Fun-Sized Advice

On trump-sized advice

So theoretically, lets say Trump wins the GOP nomination and then starts looking solid going into November. Is there a point (and if so, where is that point) where someone should guillotine that bastard?
Nope. If the American people legitimately elect Donald Trump as President of the United States, then this fucking country deserves to have that monster take the wheel.

What would your ideal scenario be for how this Trump insanity shakes out?
If I could snap my fingers and make anything happen, I would have Trump win the Republican nomination. (Those assholes deserve to be destroyed by the monster they created.) I would then have the Democratic nominee (preferably Bernie, but I’m also cool with Hillary) absolutely crush Trump in a landslide general election. That would be my ideal. Maximum pain for the Republicans, hardest possible fall from grace for Trump, and a solid mandate for the next Democratic administration.

What can I say to Sanders supporters who say they’ll never vote for Clinton in the general? I’m for Sanders too but I can’t even fathom the idea of not supporting Clinton in a Clinton vs. Trump race.
Call them Trump supporters, because thats what they are. Personally, they disgust me, because not only are they supporting Trump by not voting against him, they are putting their own petty animus ahead of a much deeper and more important set of liberal principles that are genuinely at stake in this election. Fuck those people. Bernie supporters who won’t vote for Clinton in the general are lower than Trump supporters, because unlike actual Trump voters, they fucking know better.

What’s the best hope the GOP has of stopping Trump?
I think at this point, the GOP’s best hope would be if Roger Aisles snuck some Polonium-210 into Trump’s green room hairspray.

Why is Donald Trump so scary?
Donald Trump’s rise to power in America so far has proven to be both thematically and consequentially identical to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. This is not an exaggeration. The similarities are terrifying, and that is one slice of history that we really can’t let repeat itself.

Hypothetically, Trump becomes president. What does the fallout look like?
Best case, it’ll be political fallout that leads to four years of global embarrassment causing permanent and irreparable damage to the American experiment. Worst case, it’ll be nuclear fallout that leads to four years of global winter causing permanent and irreparable damage to the human experiment.

I’ve decided. It’s been a long time coming, but if Trump wins the nomination, I will finally kill myself.
Nah, you should totally stick around and watch the shit show unfold. Trust me. It’ll be worth it. (I mean, come on. Wouldn’t you rather die in the apocalypse? Personally, I’d hate to miss that.)

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57 thoughts on “On trump-sized advice

  1. Rainbowpony says:

    You know how (idiot) people say that if they could time travel, they would go back in time and kill hitler? I’ve been thinking a lot about that this week.

    • Perspectivator says:

      There’s an article about psych wards filling with “time travelers sent to kill trump.” I love that some of them are saying they’re too late.

      • mothbat says:

        is it bad that this legitimately scares me? what if they’re not crazy? what if they’re REALLY FROM THE FUTURE? ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

  2. Anonyjohn says:

    I’m not supporting Trump by not voting Clinton any more than I’m supporting Clinton by not voting Trump. The argument defeats itself. Neither candidate is acceptable to me. The level of support by not voting for either of these candidates is the same — in that I don’t want either of them representing me, I find them both morally bankrupt. Voting lesser-evil has caused “liberal principles” to slide so far right they are unrecognizable. If there is not a major party candidate that will meaningfully opposite corporate rule or foreign wars and coups, I will vote my conscience and stick with the Green Party. If the Democratic Party decides they want me back in their tent, they can follow through with the sweet talk they give liberal principles, instead of working against them as soon as they are in office. I actually sat in my caucus and was told “that is obviously never going to happen” when I argued for Sanders that *maybe* his foreign policy would include less bombing of innocent people all around the world. One of my best friends is a Clinton supporter who has argued, essentially, “no new taxes” and “you think Iraq would be better with Saddam?” when pressed about policy differences in the candidates. That I’m hearing Republican arguments from 8-12 years ago, mixed with neocon backing of Clinton that started as early as 2014 before Trump or Sanders was a threat, just shows how far right the Democratic party has gone. Sure, I shouldn’t hold candidates responsible for their supporters, but I can hold them responsible for their policies, histories and rhetoric.

    • The Coquette says:

      I respect you for voting your conscience, but if Clinton loses to Trump by an ass hair because of people like you who should damn well know better, please understand that I will burn your fucking house down.

      • Perspectivator says:

        You should issue a trigger warning and let people evacuate to their campus safe spaces before you propose facetious violence.

