ok i guess i should kinda say why it's hard for me to talk about politics
i do have some pretty strong wonky tendencies. i'm not proud of them but it is how i think about politics.
the thing is that ideologically, i'm not really a radical at all. people talk about, like, pol pot or stalin or whatever and yeah i think they're awful. totalitarian single-party rule is bad. the thing is, i'm wonky in a way that makes it kinda impossible to talk about politics. because one of the really strong conclusions I've come to is that the united states of america doesn't _work_ politically
basically if Trump gets to replace Thomas, Alito (and perhaps Sotomayor) with judges in their 40s, we can expect conservative domination of the court for at least another 30 years.― A So-Called Pulitzer price winner (President Keyes), Friday, June 28, 2024 7:40 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink
like i genuinely don't see an america 30 years down the line that doesn't have some serious structural changes
moving from indiana to portland, i was struck by how _different_ the two states are
america is one country, though, not so much because of, like... a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, but because of the _money_. i guess that's my worry, and that's a very wonky worry, worrying about the _economic impact_ of a trump presidency
the states _don't_ run independently, all that stuff the states do relies on getting money from the federal government
there's kind of this desperate scramble every time the government shuts down, which is more and more frequently, to try and prevent shit from falling apart completely
a lot of heavily armed, racist, homophobic, transphobic, woman-hating nasty people who have been hiding a bit since 1/6/2021 are going to feel empowered to pop back out and I worry about that more than what Trump accomplishes legislatively.― perpetually awkward, perennially unhappy (Neanderthal)
...i don't get the impression they've been hiding, haha.
the threat of violence is a reality i'm always aware of. there are a lot of people with guns. there have been mass shootings. if somebody decides they want to... reduce the number of trans people in the world by a double or triple digit number, there's nothing stopping them from coming here. the cops sure as hell aren't going to stop them.
we're aware of it. everything we do, particularly in groups, risk mitigation is part of the equation. that risk, honestly, doesn't change if trump gets a second term
yeah talking through this the immediate threat of violence with someone like trump seems strong but i guess my bigger concern is... the federal government is supposed to _do_ things, and republicans are just not very good at making sure those things get done. they see that as leverage to get their way... which only works to a certain extent.
that was what i saw most from the trump administration. every week there was a new permanently acting undersecretary of this or that, every week there was a new bunch of...
i am, basically, like anyone else, which means that i am inclined to go along to get along. 2016 was the point where i was no longer able to go along. trump? i can't go for that. no can do. even people who _support_ trump... when someone asks for the impossible, "going along to get along" isn't an option. trump and the republicans just absolutely have no idea about what is and isn't actually possible. like if you want to "eradicate transgenderism", you... you can do _a lot_ of damage by denying people access to care, you can hurt a lot of people, cause a lot of pain, but strategically, you're just not gonna get rid of trans people by making it illegal to get hormones. i don't want to talk directly about what would actually be necessary, but i will say, even though i worry about it, even though all of us worry about it, i think we're a long fucking way off from that point. to do that, you'd need everybody to go along with it. and i don't believe everybody _would_ go along with what would be necessary. i don't think enough people would go along with it to make it possible.
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it's weird. if some liberal white guy said "well, the greatest risk of a trump presidency is that he'll wreck the world economy by defaulting on america's debts" i'd... well, i'd nothing, because i don't read those threads lol
i generally do think that's the most immediate risk of a trump presidency, though, and that's not... that's not an abstract thing, that's gonna be a profoundly destabilizing event when it happens. i'm personally waiting for _that_ shoe to drop.
in the long term though it doesn't make a difference. the democrats are just... unable to ensure that america can make the interest payments on its debt. and i do think that's a bigger problem than who gets elected president in 2024.
is that weird of me to say? am i being too punditpilled here?
― Kate (rushomancy), Sunday, 30 June 2024 15:25 (yesterday) link