled it the better part of a century ago and the people in power have used the police and the FBI to brutally suppress any possible resurgence of the Left.
This was an election between neoliberalism and fascism, both right-wing ideologies, and the outcome was the same as every other time (neo)liberalism and fascism have clashed. Namely, a victory for fascism.
Now, I want to be clear that neither outcome would have been at all acceptable from a moral, ethical, or even purely utilitarian point of view. But one outcome is demonstrably the worst in all respects, and that's the one you ended up with.
To those of you who fought tooth and nail to try and prevent this from happening: I'm sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry. Please keep fighting. These bastards have to be stopped.
To those of you who worked for this, as well as those of you who passively let this happen: you have blood on your hands. Minorities will have their legal protections stripped away. People will lose access to healthcare. Social safety nets will be stripped even further than they already are. Vulnerable people wholl be disenfranchised even more than they already are. Your actions or your cowardice have already emboldened neonazis, the KKK and assorted other ultra-far right groups into openly attacking minorities and others. You did this. You monstrous idiots.
If you voted for Trump, unfollow me. Don't bother trying to get a commission from me. I don't want your money. I don't want anything to do with you. You disgust me.
This was an election between neoliberalism and fascism, both right-wing ideologies, and the outcome was the same as every other time (neo)liberalism and fascism have clashed. Namely, a victory for fascism.
Now, I want to be clear that neither outcome would have been at all acceptable from a moral, ethical, or even purely utilitarian point of view. But one outcome is demonstrably the worst in all respects, and that's the one you ended up with.
To those of you who fought tooth and nail to try and prevent this from happening: I'm sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry. Please keep fighting. These bastards have to be stopped.
To those of you who worked for this, as well as those of you who passively let this happen: you have blood on your hands. Minorities will have their legal protections stripped away. People will lose access to healthcare. Social safety nets will be stripped even further than they already are. Vulnerable people wholl be disenfranchised even more than they already are. Your actions or your cowardice have already emboldened neonazis, the KKK and assorted other ultra-far right groups into openly attacking minorities and others. You did this. You monstrous idiots.
If you voted for Trump, unfollow me. Don't bother trying to get a commission from me. I don't want your money. I don't want anything to do with you. You disgust me.
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WEASYL
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Comment posting has been disabled by the journal owner.
P.s.yes, I do understand that there are poor disenfranchised white people living in basically dead parts of the country, and those that wanted to see the corrupt political machine shaken to its core. Not everyone who voted Trump in is a God damned lunatic.
(Joking, of course. ;3 )
He's a fun guy.
However my vote always go to a professor who never gets elected for having realistic view of the situation, François Bayrou.
I don't care what people think for Trump winning. It would have been this way no matter who won. But when I get accused for tolerating the issue instead of joining the bandwagon and being up in arms with the toxic drama that is politics? That's where I draw the line.
Okay, you're black. You have LGBT friends? Go tell them to their faces that you prefer their maginalization and their ability to feel or even be safe to Clinton having won, and see if they're still your friends after that. You may care about their wellbeing, but you clearly don't care enough about their wellbeing to even apparently worry that the new vice president is going to be a man who wants to defund AIDS and HIV health programs and research to give federal funding to organizations that TORTURE TEENAGERS until they either learn to pretend to be straight or KILL themselves. A man who has already come out and said that the new administration will ABSOLUTELY strip any legal protections from queer and trans people.
YOU. ARE. WRONG.
I don't expect people to agree with how I feel. That's the downside to not caring about politics. I just go by my instinct. Based on what I've seen (and yes I know of the media that you're speaking of), Trump knows where he's going with this. Hillary is going off a pipe dream.
As a better analogy, Hillary is the pacifier of America. Trump is the surgery.
It's not going to be easy, but it wouldn't have been any easier with Hillary as president either.
A lot of this is, again, your assumption that I am a horrible person for not caring that Hillary lost. It's going to suck regardless of who won. I'm dealing with the results just like everyone else has to. Why waste energy raging about something that won't change anything?
THAT is why I am tolerating the election. In this case, Trump is the lesser of the two evils.
But if Clinton had won, a lot of people would have a better hope of being at least relatively safe. Cinton did not make plans to make life impossible for millions of people purely because of who they were, how they were born. Trump's cabinet is already preparing to do exactly that.
