I'm trying to waste as little time as possible thinking about what I want Trump supporters to do for redemption because I'm not at all certain Trump won't win. If they switch, that makes it less likely for Trump to win.
That said, I deeply enjoy the unrepentant ones, especially the one who went to my high school, getting arrested.
Are you still worried about last November?
Everybody, he just winked at me.
I'll worry about what a Trumper can do for redemption when I meet one looking for it.
That too. Some people are clearly switching, but they aren't sorry about anything except that Trump failed at whatever was important to them.
Jezebel is covering this -- https://jezebel.com/moms-are-boycotting-a-trump-supporting-baby-sleep-exper-1846095363
Someone who admits not only that they were wrong, but that they were wrong in a completely stupid way, I'd be fine with. No one ever does that, though -- they always want credit for having had very real concerns.
It's like everyone out there who was all in on having very real concerns about Clinton's emails who hasn't admitted to themselves that they were being fools (small exception for people for whom historical archiving protocols are a personal issue and who has a long list of things that make them angry on which Clinton's emails are not particularly high.)
All I care about is ethics in video game journalism.
There are large numbers of people trying to make money off MAGA, especially through social media. I don't think I'd ever do business with one of them again regardless of the apology.
Reputational damage is done. I have family members of whom I previously thought, if not highly, I didn't doubt their basic decency and reasoning ability before. (I'm distant from them, and probably could have noticed if I'd paid more attention previously.) I'm probably a jerk, but you don't win that back with me via words and I'm likely to give you far fewer opportunities to demonstrate a change of heart, so.
As far as apologies... I dunno. Nobody owes me an apology over it, except in the sense that they owe the country a full accounting and acceptance of accountability. If people genuinely have changes of heart, that will be visible in their actions over time.
A final point; the incessant lying, performative victimhood from positions of power and embrace of misinformation as a political tactic makes this a very, very hard thing to sincerely apologize for. I simply don't believe a fucking thing that comes out of their mouths. Any words of contrition are worth the same as their Twitter shitposts.
The latter is a good point. They are basically creating a stereotype of themselves as whiny, angry, assholes. Which seems counterproductive to me.
https://boingboing.net/2021/01/25/q-nuts-its-the-great-storm-charlie-brown.html
Should we ever forgive Linus?
What's supposed to happen this November?
Pennsylvania Supreme Court election is what I'm thinking of.
The PA republicans are also trying to gerrymander the state supreme court in advance of that election in November, right? Is that happening in Feb or March?
I guess I've been assuming that will get vetoed. I may be wrong.
There's a guy I think about occasionally -- I was on a management training September 2015 and we had a couple of chatty dinners together, but he's in a completely different part of the office and I haven't run into him since. And he was thinking about voting Trump then. A generally pretty reasonable sounding guy -- there's a type of Republican you run into inside the liberal bubble where they're all self-deprecatingly amusing about it.
And at the time I understood it as "I'm strongly identified as a Republican rather than a Democrat [LB: I think this is usually going to be an identification that is made for morally culpable reasons, but I'm not going to consider anyone outside the pale for that reason alone] but I strongly dislike all the realistic R candidates [LB: I would too], I think at least some of the things Trump says are appealing [LB: Trump did say some things reflecting concern for low-income people] and he's not going to win so I don't have to think about his flaws [LB: Hey, I feel that, I voted for Nader]."
And in September 2015, that didn't seem like a reason to get up and go have dinner with someone else, more sort of "well, aren't you peculiar." On the other hand, if that guy went on to actually vote for Trump in the primary or the general, wow would that indicate there was something very wrong with him, either morally or intellectually.
At which point they will probably try to gerrymander the election for governor. They are really relentless.
You can't gerrymander a gubernatorial election -- the state is the shape it is. Voter suppression, sure, but not gerrymandering.
I despise Bill Belichik a bit less, now that he turned down the Medal of Freedom and failed to make the playoffs. But if some patriot or Patriot decides to lynch him, I won't shed a tear.
It's probably convenient that most of the people I know who probably voted for Trump are on a different state and I can't travel now.
Inoculate me against generosity, people of blog. What if you grew up in a generally anti-tax/pro-life household, so you didn't dismiss right-sympathetic information sources out of hand? In that case, the world simply looks very different to you, and "kids in cages" was actually an Obama policy, Trump established a bunch of programs to help blacks, and the rest of the media is lying to you. Would it really be so hard to get pulled into that without even realizing that you were? I'm inclined to think it wouldn't. I think media consumption is like a whirlpool, and even those on the periphery slowly get pulled into the vortex. There has to be some space for personal responsibility, I know, but larger forces are at work.
24- Doesn't Mississippi have a statewide gerrymander similar to the electoral college? Candidate has to win statewide vote AND majority of state districts. If they don't the election is decided by the legislature from the top two.
