I'm having a very, very hard time with that as well. I thought (stupid me) that every person's vote was private. So even if the male or males in your house said, "VOTE TRUMP" you could nod and then vote how you chose in the booth. Again stupid me. But that is probably only one scenario.
There comes a time when we are kids when we make the decision to undermine other girls so boys will pay attention. There’s a lot of other positive reinforcement for that, like power and respect from the people making and enforcing the rules. Actually, I don’t think the girls who end up hurting other women make a choice. They just go with the flow. The girls who are like, “Why are girls suddenly being mean” make a choice to not be. Parents like me - who pulled my daughters back by the scruffs of their necks when they started mimicking that - help point out that it’s a decision to hurt other girls or support each other.
Several people have shared this with me and to the last person, they point out that he appears not to be speaking from notes, but from his heart. I embrace him.
I have no clue how I will react to people who voted for him. I know that, to a woman who was snarling about how people with EBT food stamps just buy anything they want because it's not their money, I quietly said, "I get EBT food benefits," while looking her in the eyes.
This vote will throw me further into poverty at some point. And I ongoing medical issues. At the same time I know people who are way worse off.
I just will avoid Trumpers and try to focus on how we will develop an underground IN PERSON, not online. You KNOW they will monitor us. We need to use our pre-internet, underground skills and teach them to the younger generation! Time to break out of retirement mode... but also find a way to let go of the rage and redirect and alter it into longterm action.
How? Hell, I don't know. For now we vent and give ourselvess no more than through Thanksgiving to get it together?
I think this is good strategy, to look at the short-term. And I really, really want us all to be wrong about what's coming down the pike. Whatever happens, this is a community and we help our own.
I never thought it would come to this, but I think ties have been severed with my sister (a Kennedy (D) who, for the record, was a 15-year old birth mother - that's ANOTHER story), and by extension my nieces (one who had an abortion and the other who was gang-raped at a party while semi-conscious - all good little GA Republicans - unsure about their kids 4 are adults, but probably 3 are probably good little Republicans with the minor in the bunch an aspiring Republican). The outlier is gay and lives in WA), etc. Sister voted for Trump in 2016 (first time ever voting R), spent 4 years bitching to me about him, and then told me near the end of his term that she voted for him. That irrevocably changed our relationship. Fast forward to today. The Husband is thanking her for a gift, she makes pro-Trump noises along the lines of him changing and he will be nice and something to do with his chief of staff. He has not shared the emails with me, because he knows they will upset me as I've been a weepy nauseous basketcase. If I ask, he'll share. I don't want to see them. While I know it's not cool to have The Husband speak for me without me asking and furthermore, something that I never actually said, he made the right call by telling my sister that if she wants a relationship with me, she needs to repudiate Trump. I know someone getting DEATH THREATS (owner of the Flower House in Avon). If I had to courage to say that to her, I wouldn't be kind about it and would incinerate any remainder of the bridge. While it's nothing to be proud of, I inherited my father's temper. It's not pretty. I don't know if she'll take me out of the Will, and I don't care. I pretty much don't exist to all of them anyway. Any relationship we have is pretty much performative. So, no great loss. I'm strangley calm about this. I'm team Tolerance Paradox. Apologies for the Tolstoy.
I am going through the people with whom I do business and moving my business elsewhere. It's a small thing but it's my money and I will spend it as I choose. That's one thing. As for family, I've already said goodbye to so many of them....I just don't know.
Choose the family you want, not the ones with whom you were born. I have no Trumper friends and the extended family members who are Trumpers, I see them at funerals only. My husband and I have no siblings, from what I've witnessed, we are fortunate.
I have relatives and friends in the same position as you -- a division in their relationship with their siblings that wouldn't be there if not for the politics which really is sad particularly when prior to the current time period, these were people who were close and did things together aside from speaking and actually visited and enjoyed one another's company.
I am searching for something TO DO to change the outcome of this election. What about the 14th Amendment ? I am writing a letter to my wonderful Senator Chris Murphy on this subject. And to Richard Blumenthal as well. I will get 100% behind that movement or project or whatever the legal name for it is.!! The results of this election are going to be horrendous and I am frightened.
