Tuesday November 8, 2022 is Election Day in the United States of America. In addition to Congressional "midterms" at the federal level, many state governors and other more local offices are up for grabs. Given how things shook out over Election Day 2020, things could get a little crazy.
...or, perhaps, not! But here's the Megathread for if they do. Talk about your local concerns, your national predictions, your suspicions re: election fraud and interference, how you plan to vote, anything election related is welcome here. Culture War thread rules apply, with the addition of Small-Scale Questions and election-related "Bare Links" allowed in this thread only (unfortunately, there will not be a subthread repository due to current technical limitations).
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Notes -
Oh, boy, it's time for the annual political spin and deflection season!
I'm going to dispense with any poll-tracking or statistic-tealeaf-reading and go with my gut here. I think the Republicans will gain the senate while Dems squeak by in the house, making no one happy and reverting the system back to the 2nd-term Obama status quo. This is good for dramacoin. Nothing makes Americans more politically engaged when their legislature starts throwing DNS errors. The imperial presidency grinds on...
'22 is only significant, in my mind, as the pre-season for Trump Strikes Back '24. Fetterman and Oz is a preview of a greater contest, between a mental invalid and a scruple-less grifter. As much as my little accelerationist heart quivers at the idea of the VP debating Trump, it's most likely that we are witnessing the Last of the Boomer Civic Nationalists fight it out. The last of the people who value a liberal rules-based international order will croak in the next eight years.
God help us all.
Who will gain control of America's imperial hegemonic power? The right-populists, or the left-populists? Will the civil war be averted for another generation, or will it happen in my lifetime? The fate of the nation may very well be decided on which geriatric old man has a fatal stroke first. What you see today in politics - the insanity, the terror - this is not the nadir of the republic's fortunes: it is merely the threshold unto the abyss.
In time, we will look upon the misfortunes of our day as a golden age lost to time and tragedy.
But perhaps it doesn't matter. Perhaps electing corpses is the future of American politics. We have the technology to continue the life of brain-dead patients indefinitely. In the Oval Office, there is a mighty chair beneath the Resolute Desk, a Golden Throne, that will sustain the president's life for as long as it needs to be. A thousand infants are sacrificed each year to feed the device's need for adenochrome, perpetuating the beacon of boomer power from Washington, DC forever.
Anything to avoid electing someone from Gen X.
Why do you think this happened? I tend to agree with your points even if I think you're being a bit overdramatic.
Is the Internet really all it takes to make us revert back to tribal lines?
The fundamental bargain of neoliberal capitalism is that you'll forgo radicalism, tribalism, and religiosity in exchange for bourgeoise prosperity. It worked, until the gains of industrializing the world ran out.
The internet didn't cause the problem, it just makes it obvious that A) everyone is getting poorer and B) your elites still expect deference for riches they no longer provide.
So why care for a system that no longer works for you? Why care for global prosperity when you're getting none of it? When you bear the burden of upholding the order?
Populism will prevail, and the world will burn while the Americans prosper off the chaos.
Why do you think Americans will prosper off the chaos? American hegemony can't last forever and China seems much more ready and willing to fight for the gains than anyone in the west these days from my view. I agree with the rest of your post but I don't see things working out as well for the US.
History belongs to those that show up. In other words, when your population will be half seniors by 2080, you're not a competitive Great Power, no matter how much automation you have.
To put a blunt point on it: no matter how many Chinese boomers have a boner for aggressive foreign policy, they can write checks that their youth can't cash.
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