Larger forces are at work and it is possible to recognize those too. Like, 'when I consume this media, I become angry and irritable and hate people and so maybe I should step away from the media'. It is possible, although difficult, to recognize the change in mood and source and choose not to become constantly fearful and angry.
I'm working through this, too, but my thoughts are: if you're a classic conservative, I might disagree, but we can work with that. If you're identifying as a Republican right now (and bear in mind that I'm in a deep red state), you have to understand that your party didn't have a platform beyond supporting whatever Trump supported, so you've got a fair amount of work to do to convince me you're capable of good faith democracy because your party is broken and "lie back and think of Gorsuch" really screwed us all over.
If you're still a Trump supporter, I'm still enraged over the insurrection and medicating with Colbert, and it's not my fault that there's no unity because your team stormed the goddamned Capitol.
29, yeah. Our neighbors at the end of the street. The nicest people you every could possibly meet, in every way kind and generous. And church-going, and apolitical, so the "aw shucks everyone knows how corrupt Hillary is" goes unexamined. I don't even want to know how they voted in 2020. Because they're swimming in that sea. I'm not saying they're swimming in the fecal lagoon of Fox. They're not. He's watching golf tournaments and college football. But nobody in their social circle (except for the weird college professors on the corner) are going to challenge them. Larger forces indeed.
Gerrymander might not be the correct word. But I'm thinking of something where they implement a state-level version of the electoral college for gubernatorial elections.
29. I don't have an answer for this one either other than Turn off Fox. Always-on TV news is just structurally bad, literally people speaking before they have thought about anything. Fox is worse because Murdoch and lying ragemongers, but random MSNBC is also unsatisfying.
I talked with a friend yesterday, his wife gets a lot of her news from Chinese sources, she recognizes "they always exagerate" but her concern about the US was tech company censorship, and boy there sure has been a lot of unrest this last year from BLM. Clips on a screen with a shouty announcer is fundamentally not a good way to get information, though it's compelling while you're actually watching.
31: I take it you've visited Twitter today? (joke, but wow, everyone I follow is in a mood.)
I'm not totally sure what the question is here, tbh. Is it about blacklisting people from your life? Is it about letting go of your own anger? Is it about holding people accountable in some way? I think in my world, virtually everything takes precedence over dealing with or thinking about Trump supporters in any way, although I may be underrating my white-women obligation of converting the racist heathen. (I actually know almost no conservatives besides lourdes' in-laws, truly. I probably have Republican co-workers, but my relationships with them are so remote that I don't even know how they vote. I truly might have to sit this one out, which I think is fucking fine, because there is so much other shit to do.)
31: Mississippi did used to have that! They just got rid of it in November 2020 via referendum.
"Jeffrey Lyons, a political science professor at Boise State University, found that roughly three-quarters of kids who have two parents of the same party will fall on the same end of the political spectrum as their parents." https://www.theatlantic.com/membership/archive/2018/06/are-politics-hereditary/561863/
Genetics or indoctrination?
Yeah, 29 is enough to make the presumption of assholery rebuttable. But only just. Right out of the gate, our deep red legislature is picking on trans-kids because as has been perfectly obvious to everyone not affiliated with the fucking NYT (or the fucking DSA) that a vanishingly small part of this is about economic anxiety, and nearly all of it is about people who get off on cruelty and their own vicitimization. The ammosexuals who want to have more guns on college campuses will positively revel in the backlash as university funding collapses with out-of-state students choosing Utah instead. Guns and vindication of their victimization! Driving national business and conventions away with the purity of their convictions to Talibangelism! What could be better!
I don't have an answer for this because I don't believe Trump was any sort of aberration, but the inevitable outcome of the evolution of the GOP over the past four decades. I don't really care that somebody expresses regret over Trump if they just go right back to voting for the same shit with slightly better manners. Anybody still self-identifying as a Republican is out of polite society for me. Not that I'm polite about it.
I have no idea what I will do in any particular event with regard to Trumpers in my life (very few but it does come up in particular with my friend's husband someone we have joined in things like multi-day river trips and other vacation stuff). I find I have rage. Right now my mental screening question is "Do you accept that Joe Biden fairly won the 2020 presidential election." They don't.
I do have underlying rage (shockingly ...) that goes beyond that and which I worry about. Their support of treatment of public health officials during a pandemic, election officials who did their job, a million other things I find I just cannot get beyond mentally. They are my implacable enemies.
29: I grew up in a right-wing household so I have little sympathy for that trajectory. That's intellectual laziness and incuriosity. Possibly willful at this point.
People like 33 are kind of my problem. I'll probably keep treating all the Trump and GOP supporters I know the same because I am socialized to be nice and polite and friendly and unconfrontational, but in my heart, I won't trust or like them. It's just very frustrating.
40: Someone on Facebook quoted Kevin Williamson the other day saying something mean about Trump. I don't give a fuck. Williamson (of the National Review) is an unrepentant pig who spent years paving the way for Trump. If he finds Trump a bit too crude, too fucking bad.
