rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

I feel that Zach! And Neando

i had a horrible moment (one of many) with my dad near the end because i confronted him on how horrible it felt for him to never listen to me or trust any opinion i had on anything, ever, while simultaneously he gobbled up every single word of fuckers like this

― z_tbd

it's such a brainfuck with parents, i'm thinking "look you LITERALLY TAUGHT ME RIGHT FROM WRONG i'm pretty sure this isn't what you taught me was 'right'

so i went back and checked and boy howdy _wow_ that childhood was _not_ the normal childhood i thought it was, whew, wow, that was all kinds of messed up

but _also_ i literally did learn some really good values about right and wrong from my parents and i'm putting those values into practice and they're not... well, i mean, i guess somebody's getting some use out of those values, you know?

the fact that we're dismantling our empire for Donald fucking Trump is what really gets me about this, in fact it gives me a weird hope somehow knowing how Trump's world does not extend beyond himself. his main goal in life is to be on TV more. wild to think if he was like 3 inches shorter none of this would've happened

cos of Presidential height limit

i had a horrible moment (one of many) with my dad near the end because i confronted him on how horrible it felt for him to never listen to me or trust any opinion i had on anything, ever, while simultaneously he gobbled up every single word of fuckers like this

Was he always like this or was it something that developed over time. My dad is this way but always has been, he's never asked my opinion on anything. He either has 100% certainty about something, or 0% and has to go and check what the guru's opinion is before he'll say anything at all. In his case the guru is George Galloway, but the names are irrelevant it's the mechanism. He is transfixed by the oracle Galloway, hypnotized

People sometimes say its gullibility, that they are easily taken in. But I don't think thats it, my mother is pretty gullible but hasn't gone down this path once inch. She doesn't have or seek this resolute certainty, and she asks my opinion. There is bi-directional communication.

I don't think either have them have changed with age

With my dad I guess all conversations are hierarchical, there is a transmitter and a receiver, he receives from youtube and then transmits.

In a different scenario he would have killed thousands of people the same way people deliver leaflets. It wouldn't have been done with joy or malice or sadism, if that was the task that was required then that was the task that was required, same as the leaflets

My mom watches network and local news every day, 60 Minutes, is on Nextdoor and local Facebook groups but has somehow evaded brain worms and if anything has gotten more liberal as time went on.

My dad died in mid-2017 - I don't think I could describe his beliefs as liberal exactly but he didn't like Republicans by default and hated Trump for being a celebrity conman. I'd like to think that would have stuck over the last seven years, he'd probably be the ideal Biden Democrat but I don't know that I'd have wanted to hear him talk about trans people.

She got on Instagram and TikTok a couple of years ago so maybe a steady diet of funny animal videos has built a firewall to Youtube and Twitter punditry.

My dad says he doesn't like Trump but there's no energy in the dislike, I know he is drawn to him secretly because he tells people what to do and he likes being told what to do, He hates uncertainty. He can't remember anything and never could so the simpler the better.

He's always liked Xi, and has warmed to Putin since watching Galloway more intensively, was on the fence before that. But while this does have some political aspects to it, its more that he is transfixed and hypnotized by anyone that talks authoritatively and charismatically (or appears to do so). Bold and definitive acts definitely help but are definitely secondary.

This doesn't necessarily need to be a political figure, a person calling the phone and professing to be a person of importance also works, regardless of whether they are or not, which makes him a good target for any kind of scam

Did he like Blair?

No, as a devotee of Galloway that would be impossible.

i do think the brainworms are sort of, hate to say it, a social contagion

my mom's always loved the midwest, idealized it really... she moved to indiana as soon as she got the chance, is now in assisted living in ohio... the thing is that a lot of it, i think, really is isolation. she's close to her sister now, and her sister is, i mean, i fucking love her sister, she's so completely amazing. which helps a lot. but also just... not being isolated, you know, helps.

i got an uncle who's a opus dei sort of catholic, latin mass and the whole thing, swore up and down he hated trump but voted for him because he was the "lesser evil". at that point he was dead to me. what on earth he thinks of my transition i can only imagine, lol. that's a lot of why i'm suspicious of "lesser evil" thinking, because i've seen people use it as a pretext for abandoning their beliefs, their principles, even if they're not _great_ principles. and a lot of this uncle, you know, a lot of why he turned out different from the rest of the family is his wife, who's just kind of an awful person, a racist, all that stuff. like, "go along to get along", it has some consequences.

