My Candidate Lost The Election.

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117623

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part 1/2

I voted for Obama in 2008. At that time, I was just turning 21 years old. AOL Instant Messenger was still a good way to chat with friends, though MySpace was pretty popular; you didn’t have to use your real name to chat on social networking websites; nudes weren’t sent over a phone; and Payless was still a successful company. (In fact, I was working for them around this time!) I was enticed by Obama. He spoke of hope and change and offered a refreshing change from “the politics of the past,” as he called it. Race didn’t factor in my decision either positively or negatively; I felt that he cared for the common person, and so I felt he was most qualified for my vote. I would repeat this vote again four years later in 2012 – right around the time I moved out on my own into my first apartment. I still believed in that hope and I respected his leadership; he was an intelligent, articulate man who ran his office with a steady hand. (And before you accuse me of engaging in microaggressions by complimenting him in this manner, make sure you consider his predecessor and whether those same labels would apply to him.)

A lot happened in the four years after that. Obama clearly defined himself as someone who refused to denounce radical Islam by name. He used executive actions to selectively enforce immigration law – contradicting prior claims he made that he was not a king and could not simply create his own laws. He made a vague remark that Trayvon Martin could be his son shortly after he was killed when the investigation just barely started. When a Muslim American teenager was involved in a controversy for bringing in what was ostensibly a clock merged into a suitcase (which, in the words of Bill Maher, “looks exactly like a f**king bomb”), Obama sided against common sense and took the side of the child in order to virtue signal. Finally, Obama passed a healthcare reform law that didn’t have even one Republican vote – a law that, according to the Speaker of the House, needed to be passed so we could “see what’s in it.” Obama’s famous last words about the reform – “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” – would later cause him to earn a “Pants on Fire!” rating from PolitiFact after trying to backpedal once the law was actually passed.

I didn’t quite understand what was happening. It seemed to me like Obama was becoming a president who was focusing on only specific groups of people without regard to what was actually fair or right for everyone. Before this point, I never paid attention to conservative news outlets or the constant complaining about Obama “apology tours,” but after his behavior, I started to wonder if they were right. Wasn’t trying to score points with a specific group of people politics as usual? I began to associate Obama less and less with hope and change and more with an appeal to a group (or groups) of people I wasn’t a part of. With this, I began to give the other side – conservatives – more weight when considering their opinions and punditry.

Enter Trump in 2016. Trump denounced what he called political correctness; he spoke his mind without fear of losing his livelihood; he not only cared about America but actively showed pride as an American; and he never apologized. Trump even made it a point to wear the little flag pin! Obama apparently stopped doing that because he didn’t want to look imperialistic or whatever. I watched as Trump made statement after statement that would have thrown any other ordinary politician out of the race actually cause him to become stronger. Even when the Access Hollywood tape was released, he survived and carried on. His friends referred to it as “locker room” talk, and of course, you had your perfect little angels on the side who said that they had been in locker rooms plenty of times and never talked like he did. Thus began what would be the beginning of several well-known phenomenons today: virtue signaling, cancel culture, and deplatforming. Trump not only resisted all three, but usually would double down on what he had to say – saying it even louder and more conspicuously than before.

Trump’s behavior was cathartic for me. I had been in situations before growing up (and even in a few as an adult) where I was punished or faced punishment simply for having an unpopular opinion or daring to speak my mind. I’m not talking about anything inappropriate or discriminatory, either; I mean something as simple as criticizing someone else’s behavior, work, or personality. And here Trump was, speaking his mind like there was no tomorrow and not giving two craps about the consequences. I honestly saw part of myself – or rather, someone I wished I was – in him. He acted with courage and confidence. These qualities captured my heart and secured my vote in 2016. In the end, I didn’t vote for Trump because I thought he was a nice person or because I thought his personality was charming; I voted for him because I felt his love of our country was genuine and he was willing to say and do what others were too afraid to say and do.

On the other side, the left was increasing their use of !SHOCKWORDs: words like “racist,” “bigot,” “misogynist,” and “xenophobe” (previously a European term) were all being used until the people chanting them were blue in the face. Like the boy who cried wolf, however, these terms could only be used so many times before they gradually lost their meaning. The more the left used these words to shut down debate and civil discourse, the less it seemed like their opinions had substance and the more it seemed like Trump was exactly the man we needed to elect.

I had a chance to experience the vitriol and hatred of the left on Grindr during the 2016 election. I had one attractive guy from very far away who seemed interested in getting to know me but said he didn’t think conversation would work once he realized I was a Trump supporter. (Frankly, I’m surprised my body composition wasn’t what did me in first, and he actually was a young, thin, pretty guy – so there was probably something wrong with him anyway.) I explained to him that sometimes he will encounter people with opinions other than his own and that being able to work with people with a contrary opinion is an important part of maturity that he will gain with time. What really got me, though, was when I decided to put #trump2016 in my profile tag. I received messages from closet Trump supporters who were afraid to announce their presence due to the reactions of those who might disagree with them.

At the same time, I would also receive angry, vulgar messages from who didn’t like my political candidate. I even had this one guy who told me that “my god” isn’t real or some religious reference like that even though I’m agnostic. These blanket assumptions and hateful attitudes are strange coming from people who claim to be promoters of equality and diversity. It’s unfortunate that this doesn’t include diversity of thought.

Of course, social media as a whole has been in the toilet for some time now. Since Grindr got bought out by China, they’ve become a lot more inclusive – welcoming actual women as well as people who claim to be women. It’s unfortunate that transgender people are unable to accept themselves (their biological sex) for what they are, so they remedy the situation by declaring they are something they’re not and damage their bodies to try to become something they’re not. Then they express anger at everyone else around them if they fail to accept their new reality. Grindr used to be an app available for actual men to use, but I guess some of them don’t have penises now. It’s too bad because I consider this characteristic a pre-requisite to sexual interaction. I regret being out of alignment with Grindr’s new community standard, which is quick to ban what it considers hate speech but considers openly seeking to obtain or purchase meth (everyone knows what the capital T means) to be a healthy part of an inclusive community. To add hilarity to injury, some of the transgender folks are even seeking “sugar daddies.”