(Max Boot, though, seems weirdly genuine in his repentance -- he seems not merely sorry for what the Republicans did, but for what he did. I don't read him enough, though, to have a firm opinion on that.)
Oh you sweet summer child.
36.1 cont'd: except this guy, who is infectiously happy (but also not someone I follow, so maybe it's a local curse).
I guess maybe I should clarify. I don't think any significant number of them are going to apologize. I also don't think the most right-wing group is going to lose out in the capitalist economy. Their funding source, the oligarchy, is secure.
What about the tail end of the post - how much compassion do you extend to families where Covid-tragedy has befallen them after they doggedly refused to make any concessions for safety for ten months?
47: More conflicted so less fun to write about.
47 I think that's where I'm willing to make more allowances for the sort of thing O talks about in 29. Rebuttable presumption of assholery, though.
29: Sure, I can be generous to someone who's tribally affiliated with Republicans and so absolutely disassociated from political information that they've managed not to understand that Trump is an insane incompetent. If people like that want respect for their political feelings, when it's not important enough to them to learn anything at all about it, fuck them, but if they're not aggro about it, whatever.
Someone who's "pulled into the whirlpool" and is actually paying some attention and still thinks Trump is good? Being very very stupid isn't a moral flaw, so people with that excuse are fine. Someone with an ordinary level of intelligence is responsible for using an ordinary level of intelligence to evaluate the bullshit that the MAGA movement is based on. It is possible to sincerely believe nonsense and still be culpable for the beliefs, because you chose to be gullible about things that sounded pleasant to you. And that's basically all of them.
I grew up in a right-wing household so I have little sympathy for that trajectory. That's intellectual laziness and incuriosity. Possibly willful at this point.
I agree with Hydro. It may be harder to have moral clarity if you grew up in Ogged's 29 household, but I'm sorry, you're accountable for a modicum of curiosity about why half the population feels extremely differently than you do. And the reason they feel zero curiosity is because it serves their greed/racist/lifestyle motives to have zero curiosity, and they're not interested in feeling the slightest bit uncomfortable about their place in the larger world.
And Trump is obvious! The shit he says is transparently cruel and makes no sense, particularly if you can remember things for weeks at a time.
Someone who believed Paul Ryan was right about Social Security could be just wrong. Someone who thinks Trump was going to actually do good (as opposed to believing he'd be cruel to people in a way you approved of) would have to be incredibly stupid (in a way I think is uncommon -- I don't think this is many people at all) or willfully, culpably self-deceived.
If actual Nazis are on your side, you are responsible for pausing and reconsidering.
We were in a very bad spot.
29: I find myself wanting to propose a slightly different, but related form of generosity. Barry has written sympathetically about his family, and that's where my problem comes in. I owe a lot to my younger sister. And her son is a terrific young man. On political stuff, they are ignorant and awful, and both were exposed to that awful stuff in their upbringings. But they aren't stupid.
And in their personal lives, they are exemplary -- like the folks that chill describes in 33.
I have other close relatives whose political piggishness is reflected in their personal lives -- so they are easy to dispose of, and good riddance. In truth, I have muted my sister and nephew on Facebook, and I don't interact with them much elsewhere, mainly because we just don't have much to talk about any more. They are certainly aware of my opinions, but I usually don't pick fights.
What are my obligations here? My sister has two daughters who are non-Trumpists, and they seem to get along well with the rest of their family. What are their obligations?
29: I grew up in that kind of household (except mom was a Democrat). There was not a Republican left in the household by the end of Bush's second term, including my dad, whose high school yearbook made a joke about him supporting Dewey.
how much compassion do you extend to families where Covid-tragedy has befallen them after they doggedly refused to make any concessions for safety for ten months?
Well, I'm not the most compassionate of people in the best of cases, so this one is even easier for me. No compassion; I think "self-inflicted" to myself and move on to my next thought.
Maybe you mean the adjacent family, who'll miss their person? That might make me think, "shame about that" but I'd rather spend my limited compassion elsewhere.
My instinct is vengefulness. However.
1. Only actions count. Meet them at the next election.
2. If he finds Trump a bit too crude, too fucking bad. I think it has been demonstrated that crudeness matters, independent of actual policy; that Republicans of 2015 were significantly less bad* than those of today, and reducing crudeness is movement in the right direction.
3.
republicans, only about half (138 in the House, 7 in the Senate) ended up supporting the effort to refuse to count electoral votes, which was the core goal of the insurrection. The rest represent soft supporters who might be drained away from the insurrectionists, weakening them. If that is frustrating, then do not think of it in terms of 'unity' or 'healing' but as a tactical decision designed to strip the hard insurrectionists of their cover so they can be rooted out more effectively.
Half of Republicans is still a huge number, but a more manageable one.
4. What matters is the direction of change. Are you moving toward or away from communal violence? On the face of it, every Trumpist who apologizes, even if only in words, is a movement in the right direction. Cf.
