Reflections on 1000 Days Since the 2016 Election

Politics & News
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In the wake of tragedy, there’s a universal human response to wish in vain for a reversal of time. A cosmic do-over where we can unwind history, if only a few precious seconds, and have a second chance to get things right. It doesn’t matter if the tragedy was your fault. It doesn’t matter if there’s anything you can do differently. “Please don’t let this be happening.” Everybody knows this feeling in some degree, from stubbing your toe to being in a minor car accident to the horror of watching a loved one get seriously injured. Please don’t let this be happening.

One thousand nights ago, this feeling flooded into me and it has not really subsided in any meaningful way. I went with the family to a friend’s house to watch election returns and join in a victory celebration. We brought a bottle of champagne. I was looking forward to toasting, more than anything else, the end of Trump’s shameful and sordid campaign. He would crawl back under his rock, thoroughly repudiated, and we could laugh and pretend like it never happened.

Needless to say the champagne never got popped. I remember the sinking feeling growing as the night progressed. There was a graphic on the Times website that estimated the probability of victory for each candidate and it kept moving further and further in Trump’s direction. Please don’t let this be happening. I was sitting alone on a couch when the election was called and I don’t think I even moved for at least twenty minutes. How is this possible? How could anybody in their right mind have voted for this complete clown so obviously and completely unqualified for the job? Some people seemed to be reacting to the result with amusement rather than horror and fear. This reaction was as unfathomable as the election result.

If you’re over about 40, you experienced 9/11 as an adult. My reaction then was similar. As I watched the dust settling over lower Manhattan (on TV from a very safe distance), I knew this trauma would be a critical point in the history of the country. I wished in vain that it wasn’t really happening. Then I took a shower and went to work. What else could you do? My desk at that time had a view of a major airport several miles away, and the total absence of any planes landing or taking off for the next week was a constant reminder that something drastic had happened, and things would not be going back to normal for quite some time, if ever.

More than 2.5 years after the election, I’m still in a state of daily shock and disbelief. It’s not so much denial any more as a generalized sense of incredulousness. Like I still can’t believe this is all truly happening, and there’s little more to do with the daily outrage than shake one’s head and roll one’s eyes. I’ve survived on a steady diet of wishful thinking, needing to believe that this has all been a grotesque aberration and that the deviancy will all be set right with the next election cycle. The nation comes to its senses, Joe Biden or Mayor Pete or whoever will take the wheel and gently steer the ship back into a normal lane. All the damage will slowly be repaired, frayed relationships will be mended, and within a couple of decades the despicable stain of Trump and Trumpism will be all but forgotten. The problem is I’m losing faith that this pleasant-sounding outcome will be possible.

And even if it is possible and sanity and competent governance is eventually restored, this period of American history will always have happened and I find this realization depressing. In other words, the history of the early 21st century has already been written: half the nation fell into the thrall of an unhinged lunatic, a faux-populist racist clown. He lied and bullshitted and insulted and watched TV and tweeted and golfed and they loved him for it.

I’m afraid this period will be looked at historically as one of normalization and cowardice. Most people, including the media, seemed to return relatively quickly to a business-as-usual mode, acting as if this is just another Republican administration instead of a constant emergency and a constant threat. Instead of ramping up, resistance seems to be fading in the face of the daily grind, the new normal. I wonder if these years will be seen as a period of relative calm and prosperity before a new round of upheaval and violence.

The inventory of outrages and malfeasance is so vast it’s literally overwhelming. Remember when Trump shared classified intelligence with the Russian ambassador in the Oval Office? Of course you do since you’re a politics junkie who’s been paying attention, but this and ten thousand other things failed to register and stir the consciousness of the vast majority of Americans. It was overshadowed almost immediately by the next item on the endless list. Trying to keep up with everything leads to exhaustion, and exhaustion gives way to despair. But to the extent that Trump and his team have a strategy, that strategy is to establish his brand of ignorant authoritarianism as the new normal, and to rely on–and weaponize–the resulting exhaustion and despair.