      • Anonyjohn says:

        I will also amend my comment slightly, and say there is a slight chance I would vote for Hillary in a general election, but it has nothing to do with who the Republicans nominate (fuck them, obviously). If so, it will be because Sanders and his supporters forced her to make concrete concessions (not just talk) to his agenda, and that is not going to happen if his supporters run around saying they will vote for the nominee regardless of who it is or what they stand for. A party primary is the exact time you should be having these debates and forcing candidates to adopt your points of view. Maybe you hold your nose and vote for a lesser-evil at the polls on election day, but you don’t promise that away as your opening offer.

    • Rainbowpony says:

      What is the purpose of doing that? So your soul won’t be sullied by hillary’s transgressions? I don’t understand what not voting for the lesser evil does.

      • Anonyjohn says:

        Yes, for one. Having principles that I believe in and not lending my voice (which a vote is) in support of massive transgressions of those principles. Yes, voting lesser-evils may be a great short-term strategy, but the drifting right of Democrats and the failure of the base to hold Obama accountable for not living up to campaign promises (I mean, we tried a bit with Occupy, but the numbers weren’t there) has led me to believe it is not a viable long-term strategy. In fact, lesser-evil and “supreme court” seems to have turned into the entirety of the reason you should vote Democratic and it’s no longer enough for me. I want to live in a more just world. If they take your vote for granted, there is no reason for them to heed your concerns or worry about what you want. So we end up with a health care policy that is roughly identical to Mitt Romney’s (ok, I’m glad people with pre-existing conditions can get healthcare, but where’s the public option at a minimum). We end up with Obama continuing drone strikes and targeted killings around the world. Letting the banks and Bush administration off with no real consequences. Continued interventions in the middle east without any plans to build the places back up. Continue to support horrible dictators as long as they do as we wish. A lack of votes is also a lack of mandate, and that says something to the world. If you have huge numbers of Americans continuing to vote for an American Empire that wreaks havoc around the globe, what does that say about us?

        • Perspectivator says:

          Not one of your examples would have been altered by a substantial quantity of the populace not voting.

          yeah, throwing a temper tantrum and showing them you don’t love them anymore is really going to make them buy you flowers. “Oh shit! Anonyjohn didn’t show up for the polls?! Send out a search party! Something is wrong with our voting system because he and five other self styled anarchists are subverting our legitimacy by not voting! Why isn’t cnn covering this!? We shouldn’t take him for granted, he might not vote for anyone ever again!” You can’t be fucking serious. You’re like the antithesis of an authoritarian but with less power. You can’t make the world “more just” by doing nothing!

          But you cannot hold those positions with the strength of your own reasoning and personal conviction and still come to the conclusion that not fucking voting is the best possible action regardless of candidates. Your argument amounts to, “I don’t get enough from the voting experience, so I don’t.”

          You want to be worried about “what the rest of the globe thinks of “us?” They think you’re a travesty for not voting when so many countries are still fighting to vote. You’re the reason why voting should be mandatory.

          Please don’t get me wrong, I’m totally with you on the drone strikes, banker fucks, and Middle East meddling. I think you might be mislead on healthcare (and I could be wrong.) we probably even hate the same assholes in traffic. But really?!

          Now that I think about that thought experiment two posts back, I have a new category of people I would like to submit as a hypothetical answer.

          • Anonyjohn says:

            Nowhere did I say I won’t vote. I know this because I always vote, and this year most likely for Jill Stein. I actually agree with you that not voting is bad — I think it sends the signal that you are completely disengaged from politics, and is another reason for politicians of both parties to disregard you (in a similar way that automatically vowing to vote for your party nominee regardless of who it is allows them to disregard you). However, I disagree with you that “not one of your examples would have been altered by a substantial quantity of the populace not voting.” If 20% (or more, or less) of the Democratic Party that actually does hold our view on “drone strikes, banker fucks, and Middle East meddling” decided to vote for the Green Party, the Democratic Party would lose to Republicans by staggering margins. Yes, this could be terrible for 4 or 8 years (but we’ve had to endure 4-8 years of terrible Presidents before and we will in the future), but the Democratic Party would also have to come to terms with the left wing of their party and actually take their desires into account if they every wanted to win an election again. If 20% voted Green Party they would make it into debates. They could get concessions from Democrats in exchange for endorsements. Maybe stuff could start to change. Or maybe it wouldn’t work. But voting lesser-evil is clearly not working and resulting in worse and worse outcomes for the left (from my perspective), resulting in abandonment of core principles and belief that change is possible.

          • Perspectivator says:

            Whew. Okay. I was so mad thinking you were saying you wouldn’t vote that I went and verified my registration.

