How Terrified Are You? January 2017

Gonna say 8, feels like a 9 but there's plenty of room for things to get worse.

7

things are bad. the level of resistance so far is encouraging so that's why i'm not saying higher. but we're only 10 days into this shit

personally i am experiencing

- trouble sleeping
- difficulty concentrating
- easily startled
- irritability
- anhedonia
- loss of interest in activities i used to enjoy
- loss of appetite
- pounding heart
- general feeling like i'm stuck on an unpleasant carnival ride i can't get off of

ebbs and flows for me, one day i feel pretty dire and then the next day a big protest/rally/resistance gets me through the day mildly unscathed.

i definitely have trouble sleeping

I'm about in the same place as marcos. It helps to live in a liberal metro area. It doesn't help to have lived in the 60s and therefore having a well-armed imagination concerning what is possible in the way of social disintegration.

I lost sleep on Election Night, after which I recovered. For me "terrified" is inapt. I call my congressmen and others as part of my routine, like exercise, and, like exercise, it helps me sleep. Also, I disconnect from news around 9 p.m. to read and write.

3 or 4, which is very high for me (i'm white btw). i am extremely confident that the doomsday shit (martial law, camps) that the paranoiacs fear will happen will not happen, but a bunch of terrible, lower-level shit is going to go down and it's going to take years to clean up. i mostly just hope trump doesn't start a war

3. I have trouble sleeping and I am checking for updates all the time, but I'm distracted more than terrified. Ultimately I don't think this administration will get very far, I don't think Trump and this administration will last til the summer, I think this past week has goosed Americans into paying more attention and participating and putting on pressure and that's a good thing.

I am worried that a demo will turn into a massacre, I am worried that Bannon will make some insane military command, but I truly believe that somehow Trump and this crew will be removed from power peacefully and quickly

personally i am experiencing

- trouble sleeping
- difficulty concentrating
- easily startled
- irritability
- anhedonia
- loss of interest in activities i used to enjoy
- loss of appetite
- pounding heart
- general feeling like i'm stuck on an unpleasant carnival ride i can't get off of

check check check check check check check &c

I don't know that I would use the word terrified either but I don't live in the us and I think I spoke about 20 words total today

xxxpost and you've consequently never failed to wish us all a Good Mourning!

(it strikes me that all those are maybe symptoms of something not totally related for me though) xp

Thread needs darraghmac for some balance.

(i'm white btw). i am extremely confident that the doomsday shit (martial law, camps) that the paranoiacs fear will happen will not happen

haha i am also extremely confident it won't happen ... to you, anyway

5-6 (lol white hetero male) but i'd say 9 on an anger scale (lol white hetero male?)

it is definitely not going to happen but i understand the paranoia

i'm about at a 5, predicated on the idea that the bad shit will be more restrictive than actually world destroying, and that trump won't last. i'd be at 10 if i felt like the whole country was being swept up by this nationalistic fervor, but it's decidedly not.

i'm feeling more a sense of mourning (alfred otm) at what may be potentially lost from the progress that's been made over the years, all because of a single craven and despicable human being, and the sense that i'm seeing a vanishing future of what could have been, and that america--which even under bush i think--was still a place that was vv slowly moving forward towards some ideal. and now look at these shitheads.

*well not because of a SINGLE person, but still

i think this is really bad and in some ways irreparably damaging, but i'm more pissed off than terrified (nb i am a white male)

i have a lot of those symptoms all the time tho

I had a full-on anxiety attack last week. It followed my inability to really convey any useful information during a presentation at work, but I figured it out -- I couldn't even put together a narrative of what I wanted to present because I've been so preoccupied with political shit. I felt completely helpless.

I'm a little better now having recognized that, but holy shit

only 5/6 tbh, I'm getting increasingly zen these days and it couldn't come at a better time

It varies. Sometimes I'm doing OK, sometimes I'm in "we're all going to die" mode. Constant swings between "comically absurd" and "terrifying dystopia".

I'd say overall it varies between 5 and 10.

i'd prob be at about 3-4 on the "terrified" scale (still 9 on anger) but honestly the number of "middle-America" maniacs who are just willingly going along with this, celebrating it, is what kicks it up a notch for me.

i hope it'll be better when i get the hell out of middle america. jesus indiana is terrifying as hell.

i stopped in indiana on a road trip this past spring and even pre-trump i got the willies. probably didn't help i was mostly on a toll highway and going to weird truck stops and candle stores (?)

I'm a little too fatalistic to get terrified until my life and limb is threatened, but voted 8

that's pretty high on the terrified scale

i'm pretty optimistic. i think there is a huge opportunity for a lot of people to do a lot of good. the women's march and airport protests were just the start. the gains progressives make during this era will have been through the acid test.

the media is very anti-Trump, which is the best possible setup imo. we are maybe better off with an openly antagonist media/watchdog class. protests are good for ratings? let's run w that.

7

I voted 8 but my resting heart rate is always in the 90s even when there isn't an anthropomorphic chinchilla in office

Was gonna say a 6 but when I remember each individual thing it goes up to like, a 16

Ignoring the judiciary branch definitely amped it up a notch

It's super frustrating that nobody in Congress seems to be doing anything to stop this madman but the fact that the anti-Trumpers seem to be so numerous and motivated these days definitely gives me some hope. I'm seeing a lot of horrified reactions from people in my FB sphere, many of whom didn't vote Clinton, a few of whom I know voted Trump even if they don't admit it. If his approval gets into the low-30s I suspect Congress will finally start taking action. Hopefully it's not too late!!

I have a low stress personality but having to keep up with + process the info overload has def made me way more anxious than normal. so maybe 5?

I think I would be more concerned if trump's first week had been really normalizing and he had an approval rating that was ticking up. like the idea of a soft-fascist friendly trump with a 60% approval rating scares me more than what he's done so far. right now he's putting business leaders, the media and even many republican politicians in a position where they don't even have the *option* to support him. so I put a lot of faith into the idea that his unpopularity 'matters' and I'm rooting for him to keep putting himself out of normal range, even though short-term that means terrible things for the country, economy and many individual people.

still - we don't know the end of this story yet, but it's gonna be pretty unpleasant. the most powerful man in the world has a mental disorder. the chances that there will be violence on the streets and/or a real constitutional crisis seem a lot higher than they did a week ago. but as far as personal safety goes, I would feel more scared walking around NYC w/ a MAGA hat than a clinton hat.

I feel exhausted more than anything. the 2016 campaign and having to deal with Trump's alternate universe was a mire I didn't want to get stuck in but did, with the understanding that it'd all be over soon, only for him to unexpectedly win.

I certainly wasn't *happier* with the deplorables hiding in plain sight because we all knew they were there and pointed out it for years to anybody who wanted to listen. But it's one thing to know that there are a lot of garbage human beings that believe heinous shit and another to be smacked in the face with supporting evidence day in and out.