If you've watched Trump and his staff do anything, and this convinced you that they have any idea of what they're doing, you are one thick motherfucker.
I am not assuming that you are a horrible person. You are proving to the world that you are a horrible person with your wilful ignorance and persistent callousness. Your absolute unwillingness to listen to those who have been directly and immediately affected by this, and for whom things will only get worse.
Your lack of understanding, and your lack of any willingness to even attempt to understand is so complete there is nothing more to be gained from continuing this discussion. Goodye.
Fascism arrives as your friend.
It will restore your honor,
Make you feel proud,
Protect your house,
Give you a job,
Clean up your neighborhood,
Remind you of how great you once were,
Clear out the verbal and the corrupt,
Remove anything you feel is unlike you...
It doesn't walk in saying,
"Our programme means militias, mass imprisonment, transportations, war and persecution."
-Michael Rosen.
But the thing is... That's pretty much verbatim what Trump said. He did all the above, and he said the things in the last bit... And pretty much 42% of registered voters who did not vote let it happen.
To me, not voting is probably just as bad, if not worse, than the one that won.
People aren't happy with the new prez by any means. but even if the Congress is mostly Republican, it doesn't mean they're gonna agree with everything that Trump wants.
On the flip side, Trump was originally a Democrat. So if he had to make sacrifices to switch parties and make his more threatening wish for making America great again happen, then I give him more respect for it. I may not be on his side 100%, but what he wants sorta sounds more solidified than Hillary.
Granted I'm not really a political person, what I think about this country is never going to be the same that someone else may want. So if this offends you, I apologize. But I also have a voice, and I don't think I should be disgusting because of looking at the long-term picture.
P.S. People were gonna be salty about this election, no matter who won. So it's not just you who hates Trump supporters. I wasn't a Trump supporter. I just didn't want Hillary to win.
That "long-term picture" you were looking was a picture where anyone queer, non-white, non-male, non-cis, or any combination of these would be put at extreme risk. And you thought that was fine, so long as Clinton didn't win. That is fucked up.
Us typing on this journal will lead to nothing involving progress. Trump is president starting January, we'll have to ride it out until something happens. Whether it's impeachment or otherwise. Maybe it'll be beneficial for everyone, maybe not. It's most likely the latter, but what can ya do?
I don't care about impressing my friends or family when it comes to how I feel. If they don't agree with it, there's nothing I can do about that. Again, if I'm seen as an asshole to you or anyone else simply because we don't think the same, I have done nothing shameful. That's on you.
This is exactly why I hate liberals. So milquetoast that they can't even muster an ounce of strength to oppose fascism, and instead spend their time complaining about leftists that are fighting for their lives and livelihoods and yet have the gall not to be perfectly sweet and nice and mild-mannered.
I will not apologize for caring about my rights and the rights of my friends and family, and I will not apologize for taking stands against fascism and having a passion for others.
Fuck off.
who said I fully agree with everything Trump wants 100%? I am black. I have friends that are LGBT. you think I don't care about them and their well being?
This is a dark time indeed. But with the Clinton's history, I didn't want a weak president running the country either. for my own reasons that, no, don't match up with yours.
the fact that you even think I want less than half of Trump's wishes to come true, because of what the media has spewed in your line of vision, is fucked up.
OK then, which ones do you want to come true?
What are your reasons for not wanting a "weak president"? Are they related to "the long-term picture" you referred to?
You mentioned Trump "making America great again". At what time was America great? (For example, the 1950's, commonly cited as the quintessential American decade?)
Imagining that the Democrats are somehow going to do better in that demographic in non "let's just build a wall" years, is dreaming.
Trump also won 40% of the female vote, in an election where he was running against a woman and his quote of "Just grab them by the pussy" was talked about a lot.
The problem the Democrats have isn't going to go away with time. If anything, it's getting worse.
BILL Clinton was able to carry the rust belt, large parts of the South, and was able to connect with white working class Americans.
HILLARY Clinton was able to connect with Goldman Sachs, Saudi Arabia, and whatever spoild shits support globalism.
The Democrats ran a candidate who lost the working class vote to a billionaire.
The Democrats ran a woman candidate who lost the white female vote to a womaniser accused of sexual harrasment.