anyway the thing is, he had a stroke, lost his job as a real estate lawyer in '08 when the market crashed, lost his house, but the thing is he went into the deaconate. and people who know him say it's really done him good. being more involved in religion has genuinely helped, has _softened_ him, has made him less strident. and i'm, you know, not exactly a huge fan of the roman catholic church, but he's not _isolated_, with his primary influence being the awful racist he married. you're isolated and the shit you see on tv or on the internet matters a lot more.

i'm horrified at people who value the shit they see on the internet more than they value their own children, but i guess, you know, they see and think about the shit they see on tv or the internet a lot more than they see their kids. i can and do judge them for that, but i also judge, you know. the world we live in. it's not _reasonable_ to expect better of them. is the sad thing.

i'm talking about all this stuff because for me, a large family, it's a system, and america, i think of it as kind of a system as well. all of this stuff happens on both a macro and micro level, but the only way we can deal with it is on a micro level. on the personal level. so if you look at cute cats, that's good, but if it's interspersed with war crimes, that's tough.

so my mom, the one in assisted living in ohio. she's terrified that she doesn't have enough money. she does, probably, she has lots more than me, and i'm not broke, but i am worried that i don't have enough money. i'm precariat. she's precariat. the complete dismantling of the social safety net from reagan on, a process assented to by clinton and obama, i mean, that matters. that's where trump comes from. people are desperate and we're pretending not to be but yeah a lot of us are desperate and at some point, you know, "quiet desperation" just stops _working_.

my mom has never been quiet and she's never been... i mean she's always been abusive and awful but she's become _more_ abusive and _more_ awful to the point where everyone around her notices. and i guess, you know, that's something that happens as one ages. and i think it is the isolation of being old. nobody visits. one feels abandoned by god, perhaps, whether one believes or not.

my dad, he wouldn't be down with any of this, he was a communist. at the end i guess he became a born-again christian. i mean he was dying. nobody visited him except for this christian lady. hispanic, i think an immigrant. probably voted for trump. does that make sense? on a personal level, no, but when everyone around you says something...

i don't think... i don't think my stuff is a "social contagion" the way the "gender ideology" folks say it is. another word for "social contagion" is _role models_. they're not just for kids. who are the role models we have? i mean moving to portland from indiana.... on a personal level, my role models were suddenly very different. and i think that's a good thing. mostly.

and it's not, you know, it's not really about _trump_ i don't think. he's not special. he's not unique. he was just... i mean, inevitable. frankly in a way i'm glad it's him, because he's so blatantly incompetent... it could have been so much worse if it was someone like reagan. if i was to compare him to any past political leader it'd be more likely to be charles le fou than hitler. history doesn't remember charles le fou as a tyrant.

and frankly i feel like i have about as much choice in who's president as i do in who's king. and i think, probably, a lot of us feel that way. learned helplessness. desperation. you know, voting for someone who wants to eradicate transgenderism.... on some level i gotta treat someone like that as an enemy, but it's not _personal_, none of it is _personal_.

i got a friend who says i'm blackpilled, because of the fucked up shit i've seen, here in portland. certainly i've been really isolated. again, it's not _trump_ per se. covid happened and honestly, i hate saying this, but honestly i was more or less ok with my ex sexually abusing me until covid happened and i was trapped in a house with my abuser and never saw anybody else. that wasn't good. and i did wind up leaving but it took a lot out of me, and i'm in a situation now that is... i've seen a lot of fucked up shit. my role models, frankly, aren't great. even though i'm not a trump voter, i feel like i _understand_ them, _understand_ how they got that way. i'm just trying like hell to not go there, to not end up like that. doing that and _also_ not, like, dying. that's challenging.

anyway that's kind of a long ramble but i guess i needed to say that stuff at some point.