4.1. The direction of change that matters most is of course actual political outcomes. See (1).
*In utilitarian terms. To simplify, crudeness is saying the quiet part loud; turns out saying the quiet part loud gets you terrorism and mob violence.
22: A friend of mine was from Kansas and he sort of fell into that "I identify as a Republican but don't vote for them" category. He even worked for Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. He didn't think that Trump would ever get elected though. What made him give up the label was two things. First, the Republicans refusal to address climate change. I think he was a cap and trade kind of guy. Second, a itch McConnell's refusal to hold hearing's on Garland's nomination for the Supreme Court.
Speaking of Garland, do any lawyer ps have insight as to why he would step down from a lifetime appointment to the influential DC circuit for the post of AG?
I hope it's because unfucking-up the Justice Department is really important for the future of this country.
Someone who admits not only that they were wrong, but that they were wrong in a completely stupid way, I'd be fine with. No one ever does that, though -- they always want credit for having had very real concerns.
"Wrong in a completely stupid way" pretty much covers my politics for the first decade and a half of my adult life. Raised Republican and drifted away from that a bit, but only to clueless pseudo-centrism. My last Republican vote was really dramatically stupid (not that I have any clear recollection of what the supposed reason was, and not that it made any difference in Hawaii).
I meant to write, "Mitch", but I think that "itch" was a fortuitous typo.
My extremely woke sister-in-law calls me now and again to vent about my Trumpish brother. I am happy to provide a sympathetic ear. I won't say I haven't lost a lot of respect for him: he's smart enough to see through this stuff, and has someone right there in his household trying to live decent values. But no, he'll spout ignorant talking points to her about what happened at some demonstration in Minneapolis, and she'll say 'you know I was actually there, and this is what happened' to no avail.
I don't talk politics with him.
The Trumpers I find most exasperating are those who push to get a reaction so they can claim victimhood. I'm all sympathy for apo's decision not to be polite, but on the other hand don't want to feed trolls.
I have a similar problem with Brexiteers. They are not complicit in evil the way that Trumpists are, but they fucked our* country in ways that irreversibly accelerated its decline. So I don't want to talk to them; yet two women I have been close to went that way and I don't want, either, to lose touch. This is, though, much less existential than Trumpism. I will not have anything to do with anyone who makes excuses for him.
*which is why I have an Irish passport now
59.2 -- I don't know him, so get out your salt shaker. A lot of the life of an appellate judge is pretty nearly solitary, and a lot of the cases aren't going to be all that interesting. After 25 years of doing a job, I can see wanting to do something else that'll be livelier, and where you can make a real difference. And who knows, maybe Biden told him that his country needed him.
It's not like he's leaving to take a job with Trump, where (a) the point is wrecking institutions to help one man and (b) you could get fired at pretty much any moment for taking the actual job seriously.
64: I'm such an Anglophile and was raised Episcopal/ Anglican, so I've always felt comfortable in the UK and could have seen myself living there. After my own country, it's the country I care most about - much more than my husband's Canada. As terrible as Trump is, I've never felt before that it was better to be an American than British. It isn't entirely rational, but beating back the Trumpists feels possible, so I have some hope that we can repair it. I feel less sanguine about Britain.
65: Hopefully, we can get someone solid and not too old in the seat.
I should find a way to more effectively use humor with these folks. For instance:
Peter Doocy: Mr. President what dud you talk to Vladimir Putin about?
Biden: You. He sends his best.
I was raised thinking Ireland should be united, but I still can't bring myself to think Brexit was a good idea.
67 Yeah, there's really no reason not to hit the gas on nominations. Some of those district judgeships have been vacant a long time.
68: After posting I assumed I got the first name wrong but no, Peter is Steve Doocy's son and a Fox WH correspondent.
Meritocracy in action.
When I do attempt to use humor with Republicans it comes out cruel and biting and not at all helpful.
Garland might be (I know nothing about him personally) still kind of pissed off about being blocked off the Supreme Court. AG is a stronger position to get revenge (presumably appropriate legal revenge) from than the DC Circuit. Also, every sixty-something or older federal judge who leaves active status this year is a forty-something Biden replacement, which is worth something.
68, 71: Wait! That actually happened!
70: I have a suggestion for the District of Montana when/if a seat opens.
The brilliant thing is that for him to bitch about Biden being flippant, they have to show footage of Biden being very much not senile.
47, 57: There are local people I am quite fond of (my kids' awesome 4th grade teacher) who are all, the whole family, now down with covid - the teacher, her husband (pneumonia and covid lung), the kids (throwing up but on the mend). On her FB page I once got into it with her friends (then backed out because I like her) over whether their bowling league should proceed (it did). And maybe it was school exposure that infected them rather than bowling league or Disney vacation, but I find myself with no sympathy to spare for their contracting covid. On one level I figure that makes me a terrible person, but that's the kind of terrible person I am. Don't even have to think deeply about it. I've got a lot of other people on my sympathy list, and no room for them.