The Democrats lost the evangelical and religious vote to a three-time divorcee who never attends church.
Democrats need to look deep inside thier party and figure out what the hell they are, and what they're trying to be.
If you want to be the party of globalism, high finance, neoliberalism, "no fly zones" over Syria, and the party that cozies up to the Saudis while they commit genocide in Yemen...
...then who the hell do you imagine the Democratic base is?
and it's the (as I already mentioned, non-existent in the US) Left who've bred a culture of hate?
Fuck you.
The center-right mainstream of the DNC did everything in their power to marginalize and antagonize anyone and everyone who could've actually put up a fight against a fascist demagogue like Trump, and now that their strategy has, in hindsight, VERY PREDICTABLY blown up in their fucking face they're scrambling, grasping at straws and doing everything in their power so they don't have to learn the lesson that they did this. Not the Left, but liberals. Which, by the way, are not left-wing.
Liberalism is seen as left-wing in the US, and virtually ONLY in the US, precisely because the American Left has long been dismantled. They're to the left of most Republicans, yes, but they're still right-of-center at best.
But because there's no real alternative beyond Bernie Sanders , the neoliberal DNC gets conflated with the actual Left, and what's worse is some actual leftists, in their anger and fear, buy that narrative when it could not be further from the truth.
Which isn't to say I resent you or anything for that video. I'm still upset and terrified for my loved ones, so please bear with me. I simply disagree with that analysis.
And to all of you who think Trump isn't so bad because you're not his targets - you had better hope that those targets put up a substantial and enduring resistance. If not, if things settle down and there's no open defiance, then the witch hunts start.
And the thing about witch hunts is: whether you're actually guilty is irrelevant. All it takes is a convincing accusation, because nobody will listen to your defense.
After that occurred, he was basically unable to do anything except block their attempts to repeal Obamacare.
The president doesn't get to write new laws or make constitutional amendments, the position itself is frankly overhyped.
so people are wrong to point out that, if you support a racist, fascist, bigoted, homophobic ticket that might reflect poorly on you as well? Oh boy!
"If you can't see how damaging to your cause it is to assume that people who vote Trump along those grounds are AUTOMATICALLY racist, fascist bigots who want to strip everybody's rights away and reenact the German 1930s, then I genuinely feel sorry for you."
No matter someone's intentions, if they're supporting a racist, fascist bigot who wants to strip people's rights, they're doing a bad thing. Pointing that out is somehow worse than keeping quiet about it?
"When Trump suspected voter fraud, everybody told him to shut up and accept the results of the election. Now he won, and those same people are rioting in the streets, refusing to accept the results of the election."
Trump cried wolf about voter fraud whenever things weren't entirely going his way and threatened to refuse to concede. His supporters also threatened to violently revolt if Clinton had won. The thing is, there was no evidence whatsoever that there was any fraud whatsoever happening that was putting trump at a disadvantage. In fact, the few instances of fraud that did take place were from trump supporters. Trump's campaign tried to block a shitload of early nevada votes being counted for totally bullshit reasons, too. And finally, one of the main reasons trump appears to have won in places like north carolina and wisconsin is because of voter ID laws that disproportionately affect black voters. Laws put into place mostly by republicans.
People are protesting trump's victory, as is their right. Conservatives protested when Obama was elected. The difference here is that Obama never actually threatened to actively persecute entire demographics, while trump has. And so these people, who trump and his team have directly threatened, are voicing their displeasure. Again, as is their right.
"The only way forward is if we stop demonizing each other and try to work out some common ground."
You don't actually get to make that argument if you're trying to defend a peron whose entire platform has been built on demonizing the opposition, as well as whole demographics.
Trumps crime in all this, was inciting the violence, and has not, yet at least, done anything to calm down his supporters and tell them to behave themselves, let alone to be tolerant and respectful. Many of the groups he emboldened are those who desire to "purify" this nation much like Germany did with the Nazis in WW2.
