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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.
If people truly believe Trump is an existential threat to democracy and is literally Hitler reborn and going to put them all into camps, then they should stop squawking on their social media and friend groups and buy weapons to assassinate him.
I'm not kidding, either.
That is the logical end point of this rhetoric, if its assumptions and principles are genuinely held. If he is a tyrant, then that is what the Second Amendment is for. If he is not, then what has been perpetuated upon Trump is the most pernicious and cowardly slander campaign in American history.
Put up or shut up.
Trump just spent four years claiming the Dems are an existential threat to democracy and stole an election, why didn't Trump supporters stop squawking on social media and buy weapons to assassinate them?
Considering the election results, most Trump supporters shut up and voted. :shrug:
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I'm not going to play the whataboutism game.
Did some people call Biden Hitler? (given reducto ad Hitlerlum, probably.) But Trump didn't call Biden Hitler. He didn't tell his followers that they were going to be put into camps and there was going to be a genocide. That's crossing-the-rubicon rhetoric.
You could say that 'stolen election' is that kind of rhetoric, too... but unlike so many, I have memories of the year two thousand of our lord when the Democrats thought Bush stole the election. Nothing happened to the American Republic. Life continued as normal.
If he is actually Hitler - and a minority of people seem to believe this with all their heart - then peacefully transferring power to him is what a cuck would do. Either that, or they never really meant it. That's all what I mean.
This isn’t some kind of video game where once Trump gets his brains splattered by a pink haired trans twenty-something from Brooklyn all the MAGAs shrug and go home. What you're suggesting is extremely counterproductive; it would just make a martyr of Trump and make the ascendance of turbo-Trump even more likely. The only people stupid and determined enough to do what you're describing tried already.
I apologize, I wasn't making an argument of 'the most effective thing to do.' I agree, making a martyr of him would be grossly unproductive for the people on the left. But you can't peacefully transfer power to Hitler. You can't peacefully protest a Hitler. Leftist rhetoric is begging for armed resistance that can never happen. They made such a big deal out of it. Now they look like so very weak and shrill.
Their self-perceived Hitler arose, and they are unable to stop him. What a pathetic display.
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I've already seen a counterargument to this, which is that assassinating Trump — and Vance; you'd need to get him too — would buy a little time, it doesn't deal with the 70+ million unreasoning, murderous, hateful fascist Americans who voted for him. (One noted that Hitler only got about a third of voters, max, but this time it was a majority.) It took the Allies, and especially America, to defeat the pro-Nazi Germans last time, but now that it's America that has chosen Fascism — "wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross" as predicted — who is going to save us now?
Well, certainly not the liberals.
There's a popular conservative cliche: the ballot box or the bullet box. It's chest-puffy masculine bravado, but something completely lacking in their enemies.
Right now, the political left is awakening to the fact that their leaders are not only gaslighting liars, but spineless collaborators to a man they see as Hitler. There are no riots in the cities, no drama or fervor. Exhaustion.
At least the January 6th people showed up. I doubt this time around the left will muster any sort of response. There's no stomach to oppose him anymore. It ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper.
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