I find I’m barely paying attention to the Democratic candidates at this point. It seems insane to even need an election to determine the outcome. Trump’s support should be in the single digits at best, the people should long ago have risen up and demanded not only impeachment but some kind of declaration that the entire presidency has been illegitimate and therefore invalid. All laws and regulations and policy changes of the Trump era should be rolled back, all judges appointed should be removed. Nobody has consistently impressed me more than Mayor Pete so far, but I don’t have very strong feelings about it. This is primarily because it should be incredibly obvious that whoever the Democratic nominee turns out to be, she will be 1000 times better and more qualified than Trump. So it’s a foregone conclusion who I’ll be voting for, and it should be a foregone conclusion what the result will be. That it’s not is, again, depressing and demoralizing.

I do like the candidates who are talking about need for major structural reform. I’m becoming increasingly sympathetic to the “WAAF” arguments about the rising combination of gerrymandering, voter suppression, election interference, conservative judges, etc. to subvert democracy. If we don’t get that right soon, we may not get another chance. But getting it right will require people in power who value integrity and accountability. Speaking of values, David Brooks, of all people, said something that caught my attention recently. Talking about the debates, he said something like “Trump is running a values campaign, and you can’t combat a values campaign with a policy campaign.” He point was that the candidates need to talk more about their values and how their policies reflect those values. He’s not wrong. I think Mayor Pete is leading the pack in this regard, with Biden perhaps in a close second.

I’m not sure where we go from here. People are talking about stepping back from politics in order to maintain sanity. People are talking about leaving the country if Trump wins his re-election. People are talking about ramping up activism to resist the normalization of Trumpism. I understand all of these impulses and all options are on the table. As I write this, reports are coming in of a second major mass shooting in less than 24 hours. Maybe this will be the catalyst for a significant reaction, something other than tepid thoughts and prayers and nonsense about violent video games. I want to believe it.

I’ve thought about the dilemma between fleeing the country and staying to fight. I’m not sure how I’d feel watching my country burn down from a safe distance, without having done everything possible to try and turn things around. But at the same time, the weather in Ecuador seems quite pleasant. A hundred years from now, survivors will be asking what we old-timers did to stop this madness, and I don’t have a very good answer right now.

From a big-picture perspective, how are you handling the current climate? Please feel free to share your approaches to maintaining sanity, fighting injustice, resisting despair/defeatism/apathy, and fending off the constant grinding exhaustion of the times in which we are now forced to live.

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I tell myself that this presidency, if you want to call it that, is going to be seen as an important turning point in American History. I tell myself that he ripped the mask off what the GOP has stood for since Nixon. I tell myself that the electoral backlash to this president will permanently change American politics.

I see politics as a naturally cyclical thing. From 1929-~1969 there was a predominantly liberal political culture that depended heavily on the labor movement and truly heavy handed regulations (lots of price controls). Unfortunately towards the end it had been heavily infiltrated by bad actors (there was a thing called the syndicate that dominated huge swaths of the economy) and the economy was getting pretty screwed up (and got much more screwed up in the 70’s). So the Boomers turned to the right, and that’s basically where they’ve stayed.

I was born in 1985. My generation is very liberal compared to the Boomers or even Gen X and the kids born after me are even more liberal still. Our formative political experiences are of lobbyists, forever war, a broken healthcare system, inequality, student loans, and now climate change. Every year we get older (which makes us more likely voters) and there are fewer people born before 1965 still around.

I think the reason this is happening to us as a country is that the polarity is shifting because everything a reasonable conservative from the late 60’s wanted got done a looooong time ago. To keep things going they segregated their supporters onto a news platform that fed them propaganda and slowly eroded their ability to perceive reality. This worked for ~20 years until these faculties had atrophied to the point where their news channel mostly hawked scams and pharma (the advertising of which they somehow made legal despite that being a truly awful idea)… and then along came a true scam artist who gave them what they had been trained to want… without prettying it up.

In the long run I think Trump is the opportunistic infection who will kill this iteration of the GOP. The GOP has depended on low voter turnout among non core GOP voters for a couple of decades now. Trump has absolutely shattered that and if his defeat results in significant changes to the country there won’t be a way to put voter turnout back where it was (the new normal being higher voter turnout among everyone not an old person).

