2020 U.S. Presidential elections

Grandma Bates

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I didn’t realize the hotel actually responded, lol

Trying not to be petty here, but....

So many conflicting stories from half the country actively wishing someone like me would be kicked out of the country and/or killed or having Georgia flipped blue. Also, given the difference in the total vote there should not be any question about what happened. In the end a lot of people chose a totally incompetent clown merely out of spite and hate. For now, though, we can enjoy the winning of a battle.


Here in Georgia it is not over, and there are two Senate races to fill. The irony here is that the law requiring a run-off if no candidate gets a greater than 50% share of the vote is rooted in the segregated South as a way to mitigate the black vote. Now it may put the brakes on how much damage Sen. McConnell can do during the lame duck session as he has to be careful not to impact these two races. History has a way of biting back against the spiteful. Also, the UGA football team lost to its biggest rival, which means the ignorant, racist, rednecks around here whose only connection to education is demanding black football players risk their lives to play football are getting a double dose of bad news. I am terribly broken up by all of this.

In the meantime, I can have a brief respite of pettiness and happiness. Last night I finally finished this off:

 
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Aribeth Zelin

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Again, I lived in Georgia for most of my life - I'm so freaking proud right now. My mom has said she's just going to vote in person this time, so there is no fuckery - though since she's registered as a republican, I don't expect there would be. I mean, why fuck with a ballot you think is for your fascist team, right?

My bff from childhood is already mobilizing again to help get new voters registered, and other friends in the state are working on doing their part too. I'm planning on donating something to help with ads and doing a lot of praying.

I'm with my mom, i can't stand chickenman [as she calls him] because I've seen what his greedy assholeness does first hand*, and well, insidertraderlady needs to go diaff.

A friend and former housemate had just gotten hired on fulltime at a local warehouse, when Perdue bought the company and proceeded to get rid of everything, leaving housemate and friend forced to try and find another job...
 

Isabeau

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I am not sure why I am sharing this with you all. Maybe to expose how bad it can get and how quickly?

I spent numerous hours speaking to her, it involved a whole lots of curse words, mostly her telling me to "fuck off". At one point, she said she never wanted to hear my name again, to which I responded, "Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene" She must not have appreciated it as the next thing after that was "You are dead to me"

Ouchies. Almost gave up right there. That stung.

Anyhow, hours later, After an hours break or so each time or even a few, we were able to talk to each other without curse words. I had to be the one to initiate that. I don't wanna share that as it is even more personal than sharing all of this with you.

We spent the next few hours discussing all manner of topics from Covid to Trump to our electoral process. Every step of the way I had to walk her back, with proof, from the misconceptions she has gathered from who knows where.

There isn't any resolution at this point. She is still pretty sure that Trump had the election stolen from him..nothing I said dissuaded her from that.

But again, no screaming. I was able to talk about the civil rights act, the southern strategy, the vote counting process, in particular mail-in ballots.

I have no idea if it did any good, but, well I do love her, so I am going to try my very hardest to pull her back from the brink.

Sorry for dropping all of this on you. I figured if anyone could ever understand it, it would be you.
That must be such a difficult situation. If there are people who deserve the effort it’s family and friends. Not saying at all that it’s anyone’s duty, just that close relationships are probably the only people who would be able to break through their (not sure how to call it) set cultist thoughts. :glomp:
 
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Cindy Claveau

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Sorry for dropping all of this on you. I figured if anyone could ever understand it, it would be you.
You're a good person, Jolene. I haven't spoken to my brother in almost 2 years, other than the occasional group text we siblings do in special cases. But he is so arrogant and bull-headed it sometimes sounds like me :censored: We're probably too much alike on the opposite ends of the political spectrum to ever agree on anything, and under duress we can get positively nasty.

Honestly, after being under stress for the last 4 years, wondering every morning "what did that asshole Trump do now?", feeling the sadness and anger as a quarter of a million of my fellow Americans died from neglect, I am completely out of fucks to give. It would cost me way too much emotional energy to make amends with brother if it's even possible.

He's in ill health and I'm likely to outlive him, but right now I don't see myself driving to Oklahoma for his funeral when it happens. His sons are good people, for the most part, but I have a real hard time seeing myself as "Auntie Cin" any more. I don't know where to put all this partisan animus after the Trumpian nightmare nears its end.

I feel cowardly, to be honest, but I prefer to think of it as preserving my own mental health. I know how to live as a newly-minted progressive in a red state - keep my head down, donate to Left candidates, vote Left every chance I get and never support local businesses that reveal their right-wing allegiances. It's not that hard. I refuse to feel too guilty. The only guilt I feel comes from social expectations and I was done with those years ago.

I do understand, Jolene. I'm sorry we're all going through this now but I'm trying to focus on the future that just brightened for all of us with Trump's loss.

PS - it's a little consolation that when Biden was declared the winner, fireworks went off all over my supposedly-red city!
 
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Jolene Benoir

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Bush, congratulated Biden. To my knowledge, we've only seen Romney, Chris Christie, and Bush so far, out of the many Republicans to do so? Still, he backed the nutcase's challenging of our election. Noticeably absent is McConnell?

Bush, who has been an increasingly rare Republican critic of Donald Trump, thanked Biden for the unifying message he gave in his victory speech.

"Though we have political differences, I know Joe Biden to be a good man who has won his opportunity to lead and unify our country," he said

"I offered him the same thing I offered Presidents Trump and Obama: my prayers for his success and my pledge to help in any way I can."

Bush also extended warm words to Trump and backed his right to request recounts and pursue legal challenges because he said they would show that the election had been "fundamentally fair."
 

