When Trump wins

bnw wrote:

I can see Obama getting us into a war with Russia during the interim.

—————

I can not see that.

The US does not pick on the big boys.

w
v

War with a nuclear armed Russia is almost unthinkable, but, if the options are us at war with Russia and Obama president, or Trump as president, I pick Obama and war with Russia.

OK, not really because if we were ever in a shooting war with Russia, the chances become very high that a nuclear exchange would result, meaning the end of the world as we know it (same as a Trump win, but with more glowing).

PA Ram wrote:

I actually believe that the United States and Russia are very close to war.

At this point I’d be more surprised if they didn’t have some sort of conflict. Whether it’s the Ukraine, missile shields in Europe or the war in Syria, there are so many hot spots right now, I can’t imagine those plates keep spinning.

Add to that the cyberattacks and the United States vow to respond, the personal animosity between Putin and Clinton, and you have a recipe for conflict.

I think it’s going to happen. How long it goes, how limited it will be, I don’t know.

And I hope I’m wrong.

But beyond that–when Trump loses the election I wouldn’t be surprised to see white nationalists try to start a race war here or create some sort of anarchy.

I try to be the optimist(except with the Rams, of course)but I think there are some dark times ahead.

I have read nothing on the Russia Us relationship, though I know enough to know that the situation is testy. I have no understanding of how testy, or exactly what the disputes are – I am sure the issues are much deeper than Syria and Ukaraine.

The Trump supporters do worry me quite a lot. They are heavily armed, very angry, and already feel that they are victims of injustice. Add to that the fact that they are already being cultivated to believe that the ONLY thing that could possibly give Clinton the White House is election fraud, and we have a big problem. These are people who, shall we say, don’t rely heavily on the Scientific Method for the construction of their reality.

If it had not been for the “Clinton” brand name, overwhelming support from the establishment, and a fair amount of Clinton cultists, she would not have won the nomination. If it were not for Trump–she could not win the White House.

The Republicans imploded.

If she does not somehow become someone she is not–a people’s president, over the next four years–and less of a hawk on foreign policy, the democrats will implode in four years. If the Democratic party does not get this–they are toast.

Both parties have been encased in their little bubbles and things have changed.

I don’t know if they can save themselves or not.

The Democrats will have four years to do it.

The Republican party is in tatters. They don’t have a clue where they go from here.

PA Ram wrote:

I actually believe that the United States and Russia are very close to war.

At this point I’d be more surprised if they didn’t have some sort of conflict. Whether it’s the Ukraine, missile shields in Europe or the war in Syria, there are so many hot spots right now, I can’t imagine those plates keep spinning.

Add to that the cyberattacks and the United States vow to respond, the personal animosity between Putin and Clinton, and you have a recipe for conflict.

I think it’s going to happen. How long it goes, how limited it will be, I don’t know.

And I hope I’m wrong.

But beyond that–when Trump loses the election I wouldn’t be surprised to see white nationalists try to start a race war here or create some sort of anarchy.

I try to be the optimist(except with the Rams, of course)but I think there are some dark times ahead.

—————
Nah, wont happen. The US does not get into shooting wars with
countries that have large amounts of nukes.

There will be a lot of nasty talk and agitations and blustering,
but there wont be any War. Not with Russia.

w
v

bnw wrote:

Trump supporters do not live in the Matrix.

That’s true.

They live in a kind of glitchy, proto-matrix, first engineered in Reagan’s first term. So they see the modern matrix for what it is anyway. Just not the spark-flying, out-dated one they live in.

Poster One: Trump supporters live in a glitchy “reality.”

Poster Two: So you’re saying freedom is outdated?

PA,

I’ve never seen a right-winger answer your question in their own words. In their own words. They can’t come up with any “freedoms” they’ve lost under Obama that they had under Bush. They’ll talk in incredibly generalized terms of End of Days, that Obama has destroyed the country and civilization as we know it, but they can never actually point to anything he’s done that’s different enough from his predecessors to cause this. This is why they have to resort to paranoid lunatics and their Op Eds. They can’t express it themselves.

Another key here: The massive conflicting thoughts in their heads. They want to blame government for allowing job losses and so on. To them, it’s all the government’s fault that the economy crashed and that corporations ship jobs by the millions overseas. But when it comes to supposed answers to this, they say the government can’t create jobs and it needs to stay out of the way of the private sector. Which of course means the economy would crash more often, more severely, and millions of more jobs would be shipped overseas.

If the government can be blamed for our travails — and it does bare responsibility — it is in its failure to rein in capitalism, capitalists and an economic system designed to ravage the vast majority of human beings and concentrate wealth, income, access, opportunity and power at the very top. Government is guilty of hurting the people to the degree it doesn’t suppress capitalism’s natural, baked in oppression. Government is guilty to the degree it deregulates, props up, bails out, defends and lets capitalists do as they please. Ironically, the right-wing answer — and Trump’s — is to deregulate even more, slash the taxes of the rich even more, and let them run amok even more than they do already.