Cent FL definitely has some Trump nests, people decorating their trucks with obnoxious slogans, bumper stickers, etc. The most bizarre one was being at a karaoke night shortly after the election, where this lady performed a duet of Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come" with her friend (who happened to be Black) and at the end of the song, after singing softly and politely, starts barking "Yay Trump!" and "Go Trump!" and then I realized why she picked the song and went flush with rage.

but the fact that the anti-Trumpers seem to be so numerous and motivated these days definitely gives me some hope. I'm seeing a lot of horrified reactions from people in

maybe they're plotting a coup in private

oh wait i clipped the wrong quote

i meant to clip this

It's super frustrating that nobody in Congress seems to be doing anything to stop this madman

sometimes i'm happy that he's so incompetent, sometimes i'm terrified that something like 100 million americans are cool with him _anyway_. more than trump it's those 100 million people who scare me.

Trump's approval ratings have stabilized my nerves, yeah.

xxpost I mean other than the "not voting against confirmation" fiasco (which I have started to gravitate towards Shakey on), what else can they really do other than public rebukes, which they have done? It isn't like they can censure him at this point, and many of them actually went to airports to try and get CBP to comply with the judge's order.

Discipline though would require more flagrant abuses, ones that would actually cause people to cross party lines. And may be coming, but we aren't there yet.

Really though the Dems should just put 5-10 reps/senators on tweet duty each night and do nothing but troll Trump 24/7 until he either deletes his profile or goes back to Valhalla

2-3 - it's getting harder to tell where hysteria ends and reality begins though.

7

i'd say 5.5 - more just an ongoing background static of unresolvable anxiety than any kind of real abject terror

it's getting harder to tell where hysteria ends and reality begins though

for me this is part of the terror

fear of the unknown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQUcjt10NGg

For various pockets of the country: 8 (political unrest plus economic turmoil plus ready access to guns). Less a formal, full-scale civil war, more regional skirmishes on the lines of the Malheur occupation or the Baltimore riots.

For myself: 3 (I am a middle-class white female who lives outside of those pockets I fear are vulnerable). Unless I start regularly going to demonstrations wearing a t-shirt reading "NASTY WOMEN OPPOSED TO TRUMP," I will be a lot less directly exposed to the brewing trouble.

Thread needs darraghmac for some balance.

― Eats like Elvis, shits like De Niro (Tom D.), Monday, 30 January 2017 21:41 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm white, insured, in a well paid public service job in a country thats in the EU and I think I voted 1 in that other poll.

Voted 7. I'm too young to have experienced a world leader I think is likely to tear up the social fabric of the US and/or start a nuclear war before and I'm not enjoying it

posts not not at all in character!

srsly seeing dmac even slightly worried is more troublesome to me than most things

Bah, I was looking for some justificatory support for my state of non-terror.

Am genuinly surprised by yr 7 deems. This is why these 'describe yr pain on a scale from one to ten' things don't make sense to me.

Voted 5. Which feels high, as it should be. Shit be stirring for real. As it stands the world totally sucks. Me and gf can't go to the US as planned because of her Iraqi passport. Family troubled even more. I've enough priviliges to pull through, but this is not the world I want to live in.

yeah i try to stay chill for y'all and its love rly it is but idk its not any good to even play blasé when i think of how much worse the movement behind trump has made the world in a year.

and i had a good day at work, im straight and i married recently, and the car passed the nct this week, i mean rly 7 is fucked

q for anyone who lived through any period of the cold war as an adult: did you feel any level of routine anxiety about the possibility of nuclear war? i'm feeling it now (not a lot, but it's there) and i'm curious how you coped w/ this. it seems fairly unlikely trump would start a nuclear war but "unlikely" is a major change from "unthinkable."

7 is fucked
5 is fucked
3 is fucked

even 1 is fucked tbh.

id have thought that the pending likelihood of a nuclear war was.... the...defining characteristic of living through the cold war, unless ive missed the point there

True, but I don't remember feeling much anxiety, plenty of other people (to put it mildly) did.

I probably wore a CND badge at some point. Actually I don't think I did.

didnt live during the cold war but did experience blackouts and the terror of being bombed if out on the streets during a civil war in a developing country plus other craziness

so my threshold for these things is pretty high

i didn't live through the cuban missile crisis or prague spring -- for me the rest of it was just *there* in the background. also sting suggested that the russians loved their children too

i do recall being relieved that i lived close enough to a major target that i would likely be vaporized rather than having to fight off mutants and wild dogs etc

I've never felt worse about the direction the world is heading in.

I'm probably at like a 4 or 5. helps that i live in canada and have healthcare, housing, and I'm a pasty white man. my overwhelming reaction is not fear or anxiety, tho there is a little of that, it's anger.

Tension, lack of sleep, general paranoia and exhaustion at my house*

*Some of which is admittedly in relation to other IRL stuff

weirdly my anxiety just shot up after the good news of the acting AG's decision moments ago, mostly cos while it was a hornet's nest that needed kicking, it's still a hornet's nest.

Still, though, Trump only recovered in the election because he was able to escape his ugly moments when the media focused on the opposing candidate. he doesn't have the deflection available now. he's digging deeper and deeper.

hopefully I go to bed a 3 tonight

This govt. sucks, but it kinda always sucks and has probably has since Kennedy got shot. I got to think that bastard Nixon probably put as much loathing and hand wringing into the world as Trump. Right now Trump is potential death, Nixon and his lackey Kissinger did policies that LITERALLY lead to a couple million people's death. Now all of that was when I was a child, so it wasn't my angst but I did grow up with fear of nuclear war. Shit to me, Freddie Krueger was a cartoon after seeing something like Threads or The Day After when you are like 14- that's a real horror movie and the contemplation of it probably is still with me now.

I'm way more wary of running into the heroin/pill head zombies or being out in the middle of the night and running into some idiot with a handgun who wants something that's not his. That seems way more probable fear to me as I see elements of it all the time.

xp i don't think it's that weird. my anxiety went up too. stuff is happening very fast, and it all seems very chaotic. between the open disagreements between branches of gov't and the pace at which the new administration is moving it's like watching your parents fight, while one of them is driving the car in a rainstorm.

if I'd known how fast things would go tonight I wouldn't have eaten an assload of gyros

^my fav Meatloaf bootleg

I usually fear the potential of personal smalltime apocalypses more than the dangerous global paradigm shifts that are being compared to early 20th century fascism recently. Typical self interest really. Tomorrow my partner who is very disabled with MS has an ATOS appointment in Pudsey which gives me more anxiety than Trump tbh. But even then I think "do your worst arseholes" can't be bothered with fear generally. it doesn't make any difference.