Thinking about this from a longer term bigger picture view is what keeps me sane. No question it sucks super bad right now though. Dear god does it suck.

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Good OP. I myself have had many of the same experiences/feelings that you talk about. I don’t have a very good recipe for getting over those feelings but I do think it helps to realize that you are not alone. Things like this forum, listening to left leaning podcasts and talking with your IRL liberal friends are all things that have helped me some.

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Lots of thoughts and feels here. I share your experience of Trump’s election as one of the worst days of my life, although it wasn’t unexpected for me. There was no champagne to leave unopened. For me, it reenforced all my negative feelings about the world and other people. I’m a native Northeasterner, and I was living in Oklahoma at the time and just felt a tremendous disgust for my surroundings. They did this to me, my friends, and family back home. We had to suffer Donald Trump because of them.

Having lived through it for 1000 days, it’s horrible, obviously, but I try to put it in perspective. I’ve learned more about politics and history since 2016 than I ever thought I would have the interest to do. While Donald Trump is uniquely stupid and unhinged among American Presidents, his administration has not been the most successful in doing evil. If you just look at American history still in living memory, you’ll find a lot of really terrible things: Iraq War, Vietnam War, segregation, and others. If you expand to US and world history of the last 200 years, it’s even worse.

I think if you want to be a functional human being, you have to come to grips with the inevitability of a lot of bad shit happening. Not that you don’t say or do anything about it, just that you understand it’s the way things are and always have been, not some great cosmic injustice that’s happening this one time. In the context of US national politics, I refuse to be shocked by the next Donald Trump that follows eight years of a solid Dem Pres. Just like GWB, it all goes down the memory hole, and most of the voters are just clicking buttons. You don’t have much control over it.

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There’s a lot that could be said here but something that isn’t talked about a lot is that there are definitely advantages to supporting the party not in power. The other side is now accountable for the last 3 years and can be pressed on it over and over especially since they’re objectively full of shit and lies. “Why didn’t the Republicans solve these problems during the 2 years they had full control of government” is something you can attack with over and over.

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I feel similarly in a lot of ways to you, but I’m not giving up hope that something will be done.

As bad as it sounds to say, these tragedies are really going to push the impeachment groundswell to the backpages for probably at least a week (I’m delaying my call to my Congressperson until at least Wednesday because of it). Just today, the mothereffer tried to tie gun reform to immigration reform. That should move the needle on impeachment, but it won’t. He officially tried to politicize a tragedy against the people who were a part of the tragedy. This is monstrous.

I still say that 2020 will be the marker. In 2016, I was confident that Trump wouldn’t win, but worried that he might. I was hoping that the overall sanity of the people in the country would be enough. But when I was on the ground and listening in the weeks in the run up to the election, I kept hearing the same thing over and over, ‘Hillary’s going to win anyway, so I’m not going to vote.’ I have no interest in talking politics in public with strangers, so I didn’t push back. I just hoped there wouldn’t be too many of those people out there. It appears there were.

So that changed my default position to being that we shouldn’t have faith in the people of this country to do the right thing. I used the 2018 midterms as a litmus test of that. I said if we didn’t get back the House in 2018 that I was done. I couldn’t listen to more breathless whining if no one was willing to do anything about it in the ballot box. It would have meant we lost the country, and would have to live with it. I watched the returns roll in on 2+2 with the famous 538 debacle in real time. I almost stopped reading because of the idiocy and complaining and surety that it was over in the first hour of returns. By the end of the night, people were upset that we didn’t get the Senate, which was never ever in play. And this was in the face of a clear blue wave in the House that hit the top range of what they were hoping for, with just incredible wins in CA that never would have happened in 2016.

My problem was that people weren’t willing to take the win they could get, as opposed to wanting something they couldn’t get. It was always about the House and the House only. Us not winning the Senate wasn’t a reflection on the values of the country or voters in general. Those seats are staggered, and they were very heavily stacked against the Dems. 2020 was too, until things got a lot worse with the GOP and Trump. I now think the Senate is absolutely in play in 2020, and unless the Dems botch it they should have a strong majority in 2022 there (even if they don’t get the Senate in 2020, and as long as they do something meaningful related to impeachment).