            Oh, right. That was my reading comprehension problem totally my bad. But voting 3rd party when so much is at stake is probably as close to not voting as you can get apart from writing your own name on the ballot. The message we need to send is that the Republican Party is no longer acceptable to reasonable humans. Please don’t let Cruz or trump win. No more ambien late night politics!

          • Anonyjohn says:

            So when do you send the message that Democratic Party policy is no longer acceptable? It’s always The Most Important Election Ever with The Worst Republican Ever running.

          • VeryON says:

            You send that in the primaries! Vote for a flower pot in the primaries to underscore your dissatisfaction.

        • Lotcal says:

          Yes it does say something to the rest of the world… That you are all a bunch of idiots for enabling Trump to be elected.

          By not voting, you are allowing someone who will wreak significant havoc on not just you but those in other countries who would like to be able to vote for the US pres, because it will impact us too. And you choose to piss that away.

          • Anonyjohn says:

            Yeah, I bet as we continue to fuck up the entire Middle East with, among so many other problems there, CIA-backed rebels fighting Pentagon-backed rebels in Syria, what the civilians are really concerned about as they try to flee to somewhere we haven’t killed their friends and relatives, is whether we are electing Trump, the candidate of bigotry and fascism, or Hillary, the candidate of Empire. (h/t @jeremyscahill)

            And again, I am voting, just not for Hillary or Trump.

      • Anonyjohn says:

        Voted Gore — my first Presidential vote cast. I don’t blame Nader voters. Far more culpable scapegoats — all the Republicans that voted Bush, the electoral college (Gore won popular vote), the campaign itself, the Supreme Court (rejecting a Florida recount), etc. Now we have Democratic voters who blame Nader for causing the Iraq War and they will be supporting Hillary who voted for the Iraq War. *sad face* The trend line is not inspiring.

          • Anonyjohn says:

            Come on, I know you have better arguments than this. What is the long-term strategy to turn this shit-show around? Many of my Democratic Party friends are happy to talk about moving to Canada if Trump is elected, rarely do any of them seem to even consider street-level activism as a strategy. Occupy radicalized many of us, but too many wrote it off as just a mess (which it was at times). Black Lives Matter is hopefully doing it for more.

          • Ann says:

            You’re not voting. The rest of the world won’t thank you. If you want to vote with your conscience, move to Australia.

          • Anonyjohn says:

            Once again, I am voting. Is your argument the Democratic Party version of “if you don’t like America, why don’t you move to Europe?” ohhhkaaaaay.

            Look, voting lesser-evil can be a short-term strategy, but it seems to be resulting in terrible long-term consequences, just like a corporation doing anything to hit their next quarterly statements or rushing into an Iraq War without an exit plan or a way to fundamentally improve the country and the well-being of its citizens. When will the left confront the Democratic Party and demand they follow through on promises? They won’t even do it in a party primary, promising their vote to the winner regardless of concessions made or who it may be.

          • VeryON says:

            John. Yes, we get that you’re voting and it was totally my bad that I lead others to believe you weren’t because my brain leapt from the tracks when i read, “the argument defeats itself.”

            If you want a long term solution, you’re going to have to provide long term strategies like grooming a candidate yourself. You can’t wait until it’s time to vote and say, “this isn’t a long term solution so I’m going to vote uselessly.”

  3. Nina says:

    I love Bernie and really want him to be president, but if it ends up being Trump vs Clinton I’m voting for Clinton.

  4. Gaybeard says:

    Trump is just your run of the mill demagogue. If he’s elected he’ll smash a few things up, yeah, but nothing like the Holocaust or WW2 can happen without a concerted vision behind it. Thank God you guys don’t have a Hitler on your horizon…yet.

  5. VeryON says:

    ” …I will finally kill myself.”

    I’m glad I’m not the only one who has had this cross their mind.
    Good thing there aren’t suicide booths.

    • merty says:

      Not alone at all. I don’t want to make light of psychological issues, but I have seriously not ever had panic attacks or depression caused by political events until now.

      I had a panic attack one night thinking about Trump in the White House. It started with wondering who he’s going to have as a running mate (please not Sarah Palin, although that could cause him to lose the election), who he’ll appoint to his cabinet (probably all idiots), his wife as first lady (um, I don’t want to trash other women, but she looks like a Fem-bot), about how probably he will take severe offense at some world leader’s criticism of him, then release the nuclear weapons in a fit of rage and one morning we’ll all wake up to a literal hellscape. Or, maybe we won’t wake up. (I mean, I take life for granted sometimes. I like living and I don’t think there’s anything beyond this world.)