I think I struggle with two things atm:

1) social media makes everybody's reaction front and center and my legit OCD combined with left-brained means of assessing things 'adjusts' my mood to match that of other people if it's out of alignment

2) i'd already been mired in a 3-year battle w/ depression and worsening anxiety and had hit a real low point last year, so i've been repressing a lot

but the excitement in pushing back on this fucker is exhilarating.

Worries me that people I know are already getting tired of hearing about Trump and turning a blind eye to what is happening because of him.
Worries me taht other administrations are acting in sympathy with him at all not trying to work out how he can be removed.
Also worries me taht America still sees itself as the police force for the world with this crap going on.
Would think it forfeited any right to point the finger anywhere else with this nutter getting anywhere near power.

Optimistic taht something can be done before too much damage is inflicted but not sure what that point would be. or what that doing something about it would be. Other than continued protest & also pessimistic that an administration with no sense of shame is probably doing its best to undermine protest.

if I'd known how fast things would go tonight I wouldn't have eaten an assload of gyros

― Neanderthal

in other words "one", right?

they gave me 4 little pitas instead of 1 big one

PITAs

I am terrified that when my Sir Thomas More moment arrives I won't have the balls to do the right thing, or I'll do the right thing, and then my family as I know it is discontinued.
Now that's ridiculous, that won't happen, and we're not even likely to get to the part where it even has a chance of happening, but I feel that being frightened enough about it is an important ingredient in my morning routine, until we're all safely on the other side.

so you saw Silence again then

I still haven't seen it!

Gonna say 8, feels like a 9 but there's plenty of room for things to get worse.

8 because I'm constantly certain that things are gonna get worse

anxiety has levelled out substantially since October / November though, so that certainty's good for something

id have thought that the pending likelihood of a nuclear war was.... the...defining characteristic of living through the cold war, unless ive missed the point there

― Mother Teresa May I (darraghmac), Monday, January 30, 2017 7:06 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yesterday I was wondering what it was like to live in Germany during the rise of Fascism. Were there days when it was possible to ignore that Hitler fellow's language, because the weather was nice and there was going to be chicken for dinner?

The point of this, is that from what I remember of the Cold War, some days Mutually Assured Destruction was in my mind; other days I was happy or upset because of what was happening in my (sheltered) life.

Similarly, since the election sometimes I have found myself personally happy because things were going pleasantly for me. But I wonder if this is what people mean when they say we need to prevent the "normalization" of Trump and his associates' ways of behaving.

no, that's not what "normalization" means. you don't have to force yourself to never feel joy as long as trump is in office. you've probably run across lots of examples of normalization in the past. when somebody massacres a kindergarten class and the response is "it's horrible, it's too bad we can't do anything about it", _that_ is normalization.

My stress level was already pretty high under Obama and the things that can fuck up my life then aren't necessarily going to be worse/more likely under Trump.

Trump stress is more of a constant low-level tension of not being able to predict the future and the constant news cycle of new insanity, maybe a 4-5.

I'm at 11 now, but it'll be 6 when the shock of this wears off.

I'm kinda glad Trump did it because it was the kneejerk move that a seasoned politician wouldn't have made, and he is so blinded by pride and rage that he just lunged at it.

for me, the anxiety is because on one hand, everything in my actual day-to-day life is still totally the same and normal, but on the other, all these bizarro political things are happening that feel very threatening and very unpredictable. i mean, i grew up in a country (new zealand) that always felt very politically stable to me, i was very ignorant, and i've looked at other countries going through strife - the middle east, russia, even ireland because the IRA bombings and all that stuff was always all over the news when i was growing up - and never imagined i would be living in one of those countries. and it feels like the US is heading that way.

i'm white but i'm still on a green card, so that's also a bit nerve-wracking. like, i can't even imagine how truly scared a lot of people are right now, because of their birth country and religious beliefs. i'm too scared to even participate in any rallies or marches, because if by some small chance i got arrested, it would totally fuck up my green card status, and make it hard to get citizenship. i can't even plan a trip back to nz because i've got that worry that maybe i won't be allowed back into the US. i know it's unlikely, but trump and his cronies are just freaking me out too much to take that risk. i even told my husband we shouldn't make any long term plans or commitments to anything because i don't have any idea what's going to happen with this country. at least we have the last-resort option of moving to nz, which is more than most people have.

The president's closest adviser has an apocalyptic agenda for the world and will clearly do whatever it takes to accomplish it, and he has the most powerful country in the world nearly at his fingertips. This doesn't seem like some average usurpation of power, at least as far as Bannon's concerned. If you're not worried about that, then you've got ice for blood.

My anxiety levels have lowered a little bit seeing people unite, take to the streets, and successfully resist Trump. So I'd say 6-7 right now.

8 because he's so fucking nebulous that anything could happen at any moment. not 10 because (a) i'm shielded somewhat by not being in the usa and (b) after what australia's gone through in the past 3.5 years i seem to have lost the ability to sustain panic.

Wild oscillation depending on how much Updates I'm consuming and how cynically sanguine I'm being as a defense mechanism

just1n3, just wanted to say: as an immigration lawyer that is also living in the u.s. on a green card i got through a spouse, you can attend a protest and get arrested. only certain crimes render an lpr inadmissible to the united states -- they almost always involve either fraud, violence or drugs. and never political offenses.

you can also travel. there's an estimated 13 million green card holders in the u.s. there won't be a blanket ban.

yes 8 is p high, but my job's future is tenuous and i'm sick, not a good pairing in this era.

btw Silence lost 80% of its theaters last weekend, i wouldn't wait.

not quite as worried about nuclear annihilation as i was in the mid-80s yet but on the other hand the possibility of Trump's pirate junta actually getting away with seizing control of the whole machinery of government is fucking with my anxiety fairly steadily, gonna give 'em a 6 today

two threads at top of sna about dr who has pushed me to 8 this morning

what would push you to 9?

being forced to watch that shit

3-4 but I'm sitting in an airport with "Shake It Off" on the loudspeakers, ymmv

it's like watching your parents fight, while one of them is driving the car in a rainstorm.

otm

is it time to finally watch hypernormalization or is it going to push me over the edge?

I was a teenager during Cold War II and the worst I've existentially felt terrified was when the Korean airliner was shot down in 1983. Wargames had just come out a couple months earlier and I was convinced that every political escalation that week was leading down to some KOREAN AIRLINER nuke war plan sandwiched in between ALBANIAN DECOY and AFGHAN MISDIRECTION. I was just about to start college, do I even bother to buy books?