This is way longer than I intended, but I’ll leave you with one last piece of something that will hopefully give you some optimism. In the run up to the 2018 midterms, the House GOP circulated a list of something like 200 investigations they felt could be opened against the president if they lost. They were running on trying to kill all of those investigations (but had the self-awareness to know that Trump was doing a lot of impeachable wrong despite not wanting to do anything about it).

As much as people want to believe the election was a retort on health care (that happened a year before), I think it was much more about wanting to making sure oversight didn’t disappear. If the Dems don’t do the oversight they were theoretically put in for, they will be in severe danger for 2020. There seems to be some kind of movement right now, but it’s still not enough. And the problem is that the tragedies are providing the kind of ‘delay’ cover both sides really want.

I’m staying positive until 2020. As long as we keep the House, I’ll keep interested. If not, I’m done. I’ll vote, but that’s it.

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I want to believe this, but I’m not quite here yet. As ATC alluded to a bit in his post, American history is actually chock full of all sorts of evil shit. I wonder, had internet forums been around during the Vietnam War period, how many hopeful liberals would have been making posts similar to yours, and look at where we’ve gone in the 40+ years since. (I say this not to take a shot at you, just to wonder if optimism has ever worked out like people hoped.)

Like you, I’ve dug deeper into politics and American political history during the past 3 years than I ever wanted to. I have my optimistic days, but most days lately I’ve resigned myself to the reality that the American political system is inherently broken and has been since its beginnings. It has moved in the right direction, which is easy to say from my position as a posterchild of unearned privilege, but I doubt the reality of it will ever reach the lofty ideals we pretend that the country stands for. In particular, as long as any reincarnation of the Conservative movement remains in the post-Trump era, our country will continue along this path; even if, somehow, the GOP splinters, I have come to believe that America and Americans are, if not evil, at least sufficiently ignorant to allow their indifference to be co-opted in the pursuit of malice. I don’t think this will ever change, at least not during my lifetime.

These violent delights have violent ends.

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This… Caused me a melt down earlier. Can you imagine what his crowd is saying about that 1 statement. :pensive::pensive::pensive: It’s sickening.

[quote=“nunnehi, post:6, topic:161”]I used the 2018 midterms as a litmus test of that. I said if we didn’t get back the House in 2018 that I was done.[quote=“nunnehi, post:6, topic:161”]
It was about this time that I started posting on the old forum, as I seen heads go down and was pissed that my forum (friends) had been upset, it was around then I started asking questions & to give a little support if I could from overseas.

As I watched mostly TyT at the time, It was my thinking too. And was impressed that they Atleast tried to unseat Pelosi with support for her opponent.

Please don’t, because then they have achieved their No1 Goal. As someone on here told me. :v:

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I believe people will do the right thing in 2020, so it shouldn’t come into play. I’ll basically be putting it back to Dubya levels for my involvement in the event that the country lets me down again. That’s not nothing, but it’s not enough to affect my daily life until it affects my daily life.

If you’re looking for the reason why I keep hoping for the best that’s it. I always hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. It’s how I can stay calm when everything’s crashing down around everyone else in my career.

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I’m more worried about the future than the past 1,000 days. I just don’t see a scenario in which Trump steps down as POTUS. He’s already “joking” at his rallies that he may stay longer. Like his racist crap, he’s trying to make it a part of his administration.

No matter what happens, he’s gonna say illegals voted. He bitched about it in 2016 and he WON. So let’s say he loses in 2020. Will he do the normal thing and step down? I don’t see it. I think he’ll claim the election is invalid and do whatever he can to stay in office. Who is gonna stop him? Mitch? Nancy? Rapey Kav was put in the SCOTUS for a reason.

On top of all that, what will the millions of deplorables do when Trump loses? Trump is gonna scream that millions of illegals voted and they will believe it. Chances are they won’t do anything. But what if they do? Even 1,000 deplorables hellbent on violence can do a lot of damage.