47, 57: There are local people I am quite fond of (my kids' awesome 4th grade teacher) who are all, the whole family, now down with covid - the teacher, her husband (pneumonia and covid lung), the kids (throwing up but on the mend). On her FB page I once got into it with her friends (then backed out because I like her) over whether their bowling league should proceed (it did). And maybe it was school exposure that infected them rather than bowling league or Disney vacation, but I find myself with no sympathy to spare for their contracting covid. On one level I figure that makes me a terrible person, but that's the kind of terrible person I am. Don't even have to think deeply about it. I've got a lot of other people on my sympathy list, and no room for them.
Is the PA Novemeber thing the only November thing I need to be worrying about? Is there some way that it can help Trump win that I can't see?
I have room in my heart to post twice though.
Someone who admits not only that they were wrong, but that they were wrong in a completely stupid way, I'd be fine with. No one ever does that, though -- they always want credit for having had very real concerns.
I was kind of shocked this morning when one of my local co-religionist friends who went off the deep end about masks and the virus not being that serious sent me a long formal letter asking me to forgive his offenses ( a meaningful ritual in our relligion) and saying he was out of line discounting my relative expertise and dutiful desire to share it and that I was correct about the importance of masking, and that he was entirely motivated by his desire to keep driving rideshares and keep hanging out with people and was arrogant to not consider his own motivation and ego. I was kind of shocked. I'm still kind of of shocked. I haven't gotten a formal apology like that in a long time, and perhaps never for something that I ws actually upset by. HE was never a Trumper at all until the Covid thing, and he's usually pretty enlightened on race for an old white guy (his daughter is Black). I was also kind of surprised by how overwhelming was my desire to accept his apology and rekindle our friendship, which goes back years to my late mother. Maybe it's stupid of me but it was really nice.
And now a Trumpy judge in Texas has granted a TRO on that outlandish suit seeking to enforce the outgoing administration's contract purporting to limit the incoming administration's power to define its own immigration enforcement priorities. It will take a while to clean up this mess.
That sounds as if it was a lovely letter to get. Being a jerk about Covid, I can see as more forgivable than bad politics generally: it's so scary and life-disrupting in a way that does make people act irrationally.
At first I misinterpreted "he sends his best" not as "he sends his regards" but Biden jokingly implying "you're one of his best agents."
I have too many people in my life who sign emails "Best" to miss that.
75 Our local district judge is turning 70 in a matter of weeks; I don't know whether he'll take senior status right away, or stick with what he's doing. He's a good judge and seems to really like the job. I've no doubt we'll have a bunch of strong candidates for the job, and getting someone in their 40s is a good idea.
In other news, somehow, 4 Republican house members who went for the make-it-illegal-for-doctors-to-treat-trans-kids bill on the second reading thought better, and the bill just failed on the third reading 49-51. So, the Republican caucus is only 73% Deplorable! Who would have guessed.
82 I view that as revenge for the DACA ruling.
87: Still batshit. But so many Republicans have stopped even particularly trying to pretend that they'd acknowledge the validity of their purported principles if Democrats sought to apply them.
83: yeah, I think that's part of why I am willing to be so happy about it. I feel like even when it was happening it was clear to me that he was lashing out because it was so incredibly disruptive and upending to his life. He'd just had a new granddaughter and they couldn't work it out for him to see her again for months.
I *think* I have successfully unfriended all but one of the solid Trumpers I know on the other place, excepting my black Republican friend from high school. I have to admit staying connected to her out of morbid curiosity as much as anything else. She's my like weird instagram follow. I can't really imagine any of these Trumpers apologizing at all, let alone meaningfullly.
Did we already discuss this piece?
https://jewishcurrents.org/my-mommies-and-me/
Did I get it from here? It's a bit stream of consciousy and precious to be truly insightful but I found it useful to get a sense of the sphere without actually clicking into it.
74: holy smokes, that was unreasonably fun to watch.
That's almost up there with 'a noun, a verb, 9/11" in Biden shade.
90: That's a really good price for a steam mop.
Leahy is in the goddamn hospital now.
Didnt Kennedy drop dead early in Obamas term, nearly derailing Obamacare?
They have a Republican Governor right now in Vermont.
how much compassion do you extend to families where Covid-tragedy has befallen them after they doggedly refused to make any concessions for safety for ten months?
Are they making concessions to protect other people, not just their remaining family, now? If so, we need them on side, mourn with those who mourn. If not... I'd find it harder.
TL;DR nobody should stifle their rage: instead, let it out. But don't feel obliged to do that: what matters is being well and being decent to those who are actually in need of decency. After that, well sure, extend whatever level of social interaction with Trumpists/GrOPers that you feel you need/want. But again, I think it's a mistake to feel one *must* be accepting of these people. As A. R. Moxon wrote:
Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.
