Electile Dysfunction (Current students plz look!)

[G.Irish]

So, I agree with you on everything yous aid. Here's the spot I'm in:


1: Trump is a fuckstick, I don't like him, I didn't vote for him, and I won't. Just so we're all clear.

2: The day after Trump was elected (remember the march for science?) I lost a good friend because when they said "Oh my god I'm half jewish half mexican and my wife is bisexual we're going to be thrown into a camp it's going to be HELL", I said "Well over my dead body you will, but also let's not be hysterical, no such thing is going to happen." And last time I checked, they're at their same jobs, in their same cozy apartment, definitely not in a camp. 

The thing about this is that it might have seemed crazy in November 2016 to be worried about harm coming to any average person as a result of Trump's election.  But since then we've gone steadily deeper into uncharted and ugly territory.  Should people wait to be alarmed until chaos and violence has well and truly broken out?  

I see a lot of hand wringing over comparisons to Nazi Germany.  You have people saying, 'this is how it happens!'  'We are on our way to fascism!'  And other people are like, 'you are being ridiculous, Jews aren't getting rounded up'  'no one is building gas chambers'.  My thing is, of course things are not going exactly like the rise of the Third Reich.  But there are enough similarities to the ascent of that authoritarian regime (and others) to know that there are only bad things on the horizon.

So obviously it won't be Jewish people getting rounded up.  Maybe it'll be an epidemic of immigrants getting murdered by domestic terrorism (we've already had a few incidents).  Maybe ICE and CBP will start shooting first and asking questions later.  Maybe some nut jobs will try to assassinate Congress members.  Who knows what it will be.

So on one hand it seems alarmist and almost silly to be so afraid of what Trump's actions will lead to.  But we're already seeing some of that awful stuff peak through.  If you had a loved one dating someone who started out ranting about women's rights, then started yelling at her, then started joking about doing harm to her, then started threatening her, then started pushing her around...Would you tell that woman not worry for her safety?  Don't worry, he's not gonna kill you?

I mean, honestly, and I'm asking this in 100% good faith, what the fuck am I supposed to do? 

Yes, the economy is good. Yes, unemployment is down. Yes, violent crime is down. People are making money and spending money and FOR THE AVERAGE AMERICAN things have only gotten better in ways that actually matter. 

So how can I support economic and domestic policies that I like, when the GOP is just letting Trump do his thing while Cocaine Mitch Makes Shit Happen, and the DNC is literally trying as hard as they can to push stuff I absolutely won't support. I think a higher minimum wage will hurt more people than it helps. I think that blowing away 1 trillion dollars of bad debt without fixing the system that put it there will do only harm, not good. I think that America has done a great job correcting it's climate damage, and that going balls-first into tearing down old buildings because they aren't as efficient as they could be will be a colossal waste of resources. I believe that the correct response to people saying things I find disgusting is not to criminalize that speech but to counter it with speech of my own. I think that our immigration system needs a serious and long-overdue overhaul, but "let everybody in, yee haw!" is maybe the worst Idea I've ever heard in my whole life. 

So what the fuck am I supposed to do, then? Trump's gonna be president tomorrow, he's gonna be president the day after, and he's PROBABLY gonna be president in 2022, if the DNC keeps swinging themselves further and further left. So while I agree with everything you said, I also think that there's never, ever, been a better time to be alive and never, ever, been a better time to be an American, and that IF there's a better place to live on planet earth, it's probably got a smaller population than Texas.

So I'm honestly all ears. Other than "well constantly bitch about it", what am I supposed to do?

I struggle with what to do too.  I went to a protest against child detention centers, I've donated to a couple of non-profits, and I'm wondering what more I can do.  I live in a solidly blue district, but I feel like the next step is to A. push my Congressman to strongly push for impeachment B. look at how I can help campaigns in other districts C. help voter turnout D. push back against a turn to the far left E. educate people who don't know what's going on.

I think that what would change the landscape is if the average Republican Congressman felt like turning against Trump, wasn't political suicide.  People need to realize that they can still believe in and support the traditional GOP platform without supporting Trump's brand of crazy.  But I dunno.  Even if Trump's support among Republicans cratered, I still think it would take a miracle for Senate to even give a whiff of supporting impeachment.  But if Trump's support among Republicans cratered, there'd be no chance of him getting re-elected.

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For just a little perspective of how people use 'go back to your country' as a racist taunt to minorities:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/reade...ories.html

I am a black woman of biracial ancestry. My mother is a white Jewish woman and my father is black. My facial characteristics are racially ambiguous, and I am often misidentified as Latina, specifically Puerto Rican, Dominican or Cuban.

Several months ago, at a gas station in Jacksonville, Fla., an older white man approached me as I pumped gas into my car.

“How many houses did you clean to buy that convertible?!” he yelled.

Startled, scared and angry, I chose to ignore him because, well, it is a “conceal carry” state.

As I attempted to quickly place the nozzle back onto the pump station, he walked closer to me and with venom in his voice said, “You should take your ass back to Mexico!”

— Chevara Orrin, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

I was about 13 when a white classmate overheard me complaining to friends about the Vietnam War. He looked at me and said, “If you don’t like it here, why don’t you go back to Africa?”

I was too shocked to respond. I had never considered Africa to be my homeland. My family has roots in northeastern Louisiana dating back to slavery. To me, my ancestral home was Oak Grove, La.

It wasn’t until much later, after many other such negative interactions, that I understood how, to many whites, African-Americans are not considered to be real Americans, equally deserving of the rights and privileges of citizenship.

— Michael Hornsby, Albany

As the first-generation daughter of Vietnamese refugees, throughout my entire life I have been told to go back to where I came from. Every single time, those words wound me to my core. My parents fought and sacrificed endlessly to scratch out a life of opportunities for my sisters and me.

Just because my eyes are slanted does not mean I am any less deserving of being here. Just because I am a woman of two languages and two cultures does not mean I am any less American. Just because I see the flaws in our government does not mean I am not patriotic.

In fact, all those things make me inherently more American. This country was built on the backs of immigrants, shaped by hundreds of cultures and molded by the voices of dissent for equality.

— Christina Tran, Greenville, S.C.