I don't know much about Pence but sounds like he is an evangelist who believes in lobotomies and more being a way to "cure" people of being anything BUT straight. Which for those who don't know what that is, it's simply hammering a nail into a person's head to destroy sections of the brain to ruin a personality inorder to stop what is considered deviant behavior. AKA brain damage a person which leaves them disabled if not dead. Many of the steps finally taken to providing EVERYONE with EQUAL and FAIR treatment is currently at risk of being reversed. Discrimination is close to being victorious again, and who knows could very well see segregation returning to America in someway. Although we have a supreme court to try and keep such from happening LEGALLY, it doesn't stop individuals from reigniting the fires of hatred and segregation from the 50s. And that is a major problem we and our children could face.
It is NOT expected that anyone who is white and straight to be able to understand this. They have nothing to worry about, and its rather sad to see such furries like that to see this as nothing bad or major, but it truly is and it WILL effect even you. Again, think of how the world if not just the US views us Furries. You can be white and straight and yet, being a furry you will be labeled as gay and queer and trans and zoophilia and more. You will be hated and perhaps even assaulted and hospitalized despite the fact you are white and straight. Just You are viewed in a stereotype with the rest of the community and will still be harmed if given the chance to be all the same as the rest of us. The only way you can truly save yourselves is to give up being a furry, let go and get rid of anything to tie you to such and then you'll be 100% safe from the hate and violence. Which means giving up who you are as a person inorder to be something that others think you should be instead. And I truthfully just don't see many being able to do that.
So we as a community must come to realize that we ALL are subject to the hatred and anger that is currently drowning our nation. For we are not considered a normal community in the eyes of many. And that alone is reason enough for some to attack us. But we also must NOT lash out only defend ourselves and our community. So we shouldn't be fighting amongst ourselves. Simply standing together as one community to survive together and stay strong together.
P.S. For those going to any NON canceled furmeets or Furcons in southern areas of the nation, BECAREFUL, The south is still strong in the violent behavior of white supremacy. It may even be best to for now until things blow over to cancel plans and reschedule for another time.
If someone walks up and points a gun at you and tells you, very explicitly, that they're planning to shoot you, would you consider it a knee jerk response for someone witnessing this to try and call the police? What if you tried to look for help or find cover in the face of this direct threat? Would you consider that a knee jerk response?
It's not fear mongering if it's just letting people know what these folks said, verbatim.
I'm not going to sugarcoat it, here's a quote from her.
"I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world -- that have disease from their parents, that have no chance in the world to be a human being practically. Delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things just marked when they're born. That to me is the greatest sin -- that people can -- can commit."
That being said, she actually fought for racial desegregation and was remarked upon in a few speeches by Martain Luther King Jr as being an early pioneer in desegregation. Here's an entire article about her...
http://www.politifact.com/new-hamps.....mericans-shou/
Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race.
you could see where im getting my view from though right?
Because that's not actually in there. Now she does mention illegal aliens and closing the border.
Oh make no mistake, she's not a nice person and i'm not defending her stance of trying to prevent "deficient" people from reproducing via birth control.
Again, Eugenic, but not actually a racist.
Taking one thing from hundreds of papers she's written, support she's drummed up for various multiracial things (Hiring Black Doctors in Harlem for example)...
I mean she did write alot, you can probably find statements of her saying various things which she regretted later in life.
Besides, other than your snarking and needless insertion of shit-stirring "facts" its not really relevant to Planned Parenthood today.
Let's just say for the sake of argument she was a rabid KKK cloak wearing, full fledged member of a racist lynch mob.
What does that have to do with planned parenthood today, I mean she's not running PP, she's been dead since the sixties.
Hell PPs gone through quite a few presidents since then, including an African American women for twenty years (Faye Wattleton President of Planned Parenthood for 1978-1992)
But The Wikipedia article is pretty thorough about her stance, and there are literally hundreds of citations, she's been the subject of several biographies because she is and was a controversial figure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger
Your tax dollars fund the military and the police force which kill significantly more people than planned parenthood. PP, through providing affordable reproductive healthcare (only a small fraction of which includes abortion) saves a shitload of lives.
Anyway, I warned you, so: hidden. Sorry.
Non-abortion-related example: Mike Pence shut down a PP clinic in rural Indiana, causing an HIV epidemic because that was the only place in the area that did HIV testing. That clinic also didn't even provide abortion services.
Defunding Planned Parenthood will kill more lives than it would potentially "save," even according to the fucked up idea that embryos and fetuses should somehow qualify as full, living humans at the expense of the rights and health of their mothers.