That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore.
Heebie, it seems like you're asking three questions:
(1) what level of hatred and ostracism are permitted ? Can one go too far ?
and (2) what level of acceptance and "adapt to get along" is permitted ?
and (3) what level of acceptance is *required* ?
To #1, #2, I answer: as much as you want and need. "You voted for Trump in 2016, or a GrOPer of any sort after? Fuck you." But also, if I have to stifle myself in order to get something that I need in my life, maybe I'm willing to do it, and nobody should judge me for that. Or more precisely, others may at some point decide that I'm a Trumper-in-all-but-name, but hey, that's the risk I take.
To #3, what level of acceptance is required? None. None. If people want to maintain family contacts, or with old, old friends, it's fine : I mean, each person has different things they value about another person. Nobody should feel like they have to rage inside in order to maintain some family/social contact that gives them agita. Nobody.
So if I want to cut off anybody who committed those mortal sins I list above, if I want to ban from social intercourse *every* Trumpist and GrOPer, then that's great, and I should feel good about myself doing so.
Quite a while ago, I posted here with some not-so-decent thoughts about a particular oppressed group. I was roundly excoriated for it, and *I* *learned*. At age 55, I learned. Trumpists can do it too: and they won't start until they're shown the error of their ways in the only way they understand. Which, so I understand, is "Fuck your feelings".
What about redemption? I have a very old friend whom I cut out of my life >10yr ago, b/c he wrote a column on a major financial website wherein he engaged in "Civil War denial". Basically denied that the Civil War was about slavery, and argued that even it was, it was unjustified. I tried for ... months, *months* to convince him he was wrong, adducing many facts and articles, and eventually we stopped communicating. This was before "Black Lives Matter" was even a thing: we had a much-more-detailed conversation about the details of history. But this story has a good ending: he contacted me a few months ago, and told me that partially due to my having been so insistent, he re-examined his views, and had concluded that he'd been in the wrong, and that Black Lives Do Indeed Matter. He'd even done some work to that end. As he's a rich man, he's probably had more of an impact than I have. Needless to say, we are friends, and we never speak of that time, because he has truly reformed. I count him as a close friend and ally in the struggle (whew!)
I think that if someone actually reforms, we should accept them back. But real reform means that they accept and embrace the people who have been abused, beaten, robbed, oppressed, by the racism, misogyny, and homophobia of our country. It's not as simple as "Oh, I was wrong about Trump". It's gotta be "I was wrong about my political/social beliefs[1], and I've changed, and here's how."
[1] So for instance, someone who is "socially liberal, but economically conservative" .... fuck that. The day came, and she started in with the "the gays with their gay marriage, isn't it enough" etc etc. And when I pointed her at Lee Atwater's deathbed confession, at Richard Rothstein's _The Color of Law_, at TNC's _The Case for Reparations_, she ..... just ignored it. I dropped her (sure, after multiple attempts to convince her to read these things).
I have another former (long-time, like 34yr) friend, who has come out as a China nut: he believes that the most important danger in America today is the PRC, and that Black people have made enough progress on their rights, that we don't need to treat it as a matter of urgency. He thinks that White Supremacy is not a danger -- not like the threat of the Red Hordes from China. Literally. He forwarded me "Candace Owen's Sergeant Buddy" videos, and columns from the Mercatus Center at George Mason -- libertarian drivel. Again, I tried to get him to understand that this was unacceptable, and that if he wanted to think such things, fine, but he ought not to say them aloud, and certainly not to me (who have Black people in my family, and thus for whom this is a matter of personal urgency). He refused, and eventually I dropped him. Turns out, another of his oldest friends did the same, for the same reasons.
So for instance, someone who is "socially liberal, but economically conservative" .... fuck that.
This Twitter-formulation for the above lives in my head: "The problems are bad, but the causes... the causes are very good."
Heebie, you also asked about how much sympathy we should have for families of people who were covidiots (and also specifically when the families were full of covidiots). I feel like, the poorer the family is, the more sympathy I have. In SF, the toll weighs most heavily on the poor, the working-class, the people who cannot self-isolate even if they wanted to. The people whose conditions of work are forced upon them by their bosses.
I can imagine somebody like that, who tells themselves that this is no big deal, it's just the flu, b/c they have to work to survive. I have a lot of sympathy for them.
But anybody who -could- isolate, distance, mask, etc? Anybody with the money to be really isolated, who chose instead to be a covidiot? Nothing. And ditto for anybody in their family who didn't exercise appropriate precautions. And especially because every such person is putting other people's lives in danger: people in the above group especially, who don't have the choice to isolate. My mailman, the guy who brings me groceries.
We can't get ours to bring anything but mail.
So first there's a category of people where I think "You'll never apologize and we'll never address it, and my opinion of you is permanently damaged by my suspicions."
If we ever go back to in-person work, this is going to be an issue for a number of colleagues. And Thanksgiving is going to be interesting next time we can host.
