In the unlikely event that Trump wins, how will you react?

So you're saying conditions and circumstances never affect anything in the present, because something was "always this way"? If that was a way to look at problems, we'd never have to do anything.

I'm saying there's actually a pretty narrow range of "how bad can this get?" and it's largely determined by what the place in question has always been like, yeah. This country has always been a violent, entirely money-driven, take-what-you-can-grab place. Trump isn't making it any worse, not really.

The problem here is that you're viewing this entirely through the prism of politics. Trump, I believe, is viewing it more through the prism of showbiz. Remember, he didn't just run The Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice for years; he also had a long association with professional wrestling. To him, it's all about twirling on haters. Trump is a fascist the way Beyonce is a revolutionary.

Not sure if this is an xpost - I agree (and that's a great line), but don't consider it important.

Honestly, I think fear of Trump betrays a real ignorance of US history. I hate to get all Ta-Nehisi Coates here, but we have always been a country of "mass shooters, violent racists, religious fanatics, and warmongers," even as we have also always been a country of ambitious immigrants and people who marry outside their race or ethnicity. And I genuinely don't think it's getting any worse.

Well, there was a time when it was acceptable to say so in public as part of an attempt to get elected, and then there was a time when it wasn't (though I get that frequently you didn't need to crack the Enigma code to figure out "hey... is that politician trying to appeal to racists?")

Did not know this! Got me thinking about a Trump Corgan ticket now.

He shaved Shane Mc Mahon's head at WrestleMania - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WrestleMania_23

ye mad puffin pretty much otm

nobody is going to move to canada

Speak for yourself!

Sometimes in darker moments I've favored a quasi-Trotskyite position: the worse things get, the better they get. It is the nature of a pendulum to swing. Let evil get its message out there, even let it win for a few innings. People will see it for what it is and they will recoil from it.

That's pretty much how I thought during the Gingrich / Contract with America era: okay, bring your nasty-ass ideology out into the open, let people see the consequences of it, and the decent people will know from experience that it's not the right way to go. Maybe people need to learn the hard way, by having it actually implemented.

I now think this is privileged and wrongheaded (and have learned that, in part, here at ILX). In short, it's really easy for a white dude to say "let the Klan have their stupid march, good people will recoil!" Because we won't be the ones strung up.

The biggest problem with Trump for me is not his chances of winning (which I still think are small) but that he emboldens hate. I agree with YMP, sunshine does not disinfect this stuff, it helps it grow.

Props to ciderpress for the message of "stick around and help."

If there's a real shitstorm of consequences, having all the good people say "see ya! wouldn't want to be ya!" and head for the border will make things suck all the harder. Just because you're chillin in Vancouver or whatever doesn't mean turning a blind eye to whatever is going on here.

overall imho the state of the American polity has gotten steadily worse since 1980. (not everything) waitin' on that pendulum, runnin outta time.

yes Puffin gen otm

I've lived through two depressions
And seven Dust Bowl droughts
Floods, locusts and tornadoes
And even Donald Trump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP94wyr5KB4

not a yank, will hope the cia assassinates him

If there's a real shitstorm of consequences, having all the good people say "see ya! wouldn't want to be ya!" and head for the border will make things suck all the harder. Just because you're chillin in Vancouver or whatever doesn't mean turning a blind eye to whatever is going on here.

― rock me, I'm a deist (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, February 29, 2016 10:45 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah but I mean they gotta think about their own happiness too, y'know? there is also a general feeling of hopelessness that drives these moves.

not like I think a Trump presidency would result in anything more than four years (assuming he makes it) of ineptitude, rising partisan anger, etc etc, but it's giving a voice to ignorance, hate, telling Muslims they're not welcome, etc.

the candidacy itself has been disgusting enough, but usually a fringe candidate will disappear when he finishes 7th out of 8 candidates. like said above, his success is 'legitimizing' his followers who no doubt are projecting their own ignorance onto Trump (even as he says things that likely conflict with what they believe).

he'd probably be the first President to use an Executive Order banning croutons on salads tho

not a yank, will hope the cia assassinates him

"What's the first question at a Trump-Clinton debate?"

"'Where's A_ Q___a when you need 'em?'"

A Trump candidacy is giving a voice to ignorance, hate, etc. I have heard more about the Klan's political positions in mainstream media this past week than I've heard in the past seven years WHILE WE'VE HAD A BLACK PRESIDENT.

otm - there was that one ugly rally in LA recently too

Might move back. Will quietly mutter "told you so" a lot. (Plan to start telling you so in about three weeks if current trends continue.)

I tend to agree that there will be an institutional sort of inertia (with maybe a few individuals within government taking principled stands) which would make President Trump pretty much impotent and unable to accomplish anything concrete in terms of policy. This is taking for granted that he will be unable to get anything through Congress, which is practically a given.

There is this as well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/02/28/former-cia-director-military-may-refuse-to-follow-trumps-orders-if-he-becomes-president/

Maher kind of played up the whole coup thing, but it's not out of the question if Trump started to get too aggressive with his foreign policy.

I mean, this was August 2015, in allegedly liberal Boston, when Trump was 100% considered to be a pathetic joke: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/08/20/after-two-brothers-allegedly-beat-homeless-man-one-them-admiringly-quote-donald-trump-deporting-illegals/I4NXR3Dr7litLi2NB4f9TN/story.html

This is all hyperbole and I don't believe Trump will become President, and I don't believe even if he does become President that enough bigoted Americans are actually motivated enough to initiate violence that could impact me and my family, and I also believe that having a gun in my house will make my family significantly less safe, but OTOH if the dude who said during an interview "I can't disavow David Duke until I know more about him" as if he wasn't intimately involved with the Klan and couldn't be bothered to say "I disavow the Ku Klux Klan" while pretending not to know who David Duke was somehow ends up in the White House, I'll take on that risk.