Really? Like, I’m not paying for NO dick. lol…

But, I guess that just shows that we’ve reached new lows as a society when political correctness has become so entrenched that we’re willing to treat sex as something that can be changed at will just to accommodate someone else’s mental shortfalls – and then hold ourselves accountable to making that mental shortfall the new normal. If the bar gets any lower, it’ll probably break from carrying my weight. (Mere reinforced steel alone won’t work, sorry.)

It gets even worse. On Facebook, for example, they censored a meme that said “there are only two genders” with one of those violent content warnings. You actually had to click past a warning that said that the picture might contain violent or disturbing imagery in order to read it. Meanwhile, when I reported a video clip that showed an actual beheading of a woman, Facebook thanked me for reporting content that “I THOUGHT” violated the community standards. The video clip was left up and wasn’t taken down until Facebook changed its mind several days later.

The mainstream news media isn’t much better. Take CNN, for example, which very rarely – if ever – had anything positive to say about Trump. Every time Trump said or did something, it was the end of democracy as we knew it. Whenever a white man or a white police officer wronged a black person, it became front-page news; but when it was the other way around, CNN and the other liberal news media outlets were strangely quiet. This was the same media that referred to riots as “fiery but mostly peaceful” on air as businesses were literally burning in the background. (I am not making this up and this is not a misquote or fabricated meme; search for “fiery but mostly peaceful” on Google.) This was the same media that criticized Trump for acting in a xenophobic and emotional manner when restricting travel from China in the earlier months of the outbreak. This is the same media that clutches its pearls and cries “authoritarian” when Trump criticizes the news media, which is apparently so flawless that it is above criticism. This is the same media that ships the superspreader label on Trump rallies but looks the other way when large groups of rioters gather in the roadways to block traffic.

The worst part of it is that no one in the mainstream news media really cared about cities burning until it became evident that it was bad for Democrats’ election prospects. Don Lemon mused on air to Chris Cuomo how it was starting to affect the polls and how the riots were really starting to stick. Gee, do you think this might be a good time to push forward an agenda of defunding the police? Hmmmm…

Maybe if our police weren’t constantly under siege, they wouldn’t sound so grateful to have armed groups of civilians wandering the streets to counter the riots. Perhaps people wouldn’t feel the need to take a stand and defend communities themselves. And that brings me to the next messed up part of the current state of affairs: Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17 year-old who shot three people in Kenosha – two of whom were seen ON VIDEO trying to attack him. Despite the fact that Rittenhouse was fleeing, the people chasing him still thought it would be a great idea to try to attack a child armed with a deadly weapon and take said deadly weapon away from him while he was on the ground and afraid for his life with an angry mob surrounding him.

How did the mainstream news media spin this? First, they asked President Trump if they wanted to denounce him as though an investigation had already been completed and the facts and the circumstances were clear. When President Trump pointed out that the reporters saw the same video he did and that the video showed Rittenhouse being violently attacked, PolitiFact had the nerve to put this claim on its website and mark it as “false.” Not “mostly true,” not “half true,” and not even “mostly false,” which would have acknowledged that there was an element of truth to what he said; no, they said it was just “false,” as in there was no accuracy to his statement whatsoever. PolitiFact’s explanation for this was that Trump’s “incendiary statements” left out critical context in that Rittenhouse had shot someone earlier that night – yet again, something that’s under investigation. PolitiFact edited their article after the fact to state that they weren’t making statements about whether or not he acted in self-defense; rather, they were rating the truth behind Trump’s description of events.

Okay, so what would have Trump needed to say in order to get a “true” rating? The video clearly showed that Rittenhouse was fleeing a large group of people. “Get his ass” and “beat him up” could clearly be heard in the video. The video shows one person trying to attack Rittenhouse with a skateboard and take his gun from him after he had tripped and fallen on the ground. It then shows another person raise his hands as though he was surrendering, then suddenly lower his arms as though he was about to rush Rittenhouse. This person was later revealed to have been carrying a firearm. Of course, you won’t hear it described that way from the media or PolitiFact; instead, they’ll just say that he “moved toward” Rittenhouse. Where’s the context on that? Then CNN hosted the alleged victim later on to build sympathy with the audience as though he was the wrong who was wronged. You’re confronting a frightened boy who is on the ground and just shot someone, you acted like you weren’t a threat, then you acted in what most people with a brain stem would consider an aggressive manner. What did you think was going to happen? It would have been great if Biden/Harris had included common sense as part of their platform since it seems to be missing from a lot of people’s minds lately.

Oh well, at least we can be reasonably confident that the people shot were white. After all, had they been black, you would’ve heard the media refer to both Rittenhouse and those shot by race; “white teenager shoots black man” would’ve been a headline the media would have played to the hilt, as though there’s always an element of racism involved whenever the person committing a shooting happens to be a different race than the person shot.

And you know what, I’m ready to have an honest conversation about race as well: I’m totally over it. As far as I’m concerned, the key takeaways from the Black Lives Matter movement are that black lives matter only when it’s white police officers ending them. Many situations in the news lately that involved a black person being shot started because of the actions of that black person. I don’t care if you use a !SHOCKWORD to describe your angst and disgust over this statement; it’s the truth.

George Floyd, who apparently complained that he couldn’t breathe before he was even taken to the ground: resisted arrest. Eric Garner: resisted arrest. Michael Brown: attacked a police officer during a traffic stop. Jacob Blake: resisted arrest, then made a sudden movement to reach into a vehicle later found to have a knife. Sean Monterrosa: fled, then stopped to reach for an unidentified object in his pants that was later revealed to be a hammer. Jamel Floyd: barricaded himself in his cell and damaged jail property. Rayshard Brooks: resisted arrest with violence, stole an officer’s taser, fled, and then turned around and fired the officer’s own taser at the officer while fleeing!

It’s amazing how people want to band together as a group when they seek justice and equality; but, when it comes time to take responsibility for actions and behavior, then they’re all individuals and you’re racist for trying to lump them all together into one group. It doesn’t work both ways. There’s no disputing that racism still exists and that most of us have some degree of bias in how we perceive and interact with other people. As much as they have been mistreated by society, though, I have to ask whether black people are contributing to the problem.