I don't feel the same way now. Everything Trump touches turns into Atlantic City-sized pools of poison and his non-plan for fucking up the government has been and will be completely fucked. Four years of this? I'm thinking that this charade barely lasts four weeks. Perhaps a little bit hoping/praying so. I would have felt like a martian had people *not* protested, and seeing the sheer numbers self-organizing and being out there among it all was good for the soul. I'm not terrified of President Bannon nuking Chicago ("told you I'd send in the Feds!"). I'm not even particularly terrified that the end point of this is when Federal troops square off against protestors - that's just suspense. I'm terrified that 62 million people have joined a cult. They've come to this cult for any number of reasons, but it's a cult and cults all have strange bedfellows .

I voted 7, but my girlfriend's mom is in the hospital - she's 83 and not expected to leave. I'm not terrified of anything.

when trump won i compared the shock to 9/11, but this migrant ban feels closer to it actually. after election night i just felt profoundly hopeless and depressed. right now i feel like my entire body is on high alert. my senses are like fucking tingling. and right after 9/11 in new york the reaction of new yorkers was just incredibly galvanizing and heartening, suddenly this shit-fuck petty city found a wellspring of generosity within itself that no one knew was there. i feel like that's happening now all over america.

I was all depressed and solipsistic but seeing the JFK protests self-organize in minutes was legit inspiring. I didn't see any Trump supporters out in the streets.

Bad:
- TrumpBannon's tactic seems to be to keep the outrages coming at such a rate no-one questions the last illegal manoeuvre because a new one has come along (divestment of business interests, golden showers video, Russian election interference - all off the front pages now)
- the world is now relying on traditional Republican politicians to stand up to a cabal of wannabe-despots
- the new regime, to a large extent not being from a political background, couldn't care less about democratic principles and probably have a long-term plan to suspend the Constitution if they can get away with it
- if not, and if this clown is still there in 4 years' time there is NO WAY he'll accept the legality of an election defeat
- this may have a knock-on effect on European elections, leading to far-right govt in France at the very least and the subsequent annihilation of the EU once and for all
- my personal experience with narcissist sociopaths tells me that predictions are impossible, as even Trump doesn't know what he'll do next (although Bannon surely does, which might be even scarier)
- this may well be a foretaste of how the world will be once the looming environmental crisis kicks in for real in the near-future

Good:
.................cat pics?

Also good: protests, politicisation of many, the same social media that allowed this to happen could also help to defeat it

Wondering what this means for the future. Even if this was stopped right now it has set the precedent that things can go this far. It might have people saying mistakes were made and trying to avoid those specific mistakes.
But you're left with a major mess that has lead to people being intentionally excluded from a supposed democracy. Hate to think what distortions that could lead to in future. If the wrong hands got some popular support and enough apathy from what should be the opposing side.
Interesting times.

IN other words this has shown the extent to which a right wing agenda can be pushed is further than previously assumed. So in more subtle hands might go much further. It is unlikely that a clumsy charlatan would be able to get into a similar position again, if this is stopped now, but somebody with a bit more intelligence might be able to push things a lot further.
So I'd be worried taht somebody might come along in 20 or 30 years and try to push things taht way. Is the Repoublican party going to step back towards the centre after thsi point anyway?

A revolution would be so handy right now. Hoping that the truly evil would form an orderly queue to be first in line for first up against the wall.

Wondering if there's anybody in the UK who might be able to pull a similar trick? Not Boris Johnson, surely, or any of the grey suit trad Whitehall types. But it's not like the country isn't going down the shitbin at an accelerating rate, and that's when tyrants can poke their heads out of the mire if armed with the right promises.

Russell Brand, maybe. Doesn't seem any more ridiculous than Trump managing it.

A glass haff full scenario is that Trump crashes and burns so badly that some of the sheen gets taken off right wing populism - unfortunately this is what the German Communist Party thought about you-know-who in the 30s.

(xp) Lord Protector Clarkson

- this may well be a foretaste of how the world will be once the looming environmental crisis kicks in for real in the near-future

My suspicion that this already in progress. It's not just Exxon - *everyone* knew that this was coming and global capital responded accordingly - going as global as possible while these horrible right wing id monsters swoop in to fill up the power vacuum. Elon Musk is legit going Alternative 3, and that was one of the wackiest conspiracy theories ever.

I'd say I'm about a 5 rising to 6 occasionally, it's more a constant feeling of dread and uncertainty than actual panic or fear, and a lot of the time I don't really it at all. It's easy to feel insulated in London though (which in regard to our own issues was part of the problem in the first place).

i'm at about a 4. maintaining this precarious position through weed and hugging my cats

Idk I voted 3 because I don't feel any identifiable fear but otoh I am exhausted all the time so maybe it's just taking itself out on me another way.

It's easy to feel insulated in London though

won't be saying that when Bannon nukes us to demonstrate America's iron will

"Happy Independence Day, motherfuckers"

I'm far more terrified for people who differ from my own demographic profile (cis, white, not an adherent of one of those scaaaaaaary non-Christian religions, able-bodied, relatively mentally healthy, college educated, urban, native-born American male living above the poverty line) than I am for myself. Probably a 3 for me but like an 8 for them which kinda nullifies the 3 for me.

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2017/01/30/military-convoy-trump-flag-rolls-through/97255844/

everything is fine

nitpicky but maybe anxious would have been better wording just because terror is such an extreme emotion that to say "I'm about 4 or 5 terrified" sounds weird

only an idiot would be sanguine about nazis in the white house or about what they've been doing, I'm not thinking too much about possible nuclear apocalypse right now vs stuff like my family possibly being targeted which seems a lot closer to happening

voted 8

As long as I remain employed, 3 for myself. But feeling a 10 for the future of everything else.

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2017/01/30/military-convoy-trump-flag-rolls-through/97255844🔗/

everything is fine

I'm disappointed they didn't put coal rollers on their shitty army surplus trucks

i go about my everyday political reading thinking it's a 9 or 10, then come across something about supreme commander bannon's rise to power and think huh i guess that wasn't so bad after all

I don't get the posters on here saying they're not personally worried, because they're not targets. If you're an intellectual, a liberal, a left-winger, an aesthete, educated, a city-dweller, free thinker, weirdo, bohemian, hipster, any of that, you're as much of a target as any POC, Muslim, LGBT person, you're just a little lower on the list. Doesn't matter if you're white, Christian-born, male, straight, etc.

So a whole lot of you aren't going to get a pass if the patterns of history about these movements are correct.

you are greatly misquoting what a lot of people in this thread said but w/e

i mean i'm terrified because i'm a bleeding heart but even as a chronically mentally ill weirdo i'm still not at the top of anybody's list. i'm less afraid for myself than i am for the people i love.

Say Trump and Bannon somehow consolidate power and had their wish of anything. You don't think the Pepe Deathsquads wouldn't go after leftist SJW hipsters from the city who think they're so smart? That's like, their #1 target, listening to these people, Muslims aren't even as high. These fascist authoritarians have some fascination with destroying the types of people you find on ILX, they just lack the guts/opportunity.

