I heard similar comments around Roe V Wade.... "what? you think they'd actually repeal it? That's just political theatre nonsense" And yet here you are.
I think your response is a good example of when I say I'm living in a different reality. And, shit, maybe I'm just too naive. But, the people around me, that I interact with in day-to-day real life, or worried about paying bills, and raising kids, and working on career advancement, and caring for family, and the like. Roe v Wade was a Supreme Court decision and re-decision, and the US is very much divided on this issue. Like, abortion or right to life is a real issue that every single Presidential campaign discusses and has discussed since before the Supreme Court's first ruling and before the reconsideration and since the reconsideration. (I mean, for real, Reagan won a tremendous lopsided reelection, and even he has a quote about it.) But, internment camps for White Catholic Democrat Women? Like really? You think that the country is divided on that? Like you think half the voters think, yes, we should round up all the democrats and put them in a camp? I might disagree with Aetius on plenty of viewpoints, but if somebody wants to inter him (or them, sorry I don't know his pronouns), then fuck that shit. I'd stand next to him and say you're locking my ass up, too then. That's not right. That's not real. I just don't get it.
"First they came for the... I'm sorry, I don't know how you identify? Like what is your gender identity? I mean I understand that it's a spectrum and oh God I've been talking so long that now they've come for me..."
I think that half the voters think it’s funny to say these things and watch the reaction of the other half, but that someday there’s going to be a politician who actually wants to do this and if he gets elected and then actually makes moves to do it, people will be like “wait, for realsies?”
I think a shit ton of voters think exactly that, and Trump has repeatedly said how he'd target Democrats and his "enemies within". For a non-trivial number of Republicans, it's a cult. The thing that is incredibly frustrating is that Trump et al say things... very detailed things... very fucked up and crazy things... and then it's somehow re-interpreted or filtered to "he didn't really mean what he said" or "no, he didn't say that". That's bullshit.
Trump did or tried to do everything he said he would last term. There were people who actually stopped him from doing a lot of shit every time something blatantly illegal popped into his head. His two highest ranking Generals agreed to never be out of the country at the same time, They won't be there this time because he will surround himself with sycophants. Everyone thinks the US is magically shielded from this type of thing and their dead wrong. We can fall like every other country in the world.
It is the most infuriating thing about american politics. Only one side is ever held to account for anything they say or do while everything, no matter how illegal, immoral, wildly insane and totally detached from reality it is, it is all simply brushed aside when it comes from the republicans. You only have to look back in the discussion threads on here for all the people who insisted it was insane and crazy to even discuss the possibility of repealing Roe v Wade because the republicans would never dare to actually follow through with doing exactly what they promised.
It can't happen here! My old wrinkled white ass it can't. These people are fucking loons led by a thin skinned narcissistic moron who lashes out at people who say things against him.
I was one of those people making those comments. I feel like I have a somewhat reasonable fear that I could be jailed for voting Clinton/Biden/Harris if Trump wins now.
For a while now I've been using Hungary as a picture of where I think we could end up. I doubt we'll plunge into the depths of Hitlerian Germany, or Stalinist Russia, but more of a thoroughly corrupt false-democracy where most of the population goes about their day to day lives fairly normally, but where the "tall grass gets mowed." It'll be opposition leaders and journalists and the like who get the stick, with, yes, prison for those who don't back down. Plus of course the policy stick(s) for the scapegoat classes: deportations, revoking of workplace protections, etc.
The part that staggers me is the motherfucker lies so much, no one believes him...so when he says he will imprison political enemies, people are like...naw, he's just doing his usual bullshit. The folks behind him, however, are not bull shitting. I know which of my staff would get fired from their fed jobs, because they are hired under title this or schedule that. He cant tell the truth, fine, but why not take the threat seriously? Why choose to believe he wouldn't do this shit despite him saying explicitly that he would? What is the fucking point of listening to anything he says if none of it makes a difference, none of its believed, and yet somehow he still deserves to be considered for president? I said silence is the best weapon. I meant OUR silence. Watch, and ignore. It's the one thing he can't seem to stand.
Debbie can be a little crazy, and I don't agree with her 100% of the time, but she's actually pretty great. She shows up to SO many things - community events, protests, campaign offices, rallies, and actually interacts with people there. I imagine she is actually way less out of touch than a lot of other politicians are. And ngl the prospect of another trump presidency feels scarier as a currently pregnant person.
Do we know which trimester the nurses in blue states start saying “your baby” instead of “the parasite?”
Michigan is generally purple but we've been riding that blue wave recently, thank fuck, and we recently voted to codify abortion rights in the state constitution. But the prospect is horrifying regardless.