208,000

[bladespark]

I'm going to just Godwin this up right off the bat.

"I'm glad that Hitler is dead."

Does that make you mad? Upset? Angry? Am I bad person for genuinely thinking that? Is it wrong of me to think it's karmic justice that he shot himself?

No?

208,000 dead. Unknowable, uncountable children dead in concentration camps, dying alone, terrified and traumatized, stripped from their parents. Countless more living that terror every day. Facist thugs yanking people off the streets into unmarked vans and hauling them off to hold in makeshift prisons with no due process. Billions of dollars stolen and funneled away from vital, necessary government programs to line the pockets of already-wealthy cronies. Egging on racists, causing who knows how much more pain and death. Mocking the disabled, raping women, the list goes on and on and on and on, I've barely touched on the most obvious ones, I could write a fucking book. People have.

And me, personally, legislated out of existence, fearing for my fucking life, wondering if they'll start up the reeducation camps if he wins, making plans to flee the country to somewhere, anywhere, where I'll be allowed to merely exist as myself without having to wonder if I'm going to be a name on the next list of Auschwitz victims. Me, desperately wanting to protest, to do something, anything, and feeling helpless, because it's so bad that I need to worry about leaving my daughter without her parent if I do, because they might kill me, or lock me up for decades, merely for walking down a street with a sign saying I'm a human being who deserves rights.

And then sanctimonious, white, cis, het, privileged ignoramouses want to tell me that I "shouldn't hate", that I should hold love in my heart for that????????

No.

He can fucking rot in hell, and if that bothers you, you can fuck yourself right off my follower list.

Comments

[ilyena_sylph]

Amen, my friend.

[the_siobhan]

I want him to hang on until after the election just because there are conservatives who are disillusioned with him who would be OK voting for Pence.

Also because I want him die knowing that he's a loser.

[duskpeterson]

My deepest sympathy for all you've been going through.

I guess what I've been feeling - queer, disabled, on Medicare, looked into emigration options on the day after Election Day 2016 - is that I've been wondering whether I'll be a social exile before this is all through. Because I understand and expect that many in my social circle will hold the views that you do. But I've been encountering dozens of messages of, "Fuck off my social account if you don't share my wish that Trump should die," at the very moment when my own conscience is telling me not to hold that sentiment.

I guess what I'm hoping is that you're saying, "Don't preach at me," rather than, "If you aren't reacting to this the same way I am, then you're dead to me." But of course I'll respect your wish that I leave your account if that's what you wish.

[bladespark]

Oh no, I don't expect all my friends to feel the same way! It's the ones telling me that *I* am wrong to feel that way myself that can take a hike. Perfect agreement just makes for very small echo chambers.

[duskpeterson]

I'm very glad to hear that - I would have missed you! - and I completely share your sentiment. People are going to react in different ways to news like this, and it's completely understandable.

[hitokage]

My preference is for him to live long enough to have to stand trial for his crimes at The Hague, but we don't have a great track record insofar as actually making past criminal presidents face the music, so I'm fine with him only hanging on long enough to get resoundingly defeated in the election (please, please, please let him get resoundingly defeated in the election).

[thewayne]

I agree. My writing was not so.... energetic, but you have a lot more to lose. Granted, I have my life to lose if they take away pre-existing medical conditions. And I had someone post a reply about people wishing evil upon him.

The RNC both co-opted and was co-opted by the fanatic religious right, and what you describe is now what we face, especially with them stuffing the courts so full of idiot judges.

And I, too, am glad Hitler is dead. I just wish he'd had the balls to not kill himself and face trial and execution.

[bladespark]

I saw that reply. I you were much more patient about it than I could have been, I think.

I used to be a Republican myself! I'm not some kind of fanatic, but when the Republicans have twisted "The party of family values" to mean "Only certain families are valued" and anybody who still, at this point, is enthusiastically on the side of "Eh, mexicans belong in cages if they try to get a better life here" and "trans people can just commit suicide then, no skin off my nose if those sickos die" and "anti-gay conversion therapy for children is *great*!" and "wearing a mask protects other people more than me, so I wont' bother", and, and, and... Anybody enthusiastic about that is not somebody I can respect anymore, however much I understand how they end up that way.

[thewayne]

I started Republican, but they became less and less conserving things and more and more nasty.  I remained registered with them but I never voted for them, I'd vote against in the primary and for another party in the general.  When I married and moved, I had to register to vote in NM, and there was just no way I could stomach registering Republican.  But I was so disappointed in the Dems non-defense of John Kerry and the Swift Boat attacks that I won't register with them.  I'll vote for them, most of the time, but I maintain my registration as an independent.  Which sucks as we have closed primaries, so I can only vote in the general except for purely local elections. The Republicans seem to be the party of 1950s White America and 'I've Got Mine, Bugger Off!'.  I can't abide 'em.

[bladespark]

Yeah. Before Trump I could at least *respect* Republicans, even if I disagreed with them on nearly everything. Now they have gone full mask off and are definitely the "I've got mine" party. Even from the ones who have nothing! They'd rather starve themselves if it means Those People starve too than have a system where everyone has enough.

[greghousesgf]

the orange asshole wouldn't kill himself, he's got too much of an ego to do that.

[thewayne]

Completely agree.  I just hope he lives until after he loses the election.  That's all I want.  He can die any time immediately after he loses, I'm down with that.  If he dies before the election, he could become a martyr and get a sympathy vote surge and screw us all over again.

My wife's preferred outcome is a stroke that greatly reduces his ability to speak and tweet.  I got no problem with that either.

[greghousesgf]

it occurred to me he may decide he's too sick to run but I don't want Pence in there either....

[bladespark]

No kidding. I feel like Trump is more of an outright narcissistic psychopath, whereas Pence tells himself he's doing the right thing and caring for people, but he's just...OMG. He is everything wrong with American christianity, especially the evangelical strain. He is the one I know would be behind the re-education camps, because he's currently behind gay conversion therapy. Trump infuriates and scares me, Pence mostly just scares me.

Right now he seems like something of a non-entity, as he's been content to just be pulled in Trump's wake. So if he turns out to not have the fire to really do anything when set loose, it might be okay. But knowing evangelicals...I fear he'd have that fire, given the chance.

[greghousesgf]

I have a button that says "anybody who believes god is on their side is dangerous as hell"

[bladespark]

Yup. I don't have a problem with "God loves me" but "God loves me and doesn't love those other guys" gets scary real fast. Or even "God needs some tough love for those other guys." Eeugh. Tough love is dangerous stuff.

[thewayne]

I kinda want a t-shirt that says "Jesus loves me. You, he's not too sure about."

But what I'd love is a MAGA hat that in small print says Vote Biden. Because we really need America made great again after the last four years.

[bladespark]

I've seen "Make America Gay Again" hats!

[thewayne]

Believe it or not, I have a very tiny sliver of sympathy for Trump. I read Mary Trump's book, and his father was a massive sociopath who raised a crazy broken family that killed her father, his eldest son, Freddie. He broke Donald from the beginning, he never had a chance to be mentally normal.

But that tiny sliver is very hard to find. It would take a true Dickensian Scrooge moment for him to change, and that's not going to happen. He screwed Mary and her brother out of hundreds of millions of dollars, and he'll continue screwing people over money because he knows no other way to behave. And he'll continue losing money because he's a lousy businessman. Sadly, too many people bought in to the myth of The Apprentice and thought he was a good businessman and elected him four years ago, and there's a serious non-zero chance he could be re-elected now.

[bladespark]

The thing is that *lots* of people have had fathers like that, and upbringings like that, and haven't turned out like that. My own partner didn't have *that* exactly, but he had difficult parents, and yet he turned out a compassionate person all the same?

I guess one can still feel sorry for him, as his psychopathy may be at partly genetic, and out of his control. But... I don't know. It's hard for me to care. He has caused SO MUCH suffering. So much. You put down a rabid dog, you know? If he's suffering too, all the more reason it'll be better when he's dead.

[thewayne]

I agree, lots of people had bad upbringings and got help and got fixed. He didn't. He reveled in it.

No, he doesn't deserve much sympathy. He's earned an awful lot of karma and hopefully it's taking great big bites out of his butt.

[thewayne]

There's so many variables at play. How effective are the experimental treatments he receives. How high of a viral load did he get hit with. How deep are his co-morbidities. We don't know and we're not going to get told the truth. So if he does say "he's too sick to run", it may or may not be the truth.

I've been discussing this in other threads. He can quit the ticket, the RNC can elevate Pence to the top of the slate and appoint someone else as Veep. If Pence should win, he can then pardon Trump for his FEDERAL crimes, can't do squat for the huge number of indictments awaiting him in New York and elsewhere. And I don't think Cyrus Vance et al are going to take 'too sick' as an excuse.

If he's able to speak, he'll have to make a choice: sign a piece of paper in front of witnesses, removing himself from the ticket, or staying on the ticket.

Pence as POTUS would depend on how much the Dems gain in the Senate. Pretty well guaranteed they'll maintain their hold on the House and probably take control of the Senate. And Pence has no fans in the Senate, they didn't like him when he served there. If the Dems get 2/3rds of the Senate, they could probably impeach and remove Pence in his first year, there's probably plenty of dirt on him from his years with Trump.

After all, wasn't he in charge of the Coronavirus Task Force?

[greghousesgf]

wouldn't Pence pick his own VP?

[thewayne]

I don't know. If Trump died before Election Day, the rules change and the Republican National Committee basically get to rewrite the ticket. They would probably elevate Pence to President because of name recognition and hope for a sympathy vote and to continue carrying the evangelicals, and they might consider someone whom Pence recommended, but he wouldn't have absolute say.

The rules for a candidate dying are not law nor in the Constitution. They're Party rules.

[thewayne]

And obviously, ballots cannot be reprinted at this late date, so they'd still say Trump/Pence.

[bladespark]

There are people who have already voted! It makes all this quite a tangle.

I'd like Trump to live till after the election for reasons of "let him see himself lose!" but also for "Oh god, WTF are the rules here?" reasons, because if he's alive then, I feel it simplifies things a lot!

[thewayne]

Some states allow you to claim a spoiled ballot, but it varies. And this would be that exact situation.

It's going to be one huge mess, that's for sure. As if it wasn't going to be a big enough mess already.

[polyfrazzlemented]

Word.

Robin

[silveradept]

Indeed so.

The things that have me wanting him to stay alive are because I worry what his followers will do if he becomes a martyr, and because I selfishly want to see him get arrested, charged, convicted, and then required to make restitution that will erase him from memory and remove his last cent before requiring him to spend the rest of his life broke, friendless, and imprisoned.

I want him and his accomplices to suffer in the same way they have made all of us suffer.

If he dies, so be it, and I hope the line to piss on his grave extends forever.

[erulissedances]

I'm quite grateful that Hitler is dead, but I'm also quite grateful that he died long before I was born. My family was wiped out during his genocide, with most being shipped to Auschwitz, so no ... no fond thoughts there. But, as awful as Trump is, he isn't Hitler (yet), and until he falls that low, I'm not going to actively wish him harm because that kind of karma will only come back to bite me. I'm not going to unfriend you just because you don't see things the same way I do ... that would be silly. I don't expect everyone to think the same as I do, how boring that world would be!

- Erulisse (one L)