Pessimistic Comment

[minoanmiss]

I mean it about this being pessimistic. Deadly pessimistic. But I need to get this off my mind so I can get back to work.

So during the Assassination Attempt, Trump managed a photo-op: fist raised, face bloodied, wrapped in Secret Service personnel. A lot of people have talked about how that image will be in history books for the next hundred years.

I don't think it will be.

I think it'll get Trump elected, and within five years he'll start a nuclear war which will do away with history books and many many other things.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

HUGS

Well then I better get going on my bucket list.

[minoanmiss]

aahahahahahahahahah cheers you on

[amaebi]

*love*

[minoanmiss]

clings

[dissectionist]

Whether or not he gets elected, nobody else in the world wants nuclear war. If he gets elected and he’s legit going in that direction, his threat becomes a matter of survival for other world governments. I believe they’ll be forced to make the problem - by which I mean Trump - go away for their own survival. He’ll make himself Public Enemy #1 to the entire rest of the world, and many world governments employ marksmen who are much more expert (and well-equipped) than the almost-assassin was. (Aside from the many other ways of stopping a problem in human form.)

[bikergeek]

nobody else in the world wants nuclear war.

Disagree. Putin does. He's the kind of person who'll burn everything to the ground if he can't have it.

[dissectionist]

If Putin truly wanted it, he’s had plenty of opportunity, particularly over the last few years as things haven’t gone well for Russia and public support has been for Ukraine. What he wants (and what he’s done) is to wave his toys around in the hopes that it’ll intimidate everyone else into standing down.

There are a lot of bullies out there who won’t actually get into a physical fight because they’re secretly scared of getting hurt themselves, but they’ll posture and make a big deal about COME AT ME BRO because they’re betting that others are too scared to call their bluff. (And they’re almost always right.) That way they get to look like they were ready to go - I would have fought him in a second but he wouldn’t do it! - and get the points for being tough without actually having to risk their own hides.

Putin’s one of those, from what I’ve seen. He’ll posture, threat, intimidate, and manipulate all day long, but he’s also clever enough to understand that the only way he can get and enjoy more power is if he stays alive. He’s always willing to risk the lives of others, but you only have to look at his Covid precautions (he masked far longer than other world leaders, had a “decontamination tunnel” for anyone coming to see him, etc) to know he’s invested in staying alive personally.

[bikergeek]

That's how bullies usually work, but Putin may figure he has nothing to lose for one of two reasons:

1. He figures he'd survive anything from a small-scale battlefield nuclear exchange using tac nukes, to a full-on, global thermonuclear war, because he has an underground bunker and enough people loyal to him. He'd get to be king. King of a heap of smoldering, glowing rubble--but still king. ("Still not....")

2. There's been some speculation about his health and that he's possibly terminally ill. He doesn't want to die without leaving a Legacy. If he can't be the man who Made Russia Great Again, he'll be the man who turned Ukraine into a heap of smoldering, glowing rubble.

[dissectionist]

My guess is that eventually Ukraine will be forced into conceding some of the land to Russia, at which point Putin will get to feel like he won, but I’m still waiting to see how that pans out. It’s gone on a lot longer than I would have expected.

[bikergeek]

It's gone on a lot longer than anyone expected, especially Pooty-Poot. It was supposed to be a "three day operation", like the S.S. Minnow was supposed to be a "three hour tour".

Who knows how it'll turn out. The USSR was forced to withdraw from Afghanistan after trying to prosecute the war there literally bankrupted them. A lot of it will depend on the extent to which the West is willing to continue supplying Ukraine with weapons. Maybe at some point senior leadership inside Russia will see the writing on the wall and will encourage Uncle Vova to step down and retire, with whatever level of force is necessary.

[kore]

Yeah, Putin is a scary motherfucker.

[minoanmiss]

I haven't wanted to be wrong about something this much since June 2016 when I realized Trump was going to get the nomination. Ugh. I really hope you're right (but I also agree with WD about Putin, and don't know much about the people around him.)

I hate having nuclear war nightmares. So much.

[kore]

We spent enough of time from childhood to young adulthood having them! //HUGS

[minoanmiss]

I KNOW RIGHT I started having these WHEN I WAS EIGHT then I read Hiroshima at 15 and had them FOUR TIMES A WEEK for a YEEAR i did NOT want them back.

hugs you so much

[lynnenne]

OMG THIS. I thought we were done worrying about this bullshit! It's bad enough we have to worry about global warming and threats to democracy, I don't want The Bomb back on my rumination list.

