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General News Constructive Thread on Facing New US Administration

Discussion in 'Current Events, World News, & LGBT News' started by falconfalcon, Nov 10, 2016.

  1. falconfalcon

    falconfalcon Guest

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    ...for constructive talk about the next 4 years and facing them


    NOT A THREAD to pretend its time to reopen a hillary vs. trump debate!!!!!!!

    that time has passed. Not hear to rehash ANY thing looking like a debate that should have taken place BEFORE the election


    take that elsewhere.

    \thread for constructive talk about the situation



    stuff like worries, info on potential of what we are facing, and problem solving /solutions, stuff like idea, resources, historical perspective, peer education, and support


    <3



    (&&&)
     
  2. faustian1

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    This is kind of timely.

    I am a fan of Ralph Nader. To my surprise, he just posted on Huffpost an essay, which asks if there could be any silver lining in Trump's election. He came up with seven possible good things, from his point of view.

    I don't know about you, but for my part I appreciate people like Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders, who more often than not want to have a mature conversation about issues. It would be something we all might practice more. I think Nader's approach models a way to be critical, while seeing some reasons to be optimistic.

    Here's the link: The Silver Linings Of Silver-Tongued Donald | The Huffington Post

    It may be a little cynical for your taste, but this election has opened a lot of avenues of discussion about reforming our political system, and it sure did involve a lot of people who had dropped out of voting and politics. Maybe some good will come of it.
     
    #2 faustian1, Nov 10, 2016
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2016
  3. sldanlm

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    1. Regarding the future of the Supreme court: The gay marriage ruling was decided positively despite opposition from Scalia. The first nomination Trump make will just be replacing one conservative with another. The next justice that has hinted at retiring is also a conservative, so if Trump replaces him the balance of the court will still be the same. Plus, the country as a whole has had time to experience gay marriage and most of the people who were opposed to it have discovered that their fears were not valid, so there won't be great desire to get it reversed except by the extreme religious right.

    2. People that have studied Trump over the decades have said he is like a chameleon, tells his audience what they want to hear without actually following through some of the time. Normally that would be a bad thing, but maybe not now considering some of the things he has said.

    3. Many of the campaign promises that he made were not within his legal power as president to do anyway even if he really wanted to do them.

    4. Some were predicting a US stock market crash if he was elected. Although it took a small temporary dip (it always does after a presidential election) it rebounded. Wall street isn't seeing some end of the world scenario for them. This could be good or bad I guess, depending on your view of Wall street.

    5. The house and senate still control the purse strings, and are not likely to approve some of Trump's campaign promises that would be fiscally prohibitive (like a wall across the entire southern border) Even if they do, it will be a very slow long term project with the cost spread out. It will be meant to show the public they are trying to keep their promise, instead of any serious attempt at sealing the border. The fact is rich republications (and rich democrats) benefit financially from immigrant labor, both legal and illegal, and neither party is going to let Trump interfere with profits.

    6. In four years the American public will have a chance to reverse course if they choose to. Trump could be the death knell for conservatism, or maybe not, we'll see.
     
  4. falconfalcon

    falconfalcon Guest

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    I think it would be great if people woke up, and became active in this country. In their communites, in their live, and stopped outside their world to paid politicians.


    We have so many more out LGBTs now - it would be awesome if we could mobilize that power, if people picked up and got off their backsides and did something. If we birthed a new generation of activists, if people became active and went out and did SOMETHING.

    We need to become active , agents of change, have agency in our own lives and communities.

    There is so much good that could be done. go out and do it - put down the remote, the mouse, get up and -

    ---------- Post added 11th Nov 2016 at 04:45 PM ----------

    *that should have said outsourcing. People need to take responsibilities for their own world, their own community. Not just expect "someone else" to do it. Them - they- those guys. Yeah no. US. WE . YOU . ME

    ---------- Post added 11th Nov 2016 at 04:46 PM ----------

    government is NOT a spectator sport

    Democracy ONLY Works with citizen participation. which is NOT just voting
     
  5. RavenTheRat

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    I just want to point out the wisdom in this post.

    ---------- Post added 11th Nov 2016 at 03:50 PM ----------

    I think the best thing we can do right now is to not fall prey to the mass hysteria that has befallen many of of lgbt friends and allies.
     
  6. Kira

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    I hope I can just press through a little longer until I'm able to move, the plan has already taken two years longer than I wanted it to. My main fear is Pence rolling back human rights for everyone except straight Christian guys, and Trump indirectly causing violence. The wall is a joke, we all know how much his party loves cash and they won't allow it.