This is a dark timeline I'm imagining here, but reading history about these movements, the ILX demographic tends not to do very well in them, is all I'm saying. So we all do most certainly have a personal stake in this even if you're typically not in a traditionally targeted group.

curious what other message board communities existed prior to the 1990s

I don't understand the point you're trying to make, larry, but I'm getting used to that being the case. I'm not going to reread the entire thread but I don't think anyone was asserting that they didn't have a personal stake in current events.

If anything, I feel like I have more of a moral imperative to do what I can to counteract this shit precisely because I'm not among the most obvious targets.

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2017/01/30/military-convoy-trump-flag-rolls-through/97255844🔗/
everything is fine

guessing these are the same jackass idiots who do this w/pickup trucks and confederate flags on rural highways in the south

If anything, I feel like I have more of a moral imperative to do what I can to counteract this shit precisely because I'm not among the most obvious targets.

If you're posting to ILX, chances are you are one of the obvious targets. Intelligent, educated, cultured, left-leaning people go to the camps, get gunned down, all the same as Jews, Muslims, LGBT, disabled, etc. They're like, #2 or #3 on the list because not only are they resented, they're also threats to the regime's reality. Ever listen to these guys? Trump supporters hate ILX-type people more than Muslim people or Jewish people. Don't think they wouldn't relish the opportunity to finally take down those SJW hipster smart-asses? They'd probably pull the trigger faster than they would for any other group.

Not trying to freak you out, I just think it's absurd to forget that fascist movements, especially based on bizarre race genetics bullshit, and creating these unverifiable alternate realities, it's almost a necessity to disappear the intelligent, educated, moral, ethical, etc, making these people pretty high up on the list.

Yikes, I didn't realize the pogroms had already started, but thanks for the heads up.

. If you're an intellectual, a liberal, a left-winger, an aesthete, educated, a city-dweller, free thinker, weirdo, bohemian, hipster, any of that, you're as much of a target as any POC, Muslim, LGBT person, you're just a little lower on the list. Doesn't matter if you're white, Christian-born, male, straight, etc.

sorry dude this is bullshit

white hipster dudes in brooklyn are going to be just fine. "a little lower on the list" below a syrian refugee family who is denied entry to the US or muslim attendees at a mosque who are targeted with a violent attack? please dude

For real. Like, even in the most extreme hypothetical case where that's true, a person with white skin is less of an obvious target than a person with dark skin.

anyway i work at a university and went to campus-wide information session hosted by the office for international affairs and the provost. the auditorium was packed w/ international students, most of them from the middle east. people were in tears. plenty of students from the 7 countries on the list. they cried while sharing their fears of being deported or cancelling visits with family they haven't seen in years. people are scared.

and this is like a relatively privileged group of muslim and arab students, people studying to be doctors, engineers, nurses. they are terrified too

sorry dude this is bullshit

yeaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh, let's just forget what Hitler did, Pol Pot did, and a thousand other authoritarian fascists. It's pretty standard shit, man.

I'm thinking worst case scenarios here, because that's what I do. And what I'm saying here is only a plain description of historical patterns that are very easily verified.

white hipster dudes in brooklyn are going to be just fine. "a little lower on the list" below a syrian refugee family who is denied entry to the US or muslim attendees at a mosque who are targeted with a violent attack? please dude

Yeah, it starts with Syrian refugees and Mosque attacks. Think that's going to satisfy these people? Whatever. My ancestors escaped this shit in Europe because they saw it coming ahead of time. Maybe I'm getting some kind-of ancestral spidey sense here. Really, I'm just putting historical patterns together and imagining a worst case scenario, because there's no going back from that.

If I can guess your state of mind, if you collaborate you'll be fine. I'm sure you're smart enough to know how these movements play out. I'm not sure I have it in me to collaborate and run my mouth about helping, so I'm figuring out what to do from here. If the worst case scenario happens, which is possible, then more people than Muslims and Syrian refugees are screwed.

first they came for the hipsters, aesthetes, dreamers, free-thinkers, croissant-munchers and game theoreticians

marcos, do you work at CWRU? Do you know Cami Ross?

phil i don't know her personally but she was at the meeting yesterday, answering questions along w/ other people from administration. she seems very cool!

larry appleton gunning for the "ILX Poster of the Year" award

i think larry is speaking the truth but not exactly sure to what purpose

yeah, she's very cool. I only know her a little, but I know her husband relatively well, and he's a lifelong friend of another friend/co-worker of mine.

i think larry is speaking the truth but not exactly sure to what purpose

― the late great, Tuesday, January 31, 2017 3:49 PM (fifty seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'll be straight-forward with it, I want people to feel like they have a real personal stake in this to create genuine solidarity. My goal is to inspire greater action from a greater number of people with a greater level of commitment, because I really don't want to see any of these worst case scenarios happen.

I'm thinking worst case scenarios here, because that's what I do.

Okay, gotcha. Well, in that case, we don't even need to worry about being rounded up and shot because Skynet is arming nuclear missiles to disperse Captain Trips among whatever small portion of the population hasn't already dissolved into grey goo.

Or we could, y'know, respond to shit that's actually happening or is likely to happen.

larry good job making a diverse coalition based on a broad vision of human rights all about the issue of whether or not you, personally, are going to wind up in a FEMA death camp.

I think there might be better ways to spur people to action than positing unlikely worst case scenarios

also, larry, you are more than welcome in the trumpology thread at any time. that thread is custom made for the keen insight and analysis of people like you.

I'll be straight-forward with it, I want people to feel like they have a real personal stake in this to create genuine solidarity. My goal is to inspire greater action from a greater number of people with a greater level of commitment, because I really don't want to see any of these worst case scenarios happen.

That is interesting, because the way it is coming across is "how can I take all of the horrible shittiness currently being directed towards minorities and recast it so that it primarily impacts white people, the subtext being that they are the people who really matter in this country so we need to make sure it's reiterated and highlighted that this affects them before anyone can get upset about it"

This is of course is not even touching on the assumption that post was built upon, namely that everyone posting on ILX or even this thread is a white person.

Yeah, whatever dudes. Every time you guys are like MNURRRR NOT GONNA HAPPEN, what I say is going to happen, happens. You guys have your heads shoved way too far up your asses.

fuck you

you are posting white supremacy from the left at the moment. fuck everything about you.

every single goddamned thing

wanna know why I'm terrified? because a significant number of my alleged "allies" are looking for ways out of this situation that, by definition, marginalize me and my family in ways similar to the way the current regime would like to marginalize me and my family.

you are posting white supremacy from the left at the moment. fuck everything about you.

I've probably incurred more permanent physical damage fighting white supremacists than you have. It's not a contest, but to make that claim against me is idiotic. Maybe I'm just not communicating my point here correctly.