Stereotypes always have an element of truth to them, no matter how biased or slanted they may be. Gay people, for example, were (and sometimes still are) stereotyped as AIDS-riddled degenerates.

Well, guess what kind of porn is trending in the gay community more today than it did ten years ago? Bareback sex. And, more and more profiles on gay dating websites (and apps, like Grindr) have people who indicate that they use condoms “when appropriate” when they aren’t saying they prefer bareback outright. PreP seems to be creating this false sense of security that condoms are a dated safeguard that still belong in the early new millennium. At the same time, “Party ‘n Play” is becoming more and more popular. Bareback habits aside, drug use – especially when it involves needles – can also lend itself to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. So, it’s unfair to stereotype all gay people as (as my British friends would say) “lepers,” yet here they are, going out of their way to desperately prove that there’s truth to the stereotype.

... continued ...
 
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117623

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part 2/2

Black Lives Matter is a desire to focus on the problem without offering solutions. In all this talk about black lives and systemic racism, I’ve heard relatively little discussion (if any) on the root causes of the problem. Do police officers shoot at black people more often than they do at other races? If yes, why? If there is a systemic racism problem, what is causing it? Has this been going on for a very long time? If yes, why is it still going on now? What emotions are behind the driving forces of it? Ignorance? Anger? Hatred? Fear? What is causing these emotions? Is the culture and behavior of the group contributing to these emotions? What actions can you take to address the root causes of these emotions? Are your actions disproving stereotypes, or are they further validating them? Do you have something to prove? If you don’t feel you need to prove anything, what are you trying to do with a social movement? Are you willing to perform the same introspection you’re asking of others? Are you perfect? If not, why not? What part of where you are today is a result of your actions, and what part is the result of factors beyond your control? Are you willing to take ownership of and be held accountable to the part that is a result of your own actions?

Regardless of how many employees you get fired, people you make homeless, mobile recordings you share, Twitter hashtags you create, officials you get elected, laws you create, training curricula you oversee, and workplace policies you implement, you cannot force anyone to love you. This movement and others like it will only succeed with empathy and a willingness to examine one’s own heart – collectively, if necessary. Until that happens, it will be nothing more than a movement that is used to virtue signal at best and to justify burning cities at worst.

I and probably many other Trump voters will walk away from this with the following key takeaways from Black Lives Matter: (1) if you’re white, you’re racist; (2) if you disagree with us, you’re even more racist; (3) if you publicly post your opinions that disagree with us, we will make you lose your livelihood; (4) between claims of colorblindness and cultural appropriation, everything you do offends us; (5) racism is a one way street; (6) if a white person shoots a black person, the white person is probably at fault because black people can do no wrong; (7) we’re together as one when we fight for equality, but separate and unique individuals when we aren’t at our best; (8) we really don’t like helping verbs.

There. Those are the conclusions I have drawn from this movement.

And I don’t care if that makes me a racist, bigot, xenophobe, or whatever !SHOCKWORD combo you feel like using to avoid the discussion. I guess if you’re determined to label me that way, then there’s no use arguing with you. We’ll just go our own separate ways. You’ll move onto the next person and hopefully get someone who already thinks like you do so that you don’t have to do any actual work, and I’ll just keep thinking the way I do – unconvinced by being shouted down/threatened/labelled – and keep voting the way I do. And I’ll probably encourage everyone I encounter to vote the way I do, too. Isn’t that just nice.

There were a lot of things that Trump could have done differently. Quite frankly, I agree with what a lot of his critics have to say about him: the man’s an egomaniac and a total asshole. His administration had more turnover than a McDonald’s. He really needed to shut the hell up about investigations as they were happening. He had no stomach for criticism – treating someone like a good friend for complimenting him one moment and resorting to insults the minute he received even a hint of criticism from that same person. He needed to offer more details and be able to articulate his plans; his “very good brain” should have been able to tell us what specifically he wanted to do with Obamacare.

Trump faced a very tough election this year. Unless there was something I’ve missed over the past few decades, there is some probability that he will be the only president in my lifetime to face a pandemic of this scale with this level of impact. Before the pandemic hit, the economy was booming. After it hit, scientists (and Democrats) seized on the need to take steps to slow the spread by limiting or shutting down activities vital to the economy. Trump correctly pointed out that despair and depression can also be deadly and that the fate of losing one’s job, not being able to pay one’s bills, and not being able to provide for one’s family can itself be very harmful, and that the cure must not be worse than the disease. The left – especially those identifying as “socialist” – took advantage of the opportunity to justify people becoming even more dependent on the government. As we saw with Obamacare, such dependence is hard to take away once it’s been permitted to happen; and as we saw with anti-austerity protests in Greece and Spain, overdependence can be toxic to the economy and can cause severe backlash when an attempt is made to take away what was being given. It’s one of the main reasons why it’s so important to avoid that dependency to start with if possible.

Trump gambled. He feigned confidence and coolness when he had early knowledge of the virus in order to avoid causing panic and keep people confident. Deep down, his supporters (including myself) know what he tried to do and appreciate him for it – however misguided it might have been. He wasn’t the only one to do that, either; take, for example, Vox, who decided to say that the virus wasn’t going to be as bad as we might think. They later had to take the article that said that down once the full impact became clear. Trump could have encouraged everyone to mask up and stay inside and he could have also worked on nationwide restrictions. However, he chose not to because he knew that would further damage the economy and cause people to feel even more despair – perhaps even attributing that despair to him. There’s little doubt in my mind that even if Trump had adhered to the letter of the scientists’ recommendations, the Biden campaign wouldn’t have hesitated to then make the conversation about the economy and how poorly it was doing under Trump.