Don't come back here with that shit again. I won't have it.
I genuinely, truly am grateful for the love and support folks have given me over the years, and I'm touched that people like my work enough to commission me so I can try and make this my day job, but that's a two way street. I'm allowed to actually voice my opinions on here as well, especially if it's about stuff that affects me or friends of mine.
You call this creating enemies over "disagreements" but this isn't about disagreeing with something. This is about the fact that many of my closest friends will suffer terribly if trump manages to implement even a miniscule fraction of the things he promised during his campaign. That's not an opinion. The things trump has said, in his own speeches, he wants to do would destroy many of my friends. Because these changes would negatively affect them to an unbearable degree.
Now, you're free to keep trying to downplay that by ignoring everything trump's said and done until now, or you can try and distract people by bringing up half-truths from almost a hundred years ago that are no longer directly relevant today, but if you do keep that up I'm going to hide those following comments.
Best Case Scenario: Nothing happens. Trump was bluffing about everything he said, and does nothing to change America.
Worst Case Scenario: We all die. Trump wastes our nuclear weapons, killing countless innocents. America tears itself apart. Civil War 2. The U.S. becomes North Korea 2.0, all because the Electoral College is run by complete and utter morons.
Crud.
I was honestly worrying about that after seeing a few Trump supporters and Republicans myself. I've seen people wielding Confederate flags in public, people shouting about only using the English language, followed by them chanting "USA!", and even one person with some pro-gun violence propaganda written on the back of their jacket.
If I remember correctly, it said something like: "Keep your guns, America. Those who act like sheep will be slaughtered like sheep."
It disgusts me, to be honest.
Rough times ahead, that's not a good combination to have.
It's a Fascists wet dream come true, populations to blame for societies ills (Immigrants, Muslims, LBGT) and soon all three branches of government on "his" side.
"So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause"
I'm not gonna riot in the streets or anything, but I hope that the next four years go by fast.
Just lay low and wait it out. It'll be over soon enough.
I hold no doubts that Sanders would have been an even more appealing nationalist this past election if he wasn't shafted by the kleptocratic establishment in the DNC. Alas, the American intellectual elites and their associates were so hyped up on their own successes and fantasies for the past few decades that they refused to acknowledge the rotting corpse that the rest of the US was becoming, and what we're seeing today are the long-term consequences of that delusion. It stands that populist demagogues like Trump, as terrifying as they can be, are merely symptoms of this far more horrifying dissonance - a dissonance that, if left unabated, will lead to even worse demagogues until either the democratic system gives way to a totalitarian despot or the nation descends into civil war.
He's been in bed with neo-nazis for the entire duration of his campaign at the absolute shortest and appointed at least one of them to a spot in his cabinet, and every single other pick for his cabinet has a fairly extensive history of essentially being against the very thing they're supposed to be guiding and safeguarding. And that's just the tip of the iceberg of stuff he's mostly done since the election. Adding to that everything he's said and done before; the racism, misogyny, his volatility, extending him any kind of benefit of the doubt at THIS stage, when he's een shouting this entire time that yes, he IS going to do all of the things everybody was afraid he might do...
It's really no less delusional than the wilful cognitive dissonance that led to him being elected. And the idea that the "intellectual elites" were the one who were off the mark ignores the fact that Trump had widespread support among those same elites as well.
Calling the likes of Trump merely a symptom of a larger issue is also off the mark, I feel. Trump comes from a class that thrives on the perpetuation of most of those issues. Demagogues like him don't just follow a trend and capitalize on it, they see a trend and reinforce it until they CAN capitalize on it. They take an active role from the very beginning, exaggerating and making things worse because that makes it easier to maintain control. Fascism is a system, a method of seizing power for the capitalist class, but it is not an ideology in itself, really, because its enemies must necessarily be short-term. Fascism that tries to focus on actual concrete, long-term goals disintegrates almost immediately because the ciolenc inherent to that system is very obviously useless against actual long-term problems.
So, Trump IS just another symptom of a deeper problem, true, but that problem is the fact that the capitalist class that spawned him is allowed to still exist at all. The working class and middle class and so on being afraid of the future isn't the actual root, because they're really just victims of those kleptocrats as well.