What I have been trying to do for you, is to get a lot of these people who feel like they don't have personal stakes in this, to feel like they are in the same group as you, so they fight as hard for you as they would themselves. I'm trying to help, and all you're going on about is how it makes your being a victim less special. WTF is that?

ok leave dude

you stupid motherfucker

jesus christ

I forgot you dudes were a bunch of narcissistic sociopaths who masquerade as decent people. Seeya!

Just a quick technical question: how many times are we allowed to flag a post?

I've probably incurred more permanent physical damage fighting white supremacists than you have.

It's not a contest

I've probably incurred more permanent physical damage fighting white supremacists than you have.

It's not a contest

I've probably incurred more permanent physical damage fighting white supremacists than you have.

It's not a contest

I'd tried in the past to be restrained and polite and handle you as if you were just misguided and frustrated, larry, but I'm going to go ahead and dispense with formalities to join in the chorus of people telling you to go fuck yourself.

larry, you can be a victim if you choose to be. I don't know why you want to be one but it's there for you as an option if you want it, which it seems you want desperately.

I do not want to be a victim. Most of the time, I am not a victim. As things stand, I will not be a victim due to where I live and the resources I have at my disposal. Even the shittiest executive order is not likely to directly impact me due to my race. What this environment is doing, however, is creating the official sanctioning of persecuting people who have been defined as "different" along specific axes that do not currently include "white". I am not concerned about the government coming to get me; I am concerned about being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting jumped by yokels. What we're going to see here (and what we've already seen) is an increase in blatant hate crimes across the country; any response that doesn't include addressing and protecting people from that is an incomplete response.

In summation, fuck you.

xxxpost like seriously do you think the people that posted here earlier actually don't care about demographics outside of their own? Most people were reflecting they came from a place of privilege while also stating their abject fear was based on their concerns for other people in their lives who stand to lose a lot more from it.

where the fuck do you get off coming in here like Dr Wokenstein pretending like you were the first dude ITT to suggest that minorities, immigrants, LGBTQ, and other already-marginalized groups stand to lose the most in this administration? you're blowing nobody's mind and in the process actually insulting one of the people you claim to be advocating for, and then not listening to their criticism that you're tone deaf.

DJP otfm x 100

I think we know who the narcissicistic sociopath is

LOL "Dr wokensteln"

Dude has resolutely refused to listen to anyone about anything since at least the election. He's the enlightened savior of millions, singlehandedly trudging through the blood-filled streets to bludgeon fascists with his fists of righteous while you and me? We sit here with our lattes and our Game Boys, never realizing that they've been building a prison camp around us this whole time. Wake up, sheeple. Wake up.

I think I meant 'fists of righteous fury' or something, but 'fists of righteous' works.

ilx clusterfuck has actually moved my dial back down to a 5 thx guys x

lol agreed

yeah all of us coming together to fp larry has had an oddly soothing effect

lemme try...

yeah, that is a nice feeling

who is larry appleton, i mean originally. old user/new name? or new user?

last night i watched melancholia and a little before that i watched children of men.

that knocked my dial up to 8
knocked my dial up probably not the best way to put it but in these times, we have to live with our mistakes.

#nodelete2017

how do you not know larry? he singlehandedly ended the drone strike program with only the power of his wokeness xp

nothing brings a group together more than telling That One Guy to go fuck himself

change my style up
knock my dial up

i don't mean the guy from berkeley who plays the cowboy boot, but i guess i wouldn't object if somebody wanted to tell him to go fuck himself too

I'm trying to imagine the balls it takes to tell someone who literally had a grandparent lynched that they haven't suffered enough from white supremacy.

(actually it was 2 great-grandparents)

Sorry, I couldn't remember the exact history and it felt rude to ask about it. Still, good god.

http://www.theonion.com/multiblogpost/i-am-so-starving-vs-i-am-so-starving-11541

I only talked about one because there was an investigation on the circumstances by a law student at Northeastern that culminated in a presentation where my dad's cousin, who was approaching his teenage years at the time, spoke about how the whole thing affected our family.

This was the final report: http://nuweb9.neu.edu/civilrights/wp-content/uploads/samuel-mason-bacon.pdf

This is the type of thing we can expect to see a direct resurgence of; we may have already gotten a preview with what happened to Sandra Bland.

6. If I was in the US it would no doubt be higher.

But the larger point is bigger than me or things that have happened in my family; current events culminate in tacit federal approval of the targeting specifically of Muslims and Hispanics for hate crimes. Unless we fight, we will see abuses against those people rise dramatically. We need to stop things before they escalate beyond that and push back so that those abuses subside because we've all seen how this script plays out multiple times and if "American exceptionalism" is to mean anything other than "yay white people no matter how mediocre they are", it needs to be about learning from history and not making the same mistakes people who came before us made.

Broad fronts that want to bury the specificity of victims are some bullshit, basically

leftbros that are convinced you can't address the specific harms suffered by marginalized groups and the universal harms suffered by workers under capitalism in the same platform make me furious

steve bannon being in charge of a thing where he can order assassinations of US citizens without restraints has probably nudged me up the anxiety ladder a bit further

xps thanks, lion in winter! what are your thoughts on applying for citizenship right now? my husband wants me to do so ASAP because he's a catastrophizer of the highest order and is paranoid all non-citizens are getting the boot; i, on the other hand, think now is a bad time to apply because everything is too up in the air and probably a zillion other people are desperately trying to fasttrack their naturalizations.

also: the govt positioning itself in absolute opposition to mainstream media is scary af

bill o'reilly condemning the immigration ban - wtf the apocalypse is coming. this guy is such a piece of shit, that if even HE thinks this is awful... well.

I thought O'Reilly had the occasional outbreak of humanity?

Dershowitz critical of Yates

they gave me 4 little pitas instead of 1 big one

― Neanderthal, Tuesday, 31 January 2017 00:58

You might say that's a real two-tortilla burrito

the reason i bumped the original 'how terrified are you' thread and asked for a repoll was because at work i noticed the iranians were mostly talking amongst themselves throughout the day and i felt like they were seeking each others' support, naturally, because of the travel ban announced on the weekend

everyone has their own coping mechanism obviously and it's obvious that because of my appearance and socioeconomic situation, i feel way less threatened and experience the world differently. but these colleagues of mine are fairly well off and some had even expressed agreement with some (albeit few) of trump's opinions. one iranian in particular had told me his theory about the us-iran political tension (won't get into it here), which put him at odds with some iranians

so ya, i'm on the lower end of this terrified-spectrum, but i saw that they were genuinely very concerned. i sympathize and see how a lot of other people are genuinely freaking out for valid reasons. among many other things, that trump has created an environment of the unexpected where racism can thrive. he is now using the attack on the quebec mosque to create greater distrust of muslims. this distrust is permeating through a lot of people and causing instability in various parts of society, and it doesn't only open the country up to coups, foreign attacks, etc, but has really fractured american society, where things can be misinterpreted and there's this mass confusion even within families

personally, in terms of coping, i find laughter to be helpful, and i've seen other people do the same when they were worried about getting bombed, but that's just me

(wrote this while doing a million things at work which i probably shouldnt have done so forgot the overall point i was making)

just1n3

i am applying for my us citizenship now (waiting for an interview)

was given more conservative advice that goes contrary to what lion in winter says

the way i understood it, the law is ambiguous when it comes to punishment for misdemeanours, crimes of moral turpitude, etc

thing is, in my circle at least, we view the us as draconian, so tread carefully i'd say

No, F Sharp, your post makes perfect sense and is an honest 'slice of life', it's not pointless at all. May I ask what sort of work you do? What branch your Iranian colleagues are in?

