Rust is also orange

[minoanmiss]

There are two sociopolitical thoughts I've been having for months now. I don't want to drag them any further into the new year so I'm going to put them down here in both senses of the term. These are probably my darkest thoughts. Count that as a content advisory.

I don't think Trump is much like Hitler, actually. I think he's a lot more like a rust-brained Stalin. And like Stalin he's going to amass a pretty big body count of his fellow Americans whether he counts us as fellow Americans or not. In addition to people dragged away because of who they are (immigrants, trans people) I expect, whether suddenly or gradually, it to become a crime or reason for imprisonment to criticize him. And the people who voted for him as the "free speech candidate" will never realize the irony up until the moment they find themselves in a prison courtyard having to say, "God Bless Donald Trump" just before they get shot in the head.

I see people talk about how the history books will see Trump. I'm not sure there will be history books left after his tenure to analyze it. This is for several reasons ranging from the dismantling of education up to possible nuclear war. The man who said, "If we have the nukes why can't we use them?" has eliminated everyone in his upcoming government who could tell him not to. I don't expect him to go toe to toe with a fellow nuclear power: I'm not sure whether I think right now if handed a single bomb he'd use it on Mexico City or Chicago. But I would not be surprised to see one of the things I've most never wanted to see in my lifetime: the use of nuclear weapons.

I keep forgetting what's ahead and being happy, and then remembering. I am not looking forward to wondering every day, that little bit, if it's the day I roast alive or the day soldiers break down my door or the day some militia member fills the air with bullets somewhere close to me. I really hope to reread this post on 1/1/2029 and laugh at how completely wrong I was.

At least I finally wrote it down and hopefully can put something else into that space in my mind, like composing political letters to inscribe and send.

WElcome, 2025. Please do not live down to your potential.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

I am terrified too. But it's good to snatch moments of happiness and go on living our lives.

We will know when it's our time to do something tangible. Keep breathing.

[petra]

*hugs* We need singing in the frightening times to remind us that there have been frightening times before, and that they became the better times eventually. Please let yourself be happy when the occasion arises, because if we let ourselves despair, the bad guys win.

[cmcmck]

I find Trump's thinking to be most like Mussolini's.

[bikergeek]

Sounds about right.

[acelightning73]

I saw something on YouTube that showed The Rapist-Elect describing how he'd "clean up" the election process by making it difficult to vote for anybody other than him.(*) And he also threatened to make being a registered Democrat a crime for which people would be deported, because we can never allow any criminals to exist within our borders, and anyone who isn't a white English-speaking Christian who believes in "America First!"must be SOME kind of criminal. Anybody who disagrees with Mister The Laws Don't Apply To Me or mocks him in any way will be guilty of treason.

(*) There's been a case of someone's mail-in ballot was returned because they found that the signature on file in the local Board of Elections files didn't match the signature on the ballot. This happened to me because my signature is a deliberately unreadable scrawl (hard to forge). I went through the bureaucratic nonsense to correct the records, but maybe it was just because they noticed I was a registered Democrat.

[bikergeek]

I saw something on YouTube that showed The Rapist-Elect describing how he'd "clean up" the election process by making it difficult to vote for anybody other than him.

That's gonna be really difficult, because our election for POTUS isn't one national election but 51 separate state elections, each run to their own standard, which is set by the legislature or the Secretary of State of that state. Trump blusters a lot about stuff that would be really difficult to do for practical reasons even if he and his allies would be able to manage to subvert or outright break the law.

[acelightning73]

He threatens all sorts of heinous things, but he also threatens to acquire a private military unit that answers only to him, so he can order them to go through every state's voter registration lists, and arrest/shoot/deport everyone who's a registered Democrat (like me). Only superlatively loyal native-born white Americans are American enough to stay in America. And many people with beliefs similar to Trumps have stated that in order to make America great again means we have to take it back to the demographics of the original 13 colonies (ignoring the indigenous peoples, who don't count as "real people" because they don't speak English and they aren't Christian.) - e.g. - white Europeans who've been baptized. He's copying some successful dictators, notably Vlad Putin and Korea's Kim Dynasty. And he's got a whole binder full of pre-written executive orders ready for him to send them out as soon as he takes his hand off the ritual Bible he's sworn in on. (He thinks an executive order means, "I can order anybody to do anything I want them to, because I'm President." Nobody's explained that presidential orders don't work that way. But he's gonna try to make it be so.)

[sabotabby]

Yeah. I don't expect people will be able to read, for a variety of reasons, in the future.

[acelightning73]

I'm just afraid I'm going to read in the news that some sub-category of people I care about has been rounded up and shot for being gay, trans, a Democrat, dark-skinned, not skilled in English, or dressed wrong. Or they'll come for me because I'm a registered Democrat and not a member of a "real" religion (the only religions that aren't superstitious nonsense are the ones invented by barely literate goat-herders from the Middle East, more than two thousand years ago. Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and neo-Paganism are just heretical superstitions invented too recently to be "religions")

So please, my friends, try to stay out from under that radar. I don't want to mourn for any of you.

[gwydion]

Same. I was terrified last time and I expect this to be so much worse.

[lavendertook]

I'm not going to try and predict. But the way it's starting, if it's any sign, we may get a break. The infighting has been glorious, and it's only beginning. Between this ouroboros and the incompetence I'm expecting, I think we'll get through this, worse for wear, but hopefully military will keep him from deploying nukes. They know he's tottering. Next year is midterms, and if they keep going as they're going, we have a good chance of winning a lot of seats and their in-fighting will become moot if we get Dem majorities in both houses. They're just not going to be able to do all the damage they want because the MAGAS and Doge bros are too busy doing damage to each other.