[dissectionist]

I can definitely empathize with that. My fears run more to pandemics because I’m a high-risk person and lifelong virology nerd, but the base fear of something we can’t control that could end everything is the same. That sense of powerlessness and fear is always awful.

[kore]

"within five years he'll start a nuclear war which will do away with history books and many many other things."

if the planet's lucky

Sorry, just feeling really kind of Done with humanity rn, at least the part of it burning up the atmosphere to make chat gpt (and that's not even a big population! Why do they get to burn it all up for the rest of us)

[minoanmiss]

Don't I hear you.

I feel like I cannot give up on humanity because when my ancestors were enslaved they could have drowned their babies but they raised them in hope that things would get better for Black people. They literally didn't give up on the future, on me, so I can't give up on us. But these are definitely the moments I have to remind myself of that.

[kore]

YES. I def hear that. I just fear basically for all other life on the planet, too. But t says it would be impossible to wipe it all out. Idk. So far humanity is also a v tiny blip in the universe's lifespan. But damn.

[minoanmiss]

It woudl take a lot for us to sterilize Earth, and unfortunately relatively little to make her uninhabitable for ourselves. I mean, the higher the seas rise the happier the hagfish[1] are.

[1] Don't look them up. They are lamprey relatives absolutely covered in slime, and they eat whatever sinks to the bottom of the ocean. They'd love it if all the land drowned.

THAT SAID there ARE people working on these issues. Hopefully as a society we can support them, etc.

[lynnenne]

The planet will survive, and recover, and be better off without us in the long run. Which gives me a perverse sense of satisfaction.

[ex_flameandsong751]

-hugs- Yeah, I've had the same thought.

my attempt at optimism

[julian]

On the one hand, I have that fear. Like, all of it.

On the other hand, this election is about the (very few) people who are undecided. And I can't live with fear At All Times. So I have decided this:

IF he had gotten shot at in late October, there wouldn't have been time for anything more, and that image would have turned the election.

BUT. There are four months to the election. There is *plenty* of time for Trump to be himself, and remind people *just* how Trumpy he is. Consistently, undecideds have been turned off by him when exposed to his unfiltered presence, and there's still the convention and a debate to go.

So. There's time.

Re: my attempt at optimism

[minoanmiss]

hugs you most gratefully

[grayestofghosts]

Granted, I do not have my finger on the pulse of things as much as I’m used to, but it’s rather stunning how much no one actually cares. The mass indifference to gun violence these days might work in our favor for once.

[jadelennox]

i am extremely pessimistic about most things including freedom, safety, and democracy, if trump wins, but I am pretty sure he does not remotely want a nuclear war. he's an isolationist; he wants a big military to turn on americans. he loves when putin and bibi and orbán fuck up their own countries because he likes thuggery, but I believe he has no interest in sending american soldiers or american weapons to foreign wars.

tl;dr he would probably send the military into san antonio or brooklyn or fresno, but I don't think he'd use nukes or even start a foreign war.

disclaimer: I don't understand anything anymore, so, take an entire salt mine with this. But he really does seem to be an old school isolationist, who disapproves of all foreign wars.

[minoanmiss]

takes notes

[acelightning73]

I just heard on the news that when the accused shooter was in high school, he got thrown out of the rifle club because he was a really bad shot. And if he'd placed his shot a quarter of an inch to the left, he'd have accomplished his goal.

I don't think that abusive buffoon is going to get us all wiped out. I am oathbound not to ill-wish anybody, but it's awfully tempting. He'll get himself wiped out, or his dementia will become so publicly obvious that nobody will listen to him. I suspect he'll fall victim to one of Putin's magic umbrellas.

[magid]

I keep thinking about Lee Harvey Oswald/Sirhan Sirhan/John Wilkes Booth would have gotten the job done properly. Which is not to say I want to ill-wish him, but one big source of stress would be mitigated....

[sabotabby]

Yeah, I hear you. :(

[med_cat]

Well, as for starting a nuclear war, there has been a group of competitors in the last few years--you know who they are--

and, as the old joke goes, best "look busy", then... ;)

*hugs*

[ceo]

It's not going to convince anybody to vote for him who wasn't already planning to.

[minoanmiss]

Hi you!

I dearly hope you're right.