It doesn’t matter that they won, they are still a cult. For the Trump cult as with any cult, “unity” with the other side or the other side “getting over it” will only ever be judged by the cult to be mean surrender and submission by the other side.
I hear you! Yesterday our Priest called for unity BUT the candidate who tried to unify us was soundly defeated with the support of my church and many other so called Christian institutions! Yesterday's Gospel told the story of the poor woman who contributed alms, she had virtually nothing, yet gave what little she had. Meanwhile the well to do we giving from their surpluses and likely back slapping each other for their contributions. We live in a country of growing disparity between the haves and have nots! It will get worse before it ever gets better. Now, we try and honor our Veterans, the "suckers and losers" who endeavored to preserve freedom....what a dichotomy?!?
The more one turns a blind eye to/tolerates intolerance, intolerance becomes more acceptable... especially when it comes to basic humanity and morality.
First mistake was going to church and expecting to hear anything worth hearing from someone who isn't any more intelligent or connected to God than you are. As a Protestant I was raised to understand that I have a one-on-one relationship with God. I do not need someone to stand between Him and me. I can speak to Him directly and I can read the Bible and understand for myself what it says if that is my need. Try it. You can break the habit that told you as a child that you had to attend church and listen to someone who doesn't know any more than you do and very possibly much less.
As a 70+ y.o. man I don't need you or anybody telling me how to go about my faith practices. Perhaps when you read the Bible you missed the many references on judging others?
I think that contemplating what getting over that means is the key.
They always demand that it means esteeming them and embracing them as well as knuckling under to them. I find that unappealing on every count.
I've thought about it a lot in previous years, on personal, organizational, and national-political occasions. I may revise, but this is where I currently am.
For me, it means taking it as given that what happened happened. Not like a meme I saw yesterday that prayed "God, grant me the patience to work with the unjust systems I cannot change today." To which I replied "I think that it’s sometimes appropriate to obstruct, circumvent, disobey or violate the unjust systems."
It means working politically, individually, and on community bases to hamper the bad and to support or construct the good.
It means taking as given the choices of those who have chosen this as indicating their commitments at this time, and feeling no obligation to respond with "so that's okay, then."
It means pointing out what discourse is being perpetrated in front of me, when there are active humans who have ears to hear or there may be silent listeners imagining that All the Smart/Right/Existing HumanBeings Agree With This if I don't speak. When I have the energy, which isn't always.
It means turning away from what infuriates me, when I'm not abandoning duty to do so.
It means not cultivating hatred or anger or sneering in myself or my communities.
I am going to be a long time on any attempt at discussion, much less healing. I appreciate that people are doing that. But I'm not there because I do not know how to talk to people with whom I share no values.
I share your thoughts and actions here. I can barely discuss this with myself. I don't watch the news. And I turned off an NPR newscast two days ago because they broadcast his voice.
I can't get over the fact that voters overwhelming backed Trump who said that people in Pennsylvania were eating their neighbors cats and dogs. Well, Project 2025 will be a rude awakening. The more I read, the more discouraged I become. Dems are the elites -- really. Anyways, it is going to take a while. Find this still a shock to the system. I just wanted to add that I stopped purchasing on Amazon, which is a lifeline for me where I live. Willing to pay more, or go without. I'm testing target, which will deliver, but not as quickly as Amazon. Write on, Susan.
A very long while, if ever. Keeping busy, cleaning my house, reading a lot of books and talking long walks on the beach. It's hard. When I look at my emails from Axios, Politico -- I want to scream. The people he is bringing in. This is going to be awful.
This is a hard one. It feels like well, it is a betrayal. There are many who are struggling with this right now. I think I mentioned my sister Paula, she’s right there with you. You said it exactly she did, she thinks they need to suffer a bit to understand just how wrong they were. And that their idiocy, it’s going to hurt so many people.
If only the pain would be discriminately applied, but I think what I get stuck on is the notion that this is going to hurt people who are just living their lives.
