I'm a registered Independent who didn't vote once between the 1992 and 2016 elections. I'm in Illinois which is about as blue and as it gets. It's also filled with more open corruption than most with 6 governors (from both parties) indicted on criminal charges.
Prior to '92, I tended to vote against whichever candidate was currently under investigation, so my vote could go to either party based on the race. I voted for Clinton in '92 because I was sick of Reaganomics after 12 years.
From '92 to '16, I subscribed to the George Carlin theory of voting: if you vote, you have no right to complain. "I, who did not vote, who did not leave his house on election day, have every right to complain about the mess you made that I had nothing to do with."
That's not to say I didn't have opinions, but they were far from mainstream. I took a "Who should I vote for?" quiz in 2000 during the primaries, and the results were a toss-up between Bill Bradley and John McCain, who both lost their primaries.
What I've seen since 2001 was a Republican party that has lost their damn minds, that keeps pushing further and further right.
2016 changed everything. We all expected when the primaries began that it would be Clinton vs Bush II, here comes the new boss, same as the old boss. Jon Stewart quit the Daily Show in part because he didn't want to cover the same race all over again.
And the Republican voters ignored every candidate with any modicum of competence to bring about the Idiocracy. I knew there was no chance Hillary would lose Illinois, but I voted like me life depended on it. The Idiocracy still won.
And Republican office holders embraced it.
Since '16 I have voted straight Dem, though I am still registered Independent. In '24 I may vote in the Republican primary to try to limit the damage they can do. I may even go back to Carlin's philosophy if the country keep insisting on flushing itself down the shitter.
But, unless the parties switch alignments like they did in the 60s, I cannot imagine a circumstance in which I will vote *for* a Republican ever again.
Given the level of ineptitude and laziness Trump displayed in the past four years, I'm astonished at the number of votes he received.
Of course, I still can't get past his 2016 win.
Outside of the obvious Trump supporters, the only thing I can figure is that many of his voters must just accept at face value the constant stream of lies that he and various radical right wing propaganda outlets spew.
It may be dangerously erroneous however to assume that Trump's support is only from white racist types.
Bubble is the new term for what Robt Anton Wilson called Reality Tunnels. Man, I miss having his perspective on things - but here's someone else's summation of the concept:https://medium.com/reality-...
If I was editor of a big paper in a blue city, I think I'd consider a one-time airing of grievances like this. Key here is "one-time." Not because I think it's vital or fair, but just to hear them cry in their safe-place MAGA-only letters edition, one last time.
I don't think the media's obsession with cletus safaris is as nefarious as you think. I live here in LA and I don't know anyone who voted for trump, not a single one. so when I read the LA times, I don't need to hear what biden voters think, I can just ask them. I'm sure people that live in small towns in real america wonder what us big city people were thinking too, the difference is, those places don't have their own newspapers.
The fact that more people voted for assmouth this time makes me sad and pissed. I have no intentions on empathizing with any of them. Why should I?I don't feel sorry for them nor do I want to understand them. They were fine with kidnapping and caging children; force sterilizing women; murdering African American people in cold-blood while practically smiling for the cameras; they wanted to run us down for protesting...I understand them just fine.
I'm more angry with the millions of people who couldn't be bothered to vote. One can find a smidgen of understanding (if you look under the sofa and behind the stove) for those who have been brainwashed into the Cult of Trump.But - especially considering how easy we made it for people to vote this year - for those who decided they didn't need to vote???
The notion that a single Klan member is a racist, but a thousand are worth listening to is paint-by-numbers morality. It must end.Racist assmouths have had bullhorns and media coverage for fucking centuries. And the more their bullshit gets spewed, the more of them pop up. They're rancid mushroom-people thriving on shit.The answer is so fucking simple, deplatform them, everywhere. No more fucking journos as anthro-apologists (won't demean actual anthropologists), no more Cletus Safaris. Make the the anathema they are clear to everyone. Cut their shit supply, for once and for all. (I am extra angry today due to having to do a thing at work that made me nauseated - it was a good thing, and good work, but it required me thinking too hard and for too long about the ways in which people can be rancid mushroom people in text so I can help thwart them.)
Sorry; I have a hard time being more angry at people who didn't vote for reasons I don't know than I am at people who want to kill fellow Americans and who tell us that.
"Americans saw what he was for four years and yet even more voters said, 'Sign me up!'"Horribly, yes. But maybe worse than that, the Republican party knew exactly what he was when it made Trump its presidential candidate. By "what he was" I mean completely ignorant of politics, law, and the U.S. constitution for a start, completely unwilling to learn, most likely incapable of learning, self-centered right to the moons of Saturn and back the long way, a stone racist, a conceited big-mouthed liar, unethical, a con artist, as bereft of empathy as of any sense of responsibility, a deadbeat payer, a grossly undignified oaf, infantile, despising culture, manners, and courtesy, and incompetent at ... everything.Lindsay Graham even said at the time that if they nominated Trump for president their party would be destroyed and they'd deserve it. Then, once Trump was president, Graham turned into an abject, truckling Trump enabler. Typical Republican. Sadly, he was wrong about the Republican Party being destroyed if it nominated Trump. The orange monster may go, and most of them think, though they are not saying, "Good riddance," but the Republicans still have a strong position in congress and the state governments. They are not out or even particularly down. I forget which comic book character says frequently, "Whatta revoltin' development this is!" but it's appropriate here.
I'm a registered Independent who didn't vote once between the 1992 and 2016 elections. I'm in Illinois which is about as blue and as it gets. It's also filled with more open corruption than most with 6 governors (from both parties) indicted on criminal charges.