Jolene Benoir

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You're a good person, Jolene. I haven't spoken to my brother in almost 2 years, other than the occasional group text we siblings do in special cases. But he is so arrogant and bull-headed it sometimes sounds like me :censored: We're probably too much alike on the opposite ends of the political spectrum to ever agree on anything, and under duress we can get positively nasty.

Honestly, after being under stress for the last 4 years, wondering every morning "what did that asshole Trump do now?", feeling the sadness and anger as a quarter of a million of my fellow Americans died from neglect, I am completely out of fucks to give. It would cost me way too much emotional energy to make amends with brother if it's even possible.

He's in ill health and I'm likely to outlive him, but right now I don't see myself driving to Oklahoma for his funeral when it happens. His sons are good people, for the most part, but I have a real hard time seeing myself as "Auntie Cin" any more. I don't know where to put all this partisan animus after the Trumpian nightmare nears its end.

I feel cowardly, to be honest, but I prefer to think of it as preserving my own mental health. I know how to live as a newly-minted progressive in a red state - keep my head down, donate to Left candidates, vote Left every chance I get and never support local businesses that reveal their right-wing allegiances. It's not that hard. I refuse to feel too guilty. The only guilt I feel comes from social expectations and I was done with those years ago.

I do understand, Jolene. I'm sorry we're all going through this now but I'm trying to focus on the future that just brightened for all of us with Trump's loss.

PS - it's a little consolation that when Biden was declared the winner, fireworks went off all over my supposedly-red city!
Cindy. Thank you for your post. Never feel bad about doing what you need to do for yourself! I'm with you at not knowing what to do with this animus. So many truly evil things have been done that I am having an incredibly hard time trying to bring up my beliefs and heritage in dealing with it. I think, like you, many of us are feeling the same way?

I'm really sorry about the relationship with your brother. I've been following that for years now as you've told us about it. I know that it bothers you, because you are a person who clearly believes in family and I don't have any answers and certainly never expect anyone to do as I have done. EVERY situation is different.

It is so hard. I'm thinking that maybe, in some cases we have to let it go. I might end up in that situation, in the end, too. But, our sanity, our beliefs, our convictions, MEAN something. In particular when it comes to supporting someone who supports evil of the kind we have seen. The damage to so many lives, the death, the cruelty. It is almost unfathomable. But deal with it we must.

We must for the people whose voices were taken away. We must for those who have suffered. In the end, our feelings don't amount to much. We must be their voices. We must stand up for them. Anyhow, that's how I feel.

We've all heard this: All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

Some of us just seem to hold it closer to our heart and we have trouble with people we love being on the other side of that.

YOU are a good person, Cindy. You are a person of conviction who deserves the utmost respect. Never forget that.

That's awesome that your city celebrated!

Hugs to you!
 
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Sid

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Warning: Dutch straightforward thinking and directness ahead.

I think, that if one would ask this question with Biden, Harris and a few other Dems, a lot of people (Dems in this case) would be 100 percent behind that too.

And that is what America has to face the upcoming years.
How to heal those open wounds?
Otherwise 2024, 2028, 2032 will be exactly the same as 2020.

American patriotism has always had seeds of fascism in its soil, IMHO.
It has started to grow and bloom with Trump at the helm.
What if the next totalitarian leader steps forward with the competence of pulling it off?
And I think, it can happen both in the Rep and Dem camp the next decade(s).

Trowing mud and ridiculing the opponent has become mainstream on both sides in American campaigning long time ago because it was effective in the U.S.
Having dictator blood in the veins could become to be the next common thing, because Trump showed it can activate the masses.

The reasonable people from both sides have to reach out to each other, to get things back to more normal, de-escalate things.
 
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Luisa Land

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Maybe someone of you is interested:

Madeleine Albright
"The former US secretary of state decries the global rise of authoritarianism in her book, Fascism: A Warning, and talks about Trump, Putin and the ‘tragedy’ of Brexit" in her book

The book was published 2, 3 years ago-
It is not only about Trump, but she also writes extensively about it.

For detailed content of the book see this interview with Albright

 
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Bartholomew Gallacher

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Warning: Dutch straightforward thinking and directness ahead.

I think, that if one would ask this question with Biden, Harris and a few other Dems, a lot of people (Dems in this case) would be 100 percent behind that too.

And that is what America has to face the upcoming years.
How to heal those open wounds?
IMHO there's no easy way to heal something which is the result of decade spanning internal war - white vs. black/asian/hispanics, rich vs. poor, conversavative christians vs. LGBT+ and abortion and other areas.

Tensions/rift would be a too weak word for this, because we should all remember this:
There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.
-- Warren Buffet in 2006

Healing the USA will take at least a generation, if not longer. Anybody who thinks it can be done with in a fear years is overly optimistic. You can maybe calm down the nation in a few years somewhat, but the ghastly abscess from which it exploded like a volcano will be still be there, lying, dormant, recharging if nobody uses surgery to cut it out once and for all.
 

Pamela

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This racist, fascist contingent has always existed in American history, and it’s always fluctuated close to half the population. We can and have made incremental progress but we will never quash the anti democratic forces. Every generation has to fight .
 

detrius

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Bush, congratulated Biden. To my knowledge, we've only seen Romney, Chris Christie, and Bush so far, out of the many Republicans to do so? Still, he backed the nutcase's challenging of our election. Noticeably absent is McConnell?
He probably thinks he can get Trump's support for the runoff elections.
 

Katheryne Helendale

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You don't. Only those who need to be there ought to be there, have those being sworn n wear a mask and gloves. Swear them in, done.
This is a good idea. But I can just see Trump plastering the Twitterverse with jeers about Biden's "tiny inauguration crowd". Unfortunately, Trump's gross mishandling of the pandemic has likely deprived Biden the opportunity to rub crowd size in his face.