Right. Then I think, without consequences, people won't learn. And yet, with the weaponization of disinformation, the blame may not be placed where it belongs. It's a confusing world that needs untangling.
However things go, there are still a lot of like-minded, caring people (like you) who will keep doing the right things. I try to focus on the hope that we will continue to do what we've always done - work toward justice for all and care for one another, even though the path has become a steeper climb. We keep putting one foot in front of the other, arm-in-arm.
Today's episode of the It Could Happen Here podcast focuses on US civil dangers to trans people that have already been presaged by the Trump campaign and work of the earlier Trump administration. I recommend it.
I recommend in particular the advice that we US residents and constituents start communicating with our political representatives strongly and now. Yeah, yeah, I know that they're not all-powerful and very few of them hold all the positions you want them to hold. But their work and their emphases are swayed by the expressed priorities of those they are hired t represent.
I sent you Robert Reich’s statement and it certainly reflects my feelings. When I watched The Handmaids Tale I saw so many flags of our days under Republican rule. But I never thought 2025 could happen. They we’d let it! Fuck the unity cooperation crap that Dems have gone by for so many years and let The Resistance begin!!
I’m not going to easily get over the majority of white women hurting the rest of us.
Then come sit by me. I feel exactly the same.
I'm having a very, very hard time with that as well. I thought (stupid me) that every person's vote was private. So even if the male or males in your house said, "VOTE TRUMP" you could nod and then vote how you chose in the booth. Again stupid me. But that is probably only one scenario.
There comes a time when we are kids when we make the decision to undermine other girls so boys will pay attention. There’s a lot of other positive reinforcement for that, like power and respect from the people making and enforcing the rules. Actually, I don’t think the girls who end up hurting other women make a choice. They just go with the flow. The girls who are like, “Why are girls suddenly being mean” make a choice to not be. Parents like me - who pulled my daughters back by the scruffs of their necks when they started mimicking that - help point out that it’s a decision to hurt other girls or support each other.
And it’s a rotten decision. Good for you.
This man explains my feelings rather eloquently.
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/4ijDXSdzDJqDL4hz/
Several people have shared this with me and to the last person, they point out that he appears not to be speaking from notes, but from his heart. I embrace him.
I have no clue how I will react to people who voted for him. I know that, to a woman who was snarling about how people with EBT food stamps just buy anything they want because it's not their money, I quietly said, "I get EBT food benefits," while looking her in the eyes.
This vote will throw me further into poverty at some point. And I ongoing medical issues. At the same time I know people who are way worse off.
I just will avoid Trumpers and try to focus on how we will develop an underground IN PERSON, not online. You KNOW they will monitor us. We need to use our pre-internet, underground skills and teach them to the younger generation! Time to break out of retirement mode... but also find a way to let go of the rage and redirect and alter it into longterm action.
How? Hell, I don't know. For now we vent and give ourselvess no more than through Thanksgiving to get it together?
Feh.
I think this is good strategy, to look at the short-term. And I really, really want us all to be wrong about what's coming down the pike. Whatever happens, this is a community and we help our own.
Thank you for your work, and for your life. I'll be thinking about you and holding my thumbs for your wellbeing.
I never thought it would come to this, but I think ties have been severed with my sister (a Kennedy (D) who, for the record, was a 15-year old birth mother - that's ANOTHER story), and by extension my nieces (one who had an abortion and the other who was gang-raped at a party while semi-conscious - all good little GA Republicans - unsure about their kids 4 are adults, but probably 3 are probably good little Republicans with the minor in the bunch an aspiring Republican). The outlier is gay and lives in WA), etc. Sister voted for Trump in 2016 (first time ever voting R), spent 4 years bitching to me about him, and then told me near the end of his term that she voted for him. That irrevocably changed our relationship. Fast forward to today. The Husband is thanking her for a gift, she makes pro-Trump noises along the lines of him changing and he will be nice and something to do with his chief of staff. He has not shared the emails with me, because he knows they will upset me as I've been a weepy nauseous basketcase. If I ask, he'll share. I don't want to see them. While I know it's not cool to have The Husband speak for me without me asking and furthermore, something that I never actually said, he made the right call by telling my sister that if she wants a relationship with me, she needs to repudiate Trump. I know someone getting DEATH THREATS (owner of the Flower House in Avon). If I had to courage to say that to her, I wouldn't be kind about it and would incinerate any remainder of the bridge. While it's nothing to be proud of, I inherited my father's temper. It's not pretty. I don't know if she'll take me out of the Will, and I don't care. I pretty much don't exist to all of them anyway. Any relationship we have is pretty much performative. So, no great loss. I'm strangley calm about this. I'm team Tolerance Paradox. Apologies for the Tolstoy.