Basically, I prefer not to live in a country where bigots feel that they've been given a mandate. We're already halfway there thanks to the baffling success of Trump's campaign, and it's going to unfortunately take a lot of work to delegitimize the creeps who've been coaxed out of their racist hidey holes over the past several months. A Trump win would be like Christmas for every angry white isolationist turd in the country (a group of people who are intolerable enough without a world leader to rally around).

Maher kind of played up the whole coup thing, but it's not out of the question if Trump started to get too aggressive with his foreign policy.

― Gatemouth, Monday, February 29, 2016 11:06 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought he was mostly isolationist.

I think calling him isolationist would be crediting him with a coherent foreign policy. He'd be much more likely to be generally reactive, which is the context in which he might just impuslively order an invasion or something.

his sphincter is generally reactive

Foreign policy = build a lot more golf courses.

"Putt Putt One"

Harking well back upthread:

what he's saying is that both Trump people and military people are total Nazis.

This is an interesting point. I think it is more accurate to say there is a strong contingent of southern-raised, traditionally-military-family, Confederate-sympathizing, proto-fascists in the West Point trained officer class. Thank goodness this is offset by large numbers of African-Americans and Latino-Americans in the ranks and among the NCOs who know that these officers are totally full of shit.

Sometimes in darker moments I've favored a quasi-Trotskyite position: the worse things get, the better they get. It is the nature of a pendulum to swing ... I now think this is privileged and wrongheaded

didn't work out great for trotsky either

Has anybody done an ironic "good luck USA" yet?

My grandmother was born in Canada but became a naturalized US citizen IIRC so I don't think I'd qualify to emigrate to Canada so even if I wanted to go that route I'm SOL.

I unfortunately don't have any foreign direct relations, but I've been wondering for a while if there's a way I can leverage being the direct descendant of a former SoS. Maybe I have some mysterious inherited power to veto Trump's inauguration.

Well I've heard that you can apply for French citizenship if the place you were born was ever French territory. I happen to have been born in Missouri (formerly part of La Louisiane / Nouvelle France / French America). Not sure if this is true - never cared enough to look into it further. I think it's probably intended more for people whose destinies are tied up with the immediate colonial and post-colonial chaos in Africa and the Caribbean, rather than white-bread-fed American Midwesterners.

My father notes that he's possibly eligible for Irish citizenship because his grandfather was born in Ireland. Again, it's possibly out there but it would seem that there are people way more in need of escape from their current circumstances than USian Democrats who don't much like Trump or Cruz or whatever.

Pursuing these dreamy thoughts seems a bit insulting when compared to, say, my Syrian co-workers (who have family and friends desperately trying to cross the water to the EU, against thirst and tides and skinhead anger).

I have been able to trace my ancestry back to the first relative to arrive here from Sweden (my great-great-grandfather, in the late 1800s) but I don't think that'll jump me to the head of the line as an immigrant.

I'll see if they need community school directors in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and hope my Scottish-ish-ness is enough to tip the scales.

no other option than 'not moving anywhere.' throwing a hissy fit online not an option

I really want to go to ireland now that darragh has put the idea in my head. I liked it when I visited in 2010.

but treesh, if you go to live in a pleasant small country like Ireland you'll never hit the big time!

This desire isn't really related to Trump. Just seems like chill times, chilling at pubs, maybe buying a sweater or two

Lol xp

I'd prob drink some cof if trump got in, would def get a cof with trís in dub if it came up

what about a milk stout

Props to ciderpress for the message of "stick around and help."

If there's a real shitstorm of consequences, having all the good people say "see ya! wouldn't want to be ya!" and head for the border will make things suck all the harder. Just because you're chillin in Vancouver or whatever doesn't mean turning a blind eye to whatever is going on here.

― rock me, I'm a deist (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, February 29, 2016 7:45 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm otm otm otm otm

Pursuing these dreamy thoughts seems a bit insulting when compared to, say, my Syrian co-workers (who have family and friends desperately trying to cross the water to the EU, against thirst and tides and skinhead anger).

― carry me a laser down the road that i must travel (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, February 29, 2016 11:24 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

again, otm otm otm otm otm

gah sorry, that was like substanceless reddit-style upvoting on my part. but those were good posts.

Thanks brim - I realize this line of argument is a bit of a cheap shot, and if taken ad absurdum you get to a point where no one can complain about anything if they're not currently dying of cholera while covered with blowflies on an African plain.

But still I do imagine a theoretical conversation between an American Democrat and a Syrian refugee in which the Syrian is saying, "Yes, please, tell me again about how you want to leave your country because you don't like the president."

My father and both paternal grandparents are Jewish, so Israel here I come! That seems like a pretty safe places to live in the event of a Trump presidency.

i think the ppl planning on leaving the country are underestimating the likely global consequences of an unpredictable hothead becoming the most powerful man on earth

global warming?

Dont bother coming here, we just lock people up who emigrate, on remote islands with no medical care and leave you to die. Trump got nothin on our government :/

Sweeney made it out ok I guess

"I realize this line of argument is a bit of a cheap shot, and if taken ad absurdum you get to a point where no one can complain about anything if they're not currently dying of cholera while covered with blowflies on an African plain."

otm

"i think the ppl planning on leaving the country are underestimating the likely global consequences of an unpredictable hothead becoming the most powerful man on earth"

notm