I know quite a few Iranians, and have become close friends with a few through gf. Got to know them over the years and I am genuinely impressed by how smart, resourceful and 'flexible' they are, all in v different areas of life and work (law, it, engineering, journalism). More than one - unrelated young men - expressed that growing up in a schizophrenic Iran (tyrant state, but behind closed doors, 'underground', quite some personal freedom) might have contributed to that 'flexibility', being able to take things in stride, and knowing that relying on yourself can get you a long way.

Don't mean to generalize, but the way they cope with setbacks and find their way in a world outside the country they grew up is really impressive.

supply chain management!

ya there are all types of people, but my experience working with them has been p good

Thats cool.

one dude tells me crazy stories about iran

it's fun learning things about how they experienced the 70s over there

and he's into music too so we talk about gougoush and stuff (we're in la as is she i blv)

Ahh that's great, Googoosh is in LA yes. And I hear you about the 'crazy stories'.

at a steady 6 with surges to 8 when i start to think too much about stuff or think about SB at all
mom advised me wisely not to stress on tr*mp because he doesn't deserve my energy and is not worth it; but i am the same person who has had a google alert for erik prince for at least 5 (6?) years so i can keep track of what that malevolent warthog is up to. i have a very high tolerance for bad news and still find myself unable to sleep; i have a strong stomach unless we're talking about misogyny or strong anti-immigrant rhetoric. most of the time i am ok when i am at work or out/with friends, less so at home. i've decided that one room of my home will be totally unconnected to the outside world so i can still have a place to breathe and relax when i am there. or pretend at least.

i do recall being relieved that i lived close enough to a major target that i would likely be vaporized rather than having to fight off mutants and wild dogs etc
the threat of being vaporized has always been soothing; it's life in a repressive regime that i find terrifying. worrying about people finding something to nail me on even though i have done nothing to get nailed on :( ilx actually makes it worse because of sockpuppets and/or nameless faceless strangers being intentionally antagonistic.

my russian and chilean coworkers who lived through the '70s in their countries of origin (and are old enough to remember) both agreed that this feels worse, and more unpredictably surreal than their prior experiences with repression :( :( :(

also betsy devos could (might?) destroy my workplace, which provides valuable life-changing education to an underserved community :( :( :(

on the upside, ilm is still a place i can comfortably talk about music and chat about the most powerful jaki jams, which is definitely relaxing and enjoyable

hey ∞, when did you begin the process? i'd be interested in knowing how long it takes between applying and getting an interview.

sept!

i've heard in california, where i'm at, everything takes longer though because of the huge number of applicants/population

Re: Googoosh - http://www.thefader.com/2017/01/31/googoosh-donald-trump-muslim-ban-london

Aw no no no... :( That bums me out. This fucking world.

i'm back at 11 today. if I had a normal brain, I could maybe get by. with OCD, every possible worst case scenario keeps flashing in my head and I can't stop it, not helped at all by me surrounding myself with material that confirms my own fears.

i've vowed today to just go on living my life and take 1-2 hours out of the day to review current affairs, then move on, but i'm having difficulty. stifling panic attacks all day is just suffocating, I can't go through this for four years....the last three have been bad enough.

FUCK.

the idea of emigrating and fighting it from abroad is something I never thought I'd legit consider and yet now it's all I think of.

so that's what it's like to post during a panic attack! i'm ok now

i spike up to 8 but I'm doing my darnedest to maintain a 4 or 5. I know if I stay at 8 every waking hour of every day I'll be 10 in no time and a blibbering mess by march.

marathon not a sprint, etc. need to save my energy for the inevitable actual hunger games j/k not really but kinda

, I want people to feel like they have a real personal stake in this to create genuine solidarity

Finally catching up on this thread and what the fuck

listening to the latest Hardcore History is making me shoot right up to 10 tbh

preferring for now to take the Brian Eno line of "this is the end of something, not the beginning of it," which helps. (not that living through such things is ever desirable...)

i spent much of last summer reading things like "the rise and fall of the third reich" and timothy snyder's books, watching Shoah and other WW2 docs--i realize now i was unconsciously girding myself for something like this.

I will say that in no way is our situation as precarious as that, but one thing you learn from that kind of immersion is that resolving to fight, to go down fighting if need be, is far less anxiety inducing than imagining yourself a victim. you have to believe you have agency and self-determination and some control over the situation even if you dont. i dont know how this cashes out in reality, but just as a psychological stance to take--aggressive not passive--it is calming. and probably more productive too.

The Decline and Fall of the US Empire?
Wouldn't be so scary if it was self contained to Washington or at least the political element therein. Draining the swamp by imploding and sucking out the bad with you?
Better than swamping the drain anyway.
Wonder how long things will sit stagnant and festering.

I'm still optimistically hoping for a deus ex-machina of some kind or a united public getting rid of the administration. But from what I've heard there isn't a complete overturn of what is a group of disgusting individuals, it would all be the one individual.

Not sure if the next in line being absolutely unfitting would have less opportunity to be replaced but it would drag things out.

2. but i live in england. if i lived in the US probably be a 6 or 7.

can't say i'm any more worried about nuclear war than i was in the late 70's early 80's when i was a kid ie i was worried for about an hour after watching 'threads' then forgot all about it.

Holy balls, I almost never FP a poster but it was necessary, if not necessarily cathartic.

I'm on a pretty solid 6, rising to 8 when there are specific policy announcements/EOs or I'm on the phone with my mother, who voted for 45 and yesterday said 'I think he's a workaholic' (this was a positive) combined with a bunch of gaslighty shit - I finally told her to stop talking about it because we are not going to agree. Marching makes me feel less alone, especially in London.

Who did you FP?

there was one particular rotten apple on this thread yesterday that must be the prime candidate.

Oh, I'd forgotten that bizarre episode.

Something shifted in me between last night and this morning and I'm absolutely terrified.