    I'll be staying inside for a while, I'm not really in the condition to be out in public. I might not be too happy, but I refuse to be another victim of a forgotten hate crime in a state with no hate crime laws. It's not the most exciting thing, but I've weighed the options and sort of hiding for a while seems like a good idea for both my safety and paranoia.
     
  7. midwestgirl89

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    I'm worried for all minorities. I'm worried for women, PoC, Muslims, immigrants, LGBT people, disabled people, and refugees. I do believe some serious damage can be done in the next 4 years via the Republican majority House and Senate + Supreme Court. Also, Trump's global policies are pretty awful. I worry that Pence's "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" could be pushed to include the entire USA. There won't be any progress to help trans people who are victims of hate crimes.

    I also worry about Trump's hardcore followers that are becoming violent. I have seen instances of violence, racist/homophobic graffiti, and online threats.

    There's nothing we can do about the fact that Trump is our President in 2017. However I would like to come up with ways to make sure minorities can stay safe and we all keep our rights. Also I'd like the USA to not go to war with everyone.... Some thoughts:

    1. Write to your state representatives. Call them. Continue to call and write them about legislation that affects minorities or other stuff you care about. Ask them to make a statement against the hate crimes that are happening right now.
    2. Protest.
    3. Volunteer at organizations that help groups affected. (the environment counts)
    4. Donate to organizations that advocate for minority groups affected.
    5. Educate people around you.
    6. Educate yourself.
    7. Take care of yourself so go to counseling or talk to a friend if it gets too much.

    Just my thoughts.
     
  8. ConnectedToWall

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    Fighting Donald Trump's impending policies feels a lot like fighting climate change. There are lots of little things that we can do every day. But, there don't seem to be many large-scale, satisfying or quick solutions.
    Resisting this will take a thousand little efforts from everyone who is not a Trump supporter.
    Also, we probably should worry about climate change even more now.
     
  9. falconfalcon

    falconfalcon Guest

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    "But, there don't seem to be many large-scale, satisfying or quick solutions. "


    If we unite, and organize, and organize to unite - we can become large scale :slight_smile:
     
  10. ConnectedToWall

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    Ideally, and in theory yes. What I mean is, there is not a large-scale solution when it comes to the actual government itself, until the 2018 elections. Uniting is very important, because everyone's' vote will be extremely important in those elections to vote for Democratic House and Senate members in order to balance the current majority the Republicans currently hold.
    I think until then its more of a moral support issue. More of an issue of standing up against fellow citizens who are Trump supporters and who will likely echo his ways of bullying and demeaning minority groups.

    ---------- Post added 11th Nov 2016 at 08:05 PM ----------

    Here is a quote from the first article I could find, I'm sure there are better ones out there but this pretty much gives the basic idea of what we are faced with:
    "The way young people are feeling now is that Tuesday was a jarring day for them because they overwhelmingly voted for the Democratic candidate and progressive candidates up and down the ticket," said DeWitt of the estimated 24 million voters 18-29 who participated in Tuesday election, 62 percent of whom voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton, with 21 percent going for Trump. "The big piece for us is education because a lot of them were new voters and voting is habit-forming, so the ones who showed up need to know their vote matters."

    Some food for thought: While just over 55 percent of Americans turned out for Tuesday's election, midterms tend to draw a much smaller crowd, with a near-record-low turnout in 2014, when only 36 percent of eligible voters bothered to show up at the polls. "It's not just that election in two years, but every election between now and then that has even lower voter turnout -- special elections, local elections or even if they want to start organizing now and run for office themselves," DeWitt said of young voters' engagement. "You need to be engaged and not just have this be an activity you show up for every four years, but make it something that's part of your identity."

    Source: Presidential Election Is Over, So Let's Talk About the Next One | Billboard

    A lot of Americans understandably pay more attention to the presidential elections because they get more publicity and seem more exciting, but when it comes to making a difference, every election is crucial, so people need to vote, vote, vote!
     
  11. falconfalcon

    falconfalcon Guest

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    That's interesting about voter patterns and turnout.

    " What I mean is, there is not a large-scale solution when it comes to the actual government itself, until the 2018 elections"

    but i basically disagree, and am concerned about too much emphasis on voting.

    every decisions made between now and 2018 - there is plenty of time to let elected officals know what we do and do not want them doing, and find ways to let them know they are being closely watched and will be held accountable. If we wait until the end of the term to do anything to hold them accountable, they may not really care what we think. We express it now, and throughout the term, they will be aware that we know who is doing exactly what, and they will pay for doing wrong.


