Anyone planning to move if Trump wins?

The left has done absolutely nothing about any of the dishonest news media that exist, unless you count Fox being forced to pay up in court after admitting that they lied about the 2020 election.

And they're not the ones who want to haul Liz Cheney before a military tribunal because she dared to object to the assault on the Capitol Police on Jan. 6.

 

Yes, but they would like them to correct? You wish the left in government had the power to shutdown media and other speech that they determine to be “dishonest”?

 

No, I don't.

I'm frankly not sure what to do about it. There's no question that disinformation has undermined us in the last 10 years.

What I'd like to see a national movement to get people to turn off cable "news." There's no "news" there. It's just ongoing polarization.

But it would be *voluntary*. Driven by people who are *not* in the government.

 

Your concerns about cable news are largely outdated. Only old people watch it and they will be dead soon.

Also I’m old enough to remember when it was the left who wanted a Cheney executed. The current embrace of the Cheneys is beyond cynical. It was also extremely stupid.

 

"The left" in this case meaning "some idiots on Twitter."

Not Obama. Not Clinton. Not Biden or Harris.

Big difference.

I really hope you're right about cable news. I sometimes want to cryogenically freeze myself until this madness passes.

 

Cable news is dying. Fox News is still the most watched thing on cable most nights, but their 18-49 numbers are way down the list even on weak TV viewership nights.

The problem is it's been replaced by things that are typically more siloed than cable was. Whether it's something like Puck on the left or Daily Wire on the right, I run into more and more people who rely on a single source of news from a single perspective, with the only other input being the algorithmically driven social media feeds that toss obviously fake stuff on top of it to send people further into their echo chambers.

 

That's why I did this compendium taken *almost* exclusively from direct sources rather than news sites: https://medium.com/@nextpresharris7891/why-you-have-to-vote-for-kamala-harris-abridged-859cfa321b1c

 

While I agree with a sizeable chunk of that, I feel like this election turned on three major items:

1) Harris wasn't the winner of the primaries and plenty of people feel like she had the opportunity handed to her.

2) Harris didn't run a campaign. She correctly started by letting him say crazy things and pointing out how weird he was, but very little of her ad time seemed like it was aimed at actually getting her policy positions across.

3) The transgender issue, specifically as it applies to biological males competing in women's sports. The San Jose State women's volleyball story being out there every week or two probably kept it in people's minds a bit. There's data out there from one of the Super PAC's on Kamala's side showing that the Charlemagne they/them ad shifted support away from her by 2.7%, making it the most effective ad of this election cycle. Having the Biden Title IX executive order out their didn't help her. The DNC desperately needs to find the sweet spot on the transgender issue where they affirm it for adults who want to make that choice but protect the rights of biological females to have spaces to themselves. That's not going to be an easy one.

Whoever comes after her as the Democrat nominee is going to have to distance themselves from the far left fringe of the party and not just rely on the "We're not them" approach that dominated this time.

 

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

 

Her campaign had no emotional narrative beyond “Orange Man Bad.” She couldn’t diagnose to the economic pain people are feeling which isn’t measured in GDP gains largely driven by ten or so tech companies in the S and P 500. And if you can’t diagnose a problem to it, you cannot communicate a solution.

I understand people here vehemently disagree with both Trump’s diagnosis and his solution, but you can’t deny that he had a consistent emotional narrative that convinced more than half the country.

In terms of politicking, he smoked her, despite having a fraction of her financial backing.

 

In other words — he lied.

He lied about the state of the economy, which was a shambles when he left and is finally under control — only for him to ruin it with tariffs and an immigration crackdown.

He lied about crime, especially by migrants and to a lesser extent (or as was mentioned a lot in a House race near me) a result of the “defund the police” movement. The truth is crime was down, police were funded through the American Rescue Plan (which was barely reported even by the supposed liberal media), and study after study (especially by the Cato Institute) shows immigrants — ESPECIALLY illegal ones — commit crime at lower rates than us native-born folk. Which, basically — duh. If you crawl across a desert so you can work on a farm or clean toilets or take any other job white people think is beneath them just so you can have a fighting chance at a better life, the last thing you want to do is screw it up by attracting police attention.

He lied to distance himself from Project 2025, and now his allies are gleefully taunting everyone by saying he was indeed lying. They conned everyone — and they’re f-ing PROUD of it.

He painted a picture of an American hellscape that doesn’t exist. I don’t mean to completely absolve Harris and Biden here, but I will say that the word “inflation” appeared a lot more in the news than “middle-class tax cut,” which is what Harris promised.

What depresses me most about this election is that it shows just how easy it is to lie. People can choose to get all their “news” from Fox or just ignore the “news” and go only by what they hear from their neighbors, and then there’s not a damn thing any of us can do about it.

I spent months compiling facts from sources outside the mainstream media. Crime stats. Economic stats. Economic analyses of the Trump and Harris plans.

When I would post any of it on social media, my right-wing friends would reply with the emoji.

So what the hell are we supposed to do now? Wait for the cult to come to its natural end? They’ve been waiting for that in Russia for a couple of decades now, having had only a few years of rational existence between the fall of the USSR and whenever Putin did his full heel turn. They’ve been waiting for that in Iran since 1979.