In short, their answer is the opposite of what we need to do, if the goal is higher standards of living for everyone, instead of just the 1%. If the goal is to help make life better for everyone, the Trump way, the GOP way, is the opposite of what we need to do. The Dems don’t have the answers, either. But Trump and the GOP want to aggressively, proactively make things a hell of a lot worse.

Also:

Yes, our government has a long history of suppressing rights. Especially when it comes to people of color, leftist dissidents, women. But it has very little history of suppressing the right of white Christian males, especially “conservatives.” That’s never been its target audience for suppression.

We know from umpteen surveys that Trump supporters, and Republicans in general, see the system as rigged against white people and for people of color, immigrants, the poor. There is absolutely zero evidence to support this view, but that’s never stopped them from believing it, and Trump has capitalized on this ignorance and sense of eternal victimization.

Yes, our government is corrupt, often violent, leads the world in jailing its citizens, starts wars at the drop of a hat, commits coups and “regime change” all around the world, engages in “colonialism” for centuries, etc. etc. American government has a history of horrific violence, all too often against very weak countries and peoples, especially brown and black. But, contrary to the views of Trump supporters and Republicans in general, our government has never been in the habit of suppressing rights for the dominant white majority, especially white Christian males with “conservative” beliefs. We’ve never had purges or witch trials conducted against white conservatives. But we have had them conducted against white leftists and millions of people of color.

Bottom line: The answer to what ails us isn’t to double down on white privilege and power, capitalist privilege and power, male privilege and power, Christian privilege and power. The answer isn’t to double down on the ginormous power of corporate America and the rich in general. The answer is to lift up the bottom and bring down the top, flatten the pyramid and make sure EVERYONE has an equal shot at a good life. Everyone. Trump and the GOP’s answer, OTOH, is to “Make America White Again” and let the earth burn up.

Talking about “freedom and liberty.” It’s essential to ask for whom. Always ask for whom.

In the case of same-sex marriage, the answer is easy. You are “free” not to marry someone of your own sex, if you don’t want to. But people who want to should be “free” to do so. They aren’t hurting anyone else. They aren’t robbing anyone else of their “freedom.” No one is being forced into same-sex marriages.

If you are offended by it, don’t. But you shouldn’t have the right to take away another’s freedom to marry the person they love. It’s immoral for you to take away that freedom from others, especially when it is of no concern to you whatsoever.

Jefferson has something very wise to say about this and other issues:

“The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. … Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error.2

bnw wrote:

nittany ram wrote:

bnw wrote:

Most americans, myself included, are in favor of gays having the same benefits as conferred through marriage. But calling it marriage is wrong. Marriage is only between a man and a woman.

Most Americans have no problem calling the formal union between two homosexuals ‘marriage’. Why do you? What is it about the term marriage as applied to homosexuals that’s offensive?

Most americans don’t even think about it. For most people of faith it is offensive to use the term marriage in that context.

Well, I would disagree that most people of faith are offended by it. Regardless, marriage predates Christianity so the word doesn’t belong to Christians. And as Billy points out the concept of marriage has meant different things to different cultures throughout time. What Christians consider marriage today is different than marriage in the Bible. And the meaning of marriage will likely remain fluid as it always has been.

nittany ram wrote:

bnw wrote:

nittany ram wrote:

bnw wrote:

Most americans, myself included, are in favor of gays having the same benefits as conferred through marriage. But calling it marriage is wrong. Marriage is only between a man and a woman.

Most Americans have no problem calling the formal union between two homosexuals ‘marriage’. Why do you? What is it about the term marriage as applied to homosexuals that’s offensive?

Most americans don’t even think about it. For most people of faith it is offensive to use the term marriage in that context.

Well, I would disagree that most people of faith are offended by it. Regardless, marriage predates Christianity so the word doesn’t belong to Christians. And as Billy points out the concept of marriage has meant different things to different cultures throughout time. What Christians consider marriage today is different than marriage in the Bible. And the meaning of marriage will likely remain fluid as it always has been.

Well said.

And beyond that, who cares if this “offends” certain people? That’s their problem. They’re not involved. It’s none of their business whom someone ELSE marries. Their business begins and ends with their own decision regarding that. It’s like someone being “offended” that another person gets a tattoo — which, btw, the god of the bible calls an abomination, with a death penalty attached.

In a truly civilized society, we don’t let people’s individual opinions of what does and doesn’t “offend them” about other people dictate how we make policy or laws. Don’t like tattoos? Don’t get one. Case closed.

Don’t like same-sex marriage? Don’t marry someone of your sex. Case closed.

That’s what they call “freedom.”