World is Falling Apart Thread (Locked forever)

[TEKTORO]

Please point me to "So the whole world is coming together thread"

[J T]

Hey now, corporations aren't opposed to civil rights; it doesn't affect their bottom line one way or the other.

Why is this not in blue text?

[MrPopo]

Because it's true. There's a lot for you to be concerned about with corporations; there's no need for you to invent ones.

[Ack]

One of my concerns now is that since the republicans now control the presidency, the house, the senate, and soon the supreme court, that they will use this power to change the rules of the democratic process; that they will make it so that corporate interests, using groups like Citizens United, can more easily funnel in money to buy politicians to do their bidding; that they will create stiffer voting requirement laws so that the poor, marginalized, and disenfranchised are less able to vote, leaving them without a voice in the political arena, and thus stacking the deck so that corporate shill republicans will never have to lose again. This will mean bye bye consumer protections. Bye bye environmental protections. Bye bye wall street regulations. Bye bye healthcare. Bye bye civil rights. Bye bye social services. Bye bye national parks. Bye bye.

Hello oligarchy.

I sincerely hope that I'm wrong about this.

Hang on a minute, JT. I think you need to stop and think about this.

First, there will be another major election in two years. Congress lately has proven it's not adept at getting much done in one or two years, and the Republicans may well lose out in that election.

Second, the GOP is hardly a monolith, just as the Democrats are not. Multiple factions exist which take different views on these topics, and these factions do butt heads over them. Combine rivalries with the Democratic minority, and the Republicans in Congress will not be able to pass everything its spokespersons have ever said it wanted. The "corporate shill" Republicans are only a piece of the larger pie. It's not that unified, and right now it has a "mandate" that I highly doubt it really understands based on Paul Ryan's statements.

Third, Donald Trump's views are ultimately unknowable at this point. He made vague campaign promises and proclamations, which he has already begun backing off from. Some of his proposed cabinet members and advisers range the political spectrum, including a variety of Republicans, right wingers, and even some Democrats. We have absolutely no idea what he will do(note, this is actually what worries me the most about the Trump presidency. I have no idea what normalcy is going to look like).

Fourth, of Donald Trump's vague promises, one has been an end to lobbyists' influence in government. If he does somehow manage to stick with this promise and follow through, this means that corporate influence may well decrease in politics.

Fifth, if Donald Trump goes way off course from the GOP, the Republicans do not have such the strategic advantage of numbers that they can override any veto in the House or the Senate.

Sixth, we have no idea what kind of judges Donald Trump would support for the Supreme Court. We do know that Merrick Garland, President Obama's pick for the Supreme Court, has now ended up back as chief judge of the US Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, where he will make decisions on legal matters concerning administrative agencies. His influence on the judiciary will still be felt.

Seventh, who voted for Trump? A lot of poor, marginalized, and disenfranchised voters from rural areas who in the previous presidential election supported Obama but felt that even with his positive message of hope and change they were still without a voice in the political arena. These voters want some of Obama's legacy to remain, and lately Trump has gone about changing some of his positions he had on the campaign trail to support this: for example, he's saying now that he wants to keep specific popular portions of the Affordable Care Act intact, such as the young keeping their parents health insurance until they're 26 or not allowing people to be turned away due to preexisting medical conditions.

Eighth, consider an issue like gay marriage. Trump's position during the campaign was that the states should have decided, and now he's declaring he's "fine" with it. Hell, McMullin, the Mormon conservative who would be considered the more traditional Republican, had the opinion that even if one didn't care for same-sex marriage, the courts had decided and it was a waste of resources to revisit the issue. Rights are not simply going to be stripped away from minorities because the Republican Party has its chance in the sun.

Look, this is not the end of the world, power has just changed hands for a brief moment in time in our nation. And despite the protests, the bigotry, and the anger and despair that some people are feeling, feeding, and reacting off of in portions of the country, this power transition has largely occurred peaceably. Step back, divorce yourself from labels and parties, and admire that this has happened in our society, something that has so often been unusual in the world in the past. This is, at most, a bump in the road for you. Eventually the power will transition back to be a bump in the road for someone else, again hopefully largely peaceably. Meanwhile the parties evolve and change. The corporate shills didn't win this election for Trump; Hell, they largely detested his campaign. The GOP had an active Never-Trump movement. But many individuals who had previously voted Democrat, a largely white working class who reside in midwestern rural communities, decided that they wanted the ultimate outsider to come in, a bully that they wanted to go after their bullies with all the grace of a sledgehammer. They also went with a perceived outsider last time in 2008/2012, bringing in Barack Obama as an outsider with limited experience in Washington DC on a message of hope. When that hope failed to materialize in the changes they so desperately wanted, they did their best to do it again with the Democratic Party this year with Bernie Sanders, again with a message of hope. When that failed, they dropped hope and went in the opposite direction, still with an outsider.

And that outsider has declared he'll upend the whole damn thing if need be, so don't set expectations because more than likely we're all going to be wrong about them at some point. Hell, we've already been wrong on this whole thing, we might as well concede that the next few years are going to be full of surprises. Don't start freaking out now that things aren't going the way you'd hope. It will get you, and us, nowhere.

[Exhuminator]

Don't start freaking out now that things aren't going the way you'd hope. It will get you, and us, nowhere.

Hold up a minute Ack, are you saying there might not be a civil war?

But on the real, Ack nailed things rather holistically.

[Ack]

Don't start freaking out now that things aren't going the way you'd hope. It will get you, and us, nowhere.

Hold up a minute Ack, are you saying there might not be a civil war?

But on the real, Ack nailed things rather holistically.

I'm just trying to keep a level head and open mind about all of this. Both parties are in flux and seem unsure on how to proceed, the world is in a strange state, and this is the first election where I have ever felt that I really did not know what to expect of the future. It's a trying time in a terrible year(unless you're a Cub's fan...which is its own kind of horror). I'd prefer we all strive to look ahead than lament what has come behind.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Don't start freaking out now that things aren't going the way you'd hope. It will get you, and us, nowhere.

Why not? It's what Republicans did when Obama won the presidency in 2008 and when he won re-election in 2012. It got them control of the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Presidency, 32 state governments, and a Supreme Court nomination.

[Ack]

Don't start freaking out now that things aren't going the way you'd hope. It will get you, and us, nowhere.

Why not? It's what Republicans did when Obama won the presidency in 2008 and when he won re-election in 2012. It got them control of the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Presidency, 32 state governments, and a Supreme Court nomination.

That isn't because they freaked, it's because they organized.

[prfsnl_gmr]

That isn't because they freaked, it's because they organized.

I saw no evidence of this organization - at least on the national level - during the 2016 campaign season...The Democrats, on the other hand, were exceptionally well-organized (generally tone deaf and completely lacking in political acumen, mind you, but organized nonetheless). They still lost.

I am going with the "freaking out" part. I have just as much evidence to support my position as the person in the video linked on the previous page, and that position just feels very, very "truthy" to me.

[Ack]

That isn't because they freaked, it's because they organized.

I saw absolutely no evidence of this organization - at least on the national level - during the 2016 campaign season...

You weren't looking in the right place then. When Trump ended up with the candidacy, the major fundraisers of the GOP turned away and went for all of those state and Congressional races. Suddenly millions flooded in to win those races that ordinarily would have been reserved for the presidential election. That is where the organizing went.