I should be feeling better now — in part because it has always been customary in U.S. politics to make at least some insincere pledge to unify the country. That’s one of the many norms we’ve thrown out the f-ing window. So is firing everyone in the civil service who doesn’t put the Republican Party’s current whims (which are nothing at all like what the party stood for in 2012, let alone 1984) above the country. So is agreeing that attacking the Capitol and committing sexual assault are generally bad things.

All of those norms are gone. Reality-based policy is gone.

So what the hell do we do now?

(I’m sure a couple of people will respond to this with name-calling or taunting or lies. I’m just going to block you. I’m already in a very bad headspace because I, unlike you, and cursed with a sense of empathy for the women being taunted with a cry of “your body, my choice” or the kids whose parents thought they had done enough to secure their futures here but will instead be “sent back” to countries they’ve never seen or the people who are already experiencing the shock of learning that THEY are going to pay for tariffs, not someone else. Etc, etc, you’re a heartless sociopath, we get it. Dont be so smug about it.)

(Jazzy, that’s not directed at you. There are a few people who genuinely mean well even if they’re choosing differently. It’s just too damn few.)

 

Evangelical Christians have no problem supporting a candidate who lies through his teeth, sexually assaults women and is guilty of many felonies. The Ten Commandments are for other people to follow, not them, because the ends justify the means.

 

Question to those planning to move. Which would be your favorite socialist paradise destination? Cuba or Venezuela?

 

yeah I can’t agree with a lot of this.

The economy was in “shambles” when he left because of COVID shutdowns that were largely led by state and local government officials. Before COVID, the economy was in a much better shape.

Since Biden came into office, goods and services inflated by 30 percent or so again largely caused by the COVID shutdowns again led largely by democrats and then profligate spending by both Trump and Biden. That said Biden’s spending occurred after the recovery began and in my view wasn’t very defensible when it occurred. And then it forced the Federal Reserve to raise rates which raised housing costs at least for ownership by 30-50 percent. And we also have about 25 million people in this country who shouldn’t be here which obviously has an effect on inflating housing costs.

Regarding tariffs, Biden just imposed huge tariffs on Chinese EV makers and I don’t see many complaints there.

Regarding crime, it is a basic fact that crime has run rampant in cities along the West Coast where I live. This has occurred on the watch of the Democrats who progressively moved far left on crime issues which are moved now completely rejected by even those living here as well as the nation as a whole.

While I appreciate the detailed response you paint a very one-sided view of the

 

Even taking COVID into account, Biden had a better overall record than Trump. Inflation was global, and it was worse elsewhere -- a result of the post-pandemic demand surge. It's easy to have low gas prices when no one's driving.

Here:
https://medium.com/@nextpresharris7891/why-you-have-to-vote-for-kamala-harris-abridged-859cfa321b1c

I'm not happy with Biden's tariffs, either, but Trump's would be way, way higher. We're already seeing companies planning cuts or panic-buying in advance. See Mark Cuban's comments on Threads.

Crime -- in individual cities (from what I hear, Portland, though I don't live there), quite possibly. Nationwise, crime was down. Which one are you going to lay at Biden/Harris' feet?

Then Trump and Vance made up stories about Springfield and Aurora that local officials (from both parties) vehemently denied. But people still believe them.

 

Ireland. Finland. Iceland. Britain. They'd be fine.

But I'm from here. This is my country. I *may* have to look into alternative citizenship for my transgender relative, just so she can run elsewhere if things get really bad, but the idea would be for that to be temporary. Probably.

 

I don't know how old your relative is, but I've been encouraging my trans students to transfer to the University of Otago in New Zealand. It's actually cheaper to go there as an international student than stay in-state and attend the University of Washington in Seattle, given how much cheaper the cost of living is. If your relative already has a college degree, a way to get in is by doing a PhD at Otago, given they do not charge international tuition for PhD candidates (a PhD in something like Anthropology costs $4,000-5,000 a year). They also offer full-ride scholarships plus living expenses at Otago. They also accept American Financial Aid and the GI Bill.

 

So once again you present these facts as objective truths but it is full of assumptions and interpretive choices. You can’t unwind COVID from Biden’s economic performance which benefited from the recovery period that was needed precisely because of the lockdown policies that Democrats pursued.

You can’t generalize about “crime” and I don’t think the president of either party can really control “crime” writ large but you can view the election choices as a repudiation of the defund the police movement which was associated with Democrats and that Harris expressed some level of affinity for. Voters reject that across the country. People see the chaotic things happening here in SF, a city controlled by progressives (until this election), and they vote to reject it on a national level, even if it has little to do with the specific presidential policies.

 

Germany, Austria, Czechia, Denmark in that order, with Norway and Sweden as longer term landing spots after gaining (preferably) German citizenship.

 

France (I leave January 2nd). I anticipated the stupidity of Americans and put my home up for sale last month.

 

Can you guys leave the country already? Take your families 2

 

let me guess, you're 22 years old who's never left home, let alone the country, right? you sound like a goofy little child whose incapable of grown-up conversation. very few people are leaving, we will be staying right here to fight another day. you win some you lose some, that's how it works, but you never stop standing up for what you believe in.

 

So many threaten to go but always stay

 

that's right, people are disgusted...at best trump is a deeply flawed person not worthy of representing this great country. but the people have spoken, that's how it works. no whining, no lying, no crying, no insurrection...we accept it, move on and live to fight another day for what we think is important.