frankly in a way i'm glad it's him, because he's so blatantly incompetent

you're not wrong, though he has surrounded himself with a lot of Stephen Miller types who are going to hit the ground running and will probably have figured out exactly how Trump can abuse this SCOTUS ruling. but yeah I feel like if he's gonna abuse the justice system to go after his enemies it won't be popular progressive figures it'll be people like Liz Cheney and Morning Joe

when i think about my own life, a lot of times i think about a writer named robert walser. a lot of y'all probably know him, i probably know about him from ilx. folks here have a level of literary knowledge far beyond that of anybody else i know. he wrote these... delightful little short stories. if there's anybody i'd like to be like, as a writer, it's walser. he didn't have an easy life, though, and he wound up in an asylum. it was a nice asylum, though, and he did these really fascinating little miniscule... like, incredibly tiny writing, almost impossible to decipher. anyway later on they transferred him to another, less nice asylum, and he stopped writing. he said "i am not here to write, but to be mad." the way i think of it was that it was a vocation, like writing, his _job_ was to be mad.

being mad is the job i'm most qualified for. being mad is even less valued as a job than writing. it's really hard to get into that field, and once you do, people treat you like shit. even aside from that, the job is unpleasant, and the working conditions are terrible. my dad, after he got divorced, worked hard for years and eventually landed a job being mad.

when i look at trump voters, i do see people who are doing the job they're qualified for.

you're not wrong, though he has surrounded himself with a lot of Stephen Miller types who are going to hit the ground running and will probably have figured out exactly how Trump can abuse this SCOTUS ruling. but yeah I feel like if he's gonna abuse the justice system to go after his enemies it won't be popular progressive figures it'll be people like Liz Cheney and Morning Joe

― frogbs

certainly those people could do a lot of damage, assuming he doesn't sack them within the first three months of his presidency in various fits of pique, or drive them to quit through similar fits of pique

the thing that makes dictators dangerous is that they _don't take counsel_.

i mean i could be wrong. i'm just going by what he did last time he was president!

my dad is 89 and has voted 100% democrat his whole life. his father was a connecticut republican from the old school. a yankee republican because of the conservative money thing. taxes. the stock market. my dad was on all the boards in my town when i was a kid. planning board. school board. etc. he hates trump. thinks biden and kamala are great. he would totally be happy to vote for kamala. he loves strong women politicans. the only tough one for him would be if tom selleck ran for president as a republican. he might be torn there. he loves his Blue Bloods so.

Shit, *I* might have to consider GOP candidate Tom Selleck

He’s 79!

We haven't had a mustachioed president since Taft

79% sexy moustache, yes

so weird that magnum is 79.

Whom would Tom selleckt as running mate? James Garner is dead.

it should have been burt reynolds. rip burt reynolds

Larry Manetti or nothing

The mustache is the running mate

Selleck/‘Stache 2028

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d7/b6/fd/d7b6fdd949229b40abd0656f6fd8b6e8.gif

Tom Selleck will pay off the national debt with a reverse mortgage on Yellowstone.

Jon Voight to appease the Q crowd

James Garner is dead.

Garner was a huge lefty pothead who hated Reagan.

My kind of people

Garner was a huge lefty pothead who hated Reagan.

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain)

Maverick out here looking at John McCain like...

The other maverick seems more likely these days (yes I know not born in the us it’s still a good joke) (yes I know there is another other maverick who is in a cult and has slaves equally a good joke)

Hey don’t say that about Madonna

President Dirk Nowitzki

I remember Madonna endorsing Wesley Clark in 2004

he's FOUR STAR GENERAL Wesley Clark to his friends

Yeah but it’s a light 4

despite that all of Clark's friends still stand erect and salute crisply when they see him

Calling her record label “Maverick” was one of off-brand for her. It always made me think of the Ford Maverick.

“Kind of” off-brand

James Woods showed up in my feed today, and I was like: oh, right, Selleck/Woods ‘24

did robert mueller investigate trump's connection to epstein? it seems that might have been another channel for "kompromat," although not connected to russia

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/epstein-documents-trump.html

i think the answer is no. he was scrupulous in not going beyond his mandate iirc. but it's very bizarre. the "katie johnson" allegation (i think that is a pseudonym) was from 2016, so while trump was running for prez (suspicious maybe) but before epstein was a household name.