Prior to '92, I tended to vote against whichever candidate was currently under investigation, so my vote could go to either party based on the race. I voted for Clinton in '92 because I was sick of Reaganomics after 12 years.
From '92 to '16, I subscribed to the George Carlin theory of voting: if you vote, you have no right to complain. "I, who did not vote, who did not leave his house on election day, have every right to complain about the mess you made that I had nothing to do with."
That's not to say I didn't have opinions, but they were far from mainstream. I took a "Who should I vote for?" quiz in 2000 during the primaries, and the results were a toss-up between Bill Bradley and John McCain, who both lost their primaries.
What I've seen since 2001 was a Republican party that has lost their damn minds, that keeps pushing further and further right.
2016 changed everything. We all expected when the primaries began that it would be Clinton vs Bush II, here comes the new boss, same as the old boss. Jon Stewart quit the Daily Show in part because he didn't want to cover the same race all over again.
And the Republican voters ignored every candidate with any modicum of competence to bring about the Idiocracy. I knew there was no chance Hillary would lose Illinois, but I voted like me life depended on it. The Idiocracy still won.
And Republican office holders embraced it.
Since '16 I have voted straight Dem, though I am still registered Independent. In '24 I may vote in the Republican primary to try to limit the damage they can do. I may even go back to Carlin's philosophy if the country keep insisting on flushing itself down the shitter.
But, unless the parties switch alignments like they did in the 60s, I cannot imagine a circumstance in which I will vote *for* a Republican ever again.
Given the level of ineptitude and laziness Trump displayed in the past four years, I'm astonished at the number of votes he received.
Of course, I still can't get past his 2016 win.
Outside of the obvious Trump supporters, the only thing I can figure is that many of his voters must just accept at face value the constant stream of lies that he and various radical right wing propaganda outlets spew.
It may be dangerously erroneous however to assume that Trump's support is only from white racist types.
https://www.theguardian.com...
Bubble is the new term for what Robt Anton Wilson called Reality Tunnels. Man, I miss having his perspective on things - but here's someone else's summation of the concept:https://medium.com/reality-...
If I was editor of a big paper in a blue city, I think I'd consider a one-time airing of grievances like this. Key here is "one-time." Not because I think it's vital or fair, but just to hear them cry in their safe-place MAGA-only letters edition, one last time.
I don't think the media's obsession with cletus safaris is as nefarious as you think. I live here in LA and I don't know anyone who voted for trump, not a single one. so when I read the LA times, I don't need to hear what biden voters think, I can just ask them. I'm sure people that live in small towns in real america wonder what us big city people were thinking too, the difference is, those places don't have their own newspapers.
The fact that more people voted for assmouth this time makes me sad and pissed. I have no intentions on empathizing with any of them. Why should I?I don't feel sorry for them nor do I want to understand them. They were fine with kidnapping and caging children; force sterilizing women; murdering African American people in cold-blood while practically smiling for the cameras; they wanted to run us down for protesting...I understand them just fine.
I'm more angry with the millions of people who couldn't be bothered to vote. One can find a smidgen of understanding (if you look under the sofa and behind the stove) for those who have been brainwashed into the Cult of Trump.But - especially considering how easy we made it for people to vote this year - for those who decided they didn't need to vote???
If only a big paper in a "red" city would publish letters from local Democratic voters....
There's fewer of those than ever this time, which is why the vote totals were so high. So that's something, maybe.
The notion that a single Klan member is a racist, but a thousand are worth listening to is paint-by-numbers morality. It must end.Racist assmouths have had bullhorns and media coverage for fucking centuries. And the more their bullshit gets spewed, the more of them pop up. They're rancid mushroom-people thriving on shit.The answer is so fucking simple, deplatform them, everywhere. No more fucking journos as anthro-apologists (won't demean actual anthropologists), no more Cletus Safaris. Make the the anathema they are clear to everyone. Cut their shit supply, for once and for all. (I am extra angry today due to having to do a thing at work that made me nauseated - it was a good thing, and good work, but it required me thinking too hard and for too long about the ways in which people can be rancid mushroom people in text so I can help thwart them.)
No Vote still won a plurality in most states.
Or there really was fuckery with the voting machines.
Sorry; I have a hard time being more angry at people who didn't vote for reasons I don't know than I am at people who want to kill fellow Americans and who tell us that.
when your premise is your conclusion, nothing good will ever come of it.
also, circular reasoning is circular.
He manages to make fun of them, without them really catching on.
"Americans saw what he was for four years and yet even more voters said, 'Sign me up!'"Horribly, yes. But maybe worse than that, the Republican party knew exactly what he was when it made Trump its presidential candidate. By "what he was" I mean completely ignorant of politics, law, and the U.S. constitution for a start, completely unwilling to learn, most likely incapable of learning, self-centered right to the moons of Saturn and back the long way, a stone racist, a conceited big-mouthed liar, unethical, a con artist, as bereft of empathy as of any sense of responsibility, a deadbeat payer, a grossly undignified oaf, infantile, despising culture, manners, and courtesy, and incompetent at ... everything.Lindsay Graham even said at the time that if they nominated Trump for president their party would be destroyed and they'd deserve it. Then, once Trump was president, Graham turned into an abject, truckling Trump enabler. Typical Republican. Sadly, he was wrong about the Republican Party being destroyed if it nominated Trump. The orange monster may go, and most of them think, though they are not saying, "Good riddance," but the Republicans still have a strong position in congress and the state governments. They are not out or even particularly down. I forget which comic book character says frequently, "Whatta revoltin' development this is!" but it's appropriate here.