2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forum105 year old: "You'd think that people would shy away from people like Hitler and Mussolini."
By Zach Schonfeld On 11/4/16 at 12:10 PM
Ruth Littman has lived through 26 presidential elections. She's been voting since 1932, when Franklin D. Roosevelt clobbered Herbert Hoover. She is as old as one Ted Cruz plus one Marco Rubio plus five North "Nori" Wests.
Littman is 105.... she says she has never seen an election as strange as this one. "I'm frightened," Littman says from her assisted-living center. "Not for myself, but for people who come after me."
When we first met Littman in 2015, she gave us a sharp and prescient analysis of the primary fields: She declared Donald Trump "uncouth," Ted Cruz "miserable," Ben Carson "a horror" and Bernie Sanders "wonderful, but he'll never get in." Now that the field has narrowed to just Trump and Clinton (well, OK, and third-party candidates), we called up the 105-year-old voter, who is funny and feisty and very much on top of current affairs, for an update.
Littman, who was born before women's suffrage and now intends to vote for the first woman to be president, agreed to talk on the condition that she can encourage readers to vote Democratic in down-ballot races. "If the Democrats lose the House and the Senate, we will have an oligarchy," she said. "When people vote for the president, they think that's important. Equally important are the two houses. If the Republicans win both houses, we are doomed. We are doomed, because we will see little by little the end of democracy as we know it now."
Here's Littman on Trump, Hitler, Hillary Clinton's emails and this circus of an election. "We have a lot of insane people," she laughs. "As my grandma used to say, 'There are more of them out of the institutions than in the institutions.'"
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AmericanActivist
(1,019 posts)Hitler and Mussolini types.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)We sure don't need a repeat.
AmericanActivist
(1,019 posts)people's mistakes"
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)lastlib
(24,993 posts)...the definition of an authoritarian fascist.
world wide wally
(21,835 posts)RKP5637
(67,112 posts)the past.
Liberalynn
(7,549 posts)Took several courses that focused on World War II era, Stalin and Hitler. I am terrified right now.
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)World War II era, Stalin and Hitler. I am terrified too by the ignorance of so many Americans seemingly wanting to embrace a dictatorship and exceptionally clueless as to what that means.
Amonester
(11,541 posts)while not having a clue about the con job that is being attempted on them.
Non-college-educated dummies. They never had classes about the rise of the Third Reich.
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)despicable character like Trump who wants to fleece them and be a dictator. It really makes me pause and wonder about the future of America.
Amonester
(11,541 posts)a lot of eastern Europe...
Looks like the gullible bullies never had an education or never were even interested in learning History.
War-games on their XBOX and/or online seems what interests them the most.
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)drag the rest of US and Europe, other countries too into their lust for hatred, bigotry and wars.
Amonester
(11,541 posts)would be the first ones running for their gamepads in basements and garages.
Not to the real frontlines... that for sure!
colsohlibgal
(5,276 posts)Collective memory is about 60-70 years but some live long enough to outpace that.
The rest of us have to read and learn. Sadly too many anymore watch crappy reality TV and not a lot else, and do not really thirst to learn about history.
In the end we just have too many dumb and/or crazy people tight now. Like so called evangelicals who see no issue supporting this lewd orange mysogenistic creep.
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)Hekate
(95,443 posts)Hey, I'm just a kid of 69 at the moment.
Coyotl
(15,262 posts)Women born before women had the right to vote:
Born before they could vote, these women celebrate the 19th Amendment and turn out for Clinton