    Also - those officials represent somebody. They are trying to please some group of voters - we can step to that opposition. We can also make attempts to overshadow them.

    There is much work to be done, plenty of opportunity

    ---------- Post added 12th Nov 2016 at 12:32 AM ----------

    Also, as your pointed out - the next batch of candidates

    We need to raise a generation of candidates.

    Spread education, etc, experience, training.. support


    you know, there is a tale i forget from where, of how a group of political people took government by first running for school boards, taking them over, then running candidates from the school boards into local offices, then further and further up the chain.

    mad clever. AND it WORKED


    took time though, eh?

    ---------- Post added 12th Nov 2016 at 12:33 AM ----------

    which reminds me i was told once that New Zealand had its own transexual political party?


    ahem.....
     
  12. faustian1

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    This cycle, speaking up in an organized way is likely to be unusually effective. This election has completely confused and blindsided the established political parties and the power structure. I'm sure they're not certain what to expect. John Kenneth Galbraith's (Canadian economist and official in the FDR administration) book, The Culture of Contentment, explains why entrenched status quo systems remain oblivious to trends like this, to the point where they collapse. Those with political interests can take advantage of this destabilized environment.

    When this happened in the Johnson and Nixon Administrations, the government's response was to double down on tanks and National Guard troops. This government, however, has met its demise in part because it did little to control the militarization of the police--in fact, quite the opposite. I suppose this is the worst case scenario--more violence.

    Another option is that the utter collapse of both parties' power structure will create opportunities for new people in the House of Representatives. We need younger people to run for seats in the House--new voices. It doesn't matter so much whether the opinions are to the left or to the right--we need a new generation of thinkers to take over the offices of the failed system, fueled by money, corruption and an urge to control everyone.

    A great deal of progress (and then decline) emerged from the anti-war years. The government had no choice but to change. Just remember, we obtained great strides in civil rights and progress, even after the 1968 election of Richard Nixon. If you take the long view of things today, the inexperience of Trump will create a few bumps, but the cataclysmic break with the same old tired cast could mean the opportunity for us to make great change.

    Today we have created an office that has great executive power, without bothering to pay attention to the fact that anyone we elect will take that power. Perhaps we should re-assert the importance of our representatives in Congress, and re-empower that body to make more decisions for us. Interest groups always want to take shortcuts, which can easily boomerang. Canada, for example, has very transient and limited executive power compared to ours, but they have made great progress since 1960.

    We should take advantage of this time of change. The problem is that we would rather see the risks to our favorite status quo, rather than recognize the opportunity to make progress in other areas we find important.
     
  13. Chloe

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    I came upon this and thought it worth sharing...

     
  14. Czarcastic

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    I think a Trump presidency gives progressives an opportunity to get control of the Democratic Party and to actually present a left-wing alternative to the right-wing economics that have been pushed by the likes of Clinton and Obama.

    I feel that becoming politically active and pushing for a Democratic Party and nominee that can beat the Republicans and Trump should be the biggest priority for those in the left. I feel, personally, that such a party needs to stop taking corporate money and needs to offer something to the Americans who feel abandoned by the major parties push for free market economics and economic globalisation.
     
  15. DAFriend

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    Where I live, it's mostly conservatives. The bottom line is that second amendment rights, lower taxes and, no more Obamacare are all that matters around here. Anything else is "whatever." They want more money, more guns, more bullets and, not to pay penalties or high dollar health insurance. beyond that, the environment, minority rights, people that actually need welfare, etc... can all just deal with whatever comes.

    Even people that have been liberal democrats here voted Trump for those reasons. Nothing else matters to them.

    An Ideal candidate would make guns easier to get, eliminate taxes and, make all doctors treat everyone for no pay, no insurance needed. They will vote as close to that as they think they can get, no matter what that candidate says about anything else.
     
  16. Pret Allez

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    The election has reinvigorated antifascist groups, which is good.
     
  17. someone29017

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    Honestly I'm less worried about policies (with the exception of those regarding the environment and global warming) and more about what people now think is okay to do. For example: Yesterday one of my mom's co-workers was listening to music in Spanish with her windows rolled down and got told by a lady (at a stoplight) to "go back to Mexico". Kids (and adults) now think its okay to bully LGBT people and people of color. I'm not just (excuse my language) pulling this out of my ass, this stuff is really happening.

