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I wrote last week about how my circle was reacting poorly to the Trump win, but also how their reaction wasn't as bad as 2016. My latest update is, it's still pretty bad, probably worse than it was last week, but still not quite as bad as 2016. But I'm starting to get that feeling again like I'm the crazy one, simply on the basis that everyone I know in meatspace seems to think a complete disaster has befallen us. Furthermore, I think I need to retract my previous statement that my exposure to this strong sentiment is because I went to a very leftist college. I'm now seeing a lot more of this from people who I know outside of that school.
I have a number of people posting multiple times per day about some kind of issue du jour, ranging from high school boys chanting the Nick Fuentes thing, to screeds about how people will (literally) die due to Trump being in charge, for whatever reasons. And I spent the weekend with family and friends who wouldn't stop talking about it, also. It was a lot of signaling and complaining and without any real acknowledgement that over half of the country voted for Trump, including huge gains in lots of minority groups, and that maybe that means something.
So far, from a personal standpoint, this is not off to a good start, and I worry this next four years will be as personally trying as the previous four, with regards to my ability to keep my cool and not feel like a crazy person when surrounded by those in my life and their insistent attitude about Trump. Personally this is starting to make me want future Democrat wins, but not because I believe in the Democrats. If the dems win, my life mostly stays the same. If the Republicans win, my life gets worse just because people around me can't deal with it. But I also can't bring myself to really take these people's fears seriously, since I do feel like this chicken little routine happens every time a Republican gets elected (from my limited experience), without the Republicans even doing anything that bad.
Are other people also seeing an escalating level of this sentiment? It seems maybe like the anti Trump machine had some rusty gears and a slow start, but it's starting to get going again.
Ask them what tangible thing they predict and what concrete plans they have to mitigate it. Worked wonders the last time around when the "Trump (2016) is going to put the gays in camps!" hysteria was all the rage. You can even feign ignorance if that's more up your alley.
These are the biggest things I've seen them be afraid about:
"Women's reproductive health" paired with "threat to our democracy" were the core planks of the Harris campaign and she lost on them because they didn't hold up to reality.
Anyone who ranks those two "issues" as their top two is not seriously engaged with reality. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that. They probably function well in a day-to-day sense (hygiene, going to work, performing chores etc.) but their comprehension of American Federal and Constitutional Law, geopolitical realities, cultural currents, and a theory-of-mind for about 70m other Americans is zero.
I see a lot of political campaigning - "messaging" - as starting with a true but boring premise and then stacking a lot of vibes on top of it. Harris' true messaging core was "I am not Trump." This is plainly and obviously correct. But "I'm not the other candidate" isn't actually a campaign strategy, so you have to build something more substantial on top of it - or do you?
The Harris campaign decided to layer vibes-on-vibes. Abortion is now a loser of a topic because American's are (1) Very self-contradictory on how they feel about it and (2) As exit polls showed, American's are able to separate candidate-from-issue in regards to abortion. Trump won Missouri, and Missouri based state abortion protections.
The "threat to our democracy" narrative is a different loser. For those on the fence, it comes across as histrionic, overwrought, and hyperbolic. You can play doom-edited videos of January 6th all you want but the fact of the matter is it's old hat. It also begs the question - if Trump is such a threat to democracy are you, Kamala Harris, advocating for vigilante justice should you lose? Will you actually organize an armed resistance of some sort. No no, of course not. Peaceful transition of power and all that. For your own supports, it creates a sense of mission where the stakes are too high. If I'm a Harris support (haha, it's fun to laugh) and I truly believe the "threat to democracy" line ... how can I even have a conversation with a Trump supporter or someone still deciding?
So, if these are loser issues, why make them platform planks? Because a lot of politics comes down to ingroup / outgroup and it's easy to default to ingroup sloganeering and vibes. Much like the Hillary campaign, 50% of the Harris defeat is on the fact that she ran a dogshit campaign and made the worst VP pick in history (Sarah Palin no longer GOAT'ed). I'm starting to see some stories that Shapiro said no to Harris and not the other way around ("We didn't break up, I dumped you!") but I consider this to be ex post facto spinning.
But then again, I'm probably wrong. Trump's across the board win - Electoral, Popular, house, senate - paired with 95% (approx) of American counties drifting right compared to 2020 really does mean this is a realignment.
I'm not sure why this begs that question. Thinking that Trump is a threat to democracy as well as that responding to his victory via armed resistance would be an even bigger threat to democracy are both compatible positions to hold.
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