I am going through the people with whom I do business and moving my business elsewhere. It's a small thing but it's my money and I will spend it as I choose. That's one thing. As for family, I've already said goodbye to so many of them....I just don't know.
Choose the family you want, not the ones with whom you were born. I have no Trumper friends and the extended family members who are Trumpers, I see them at funerals only. My husband and I have no siblings, from what I've witnessed, we are fortunate.
I have wonderful siblings, all things considered, but I have limited conversations with the Trump supporter and I'm sad about that.
I have relatives and friends in the same position as you -- a division in their relationship with their siblings that wouldn't be there if not for the politics which really is sad particularly when prior to the current time period, these were people who were close and did things together aside from speaking and actually visited and enjoyed one another's company.
This Scottish MP is for me an exemplar of getting over it.
https://x.com/Tops_opinion/status/1855105430483046906
BLESS THIS MAN!!! He speaks for me.
Me too! Makes me proud of my Scottish roots; the Campbells and the Craigs.
Me too!
Thank you Scotland for speaking the truth!
I am searching for something TO DO to change the outcome of this election. What about the 14th Amendment ? I am writing a letter to my wonderful Senator Chris Murphy on this subject. And to Richard Blumenthal as well. I will get 100% behind that movement or project or whatever the legal name for it is.!! The results of this election are going to be horrendous and I am frightened.
That's a smart reaction, fear. Just know we are here.
Try this- https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19aZVviKqb/?mibextid=WC7FNe
Thank you. She's awesome.
It doesn’t matter that they won, they are still a cult. For the Trump cult as with any cult, “unity” with the other side or the other side “getting over it” will only ever be judged by the cult to be mean surrender and submission by the other side.
Fuck that.
That's right. It's hard to chat with a cult member.
I hear you! Yesterday our Priest called for unity BUT the candidate who tried to unify us was soundly defeated with the support of my church and many other so called Christian institutions! Yesterday's Gospel told the story of the poor woman who contributed alms, she had virtually nothing, yet gave what little she had. Meanwhile the well to do we giving from their surpluses and likely back slapping each other for their contributions. We live in a country of growing disparity between the haves and have nots! It will get worse before it ever gets better. Now, we try and honor our Veterans, the "suckers and losers" who endeavored to preserve freedom....what a dichotomy?!?
I have a hard time with a blanket call for unity. I get the importance of it. I am not embracing it at present.
I cannot embrace the unity thing either. Having read today's Courant on the religious "leaders" reaction to the election I say TAX THEM ALL NOW!
I have felt that forever.
I'm embracing the tolerance paradox.
What does that mean to you, the tolerance paradox?
The more one turns a blind eye to/tolerates intolerance, intolerance becomes more acceptable... especially when it comes to basic humanity and morality.
First mistake was going to church and expecting to hear anything worth hearing from someone who isn't any more intelligent or connected to God than you are. As a Protestant I was raised to understand that I have a one-on-one relationship with God. I do not need someone to stand between Him and me. I can speak to Him directly and I can read the Bible and understand for myself what it says if that is my need. Try it. You can break the habit that told you as a child that you had to attend church and listen to someone who doesn't know any more than you do and very possibly much less.
Hear, hear!
As a 70+ y.o. man I don't need you or anybody telling me how to go about my faith practices. Perhaps when you read the Bible you missed the many references on judging others?
I'm not judging you or anyone. I'm just suggesting that there are alternatives in all situations.
Ditto, from this fellow hermit crab.
