Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
A Lose-Lose Election for Americans
Trigger Warning: Deep depression may ensue after reading this post.
Tonight I realized that in many respects, everyone is going to lose, no matter what the election results are. In particular, relationships with friends, family, and co-workers that are polarized will become even further antagonistic. Civil disruption will grow. It’s a pretty ugly picture.
If Joe Biden wins the election, the very future of our democracy will be at risk. Democrats will begin to shift governance to a socialist structure. Laws will be passed that will challenge the relevance of the Constitution. Those of us on the other side will begin to realize, if we haven’t already, that our way of life will be at risk. The Bill of Rights will be bypassed in numerous ways. Censorship will be common; gun bans will be initiated and religions will be further censured. We, on the Right, will finally be so angry and frustrated that we will feel compelled to take action; how that action will manifest is a serious concern. Political discussions that may have been avoided between people with adversarial views will now be out in the open. Polarization will intensify and relationships will be further degraded. The Right will feel that by electing Joe Biden (and by default, Kamala Harris), the Left has betrayed the country. And they will want to find a way to take our country back.
What happens if President Trump wins a second term? If you think the Left felt robbed by the President’s first election, you haven’t seen anything yet. Hysteria will reign. They will demand recounts all over the country. Missed ballots by the thousands will surface. Ballots from precincts will disappear. The Left will ultimately not win, but they also will want revenge. And as in the results of the other side, the Left will sever relationships with people they know, intensifying their vitriol and hatred. Riots, destruction of property, and murders will increase.
Chaos will reign.
* * * * *
I’m doing my best to imagine a productive and peaceful outcome to the election, but for once, optimism fails me. I would welcome anyone who can contradict this picture and offer hope.
Published in Politics
Bob,
Please do not click on the video below. I have placed this here strictly for therapeutic purposes. Suzy needs cheering up. This is a tune sure to get her toes tapping.
Regards,
Jim
Woo-hoo! Yee-haw! Thanks, Jim!! My toes are still a-tappin’!
Okay, Trump wins by 20 percentage points and 150 electoral votes. Joe Biden forgets Hillary’s advice and concedes the next morning. Then falls down and forgets who he is. Kamala Harris runs to the White house to take charge since Biden is unfit to serve but since it’s still only November 4th she is denied a parking space. Kamala walks across the street and is heard to shout out, “You know who I am?! I’m a sitting US SE-NA-TOR!!”
Trump immediately has Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Brennan, Clapper and Rosenstein arrested and held incommunicado. Stephan Halper has a canoeing accident in the Chesapeake Bay.
Not sure what you mean by that…or what that would look like in the modern age. But I do suggest there are organized forces that will drive bloodshed and destruction across the nations that will be orders of magnitude worse than anything we’ve seen in 2020.
Flick,
Yyyeeeeeeeessssssssssss!!!!
Regards,
Jim
Works for me!!!! Yes, for all of it. You win the crazy optimist prize, @flicker, hands down!
You know, seriously, the friendship we will lose and the animosity that will increase has been inculcated within the past two generations. I’m not sure whose fault this is, but apparently no one was paying attention to their own children’s education.
Thank you for clarifying, @philo. And I deeply hope that you are wrong. But I won’t say it’s not possible. Sigh.
philo,
Did you happen to see this article on NR?
Just an ‘Idea’? Extremism Experts Explain the Online Organizing Behind Leftist Riots
We’ve got a whole lot of rats out there. We need to set some rat traps and clean things up.
Regards,
Jim
There are lots of people to blame–administrators, the political Left, and parents, too. It was more brainwashing than education. If someone had told me that this kind of propaganda was being taught, I probably would have laughed them off.
I was oblivious.
But I do think that Trump has not been sitting back on legal contingency plans. This may take months to resolve. But then again, an initial sweeping victory that obviates all attempts to stuff the ballot box is not out of the question.
And as for riots, well I think Trump has contingency plans for that too.
Also, proper communication from Trump to the public early on could give new direction to those who are afraid of the virus, and to those who woke up screaming in the streets from the election results. People may be tired of the societal chaos, and be willing to take a break for a year or so.
Hopefully people will be working again and less likely to throw away what they have.
Many of us might think Trump hasn’t learned much, as he continues to use Twitter and put his foot in his mouth. But his other actions show, I believe, that he has done an excellent job of managing his learning curve. Not only has he completed much of his agenda, but he has shown wisdom (!) in responding to some of the unexpected occurrences during his administration. He may not have much versatility behaviorally (at least not consistently), but his handling of the coronavirus and the rioting as just two examples are as good as I could have expected from any President.
Not that particular one, but over the last several months there have been reports and detailed police briefings showing such stuff. It should all scare the living daylights out of most of us.
I think that is why someone pointed out that the DOJ is supposed to researching these groups and their leaders and the sources of their money. Hopefully that information will give us a way, if not to cripple these groups, but damage their communication networks. But as Jim says, we’re infested with them, so who knows if we will be able to get to them in a way that makes a difference.
From the dust-cover of Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind(1987):
Bloom…argues that the social and political crisis of twentieth-century America is really an intellectual crisis. …Bloom shows how American democracy has unwittingly played host to vulgarized Continental ideas of nihilism and despair, of relativism disguised as tolerance.
