There is something very broken in a party that could nominate Donald Trump. While victory is unlikely, he does have the second best chance of anyone to end up president January 2017, and even assuming he does lose there's a good chance that 40+% of all votes cast will be for him, and that represents a large fraction of our population that is ok with a racist, sexist, man-child as president of the United States.
There is absolutely no way that any thinking, caring, or frankly, just breathing person could believe that he is qualified. So any vote for him is demonstrating a desire to burn the United States Constitution, and perhaps the world beyond. I suspect that he is too stupid, incompetent and lazy to actually be as destructive as his rhetoric would imply, but just his becoming president would wreak havoc.
A lot of people don't like Hillary Clinton. I'm not a huge fan (though for very different reasons than you hear about from the mainstream media...seriously, the emails? the foundation? press conferences?). Yea, there's some poor judgement, but to compare her problems to Trump it's like the difference between accidentally stepping on someone's toes because you were staring at your phone to deliberately murdering someone along with their entire family, friends, neighbors, bombing the city they lived in...
It's not fucking close. This isn't some lesser of two evils Mussolini vs. Hitler. It's Anne Hataway (you may not like her but she's going to be good at the job) vs. fucking Donald Trump...I tried to think of a comparison, but to be fair most horrible people are still way more competent than he is he's like a clown pretending to be Stalin or something... Oh, maybe Kim Jong-un, but I'm not sure he's got enough power to count.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
People on the Internets are Horrible
I don't mean to diminish what the author of this piece has gone through. There are a lot of horrible people on the internet who do things that range from mean but mostly harmless to fear for your life threatening, and that shit really needs to stop, but, I'm sorry, your bad experience with people on the internet is not representative of the bulk of society nor does it mean that the US has not gotten more tolerant.
There is probably a pretty sound defense of the position that we haven't gotten more tolerant (particularly towards Muslims and darker skinned immigrants), but what I think is actually happening is that while the internet has made it possible through anonymity and global reach for like-minded haters to find each other, the Trump campaign (in particular) has made those intolerant among us feel more free to express that intolerance both online and even without the protection of the anonymous internet.
I think that the Black Lives Matter movement is actually being heard in a way that would not have happened 20-30 years ago (yes, the prevalence of video is helping this). Sexism and related issues are being taken more seriously. I don't think anyone would argue that gay people are not better off today than in the 80's (or 90's, or even the 00's). In the past couple years even trans people are getting more respect than they have outside of a John Waters film since...well, ever. I would not be surprised if Muslims and Latinos are groups that face greater intolerance than they would have in the 90's (probably more so for Muslims). Even for those cases, however, there doesn't seem to be much evidence that it isn't just a fairly small group that is much louder than they used to be, rather than a larger fraction of the population.
Racism, sexism, xenophobia, et cetera are not gone, but we really do seem to be getting better across the board, especially among the youngs. That there are horrible people on the internet doesn't really change that and neither does Trump.
There is probably a pretty sound defense of the position that we haven't gotten more tolerant (particularly towards Muslims and darker skinned immigrants), but what I think is actually happening is that while the internet has made it possible through anonymity and global reach for like-minded haters to find each other, the Trump campaign (in particular) has made those intolerant among us feel more free to express that intolerance both online and even without the protection of the anonymous internet.
I think that the Black Lives Matter movement is actually being heard in a way that would not have happened 20-30 years ago (yes, the prevalence of video is helping this). Sexism and related issues are being taken more seriously. I don't think anyone would argue that gay people are not better off today than in the 80's (or 90's, or even the 00's). In the past couple years even trans people are getting more respect than they have outside of a John Waters film since...well, ever. I would not be surprised if Muslims and Latinos are groups that face greater intolerance than they would have in the 90's (probably more so for Muslims). Even for those cases, however, there doesn't seem to be much evidence that it isn't just a fairly small group that is much louder than they used to be, rather than a larger fraction of the population.
Racism, sexism, xenophobia, et cetera are not gone, but we really do seem to be getting better across the board, especially among the youngs. That there are horrible people on the internet doesn't really change that and neither does Trump.
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