104: Chetan, we have a friend of a friend/chosen family of chosen and/or actual family who has been posting all sorts of pictures of her exciting shenanigans. Last time she was in town, my SIL made her get tested before she could visit them. And I wouldn't visit my SIL and BIL for weeks after.
108: Huh, interesting. If I have suspicions, I come right out and ask. I'm always a little apologetic, of the form "I'm sure you'll laugh and tell me I was foolish to even have such suspicions, but ... did you vote....b/c if so, we can't be friends". And so far, my hit-rate has been 100% that the people I ask, turn out to be *incredibly* butthurt Trumpists who are *incredibly* butthurt that somebody would render moral judgments b/c of their votes.
So that's nice. [not]
Re: visiting other people, quite simply, at this time in the pandemic, I don't do it. I drop off food for my mom, and sometimes for a friend nearby who doesn't have a car. But other than that, NOPES, NUTHIN'. No "oh, let's form a bubble together", b/c that's the road to finding out that a bubble-mate-of-a-bubble-mate-of-a-bubble-mate got the 'Rona, and now you have the 'Rona ... buh-bye, lung! B/c everybody thinks they're doing a bang-up job of distancing and isolating, when in fact they *are* *not*.
People who think that a single negative test is enough ... guffaw. I read that in HongKong, it's 21 days of hotel-room isolation. That, I can get behind. This "quarantine 5 days, then one negative test, and you're clear!" ..... that's bullshit. So for sure, I would also have assumed (like you) that your SIL/BIL were infected until 21 days had passed.
What boggles my mind is that Oahu isn't being all that careful right now. People are out and about, some social activities are happening, stores are open. It's all far more limited than in the before times, and I miss travel and restaurant meals and even, God forbid, in-person meetings, but it's not so bad. Since the holidays, we've been averaging something in the neighborhood of 70-80 cases a day in a population of about a million. That isn't great but looks awfully good compared to most of the country, and all we're doing is wearing masks and being moderately careful about being around other people. Sure seems like the country could have saved itself an awful lot of suffering and death if a certain party hadn't decided to politicize public health.
That's wouldn't be a very good death cult, would it?
Not just politicize it, but do so as stupidly as possible. I'm convinced that the guy could have won with a decent showing against the rona.
We are where we are because Trump isn't maximizing power or influence, but the amount of shit he can force others to eat.
Unfortunately I think 114 gets it exactly right.
111: You do have the weather advantage -- you can let off pressure by staying outside. Lots of the continental US looked okay in the summer.
Of course, lots of the continental US has that advantage right now, but is still melting down.
*incredibly* butthurt that somebody would render moral judgments b/c of their votes.
I'm still getting used to it. "You're a communist who deserves to die and burn in hell; plus you're too judgmental."
I wish I were into capitalism enough to troll hedge funds about Gamestop.
Related Boston sports news: Curt Schilling, unrepentant MAGA who will never apologize for racist tweets and supporting the insurrection, fell just short of induction to the hall of fame. Voting completed prior to the riot so even less chance he'll be elected next year, his final year of eligibility.
Good chance he'll be considered as Trump's running mate in 2024, though- after all a Schilling is worth 12 Pence.
(Joke stolen from elsewhere.)
Four Seasons Total Landscaping Half of Fame is still open for enrollment.
UK and could have seen myself living there. After my own country, it's the country I care most about - much more than my husband's Canada.
Interesting. What are the countries you care about most? For me,Roc > US > EU* > Mossheimat.
*I had to think about that. Brexit kicked me, but as I think about it, that for Europe's sake, not Britain's.
This is safely hypothetical for me, but I'm baffled that it's even a question. "Trump supporters attacked the Capitol flying the Confederate flag trying to stop the peaceful democratic transfer of power," seems like it should end every argument about American politics for the next 20 years or so. You can add "And most Republicans in Congress voted to support them afterwards" if you think it would help but I imagine that would depend on the audience.
I'm U.S.-focused to basically the nearly extent as the average goat-fucking Trump voter. I don't know what comes next.
117: And it's not just the advantage of being able to be outside, it really does seem like contrary to some early indications it does spread more easily in winter (which isn't a big surprise, see flu, cold, etc. the mechanism is dried out nose and mouth).
123: I care about Europe too, but England feels almost like a home. My mother's family is distantly English. I have a French last name, and my Dad's family emigrated from France in the early 19th century, but they were from Alsace, so practically German as much as French.
128: I basically buy that, but I'll play Devil's advocate. Brazil is not a dry country, it's summer there, and they have a terrible outbreak. I know there's a new variant, but that variant proliferated in the context of an out-of-control epidemic.
I have a French last name but it's more common in Canada than France. On the other hand I've spent a lot more time in France than Canada, and my aunt retired in France about five years ago so I can even say I have family there, albeit not in a deeply-rooted way. Concern with/for other countries is more distant after those three.