I also think it’s inevitable that there will be another terrorist attack. 9/11 was almost 20 years ago. And even though white males are the ones doing the majority of domestic terror in the US, we all know that’s gonna go out the window if ISIS or whatever does a massive strike somewhere. That will give Trump an even bigger reason to clamp down on what he wants. And half the US will merrily go along with it.

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There’s no need for an outside terror attack when the country’s already tearing itself apart from within.

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This is roughly my view and I agree with a lot of the OP’s sentiments.

During the election my very first reaction was that something was wrong. The numbers indicated Hillary landslide even in the most pessimistic interpretation of the data. To this day, still, she won with a pretty solid margin on a national level. I knew the comey thing had to be either a huge wrench in the process or that something darker was at play.

The more that comes out about this - and most of it is far worse than my darkest fears - is that I was right. I think the 2016 election was rigged. Not in the sense that actual votes are changed - but gun to my head, I would not bet that 0 votes were changed - but that our system was rigged against us by an outside force.

The 2018 midterms were a point of a lot of hope for me. I was pretty involved and spent a considerable amount of my spare energy on that. I can definitely say I was a non-zero factor in flipping what was a republican (and russian) stronghold for many decades. I am really proud of this. I didn’t fully support the candidate but felt it was my duty as an American to fight this administration and what is happening to this country.

I still feel that way. If called to war to fight this - I would fight. Gladly and eagerly. But, what I see happening now has left me devoid of hope. A completely clueless and fractured Democrat party filled with petty infighting about POLICY of all fucking things, as if that matters anymore - and no leadership or will to do anything to fight the slow erosion of our democracy. 2020 seems like a rigged election even now. I see people giving up. I am pretty much one of them now. What my goal is now, is to fade into the background as much as possible, get mine, and get the hell out of here. The environment is fucked and I dont think my individual contributions will help at all, so I shamelessly don’t give a fuck anymore whether I recycle or use plastic disposables for all my meals. The solution at this point needs to be global and coordinated and LOL at that happening in 20 years. It’s far too late.

So, whatever, count me in on team WAAF. I think that within the American people is a strength and tenacity that will get through this, but I don’t think it’ll happen in my lifetime so I just don’t care anymore.

Before anyone judges me this whole episode has had a real and very severe effect on my mental health. I can track my 2 year depressive episode to the week of the inauguration. This stuff wears me down heavily. I just want to get to a point in my life where I dont have to hear trump’s voice or see the opinions of any of his idiot asshole followers. It seems like even leaving the country wouldnt provide me that peace anymore so I can just do the best I can to mitigate it and that, for me, is checking out. Sorry. But if there’s a civil war - count me in. If there’s a chance to crack some of these dipshits skulls, figuratively or otherwise, count me in. I will continue to do what I know I can do best - troll the everloving shit out of these heartless, selfish, incel loser fucks. That I will never, ever stop.

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I appreciate all the thoughtful replies. Some good stuff here. I agree that this community is an important part of staying informed, staying sane, and at least for me, staying as hopeful as possible.

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This quote is attributed to Picaso: “Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.” Trump might be the liar that makes us realize the truth. So far, the truth is not pretty.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t reason to be hopeful though. Feeling that waaf is understandable but wrong. I like our chances in 2020 and beyond.

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Definitely a great OP, many things I agree with.
I didn’t really follow anything about politics until 2016 and now I read about it every day. That’s definitely a positive that came out of it, but the feeling of hopelessness for the future of this country is strong.

After reading Fantasyland (definitely recommended) I feel to have a better understanding of how this could have happened and how religion is one of the worst things in this country and has given rise to beliefs in all sorts of nonsense, including believing that Trump is not a horrible human piece of garbage.

Like many here, I’m afraid the worst is yet to come…

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I’ve never been more optimistic for the country and world.

More people than ever are paying attention and thanks to things like twitter we are able to share information lightning quick.

To be clear I don’t think we will have any fundamental changes for 20 plus years but young people are going to continue to be plugged in and the older generation is going to have less power.

Bottom up solutions are going to be implemented. People are going to have power as we realize that concentration of power is not a good thing.

17

Counterpoint: lol

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