The craziness that is a riot at Berkeley taking over right-wing news outlets-- while the Texas mosque burning was barely a blip, "violence is never the answer" assholes coming out of the woodwork, confirmation after confirmation, executive order after executive order. I read the antifa reddit this morning and saw it was polluted with clearly-fake information designed to disrupt and confuse any possible organization. I feel as if my perception of the world is crumbling very fast.

The interesting feeling I had last night was that I began to respect the alt-right movement for how successful it has been at shaping the internet into a gaslighting race-warmongering hellhole, and simultaneous with that feeling of respect was a desire to absolutely commit myself to the destruction of that movement.

I feel conflicted about using my public voice for any sort of political means.. last night when I was reading the news about Berkeley I almost rage-tweeted "Make America Declare War On Fascism Again" with images of Mussolini's corpse. Probably not a good thing. I don't know what to do any more except to turn off the news, attend marches, and make work

Yeah, I'm thinking more and more that the internet needs to become a secondary tool wrt organization and resistance.

fgti are you a dual citizen?

Absolutely turn off the news, a state of constant alarm will kill you

No Morbs, Canadian. I have an renewable O1 visa, and had been living and working in L.A. this past year-- I'm not sure if it was legal or not that I was doing so, as the O1 visa is for soloists/athletes who come to the states for gigs or games and then go home. I just moved back to Canada for a job and think I'm gonna stay here. As a non-US citizen I didn't feel safe about participating in activist activities the same way I have in the past in Canada.

sitting in a bathtub twitching so I'm once again trying the "break from news/social media" thing that I've failed two days in a row now. i think the general principles are good to follow:

1) take a break from the news periodically and dont keep refreshing it every 5 minutes - it'll be waiting for you when you come back to it
2) worrying is nowhere near as productive as strategizing and acting
3) our ability to predict outcomes in situations like these is middling at best
4) giving in to despair makes any action less effective
5) react to what has happened, and stop assuming Machiavellian strategizing behind every bit of news
6) don't forget to keep living in the process

I've decided that once I've had my inevitable brain or cardiac event, I'll ease up on the current events and maybe just stick to like SVU marathons.

neanderthal, that's all excellent advice. wishing you the best. i'm still up and down but am more up today. i'm finding that getting out a lot, getting involved on the ground with blm, etc., is really helping, though i'm constantly emotionally exhausted.

i expect the 2017 Baseball Prospectus annual delivered today

so that'll hold me til next Schumer protest on Tuesday

I had a much better day - walked five miles, met a friend for lunch, devised a truly banging chilli paneer to boot the last of a head cold, and managed to process most of the twin shitstorms (Brexit is not helping either) without wanting to scream.

been unfollowing people on instagram that post too much Trump content. which for me is more than 2 a day. i signed up to see your art or your kid or your house party, not to see a retweet of a tweet with a comment complaining about how much that person tweets. this morning at 730am while waiting for the bus i read one of these, it was a picture of Trump's tweet and the comment was this long rant about why is this guy tweeting at 6am. who the fuck cares? i figure if he orders a missile strike on Mexico i'm not going to rely on an instagram meme to find out.

I'm down to a 4. stopping refreshing the news endlessly was huge to me.

we might be headed for the end times, we might be headed for merely 'bad but repairable times', but ultimately, if shit happens that I can't control, well, w/e. will fight it where I can but the illusion of control hurts more than it helps where you can't make a difference.

I am so hella glad that I have so much saved in the bank now tho. I'll say that much

"if only I saw the instagram with the pic of the nuclear warhead, I could have stopped it in time"

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

11 posters cool as cucumbers

mean is 6.01, median is 6

compare to 2009, mean was 4.83, median of 4

so it appears the 133 of us voting this year are somewhat more terrified than the 155 of us voting in 2009, but not that much more terrified?

i'm not feeling up to the challenge of STDEV but

http://i.imgur.com/JYncmiW.png

http://i.imgur.com/s4wHHV2.png

clearly it went down

lol, i went to make a chart as well

http://i.imgur.com/fxHmVCL.png

actually the standard deviation is not that different!

it did go down but not as mucb as i expected from just looking at the graph

I really think my terror going from like 8 to 4 came about due to the court pwning Trump and him reacting predictably as well as just deciding I'm not gonna let the daily news cycle ruin my life.

i am a lil nervous about tomorrow tho, to see what butthurt he continues to bring about the judges. merely bitching and moaning is poor taste, not 'illegal' obv, but I don't like when a rabblerouser President attempts to turn his base against the institutions created by the Constitution as a check and balance.

terrified of retribution IRL against judges and shit.

The problem with letting judges "handle" Trump is obviously that there are plenty of terrible, destructive things he and Congress can do that are perfectly legal.

literally shitting my pants but i don't think it's because i'm terrified, someone plz help

here take these alpine static. they may not fit as well but they are nice clean pants

i would buy a brand of incontinence pants called "alpine static"

soiling yourself can be the ultimate expression of contentment

For sale: shit pants, worn once

Despite whether it's proportionate to reality, every single morning I wake up irrationally listening for a large explosion (I live across the river from NYC).

Other than that I'm generally not feeling a ton of dread, but that's mostly due to a defensive numbness I've always had switched on my entire life.

terrified of retribution IRL against judges and shit.

― Neanderthal, Sunday, February 5, 2017 11:01 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you can be sure all these judges ruling against him have received death threats im sure

Yes, I'm positive that people who are petrified of terrorism have themselves been terrorizing these judges.

Feel like we could save ourselves a lot of time by pointing out the rare instances of cognitive consonance among Trumpists.

up to 8 or 9 over the last few days, highest it's been for me, and almost entirely due to the IC leaks and their potential resolution, win or lose

loss of sleep, lack of interest in normal activities, drinking too much...

the first couple of weeks with the massive protests, overwhelming volume of calls to reps, etc, felt terrific by comparison

i've started having recurring nightmares about large scale disasters which has raised me back up a point or 2

at more of a 3 or 4 now, not because it's normalized, but since my brain eventually said "you can't function if you're freaking out every damn day".

shit like the DOJ Affirmative Action story or North Korea developments and I go back up p quick tho

terror of trump administration starting to level out, terror of americans continuing to increase

eesh yeah that's kinda where I'm at too.

my 5 has dropped to a 3 thanks to normalizing. good job everyone who tirelessly reposts every tweet

Your sarcasm is actually spat truth

At this point, I'm almost less afraid of Trump and his administration than I am the possibility that they're going to coast through four (eight?) years without suffering anything like a real consequence of their actions. Because if there isn't sufficient pushback on this level of naked hate and ignorance and venality, how much lower do we go before we're just done?

i must insist that my disposition is correct

bout 9 rn

america's institutions are strong

as long as you're not near the statehouses