    Regardless of whether or not his policies are good or bad (or will actually happen or not), this has made it seem (more) acceptable to objectify women, its made white supremacy 'okay', its made homophobia acceptable. I'm 100% aware that not everyone who voted for Trump is racist, homophobic, etc, BUT the fact is it has made people who are feel like they can now voice these things.

    Policies are reversible and arguably pretty difficult to get through in the first place, what's less reversible is the effect Trump's win has had on the way people think (excuse the terrible wording).
     
  18. AwesomGaytheist

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    The Democrats' strategy going forward should be trench warfare. Basically do to the Republicans what they did to us these last eight years. Bipartisanship hurts the minority and hands political victories to the majority. That's why Republicans did what they did: if they'd cooperated, the Democrats would have retained the majority in Congress and Barack Obama would have won a Lyndon Johnson-style landslide in 2012.

    By making the political process as divisive and ugly as possible, we're going to make every election, every issue, every bill an us-versus-them fight. The point of it being that when you get people angry and show them how dangerous Donald Trump's policies are, and when you make every election a referendum on Donald Trump, we will win.

    Democrats need demonize Republican leaders' names to subconsciously convince voters that these people are bad and need to be voted out. If you saw Republican attack ads in your Congressional district this fall, then you probably heard "NANCY PELOSI!!!!!" screamed over and over again. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Most people don't even know who Nancy Pelosi is anymore, but her name is toxic to swing voters. Why? They've heard it in a negative context so many times that they associate it with whoever it's thrown in with.

    Basically every ad in 2018 needs to say something along the lines of "Stop Paul Ryan, stop Donald Trump. Vote (Democratic candidate)." Every Republican candidate for every office, from the Senate, the House, the Governors, the state legislatures, the mayors, the councilmen, even your local township board of supervisors need to be compared to and shamed with Donald Trump.

    This has to be brutal, it has to be harsh, and it has to be ugly. Otherwise, we'll probably lose again in 2018 and again in 2020. The biggest problem with the Democratic Party, bigger than issues in the DNC and whatnot, is that the powers that be in the Democratic ranks in Congress and the state level simply refuse to fight. They won't get down and dirty and they always take the high road.

    In other words, we just keep letting them all over us. It's like a football player who doesn't want to get his uniform dirty. And by cooperating with their policies, or as a few fellow Democrats called it, "judging them on their merits," is like a football coach telling his defense to not bother trying and just let the other team score a touchdown.

    This strategy gives the different factions of the Democratic Party a common enemy to unite against. This is the quickest way to heal the divisions and reunite our party in the most efficient way possible.

    How many losses does it take before Democrats decide they're tired of losing and they're tired of getting kicked and that they want to win again? Because if they want to win, this is what has to happen.
     
    #18 AwesomGaytheist, Nov 16, 2016
    Last edited: Nov 16, 2016
  19. Aussie792

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    I disagree with the above approach. If the Democrats do it too, then the US Congress will have established a bipartisan norm of obstructionism. A government unable to pass legislation because of an opposition that opposes literally everything is useless, and it harms the entire nation as gridlock leads to stagnant, out-of-date policies because new ones can't come into effect. That harms the Democrats in the long-term.

    Not having a vision as a party or a nation, which is what the above approach consists of in defining the Democratic Party solely in opposition to the Republicans, is ultimately destructive. It weakens already cripplingly low faith in US institutions, makes the Democrats unable to persuade the public of a positive vision and only shallowly covers up the rifts within the party rather than openly addressing how the Democratic coalition's diverse goals can be turned into coherent national agenda. It also reduces the significance of specific refusals to approve legislation or appointments, which the Democrats might have to do throughout the coming administration's term.

    It's vital for the Democrats to revitalise their efforts to win statehouses and governorships. Sacrificing national agenda for four years in order to be in charge of redistricting and building the careers of promising young and/or new politicians at an achievable level is the most important thing the Democrats must do. They have to overcome their institutional weaknesses, which were temporarily glossed over by Obama's star power and the experience of the Clinton network which dominated Democratic politics for two decades but now has been ultimately repudiated. Negative politics at the federal level won't let the Democrats rebuild and foster new talent.
     
  20. SkyWinter

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    Here is how you handle the next four years. Like you handled every day for the past four. You aren't going to be rounded up and thrown into an oven. Slavery isn't going to be reinstated. Women are still going to get to vote.

    Take a breath everyone and move on with your life. Learn a new skill. Bake a pie. Mow your lawn. Learn a new language. Start a golf ball collection. Be productive.