      Also, Wednesday I was pretty depressed (full blown symptoms= lost appetite, couldn’t concentrate on anything, etc.) to learn that he’d basically won Super Tuesday. My only solace is that so many military leaders are speaking out about his war criminal “policies” saying they would disobey his orders. Also knowing that there are enough checks in place that he won’t wield total control of the country’s nuclear weapons. Unless his rise to power really will mimic Hitler wherein the military is replaced with his own thugs, I have faith that somewhere someone in the DoD would take him out if he turned into a complete psycho tyrant.

        • merty says:

          I just watched his speech live from Missouri (I think) side by side with a Mussolini speech just for the hell of it. Talk about scary … and fucking weird. At one point they were mirroring each other with the hand gestures, posture, pacing. (I swear I’m not on drugs)

  6. Gaybeard says:

    I love how American political science is just now acknowledging the importance of critical theorists, but still managing to disparage giants in the field like Adorno at the same time. Still clinging to the idea that political science is actually a “science”. Yikes.

    • Gaybeard says:

      In a lot of ways it would be better for the rest of the world if Trump won. An ineffectual President in power would do less overall harm than one like…say, Obama, who knows how to use all the tools at his disposal. Domestically, it would be a disaster if Trump won. But then again, if he wins, maybe his Presidency will be a wake up call for the American people. Who’s to say with these kinds of things?

          • J Lynn says:

            Bush himself wasn’t, but he was dominated by Cheney and to a lesser extent Rumsfeld. Cheney and the “support our president” knee-jerk loyalists definitely align with authoritarians.

  7. Nerdlinger says:

    Is Trump any worse than Berlusconi and his antiziganism, press manipulation and creepy escapades? Sure, he will be at the wheel of a more powerful nation, but unlike Berlusconi he has alienated so much of the power brokers within his own party, and if we take his random statements at face value he’s hilariously left-wing on so many fronts save for the rabid hatred of all things foreign and utter boorishness.

    He can do plenty of damage with executive orders, but how fast can they whistle him back if Congress and the Supreme Court detest him?

  8. ken says:

    If it comes down to Trump vs the Democrats, I hope people remember they aren’t just voting for a president. They also need to get the Republicans out of the House too. Now *that* would be a mandate! …not that the Republicans would admit it. I think just a few House Republicans are up for re-election, but it would be a start.

  9. Brian says:

    If your decision between life and death comes down to Donald Trump (a clown) skipping across your massive lake of human experience into the White House (as opposed to sinking) then you should kill yourself. You’d basically be demonstrating an act perceived as Donald Trump ultimately destroying you. When all he did is reach a made-up position of power in a batshit crazy and questionable world. Just know a lot of us will see your decision as pathetic, and also hilarious. Be sure to leave a suicide note citing the reason so everybody else can get a good laugh out of it when they discover the very final foe was not only external, but also spray tans, makes a fool of himself most times he opens his mouth, and has a head of hair only a very ill cat could cough up. Donald Trump shoved you over the edge? Nice! Better luck next time.

    • Veryon says:

      Actually, I was thinking the suicide would be a statement more along the lines of “This guy is going to fuck the entire world up so badly that I don’t want to live to watch it suffer.” Not, “Donald shot me in the face.” Some of us have awareness that extends beyond our cubicle.

      I really seriously do not want to wake up to a nuclear war with Iran or North Korea. That assclown would have zero compunction against popping open the doomsday football and I honestly believe the current senate would pretend that they were powerless to stop him until it was too late.

  10. Gaybeard says:

    nah, it’s just an excuse. Anyone who has an earnest wish to die will kill themselves regardless, no matter what reason they invent to make the narrative emotionally palatable to themselves. Someone committing suicide out of desperation or feeling trapped, on the other hand, comes about as a result of an immediate, objectively threatening circumstance impacting their lives, not an amorphous geopolitical event whose consequences are impossible to predict. If you’re standing on top of a burning building with no chance of getting out, then you may prefer to end the agony of slowly being consumed by jumping off and ending it immediately instead of prolonging the pain. You will not, on the other hand, jump off the roof of your building just because it’s a fire hazard and there is a somewhat higher chance of dying in a fire than in a safer building with a saner landlord.

    In a world with nuclear weapons a nuclear war is always a possibility, but 70 years of convention have made it a very slim one, regardless of who is in control. Destabilization can happen as a result of regime and leadership change, yes, but the real threat is new players entering the game more than old rivals dredging up conflicts long dead.

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