I’m thinking the same thing, except replace “thread” with “family”. Just got back from a family dinner for Father’s day and I just don’t know if I can do it anymore. The first thing that greeted me when I got there was a political cartoon equating Mexicans with animals, followed up with some breathless praise for Trump and how this country has never seen an economy so good and it’s all due to him. It’s just so fucking weird, because if you put a D in front of his name, my father would probably be loading up his second amendments in his pickup and driving to Washington.
Sorry! Apparently I just had to vent. I meant to just say… I know how you feel! This awfulness going on down at the border just makes me physically ill. I can’t believe what I’m watching.
I don’t know. This is a No True Scotsman argument. Obama’s election gave me hope that America had course corrected from Bush and that our historical arc still bent toward justice. I now think this was a false hope. Clearly, we are still burning with the fevers that have always plagued us: racism, jingoism, xenophobia. There’s no guarantee that empathy and sanity will win out in the end. It could be that America devolves into a small-minded, mean, dangerous, totalitarian state. Our bipartisan legal deference to police authority and reification of the military and the flag point in this direction. Trump is the exemplar of a cult of personality, and his predation of our political system seems to be uncheckable. The GOP has spent decades building a hand-in-glove media and political apparatus that specializes in demonizing social progress, dog whistling racism, promoting flag worship and other symbols of unquestioning fealty, and scapegoating immigrants in order to stitch together a coalition of unlikely bedfellows so that they can pass tax and regulatory relief for wealthy and powerful interests. Quelle surprise, then that the policy outcomes of this propaganda strategy are often inhumane, reactionary, idiotic and anti-democratic. Trump could easily win in 2020. It’s possible that the America you imagine–the one that fights against Trumpism–is simply doomed.
I think, again, it is important to emphasize to everyone, especially the non-US members of this board.
The majority of America didn’t want Trump to be president, blame our antiquated electoral college for the victory. (And the fact that Hillary refused to spend time in “safe” states like WI, MI, OH, PA, etc.)
That is nearly a 3 million vote loss.
So yes, he is our president, but the majority of US citizens didn’t want this to happen.
I would take that more seriously if his current poll numbers wouldn’t be that different compared to other presidents (his job approval is actually improving).
What’s bewildering is not that 50% didn’t want him to be president, but that 48% thinks he is currently doing a good job AND is for this bullshit.
Voter turnout in 2016, as a percentage of voting age population, was higher than at any point in the 1970’s, 80’s, or 90’s. Higher, in fact, than any election since 1968 except for 2008 and (barely) 2004.
Black voter turnout was down, and while millennial vote increased, it’s still only 49%. Clinton also received as many votes as Obama did in 2012, and while trump did better than Romney, he only did marginally better than Bush in 04. (2016 did see a marked increase in 3rd party voting.)
Here’s what it looks like if Not Voting was a candidate.
The long and the short of it is trump barely won, and that took an unlikely confluence of events in order to happen; I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that trump is not increasing his base. So unless non-voters continue to stay home at the same rate, or unless trumpism is contagious, no, there’s no logical conclusion that ‘trump could easily win.’ (That does not take into account meddling/fixing et al from certain adversarial foreign nations.)
My hope is that more people will see the dire consequences of not voting or staying home and assuming that Clinton had a “99 percent” chance of winning, as some polls predicted.
Eh. I still choose to believe in our national myth even though it’s obviously a myth (says it right on the tin!).
Are there a whole lot of shitty Americans? Of course. There are a whole lot of shitty people in any group you choose to look at, throughout history. But we can aspire to be better, even here in 2018.
The point of the article is that actual actions of US is in contrast with the myth, even though we think otherwise. If we remove all the social media drama and look at actual policies and actions, was the Obama era that different?
I’m sure we’d all like that to be true, me included, but I’m not sure if it is.
What would you offer as an example of a better nation, built on better ideals?
The US is uniquely positioned, given its immense economic and military power. And no nation with that power has ever exercised the restraint we see in US foreign policy.
Even in cases like our adventures in Iraq, we fought that war with an unprecedented level consideration for civilians. Compare it, for example, to the Russian’s invasion of Afghanistan. Or hell, note that our intention wasn’t even to take over Iraq, which is what basically every other nation has always done when they’ve toppled a regime. For all the talk about how we wanted to steal all their oil, we could have just crushed the civilian population and taken their stuff like past colonial powers did. We could have treated the population like Hussein did.
Given the US’s central role in the world, it’s easy to find examples of questionable acts. We do a lot of things.
But you can look at things like the US disaster aid around the globe. The massive efforts to combat illnesses like AIDS in africa. Or hell, just the basic fundamentals of our country itself. Things like, “You are totally free to express yourself without the government oppressing you,” is an important thing. And it’s something that the US introduced to the world. And it’s still not that common in other places.
So yeah, fundamentally, America under Trump isn’t that different than America under Obama… but that’s because Trump has not yet been able to destroy those things which make America fundamentally good.
Perhaps. But I feel like y’all “Shining City on the Hill” assholes seriously turn a blind eye to places Central and South America. Given his heritage, I’m sure @ArmandoPenblade has all kind of warm and fuzzy feelings about the modern knight in shining armor that is the USA.
I do agree with @inactive_user’s sentiment that that sort of thing should be aspired to. I just think part of that is acknowledging our very many mistakes and flaws and trying to do better, rather than to thump our chests about our righteous we are as a nation.
EDIT: Let me jump out in advance and apologize for my tone. It’s a touchy subject that triggers me, as the whippersnappers say.
I don’t even know how you can judge that. We killed a million Iraqis as a result of what was either a massive blunder or a deliberate lie. That doesn’t look like consideration to me.
I’d like to see some numbers. In pure development aid alone, the EU outspends the US. And US development aid isn’t close to the top when you look at it as percentage of GDP.
Edit: As for the ideals we were ‘built on’, they look very flawed from the advantage of hindsight. Liberty and self-rule for white educated propertied males isn’t quite what we should be aspiring to.
