Petition seeks to prevent Trump from speaking in The Hall of Presidents at Disney's Magic Kingdom

Do I think Russia is now controlling our President? Yeah. Probably. Do I think we are in a real pickle? Yup. Will we go to war with China soon? Yea, according to Bannon. Will we likely see an economic collapse while groups of people fight each other in the streets in an epically sad civil war. Yup. Do we, as a country, deserve Donald Trump as the President of the United States? Yeah, apparently.

So, I'm just watching to see what his definition of "Great" is. But at least we have legal-ish weed to make it more entertaining.

If anything this will be a fun Gonch-back to look back upon.

Nothing is ever accomplished in online political debates, but once in a while I enjoy them.

The only thing I ever hope to accomplish is to pull some of you guys out of your collective echo chambers and just for once acknowledge that not everything the President in power does is going to equal doomsday, that they simply do not hold that much power.

So I'm 99% sure this isn't parody or satire.

I Fired My OB/GYN Because She Supported Donald Trump

Celebrate diversity!

...except for those who think differently than I do.

HeyIsntThatRob? said:
...for once acknowledge that not everything the President in power does is going to equal doomsday, that they simply do not hold that much power.

Yes, but.. President Bannon, who is determined, by his own admission, to undermine the American government, has put people into the White House and on the NSC that are not qualified to be there, who has refused to fill 80% of the positions that an incoming president is responsible to fill...

...is exercising his power.

There are two truisms in life that I have come to rely on as always being accurate: 1) Nothing lasts forever, good or bad and 2) Things are rarely what they seem.

I think the thing that strikes me the most out of everything is that whether anyone agrees or not, the country is pretty split in half on this administration. And what that means is that if anyone wants to effect real change, they not only have to get involved civically (meaning make your Congress work), but they also have to be willing to engage in the other half of the nation that thinks differently than they do. Like it or not, agree with it or not, no one has ever successfully changed the mind of another by calling them names, accusing them of hating others, or dismissing them completely as being privileged and therefore lacking in empathy. You name it. I've been watching it all for the past several months.

It is easy to dismiss anyone who chooses not to live in fear today. But I have to say, living in fear and/or acting in fear is not helping anyone. Seriously. Think about it. What do you gain by fretting each day about things you can't immediately control? Nothing. The only recourse you have is to get into action in real ways that moves the dial. But that doesn't involve accusing others of being uncaring because of their beliefs.

Nothing lasts forever, good or bad and things are rarely what they seem. There might just be a long game at play here. And if there's not, then the productive work of those who want to see change happen will kick in and there will be a shift back the other direction again. And in the meantime, in many cases, our system of checks and balances seems to be working with unqualified folks getting caught in the background checks and the judicial branch doing its job of keeping the laws carried out. There's no benefit in screaming into the wind that those checks and balances shouldn't have to kick in...they exist for this reason.

And in case anyone's wondering... I've been wearing vagina hats since before it was cool. And I'm really hoping that one day I'll be able to break out my penis boa, too. Because nothing calls for effective change more than genitalia fashion.

Vater said:
...except for those who think differently than I do.

I hate this angle, because it's made assuming, again, moral equivalency. Is validating racism or misogyny really celebrating diversity? As I've said countless times, we aren't taking about differing fiscal policy here.

Carrie J. said:[/i
And in the meantime, in many cases, our system of checks and balances seems to be working with unqualified folks getting caught in the background checks and the judicial branch doing its job of keeping the laws carried out.

[Hates self for disagreeing with Ms C J]...

What concerns me here is that those unqualified people were given free reign in the the White House and on the National Security Council before their background checks were cleared. It doesn't speak well of either an incompetent or a nefarious administration.

I've been watching it all for the past several months.

Been a lot longer in my world. Back in the Bill Clinton days, political discussions really ramped up. A ton of us versus them garbage with family and friends. Like a tag teamed wrestling match. Was interesting for a while but got exhausting. Particularly when nothing was being accomplished in terms of substantive discussion. Got worse over the years. Internet in the early 2000s ramped it up even further. Anonymity of the internet made the "discussions" that much worse. That was interesting for less time and became exhausting much faster. If ever someone wanted evidence of parallel universes, just talk politics with people of different ideologies.

At this point I have pretty much given up talking politics with anyone. Only people who I could discuss it with rationally don't want to discuss it (for largely the same reasons I don't either).

Jeff said:

I hate this angle, because it's made assuming, again, moral equivalency. Is validating racism or misogyny really celebrating diversity? As I've said countless times, we aren't taking about differing fiscal policy here.

But the OBGYN in the piece Gonchar linked to was talking about fiscal policy--and her long-time patient dumped her because she couldn't understand how anyone could vote for the guy. People voted for the man for various reasons, many of which were in spite of his moral degeneracies...myself included. Frankly, I never saw a whole hell of a lot of moral difference between either candidate, so my vote was strictly on policy, just as, seemingly, the OBGYN's vote was. So it gets dangerously close to the inference that I support racism and mysogyny just because the monosyllabic ****wad the Republicans decided was their best candidate happened to spout more ideas I agreed with politically than the Democrats' imperial poster woman for progressivism.

Jeff said:

I hate this angle, because it's made assuming, again, moral equivalency. Is validating racism or misogyny really celebrating diversity? As I've said countless times, we aren't taking about differing fiscal policy here.

It seems that you're more interested in making people wrong than in helping them see what you think is right. How's that been working out for ya?

slithernoggin said:

What concerns me here is that those unqualified people were given free reign in the the White House and on the National Security Council before their background checks were cleared.

Every time you post that I get a mental picture of them all running wild through the halls of the White House. Haha.

I get it. The checks and balances aren't instantaneous and there can still be harm in the interim before they kick in. But there is still long term safety in them. And as long as that's the case, then we are not heading for our demise like many are claiming and spending their time worrying about. That's all I'm saying.

Jeff said:

Is validating racism or misogyny really celebrating diversity?

Donald Trump is a feminist hero, sir.

What concerns me most is Trump didn't hide his shenanigans. Sure, he would back stuff back occasionally, but the people who voted for Trump voted for him knowing what he said. About 50% of the population is apparently not too upset with racism and misogyny. Thats far more concerning to me than a single person, even Trump.

Side note: Holy wow what a great salesman! I watched him closely as a marketing guy and learned a lot of new tricks.

Carrie J. said:
It seems that you're more interested in making people wrong than in helping them see what you think is right. How's that been working out for ya?

Is racism and misogyny right? Do I have to make that wrong, or is it, in fact, wrong?

But you make the assumption that everyone who voted for Trump are both racist and misogynistic. You keep telling yourself that, you keep telling us that, and you find sources to make your claim valid.

But not all Trump voters are that way.

Using 'demographic politics', that is placing a label on someone is lazy, ignorant, and a total cop out. You place a label on the person which puts assumptions on them and it allows you (in your head and echo chamber) to be right without getting to know the individual. When you call someone a White, Black, Republican, Democrat, whatever and then base stereotypical arguments based on what some of thier actions are, it makes you no better than the actual racists and misogynistics that actually do exist.

Carrie J. said:

I get it. The checks and balances aren't instantaneous and there can still be harm in the interim before they kick in. But there is still long term safety in them. And as long as that's the case, then we are not heading for our demise like many are claiming and spending their time worrying about. That's all I'm saying.

But have we seen a situation as extreme as this before? That's what I keep coming back to.

Until someone can point to a historical example of this happening before, any suggestion that the checks and balances will make everything OK - and thus make any reaction to Trump a silly, partisan overreaction - is at least somewhat presumptuous.

I feel like people are being unreasonable on both ends of the spectrum here - both the "the sky is falling" crowd (which I admit to being part of for at least some of time since early November) as well as the "eh, no biggie, this is literally the same as it's always been" crowd. Both are deluded as far as I'm concerned. But I would love to be wrong, which is why I keep asking the "eh, no biggie" crowd for examples of this happening before. I want to feel better about this whole thing. But so far no one has been willing or able to provide examples of why any reaction to Trump is an overreaction.

HeyIsntThatRob? said:

But you make the assumption that everyone who voted for Trump are both racist and misogynistic.

Wrong, I don't make that assumption at all. Why are people so eager to make the objections about the objectors? Why is it not OK to object to having a racist and misogynist as leader of the free world? Now add in the constant lying (or delusion, I don't know which it actually is), incompetence, narcissism, hostility toward every other nation (except Russia, apparently)... in what universe should anyone simply be silent? Silence is what got this moron elected in the first place.

I don't think silence got him elected. Almost 63M people voted for him and almost 66M voted for Clinton. No Republican candidate has ever gotten that many votes. Obama set the record in 2008 with 69M votes. But Trump's campaign crafted a message in the states that they believed they could flip in the electoral college.

And they did.

I'm Monday morning quarterbacking this, because I'm still shocked that Trump won. In the end it was a pretty strategic win considering the economy was already in pretty good shape. But silence didn't do this, it was a message the invigorated a base located in the states that could be flipped that won.

HeyIsntThatRob? said:

But you make the assumption that everyone who voted for Trump are both racist and misogynistic.

I don't assume that. But I can assume that those weren't "deal-breakers" for Trump voters the way it was for so many of us (myself included)...?

HeyIsntThatRob? said:

I don't think silence got him elected. Almost 63M people voted for him and almost 66M voted for Clinton.

Out of 231 million eligible voters. Almost half stayed home. That feels like a whole lot of silence and apathy to me. Yes, it's been lower, but that's still pretty sad.

What's sadder is the fact that the 2016 presidential race consisted of arguably the worst pair of candidates in US history. I was actually surprised the voter turnout was as high as it was.