The coronavirus was not Trump’s fault. He is absolutely correct to call it the “Chinese virus” because that adjective accurately describes its origin. If anything, it gave the left a real chance at winning the election. If not for the pandemic, the left would’ve had nothing to run on except complaints about him being really mean and trying to keep people out of the country who have no right to be here to begin with. Indeed, many people have made hating Trump their whole identity. That much can be seen from the late night talk show hosts who jumped at every indiscretion – every stutter, every mistake – to smear this administration. All the while, these people constantly made comparisons of Trump’s behavior to authoritarian and fascist regimes. It’s ironic that these people downplay the freedom and liberty we have in America when you’ve got China who imprisoned people for trying to warn others about the coronavirus because it was embarrassing to their regime. Trump’s opponents had little to say about how they were going to actually make people’s lives better and had a lot more to say about how they didn’t like Trump. With Trump going out of office, what will they have left to live for? What will be their purpose? I guess they’ll just have to go back to hating corporations and white men. But, we all know they didn’t need an opposing party in power to do that.

Trump unapologetically declared that we had borders and that they needed to be respected. He demanded that our “allies” pay their fair share for their protection. He stood up to the international bully that is China. He finally relocated the embassy from Tehran to Jerusalem. He put our country’s economic interests first ahead of the interests of foreign nations. He had the guts to criticize people, even when they were a part of an “untouchable” category like the news media, veterans, and those with a disability. He proudly declared that America would never be a socialist country – a statement that made Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez look like she was a character in a Final Fantasy game who just had “petrify” cast on her during a random encounter. Best of all, he showed that no matter how many people the left might threaten; no matter how many people they shun; no matter how many people they get fired or deplatform, people will vote the way they truly want to vote in the end. Trump’s election proved that repeatedly calling someone !SHOCKWORDs like “racist” and “sexist” are no substitutes for actual debate, and if you overuse them, people will eventually stop listening to you. Trump really gave the establishment what it had coming.

His presidency wasn’t perfect, and he wasn’t always the professional we would expect a president to be, but overall, I do not regret voting for him. I will always be thankful for what he did and the spirit of national pride he revived that was missing at the federal level in the eight years prior to his administration.

Having said all of that, we have to accept the fact that Biden won the election. If there are legitimate issues with the votes that were counted, then they need to be resolved. However, I don’t think it really helps anyone to claim victory when there isn’t clear evidence justifying fraud. Trump’s own administration referred to the election as secure with relatively minor hiccups. Like Obama said the day after the 2016 election, sometimes you work really hard to support your candidate, but your candidate loses. Regardless of all of that, the sun will rise again. Yes, Biden has made clear that he’s going to try to undo Trump’s legacy right from his first day in the office, but there are many achievements Trump has made that won’t ever be undone for decades – namely, his unprecedented number of judicial appointments.

And forget that he lost his bid for a second term; the fact that Trump even won a first term at all was, by most statistical measures, a freak occurrence. The “blood bath” that the right feared and the left anticipated this past election never happened. If Biden doesn’t play his cards right, the midterms are his to lose. The Democrats still have a majority in the house (the thinnest majority seen in years), and if they can’t win a majority in the Senate, the Biden Administration will probably be in for a world of pain – which can only hurt him in 2024.

To quote Obama again: dust yourself off, lick your wounds, and bring what you’ve learned to the next contest. Losing an election can hurt – especially for someone who has never been in politics before. But, something that conservatives can confidently say about themselves are that they are the better people. Sure, you’ll have rallies and peaceful protests, but they’re not burning cities. They’re not setting cars on fire. They’re not looking to make others lose their livelihood just because they have a differing opinion. And, they probably won’t be on their knees screaming “nooooooo” as Biden is inaugurated. (However, I wouldn’t hold it against them if they did; turnabout is fair play, and I think that would actually be hilarious!)

Even though I’m not aligned with the left quite like I once was back in 2008, the Obama/Biden administration wasn’t all negative; there were some positive aspects, and in some ways, I guess it’s like getting the same people (or, at least, a person) I voted for twelve and eight years ago. I truly hope that Biden succeeds in his goal of helping America recover from the pandemic. When he has a point of view or takes action that I agree with, I’ll recognize him for it. When he drifts out to sea (something he seems to be doing a lot of lately), I’ll call him out for that, too. Just as Hillary encouraged her supporters to give Trump a chance to lead, I think we should do the same with Biden. After all, if those in our government have learned nothing else over the past four years, they now know that if they ignore people who feel forgotten, those people aren’t above voting in an outsider to teach them a lesson. I am sure the left will never forget this; no matter what happens, they will always have in the back of their minds a sense of fear and perhaps even an inkling of humility brought about by memories of 2016.

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part 2/2

Black Lives Matter is a desire to focus on the problem without offering solutions. In all this talk about black lives and systemic racism, I’ve heard relatively little discussion (if any) on the root causes of the problem. Do police officers shoot at black people more often than they do at other races? If yes, why? If there is a systemic racism problem, what is causing it? Has this been going on for a very long time? If yes, why is it still going on now? What emotions are behind the driving forces of it? Ignorance? Anger? Hatred? Fear? What is causing these emotions? Is the culture and behavior of the group contributing to these emotions? What actions can you take to address the root causes of these emotions? Are your actions disproving stereotypes, or are they further validating them? Do you have something to prove? If you don’t feel you need to prove anything, what are you trying to do with a social movement? Are you willing to perform the same introspection you’re asking of others? Are you perfect? If not, why not? What part of where you are today is a result of your actions, and what part is the result of factors beyond your control? Are you willing to take ownership of and be held accountable to the part that is a result of your own actions?

Regardless of how many employees you get fired, people you make homeless, mobile recordings you share, Twitter hashtags you create, officials you get elected, laws you create, training curricula you oversee, and workplace policies you implement, you cannot force anyone to love you. This movement and others like it will only succeed with empathy and a willingness to examine one’s own heart – collectively, if necessary. Until that happens, it will be nothing more than a movement that is used to virtue signal at best and to justify burning cities at worst.

I and probably many other Trump voters will walk away from this with the following key takeaways from Black Lives Matter: (1) if you’re white, you’re racist; (2) if you disagree with us, you’re even more racist; (3) if you publicly post your opinions that disagree with us, we will make you lose your livelihood; (4) between claims of colorblindness and cultural appropriation, everything you do offends us; (5) racism is a one way street; (6) if a white person shoots a black person, the white person is probably at fault because black people can do no wrong; (7) we’re together as one when we fight for equality, but separate and unique individuals when we aren’t at our best; (8) we really don’t like helping verbs.

There. Those are the conclusions I have drawn from this movement.

And I don’t care if that makes me a racist, bigot, xenophobe, or whatever !SHOCKWORD combo you feel like using to avoid the discussion. I guess if you’re determined to label me that way, then there’s no use arguing with you. We’ll just go our own separate ways. You’ll move onto the next person and hopefully get someone who already thinks like you do so that you don’t have to do any actual work, and I’ll just keep thinking the way I do – unconvinced by being shouted down/threatened/labelled – and keep voting the way I do. And I’ll probably encourage everyone I encounter to vote the way I do, too. Isn’t that just nice.

There were a lot of things that Trump could have done differently. Quite frankly, I agree with what a lot of his critics have to say about him: the man’s an egomaniac and a total asshole. His administration had more turnover than a McDonald’s. He really needed to shut the hell up about investigations as they were happening. He had no stomach for criticism – treating someone like a good friend for complimenting him one moment and resorting to insults the minute he received even a hint of criticism from that same person. He needed to offer more details and be able to articulate his plans; his “very good brain” should have been able to tell us what specifically he wanted to do with Obamacare.

Trump faced a very tough election this year. Unless there was something I’ve missed over the past few decades, there is some probability that he will be the only president in my lifetime to face a pandemic of this scale with this level of impact. Before the pandemic hit, the economy was booming. After it hit, scientists (and Democrats) seized on the need to take steps to slow the spread by limiting or shutting down activities vital to the economy. Trump correctly pointed out that despair and depression can also be deadly and that the fate of losing one’s job, not being able to pay one’s bills, and not being able to provide for one’s family can itself be very harmful, and that the cure must not be worse than the disease. The left – especially those identifying as “socialist” – took advantage of the opportunity to justify people becoming even more dependent on the government. As we saw with Obamacare, such dependence is hard to take away once it’s been permitted to happen; and as we saw with anti-austerity protests in Greece and Spain, overdependence can be toxic to the economy and can cause severe backlash when an attempt is made to take away what was being given. It’s one of the main reasons why it’s so important to avoid that dependency to start with if possible.

Trump gambled. He feigned confidence and coolness when he had early knowledge of the virus in order to avoid causing panic and keep people confident. Deep down, his supporters (including myself) know what he tried to do and appreciate him for it – however misguided it might have been. He wasn’t the only one to do that, either; take, for example, Vox, who decided to say that the virus wasn’t going to be as bad as we might think. They later had to take the article that said that down once the full impact became clear. Trump could have encouraged everyone to mask up and stay inside and he could have also worked on nationwide restrictions. However, he chose not to because he knew that would further damage the economy and cause people to feel even more despair – perhaps even attributing that despair to him. There’s little doubt in my mind that even if Trump had adhered to the letter of the scientists’ recommendations, the Biden campaign wouldn’t have hesitated to then make the conversation about the economy and how poorly it was doing under Trump.

The coronavirus was not Trump’s fault. He is absolutely correct to call it the “Chinese virus” because that adjective accurately describes its origin. If anything, it gave the left a real chance at winning the election. If not for the pandemic, the left would’ve had nothing to run on except complaints about him being really mean and trying to keep people out of the country who have no right to be here to begin with. Indeed, many people have made hating Trump their whole identity. That much can be seen from the late night talk show hosts who jumped at every indiscretion – every stutter, every mistake – to smear this administration. All the while, these people constantly made comparisons of Trump’s behavior to authoritarian and fascist regimes. It’s ironic that these people downplay the freedom and liberty we have in America when you’ve got China who imprisoned people for trying to warn others about the coronavirus because it was embarrassing to their regime. Trump’s opponents had little to say about how they were going to actually make people’s lives better and had a lot more to say about how they didn’t like Trump. With Trump going out of office, what will they have left to live for? What will be their purpose? I guess they’ll just have to go back to hating corporations and white men. But, we all know they didn’t need an opposing party in power to do that.

Trump unapologetically declared that we had borders and that they needed to be respected. He demanded that our “allies” pay their fair share for their protection. He stood up to the international bully that is China. He finally relocated the embassy from Tehran to Jerusalem. He put our country’s economic interests first ahead of the interests of foreign nations. He had the guts to criticize people, even when they were a part of an “untouchable” category like the news media, veterans, and those with a disability. He proudly declared that America would never be a socialist country – a statement that made Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez look like she was a character in a Final Fantasy game who just had “petrify” cast on her during a random encounter. Best of all, he showed that no matter how many people the left might threaten; no matter how many people they shun; no matter how many people they get fired or deplatform, people will vote the way they truly want to vote in the end. Trump’s election proved that repeatedly calling someone !SHOCKWORDs like “racist” and “sexist” are no substitutes for actual debate, and if you overuse them, people will eventually stop listening to you. Trump really gave the establishment what it had coming.

His presidency wasn’t perfect, and he wasn’t always the professional we would expect a president to be, but overall, I do not regret voting for him. I will always be thankful for what he did and the spirit of national pride he revived that was missing at the federal level in the eight years prior to his administration.

Having said all of that, we have to accept the fact that Biden won the election. If there are legitimate issues with the votes that were counted, then they need to be resolved. However, I don’t think it really helps anyone to claim victory when there isn’t clear evidence justifying fraud. Trump’s own administration referred to the election as secure with relatively minor hiccups. Like Obama said the day after the 2016 election, sometimes you work really hard to support your candidate, but your candidate loses. Regardless of all of that, the sun will rise again. Yes, Biden has made clear that he’s going to try to undo Trump’s legacy right from his first day in the office, but there are many achievements Trump has made that won’t ever be undone for decades – namely, his unprecedented number of judicial appointments.

And forget that he lost his bid for a second term; the fact that Trump even won a first term at all was, by most statistical measures, a freak occurrence. The “blood bath” that the right feared and the left anticipated this past election never happened. If Biden doesn’t play his cards right, the midterms are his to lose. The Democrats still have a majority in the house (the thinnest majority seen in years), and if they can’t win a majority in the Senate, the Biden Administration will probably be in for a world of pain – which can only hurt him in 2024.

To quote Obama again: dust yourself off, lick your wounds, and bring what you’ve learned to the next contest. Losing an election can hurt – especially for someone who has never been in politics before. But, something that conservatives can confidently say about themselves are that they are the better people. Sure, you’ll have rallies and peaceful protests, but they’re not burning cities. They’re not setting cars on fire. They’re not looking to make others lose their livelihood just because they have a differing opinion. And, they probably won’t be on their knees screaming “nooooooo” as Biden is inaugurated. (However, I wouldn’t hold it against them if they did; turnabout is fair play, and I think that would actually be hilarious!)

Even though I’m not aligned with the left quite like I once was back in 2008, the Obama/Biden administration wasn’t all negative; there were some positive aspects, and in some ways, I guess it’s like getting the same people (or, at least, a person) I voted for twelve and eight years ago. I truly hope that Biden succeeds in his goal of helping America recover from the pandemic. When he has a point of view or takes action that I agree with, I’ll recognize him for it. When he drifts out to sea (something he seems to be doing a lot of lately), I’ll call him out for that, too. Just as Hillary encouraged her supporters to give Trump a chance to lead, I think we should do the same with Biden. After all, if those in our government have learned nothing else over the past four years, they now know that if they ignore people who feel forgotten, those people aren’t above voting in an outsider to teach them a lesson. I am sure the left will never forget this; no matter what happens, they will always have in the back of their minds a sense of fear and perhaps even an inkling of humility brought about by memories of 2016.

end
tldr.....Feel better?
 

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part 1/2 Enter Trump in 2016.
Trump denounced what he called political correctness; he spoke his mind without fear of losing his livelihood... cared about America but actively showed pride as an American; and he never apologized... Even when the Access Hollywood tape was released, he survived and carried on. On the other side, the left was increasing their use of !SHOCKWORDs: words like “racist,” “bigot,” “misogynist,” and “xenophobe”...

Wheter American, or not, one should always strive to do what is correct, apologize for your transgressions and be considerate of others. Unfortunately Trump's bad conduct led to his eventual downfall. I know you have a jaundiced view of the left - but the fact that Trump was rightly denounced for his bad behavior by persons from all sides of the political spectrum cannot be ignored:



 
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dreamer20

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[QUOTE="dulldiamond]part 2/2
Black Lives Matter
is a desire to focus on the problem without offering solutions. In all this talk about black lives and systemic racism, I’ve heard relatively little discussion (if any) on the root causes of the problem...
dullldiamond Black Lives Matter addressed problems and offered solutions , but apparently you haven't read that info as yet. Please see the following threads:

https://www.lpsg.com/threads/black-lives-matter-in-their-own-words-really.452100/

https://www.lpsg.com/threads/anathema-for-peaceful-protests.2038281/
 
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Klingsor

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part 1/2

I voted for Obama in 2008. At that time, I was just turning 21 years old. AOL Instant Messenger was still a good way to chat with friends, though MySpace was pretty popular; you didn’t have to use your real name to chat on social networking websites; nudes weren’t sent over a phone; and Payless was still a successful company. (In fact, I was working for them around this time!) I was enticed by Obama. He spoke of hope and change and offered a refreshing change from “the politics of the past,” as he called it. Race didn’t factor in my decision either positively or negatively; I felt that he cared for the common person, and so I felt he was most qualified for my vote. I would repeat this vote again four years later in 2012 – right around the time I moved out on my own into my first apartment. I still believed in that hope and I respected his leadership; he was an intelligent, articulate man who ran his office with a steady hand. (And before you accuse me of engaging in microaggressions by complimenting him in this manner, make sure you consider his predecessor and whether those same labels would apply to him.)

A lot happened in the four years after that. Obama clearly defined himself as someone who refused to denounce radical Islam by name. He used executive actions to selectively enforce immigration law – contradicting prior claims he made that he was not a king and could not simply create his own laws. He made a vague remark that Trayvon Martin could be his son shortly after he was killed when the investigation just barely started. When a Muslim American teenager was involved in a controversy for bringing in what was ostensibly a clock merged into a suitcase (which, in the words of Bill Maher, “looks exactly like a f**king bomb”), Obama sided against common sense and took the side of the child in order to virtue signal. Finally, Obama passed a healthcare reform law that didn’t have even one Republican vote – a law that, according to the Speaker of the House, needed to be passed so we could “see what’s in it.” Obama’s famous last words about the reform – “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” – would later cause him to earn a “Pants on Fire!” rating from PolitiFact after trying to backpedal once the law was actually passed.

I didn’t quite understand what was happening. It seemed to me like Obama was becoming a president who was focusing on only specific groups of people without regard to what was actually fair or right for everyone. Before this point, I never paid attention to conservative news outlets or the constant complaining about Obama “apology tours,” but after his behavior, I started to wonder if they were right. Wasn’t trying to score points with a specific group of people politics as usual? I began to associate Obama less and less with hope and change and more with an appeal to a group (or groups) of people I wasn’t a part of. With this, I began to give the other side – conservatives – more weight when considering their opinions and punditry.

Enter Trump in 2016. Trump denounced what he called political correctness; he spoke his mind without fear of losing his livelihood; he not only cared about America but actively showed pride as an American; and he never apologized. Trump even made it a point to wear the little flag pin! Obama apparently stopped doing that because he didn’t want to look imperialistic or whatever. I watched as Trump made statement after statement that would have thrown any other ordinary politician out of the race actually cause him to become stronger. Even when the Access Hollywood tape was released, he survived and carried on. His friends referred to it as “locker room” talk, and of course, you had your perfect little angels on the side who said that they had been in locker rooms plenty of times and never talked like he did. Thus began what would be the beginning of several well-known phenomenons today: virtue signaling, cancel culture, and deplatforming. Trump not only resisted all three, but usually would double down on what he had to say – saying it even louder and more conspicuously than before.

Trump’s behavior was cathartic for me. I had been in situations before growing up (and even in a few as an adult) where I was punished or faced punishment simply for having an unpopular opinion or daring to speak my mind. I’m not talking about anything inappropriate or discriminatory, either; I mean something as simple as criticizing someone else’s behavior, work, or personality. And here Trump was, speaking his mind like there was no tomorrow and not giving two craps about the consequences. I honestly saw part of myself – or rather, someone I wished I was – in him. He acted with courage and confidence. These qualities captured my heart and secured my vote in 2016. In the end, I didn’t vote for Trump because I thought he was a nice person or because I thought his personality was charming; I voted for him because I felt his love of our country was genuine and he was willing to say and do what others were too afraid to say and do.

On the other side, the left was increasing their use of !SHOCKWORDs: words like “racist,” “bigot,” “misogynist,” and “xenophobe” (previously a European term) were all being used until the people chanting them were blue in the face. Like the boy who cried wolf, however, these terms could only be used so many times before they gradually lost their meaning. The more the left used these words to shut down debate and civil discourse, the less it seemed like their opinions had substance and the more it seemed like Trump was exactly the man we needed to elect.

I had a chance to experience the vitriol and hatred of the left on Grindr during the 2016 election. I had one attractive guy from very far away who seemed interested in getting to know me but said he didn’t think conversation would work once he realized I was a Trump supporter. (Frankly, I’m surprised my body composition wasn’t what did me in first, and he actually was a young, thin, pretty guy – so there was probably something wrong with him anyway.) I explained to him that sometimes he will encounter people with opinions other than his own and that being able to work with people with a contrary opinion is an important part of maturity that he will gain with time. What really got me, though, was when I decided to put #trump2016 in my profile tag. I received messages from closet Trump supporters who were afraid to announce their presence due to the reactions of those who might disagree with them.

At the same time, I would also receive angry, vulgar messages from who didn’t like my political candidate. I even had this one guy who told me that “my god” isn’t real or some religious reference like that even though I’m agnostic. These blanket assumptions and hateful attitudes are strange coming from people who claim to be promoters of equality and diversity. It’s unfortunate that this doesn’t include diversity of thought.

Of course, social media as a whole has been in the toilet for some time now. Since Grindr got bought out by China, they’ve become a lot more inclusive – welcoming actual women as well as people who claim to be women. It’s unfortunate that transgender people are unable to accept themselves (their biological sex) for what they are, so they remedy the situation by declaring they are something they’re not and damage their bodies to try to become something they’re not. Then they express anger at everyone else around them if they fail to accept their new reality. Grindr used to be an app available for actual men to use, but I guess some of them don’t have penises now. It’s too bad because I consider this characteristic a pre-requisite to sexual interaction. I regret being out of alignment with Grindr’s new community standard, which is quick to ban what it considers hate speech but considers openly seeking to obtain or purchase meth (everyone knows what the capital T means) to be a healthy part of an inclusive community. To add hilarity to injury, some of the transgender folks are even seeking “sugar daddies.”

Really? Like, I’m not paying for NO dick. lol…

But, I guess that just shows that we’ve reached new lows as a society when political correctness has become so entrenched that we’re willing to treat sex as something that can be changed at will just to accommodate someone else’s mental shortfalls – and then hold ourselves accountable to making that mental shortfall the new normal. If the bar gets any lower, it’ll probably break from carrying my weight. (Mere reinforced steel alone won’t work, sorry.)

It gets even worse. On Facebook, for example, they censored a meme that said “there are only two genders” with one of those violent content warnings. You actually had to click past a warning that said that the picture might contain violent or disturbing imagery in order to read it. Meanwhile, when I reported a video clip that showed an actual beheading of a woman, Facebook thanked me for reporting content that “I THOUGHT” violated the community standards. The video clip was left up and wasn’t taken down until Facebook changed its mind several days later.

The mainstream news media isn’t much better. Take CNN, for example, which very rarely – if ever – had anything positive to say about Trump. Every time Trump said or did something, it was the end of democracy as we knew it. Whenever a white man or a white police officer wronged a black person, it became front-page news; but when it was the other way around, CNN and the other liberal news media outlets were strangely quiet. This was the same media that referred to riots as “fiery but mostly peaceful” on air as businesses were literally burning in the background. (I am not making this up and this is not a misquote or fabricated meme; search for “fiery but mostly peaceful” on Google.) This was the same media that criticized Trump for acting in a xenophobic and emotional manner when restricting travel from China in the earlier months of the outbreak. This is the same media that clutches its pearls and cries “authoritarian” when Trump criticizes the news media, which is apparently so flawless that it is above criticism. This is the same media that ships the superspreader label on Trump rallies but looks the other way when large groups of rioters gather in the roadways to block traffic.

The worst part of it is that no one in the mainstream news media really cared about cities burning until it became evident that it was bad for Democrats’ election prospects. Don Lemon mused on air to Chris Cuomo how it was starting to affect the polls and how the riots were really starting to stick. Gee, do you think this might be a good time to push forward an agenda of defunding the police? Hmmmm…

Maybe if our police weren’t constantly under siege, they wouldn’t sound so grateful to have armed groups of civilians wandering the streets to counter the riots. Perhaps people wouldn’t feel the need to take a stand and defend communities themselves. And that brings me to the next messed up part of the current state of affairs: Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17 year-old who shot three people in Kenosha – two of whom were seen ON VIDEO trying to attack him. Despite the fact that Rittenhouse was fleeing, the people chasing him still thought it would be a great idea to try to attack a child armed with a deadly weapon and take said deadly weapon away from him while he was on the ground and afraid for his life with an angry mob surrounding him.

How did the mainstream news media spin this? First, they asked President Trump if they wanted to denounce him as though an investigation had already been completed and the facts and the circumstances were clear. When President Trump pointed out that the reporters saw the same video he did and that the video showed Rittenhouse being violently attacked, PolitiFact had the nerve to put this claim on its website and mark it as “false.” Not “mostly true,” not “half true,” and not even “mostly false,” which would have acknowledged that there was an element of truth to what he said; no, they said it was just “false,” as in there was no accuracy to his statement whatsoever. PolitiFact’s explanation for this was that Trump’s “incendiary statements” left out critical context in that Rittenhouse had shot someone earlier that night – yet again, something that’s under investigation. PolitiFact edited their article after the fact to state that they weren’t making statements about whether or not he acted in self-defense; rather, they were rating the truth behind Trump’s description of events.

