The Supreme Court is a loss, certainly, though in at least the immediate term things merely return to the living-Scalia status quo. If Trump wins re-election (admittedly likely) then things get really bad there.DSMatticus wrote: The problem is that there are no longer any checks on Republican election rigging. You have a bunch of Republican-controlled swing states and a Republican supreme court. The only limits are the Republican's own balls and the possibility of fucking revolution (HAH, YEAH RIGHT), because there is no arm of government that can stop them from doing whatever the fuck they want. Also: even if Trump is a one-term president (the best case scenario), he still almost certainly secures the Supreme Court for conservatives until sometime in the 2030's.
Election rigging is a thing, of course, and it will no doubt get considerably worse, but it wasn't the deciding factor in this election, since election rigging doesn't impact the white working class very much, it also will vary heavily from state to state. So yeah, blue North Carolina's gone for some time, and Florida too most likely, but the much lamented 'firewall' states are potentially salvageable.
Ultimately, yes this is really, really bad, but the key question is really how much worse it is compared to a generic republican victory - considering that such a thing was always a strong possibility in this election. President-elect Rubio would have been awful too, but he would have been a sort of awful that one could understand.
There is the chance that Trump is uniquely awful in ways that permanently destroy democracy in the United States - in fact I'd say the chances are disturbingly high - but there's also the chance that Trump falters in some fashion that doesn't cause too much long-term damage, at least domestically, but tanks his reputation completely. The most likely scenario would be in foreign affairs. If Putin actually does invade the Baltics that could do it. Of course, in that scenario the innocent people of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania shall suffer for the sins of the US, which sucks massively too.
There is no silver lining for certain. This situation sucks, a lot, I'm just trying to hope it doesn't end up sucking quite as much as it potentially could.
Bush just barely won re-election in 2004, and in all honestly Sept 11 benefited him immensely in terms of popularity. Also, he actually kept many of his domestic policy promises and due to the growing housing bubble it took time for his economic policies to tank the economy. Trump's got a huge edge of Bush the race to tank the economy. Not only is he poised to throw the world into recession just by virtue of being elected, passing the Ryan Budget is going to end this recovery so fast there will be whiplash. Through a trade war or two on top and there's potentially a full-on Depression. And that's without even considering the hell mass deportation and the repeal of Obamacare are going to unleash.maglag wrote:King Bush the Second got re-crowned after letting planes being high-jacked and used to explode two iconic buildings, followed by failing to catch the supposed mastermind despite having the most expensive army in the world. Or finding any weapons of mass destruction. He pretty much failed to keep any of his promises while thousands of his sujects died directly because of his incompetence.
The American voter is not especially smart and includes a lot of racist and misogynistic jerks. It also holds the President responsible for the condition of the country. Trump is the right wing media universe's fever dream come to life - everything they ever wanted - but they can and will turn on him if that dream becomes a nightmare. They won't actually vote democratic, but this is likely the highest the white working class turnout is ever going to get, it doesn't take many staying home to change things.