Yeah.
I think that contemplating what getting over that means is the key.
They always demand that it means esteeming them and embracing them as well as knuckling under to them. I find that unappealing on every count.
I've thought about it a lot in previous years, on personal, organizational, and national-political occasions. I may revise, but this is where I currently am.
For me, it means taking it as given that what happened happened. Not like a meme I saw yesterday that prayed "God, grant me the patience to work with the unjust systems I cannot change today." To which I replied "I think that it’s sometimes appropriate to obstruct, circumvent, disobey or violate the unjust systems."
It means working politically, individually, and on community bases to hamper the bad and to support or construct the good.
It means taking as given the choices of those who have chosen this as indicating their commitments at this time, and feeling no obligation to respond with "so that's okay, then."
It means pointing out what discourse is being perpetrated in front of me, when there are active humans who have ears to hear or there may be silent listeners imagining that All the Smart/Right/Existing HumanBeings Agree With This if I don't speak. When I have the energy, which isn't always.
It means turning away from what infuriates me, when I'm not abandoning duty to do so.
It means not cultivating hatred or anger or sneering in myself or my communities.
I am going to be a long time on any attempt at discussion, much less healing. I appreciate that people are doing that. But I'm not there because I do not know how to talk to people with whom I share no values.
I share your thoughts and actions here. I can barely discuss this with myself. I don't watch the news. And I turned off an NPR newscast two days ago because they broadcast his voice.
In my case, it's likeliest to come up in a group or public context, whether online or flesh. And typically rather by surprise.
In my case it puts me into a hermit crab mode!
I can't get over the fact that voters overwhelming backed Trump who said that people in Pennsylvania were eating their neighbors cats and dogs. Well, Project 2025 will be a rude awakening. The more I read, the more discouraged I become. Dems are the elites -- really. Anyways, it is going to take a while. Find this still a shock to the system. I just wanted to add that I stopped purchasing on Amazon, which is a lifeline for me where I live. Willing to pay more, or go without. I'm testing target, which will deliver, but not as quickly as Amazon. Write on, Susan.
That's just it. It really IS going to take a while.
A very long while, if ever. Keeping busy, cleaning my house, reading a lot of books and talking long walks on the beach. It's hard. When I look at my emails from Axios, Politico -- I want to scream. The people he is bringing in. This is going to be awful.
I don't have an argument against that. But we will get through it because we're together.
This is a hard one. It feels like well, it is a betrayal. There are many who are struggling with this right now. I think I mentioned my sister Paula, she’s right there with you. You said it exactly she did, she thinks they need to suffer a bit to understand just how wrong they were. And that their idiocy, it’s going to hurt so many people.
If only the pain would be discriminately applied, but I think what I get stuck on is the notion that this is going to hurt people who are just living their lives.
Right. Then I think, without consequences, people won't learn. And yet, with the weaponization of disinformation, the blame may not be placed where it belongs. It's a confusing world that needs untangling.
However things go, there are still a lot of like-minded, caring people (like you) who will keep doing the right things. I try to focus on the hope that we will continue to do what we've always done - work toward justice for all and care for one another, even though the path has become a steeper climb. We keep putting one foot in front of the other, arm-in-arm.
Today's episode of the It Could Happen Here podcast focuses on US civil dangers to trans people that have already been presaged by the Trump campaign and work of the earlier Trump administration. I recommend it.
I recommend in particular the advice that we US residents and constituents start communicating with our political representatives strongly and now. Yeah, yeah, I know that they're not all-powerful and very few of them hold all the positions you want them to hold. But their work and their emphases are swayed by the expressed priorities of those they are hired t represent.
And you know who never shuts up?
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-k5app-22233c51?utm_campaign=w_share_ep&utm_medium=dlink&utm_source=w_share
Thank you for this link.
I sent you Robert Reich’s statement and it certainly reflects my feelings. When I watched The Handmaids Tale I saw so many flags of our days under Republican rule. But I never thought 2025 could happen. They we’d let it! Fuck the unity cooperation crap that Dems have gone by for so many years and let The Resistance begin!!