Bloom saw this early in the process.
You forgot William F. Buckley. Someone asked him what he would do if he won the race for Mayor of New York:
“Demand a recount.”
You’re right, I’m afraid. Today my wife and I got a carry-out lunch at a place with no indoor, nor outdoor seating. We drove to a nearby church that has a couple of picnic tables on its grounds, and had our lunch there. Though the grounds (really just a big grassy lawn) are green and mowed, the church building itself is quite dilapidated. Just from where we sat we could see that the foundation is shifting out from under the building, and all the wood from sill to siding to eaves is rotting away, though it looks like its been painted in the last 10 years or so to keep it looking presentable. The church was clearly at one time big and beautiful and was probably a joyous place for people to gather for years. There could be a big beautiful church building there again someday, but the one that’s there is so far gone that it will never be beautiful and sound again. It’s going to have to come down, or fall down, before anything better can be built.
Or it might just go away and be forgotten.
I am ready for it. Let’s get this solved. @valiuth called for our elimination in another thread. That is what the left wants.
Time for us to have it out for real. This nation shall either be free or not. I want the fight.
When my dad dropped out of high school to fight in WWII with his brothers for America, he risked a lot more. When my grandfather buried his new new wife who died from the Spanish Flu and then went to fight in WWI, he risked a lot more. We need to keep it all in perspective.
How sad, a tragic testament to the state of faith.
I expect Trump to lose, probably bigly.
Assuming that happens, I also expect a huge reaction against “wokeness” by this time next year.
If Biden wins, then the Senate probably flips and the House stays Dem. If so, we will immediately see the addition of at least 3 leftist lifetime activists to the Supreme Court, permanently slanting the court. And we will see DC and Puerto Rico statehood. And there will be no possible recovery ever. There is no other super power to counter a socialist America as we did the Soviet Union, so we will never have the chance to recover. Ever.
We have been warned by their own words. We will get what we richly deserve if we fail to fight hard enough to win in November.
Susan:
“What happens if President Trump wins a second term? If you think the Left felt robbed by the President’s first election, you haven’t seen anything yet. Hysteria will reign. They will demand recounts all over the country. Missed ballots by the thousands will surface. Ballots from precincts will disappear. The Left will ultimately not win, but they also will want revenge. And as in the results of the other side, the Left will sever relationships with people they know, intensifying their vitriol and hatred. Riots, destruction of property and murders will increase.
Chaos will reign.”
Chaos will only reign if Biden wins. It also may reign a while if the election is not decided for a while.
I am very worried about a Biden win. You are so right that our about our Constitutional Democracy will be at risk. Having essentially stolen the election in plain sight the Democrats will likely then up the ante and persecute Conservatives and the Religious. It could get very ugly. Most of the Left are now brainwashed sociopaths.
On the other hand, I think Trump will pull the gloves off if he wins, and will come down hard on the Left’s criminality. All depends on many Senators the pubs have. We need more and we need more that will control McConnell who demanded all these traitors be put in the Cabinet.
Barr will be fired for he has failed in a very horrible way to do his job. If real law and order based on the Constitution is enforced then the Left will have to shut down all their riots and threats or they will be jailed. A real AG will install real law and order and will investigate all the corruption of the DOJ,CIA, FBI, IRS and all the other Federal agencies that have been thoroughly corrupted. I also think the new conservative Supreme Court will reign in the unconstitutional Administrative State agencies and the left will have far fewer options to control the country.
Do not despair I think Trump is going to win big and the Left is going to be humbled.
Given that people can be trained to be sociopaths, do you really think most of the left are true consciencelessness sociopaths? Or are they sociopathic simply by default, having been taught to believe that violence against wrong-think is a good and socially appropriate thing, and don’t know any different? And they are able to be retaught, to reconsider and reject their ideological positions and their use of violence for their own good as well as others, and to adopt peaceful ways?
Sorry I can’t post this in a better format, but do have a look if you need some cheer. It showed up on Powerline tonight and gave me more hope than I’ve had in awhile. https://mobile.twitter.com/carlossimancas/status/1317123389694279682?s=21
I honestly believed this would be the case when Barack Obama was elected. I believed it with my whole heart. Some sucktastic policies were enacted but it wasn’t the end of America, not close at all. And the system worked to check him. I like to think I learned from that.
So can we give things time to shake out before we all before we all run off and join militias? If your answer is “No!” I might suggest you’re a tiny bit of the problem.
This thread does not reassure me at all on that front.
Chaos will reign no matter who wins. The only difference is Biden wins, the chaos will have the full backing and support of the Federal government, maybe even money for “underfunded rioters” . . .
I don’t see the thread as you do, @gaius. No one is talking about running off to join militias. I think the discussion has been informative: some people see violence and destruction as imminent, others see our being able to minimize the violence, and others are in between. No one from what I can tell is ready to start a war.
I think many of us are both wanting to be prepared for disruption as well as hope for a peaceful transition. I think I can hold both those ideas simultaneously, although it’s not easy. I tend to think disruption is inevitable, but I can also pray that people will stand down. I also think we were at a very different place eight years ago than we are now: much more contentious and angry. So we’ll see. Thanks for weighing in.
One of my two favorite tweets of all time:
Just for the record, this is the other one: