I'm ultimately so sad

[cilla4progress]

for our country

[madaboutharry]

1. Many of us are.

It is a heartbreaking time in our history.

[XRubicon]

2. Me too, we will win though.

[unitedwethrive]

4. I hope you're right. What will it take for the repugs to put their country first?

I'm worried by the time they realize everything we know is in jeopardy, it will be too late.

[XRubicon]

6. No worries...

Those dipshits will fit nicely in a large dumpster.

We'll put them in there.

[struggle4progress]

3. Don't waste time being sad. Do something

[BigmanPigman]

11. That is a great song to stick dance to when you are buzzed.

[JI7]

5. there are far more of us than them

[shenmue]

7. Hug

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. I know.

This country will not recover from the Trump Presidency, not in our lifetimes. He's setting things in motion that will be at best very difficult to undo. Even if we gain control of the House and Senate this year, and even if the mythical perfectly liberal Democrat becomes President in 2020, so much damage will have been done.

And even if a Dem wins the Presidency in 2020, he or she will still be constrained to work within the system we have, with hostile Republicans still a major force.

Oh, and gerrymandering is a real thing, which means we need to elect vast numbers of Dems to state houses and senates to work with that.

[BigmanPigman]

10. I asked that question on DU a couple of months ago.

I asked, "Realistically how long do you think it will take our country to recover from this fake presidency?".

The responses were almost all the same and I received a lot too. Almost all of them said between 20 and 40 years. My 83 year old mom and 75 year old neighbor agree. We will never see it in our lifetimes. I am grateful I chose not to have kids every single day. Too depressing!

However, I AM FIGHTING BACK! Before I start to feel my illness catch up with me I will be fighting like mad by resisting in a lot of different ways while I still can. I am stubborn and mad and this drives me. I harness my hate and use it to energize my efforts. RESIST!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

12. In all honesty, I don't think this country will ever really recover.

Think about Spain. In the 16th century it was a world power. Okay, so it had a bit of a setback in 1588, but notice that all but one country in central or south America has Spanish as its first language.

So what happened? They made a decision to put the tax burden on the lower classes. The middle class barely existed at that point. And for a while they continued their military excursions around the world. Fast forward a few hundred years. Spain is no doubt a nice country. I'd sort of like to visit it, but that may not happen. Their culture is fine, their arts good, and so on. But they are not a world power and probably won't be ever again.

We are Spain in 1589. We've lost a decisive battle, even though the decisiveness isn't yet obvious. We have decided to shift the tax burden from the rich to the middle and lower classes. While we continue military stuff around the world.

It's unsustainable. Every dollar that goes to a military base somewhere, is a dollar less for repairing roads, financing schools, paying for health care. If this goes on (and I'm afraid it will) the average citizen in this country will be diminished. Crappy roads. Unaffordable health care. Public schools that aren't very good, and get slowly worse.

Meanwhile, Trump is President and Republicans control both the House and Senate. Judges who will serve lifetime terms are being appointed. Staff at agencies are being gutted. The loss of institutional knowledge and expertise is incalculable. That knowledge will never be replaced.

[BigmanPigman]

13. Yep,,I agree. The US had a good run.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. Exactly. We did well for a fairly long time.

It's my opinion that this country reached its peak of economic and world wide political influence when JFK was president. Then we plateaued. Around the time Reagan became president the downward slide began. It wasn't noticeable at first, because it was barely downward. And perhaps it plateaued again during the Clinton presidency. But starting in 2001, the downward slide became a bit more noticeable, although just barely. And since Trump became president we've fallen off the cliff. We're going down very rapidly, and nothing can possibly reverse it.

[dchill]

9. Fourteen months of sad.

And counting.

[pnwmom]

14. It is sad but we CAN'T GIVE UP. We have to channel our anger into the November election. n/t

[Cicada]

16. The electorate is changing, Repubs dying off, our problems are temporary

Old white guys are dying off. Be patient, don’t despair.

[MarkMakers]

17. Right. That's what they told me in the 60's too

And we marched in the streets and the voting age was lowered and we were never going to get fooled again

Nixon
Reagan
Bush
Bush
Trump

And here we are

[Cicada]

18. LBJ in the sixties said Dems would lose the south for a generation

I think LBJ was a better political prognosticator than the people you seem to remember. Personally, I don’t remember the optimism you recall from back then. Kevin Phillips, advising Nixon, proposed the “southern strategy” to exploit what LBJ talked about. So I don’t give much weight to those you remember predicting happy days, because others were gloomy, and I don’t think their errors are relevant to my optimism.

We have a problem in that median income has been flat even as the economy has doubled, and that is depressing. But I think Dems will rise in the not too distant future and that we will be able to make inequality better. I am sorry you don’t share my optimism. You are like my wife, she thinks I’m a moron too.