Yes, Brazil is an outlier in terms of awful COVID response, for rather obvious reasons. But that it's possible to screw up those advantages doesn't mean that they aren't advantages.
132: I've been listening to a super nerdy podcast called This Week in Virology, and they respond to listeners' e-mails. One person asked a question about whether humidifying public transit might help. I've wondered about that and secretly wished for humidity standards for public buildings, but the virologists thought it wasn't worth the cost.
I wish airports operated far UVC lights overnight to reduce the density of infectious aerosols. I think a certain amount of air hygiene would be good for reducing the spread of other diseases going forward too.
133.2 if the only there were some way to get that light into the body
Saw an item where Oklahoma is trying to return a stockpile of hydroxychloroquine.
Let's all remember the cautionary tale of Josh Brolin.
I think when all the dust has settled, we're going to see that luck--particularly when and where new, more contagious variants emerged--played a much larger role in shaping the pandemic than we want to admit right now.
All the other stuff is important too, of course. More infectious variants make compliance with public health recommendations even more important. But I don't think that SoCal is getting so much harder hit than Maryland because of human behavior factors.
I am really not sure about that statement at all. If mask wearing hadn't been politicized and had been given a full "patriotic duty" emblemage?
And I feel like an ass describing cultural behaviors that are not my own, but I broached the question of "what exactly went wrong in El Paso and the Valley?" to friends of mine from these places. In other words, it didn't seem like South Dakota, with rabid hoax-Fox-etc. So why the meltdown?
The answer that friends have given me is that their friends and families wear masks to run errands and live basically safely out in public, but that it feels rude/unfamily-like to wear masks around families, and they've got these big sprawling families, and they keep having family gatherings and not modifying that part of their life.
Again, I feel like an ass quoting over-generalizations about a culture that I don't belong to, but it's one of my suspicions about So-Cal as well.
133.2: I don't think UV lights overnight would help (unless there are workers there during the night). The survival life of the coronavirus is pretty short.
I heard you have to expose your taint to the sun.
140: I can't speak to the RGV, but for El Paso I've been there in person (a year before the pandemic) and I would flag a couple of factors: 1) the labor market is disproportionately comprised of frontline jobs that don't allow for meaningful social distancing; 2) the general level of poverty and near-poverty means that many of those same frontline workers have complicating factors like obesity, diabetes, etc. and at the same time also lack health insurance, which makes them more vulnerable when Covid hits.
There's been pretty compelling national research that some of the Trump-era immigration policies on "public charge" have discouraged many Latinos from accessing healthcare services; I'm sure that's a factor in El Paso as well but I doubt it's any more so than other areas of the country with similarly large numbers of immigrants.
141 - but there are other germs in the air! TB, for example. Also, they were looking at far uvc which is apparently safe to have on all the time, because it does not penetrate the eyes, and it can reduce the amount of aerosols lingering in high traffic areas. You could add it to filtration systems. Here's the guy whose research I heard about.
The answer that friends have given me is that their friends and families wear masks to run errands and live basically safely out in public, but that it feels rude/unfamily-like to wear masks around families, and they've got these big sprawling families, and they keep having family gatherings and not modifying that part of their life.
We appear to have had the same problem over the summer, concentrated in a few ethnic/national origin groups and largely solved via targeted public health work through organizations that were already working in, and trusted by, those communities.
SoCal is also burdened by overcrowding - large families or many roommates crammed into basic bungalows.
I think a certain amount of air hygiene would be good for reducing the spread of other diseases going forward too.
Lots of the N hemisphere is having a really mild flu season, yes? What does it mean that our attempts at hygeine have smothered the flu but not covid -- just that covid is that much more transmissible, maybe because more people have some resistance to any particular flu?
We can tell stories about why it's bad in SoCal, sure. But I was in WV two weeks ago and no one seemed to be wearing masks at all, people are going to church and singing together, and yet they are just about average in terms of infection rate. We know there's a newish variant in SoCal, and I suspect that's the difference, more than anything about human behavior.
147: COVID is *much* more transmissible than flu. Even at the very worst times of COVID exploding recently it's still doubling at between half and a quarter of the rate at which it grew back in March, so even at worst our mitigation efforts now are slowing down transmission by a factor of 2-4, and since each person only spreads flu to typically like 1.5 people, if you cut that by a third it will quickly quickly go away.
I don't see the overcrowding issue as some sort of moralizing story about human behavior, if that's what you're getting at in 148 - people are squeezed into such spaces by the housing crisis, and that affects inevitable transmission. I haven't rerun the numbers, but mid-last year (before any new strains with different properties came) I found a strong relationship in CA between level of overcrowding and cumulative COVID cases. LA County is still one of the top-affected in the state, and one of the worst-crowded by the HUD metric based on people per room.
150 is right. LA County has the highest percentage of overcrowded housing anywhere in the US (worse than NYC). https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/23/us/los-angeles-crowded-covid.html