Okay, so what would have Trump needed to say in order to get a “true” rating? The video clearly showed that Rittenhouse was fleeing a large group of people. “Get his ass” and “beat him up” could clearly be heard in the video. The video shows one person trying to attack Rittenhouse with a skateboard and take his gun from him after he had tripped and fallen on the ground. It then shows another person raise his hands as though he was surrendering, then suddenly lower his arms as though he was about to rush Rittenhouse. This person was later revealed to have been carrying a firearm. Of course, you won’t hear it described that way from the media or PolitiFact; instead, they’ll just say that he “moved toward” Rittenhouse. Where’s the context on that? Then CNN hosted the alleged victim later on to build sympathy with the audience as though he was the wrong who was wronged. You’re confronting a frightened boy who is on the ground and just shot someone, you acted like you weren’t a threat, then you acted in what most people with a brain stem would consider an aggressive manner. What did you think was going to happen? It would have been great if Biden/Harris had included common sense as part of their platform since it seems to be missing from a lot of people’s minds lately.

Oh well, at least we can be reasonably confident that the people shot were white. After all, had they been black, you would’ve heard the media refer to both Rittenhouse and those shot by race; “white teenager shoots black man” would’ve been a headline the media would have played to the hilt, as though there’s always an element of racism involved whenever the person committing a shooting happens to be a different race than the person shot.

And you know what, I’m ready to have an honest conversation about race as well: I’m totally over it. As far as I’m concerned, the key takeaways from the Black Lives Matter movement are that black lives matter only when it’s white police officers ending them. Many situations in the news lately that involved a black person being shot started because of the actions of that black person. I don’t care if you use a !SHOCKWORD to describe your angst and disgust over this statement; it’s the truth.

George Floyd, who apparently complained that he couldn’t breathe before he was even taken to the ground: resisted arrest. Eric Garner: resisted arrest. Michael Brown: attacked a police officer during a traffic stop. Jacob Blake: resisted arrest, then made a sudden movement to reach into a vehicle later found to have a knife. Sean Monterrosa: fled, then stopped to reach for an unidentified object in his pants that was later revealed to be a hammer. Jamel Floyd: barricaded himself in his cell and damaged jail property. Rayshard Brooks: resisted arrest with violence, stole an officer’s taser, fled, and then turned around and fired the officer’s own taser at the officer while fleeing!

It’s amazing how people want to band together as a group when they seek justice and equality; but, when it comes time to take responsibility for actions and behavior, then they’re all individuals and you’re racist for trying to lump them all together into one group. It doesn’t work both ways. There’s no disputing that racism still exists and that most of us have some degree of bias in how we perceive and interact with other people. As much as they have been mistreated by society, though, I have to ask whether black people are contributing to the problem.

Stereotypes always have an element of truth to them, no matter how biased or slanted they may be. Gay people, for example, were (and sometimes still are) stereotyped as AIDS-riddled degenerates.

Well, guess what kind of porn is trending in the gay community more today than it did ten years ago? Bareback sex. And, more and more profiles on gay dating websites (and apps, like Grindr) have people who indicate that they use condoms “when appropriate” when they aren’t saying they prefer bareback outright. PreP seems to be creating this false sense of security that condoms are a dated safeguard that still belong in the early new millennium. At the same time, “Party ‘n Play” is becoming more and more popular. Bareback habits aside, drug use – especially when it involves needles – can also lend itself to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. So, it’s unfair to stereotype all gay people as (as my British friends would say) “lepers,” yet here they are, going out of their way to desperately prove that there’s truth to the stereotype.

... continued ...

tldrmmtuimmalb

("too long, did not read, made me throw up in my mouth a little bit")
 

Gj816

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@dulldiamond, pay no attention to the nay sayers. Even though Hillary Clinton asked her supporters to give President Trump a chance to lead, they refused. One member of this echo chamber even suggested that I should've stayed home instead of voting for Trump in 2016. They've been sore losers for four long years.

Good for you for applying thought to post. You have raised many valid points in your post. In fact, those on the left know it. However, their hatred of all things not politically correct such as the current President fuels their hatred. It says a lot about their character and who they are as people. Also for a group that hates fox news, they seem to know what they are saying on that network.
 

halcyondays

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He finally relocated the embassy from Tehran to Jerusalem.

Seriously? How can you expect me to read and consider this tome of your political opinions when you write something like this?

It's just one example of dozens of points in your posts I could debate but there's a larger issue.

I do not understand voters like you swinging between left and right, voting apparently for whichever candidate appeals to your emotions the best (e.g.,Obama appealing to your optimism and Trump being "cathartic" for you), expecting that any president will become some kind of savior when he has to share power, compromise and build consensus with Congress to actually get anything done.

I could understand it if you had a list of, say, four issues most important to you and half were championed by the left and half championed by the right. Then it might as well be a coin toss. Or perhaps you'd pick THE ONE issue at the top of your list. I could understand that. That would be a short post not the massive tome you've written.

The problem with your tome is that you don't appear to stand for anything. You also don't appear to understand the difference between rhetoric and reality. Frustrated by the contentious, democratic nature of the republic our founders created and meant to be that way you voted on emotion.

What ever made you aligned to the left in the first place? Was a feeling or a logical list of issues you supported?
 

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If this was meant for me you should know I'm very happy with Biden's win thank you very much. :cool:

Not to you. It was directed to the OP and one other person I don't want to quote as they have been growing very sensitive lately.
 

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Funny how I haven't seen those on the right in the streets crying because Trump didn't win re election? The same can't be said for the left following the election of 2016.

But for the China virus, we all know the outcome of this election would've been very different. You keep saying deal with it, but you still haven't dealt with the fact that Clinton lost in 2016 lol. Your hypocrisy knows no bounds.