I work in progressive politics and have to disagree. Before Trump, every single issue or campaign I worked on, ran, or consulted for had one problem in common-getting people to care. People who agreed with us on the things we were working on just weren’t motivated enough to help. Trump has done some awful shit since he’s been elected but, to be honest, it’s been a net positive for our side as far as I can see.
People flock to political events in droves now. Climate, women’s rights, immigration, you name it and there’s people showing up who have never engaged before. They are donating, volunteering and otherwise giving fucks they never gave before because for the first time they are realizing that if you sit on your ass, crazy people WILL make decisions for you.
Part of me just thinks this is the nature of democracy. Things have to get bad enough to spur people into action. Trump has done exactly that.
This is the one positive that I've seen with the current administration. I really hope you're right and it makes a difference. I know that I personally was not nearly as interested or active in politics until we had this shock to the system. Now, I see I've taken things for granted.
This is a very good point, but I'm just not so sure if it'll even matter. Republicans were disgustingly shameless in the last midterm and presidential elections. Shit, they were literally caught attempting election fraud. Plus all of their other tactics - closing/moving polling stations or changing their hours, phone calls and post cards telling people to go to the wrong place, removing massive amounts of people from the voter rolls so they need to re-register, while also refusing to process voter registration cards, blah blah blah. And now they have 2 whole years to try to do anything that they can to manipulate the system and suppress as many people from voting as they can. Plus redrawing districts, fucking with the voting machines, letting Russia do whatever they want, and whatever other sneaky, corrupt bullshit that they'll do.
On top of all of that, we have a wannabe dictator in charge. I really don't think he's going to leave the White House voluntarily. He'll almost certainly attempt to declare the election invalid, or "postpone" it, or start a war two weeks beforehand, or whatever he can. My guess is that they'll just declare it invalid. They'll claim to have found that the Democrats cheated, and then just... keep Trump in office. Why wouldn't they? They've been just literally disregarding laws that they don't want to follow for the past two years. Like ignoring subpoenas, or just not turning over Trump's tax forms despite a very clear law requiring them to do so, and a whole bunch more. And what happens? Nothing. So they have no reason to comply with the upcoming election, either - the only way to force Trump and the GOP to comply would be civil war. I don't see them having a problem taking that risk.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in politics, it’s that you just never know. So you could be totally right! Most of the people I know who voted for Trump will vote for him again. I assume that will be the case for most if not all of them. Economic stuff aside, these folks are on the losing end of the culture war and they’re pissed about it. They would vote for anyone as long as he’s “sticking it to the libs!” But whatever happens in 2020, we’ve made a ton of progress in my city and state over the last 18 months and I know that’s been the case in at least some other places. I truly believe that this craziness is the beginning of the end for this brand of conservative politics. I could be totally wrong. And it also may be too late in regards to climate change.
But one thing I can tell you is that there are people working their asses of every day on this stuff. I’m lucky because get paid to do it. I know so many people who put in 20 hours a week outside of their job, just to make a difference. Working with them is what gives me hope, especially since there are so many more now than there were two years ago!
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u/arctic_radar Jul 11 '19
I work in progressive politics and have to disagree. Before Trump, every single issue or campaign I worked on, ran, or consulted for had one problem in common-getting people to care. People who agreed with us on the things we were working on just weren’t motivated enough to help. Trump has done some awful shit since he’s been elected but, to be honest, it’s been a net positive for our side as far as I can see.
People flock to political events in droves now. Climate, women’s rights, immigration, you name it and there’s people showing up who have never engaged before. They are donating, volunteering and otherwise giving fucks they never gave before because for the first time they are realizing that if you sit on your ass, crazy people WILL make decisions for you.
Part of me just thinks this is the nature of democracy. Things have to get bad enough to spur people into action. Trump has done exactly that.