It's hard to fully comprehend what happened during the last two weeks. There was an assault on the Capital of the United States to prevent the ceremonial counting of the Electoral College votes. One line that stood out to me from your reaction piece: "Despite the silver lining, yesterday was the first time in history that that transition of power was not peaceful." If we need 25,000 National Guard and additional police to successfully transfer power, I'm not sure if that fits the definition of a "peaceful" transfer of power. That's what I've been thinking about during the last two weeks.
Hopefully, Trump getting banned from Twitter helps reduce the violent rhetoric out there.
Misinformation dropped dramatically the week after Twitter banned Trump and some allies
I especially like chatting with you because we just get to swap the “t”s in our names. Fun stuff.
Similarly to the sentiment from your comment, it is also hard to grapple with the consequences of DC’s lockdown, and the related violent transfer of power. I think we tend to assume we’re at the lowest point of a V-curve, where the top is liberalism and the bottom is authoritarianism. But we really have no idea what the right side of the graph looks like.
That’s alarming, obviously, given what has happened in other democracies recently. But it also provides some room for home, as the future is not preordained.
Hopefully one day we will look back at this as a dark spot that led to light, as opposed to a relatively light spot amidst a darkening timeline.
LOL on the spelling of our names. I like that we have similar views on the current state of democracy in the United States.
I'm not sure what the future will hold. Will Trump and/or Trumpism control the Republican party in 2024? I think Trumpism or some sort of authoritarianism will likely still be around in 2024. I think the images of "American Carnage" will define Trump, Trump 2.0. wannabe Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and House Republicans.
Politics is hard to predict. After the 2008 election, if someone told me that Trump would succeed President Obama in 2016 and in 2020, Biden would win the primary and the election after coming in 4th in Iowa and 5th in New Hampshire, I would've called them insane.
We had a rough start to the 21st Century, hopefully the healing will begin.
Thanks. It is weird how we sometimes write one word while thinking the other. I swear I wrote Wednesday, even counting to be sure, and yet there is “Monday” staring me right in the face.
I am worried we are headed to a dark time. Not sure I know what the solution is. More local control may help. I mean county and city control, not state. Though there are some issues though that will always be federal. Local control has major issues too as certain groups would be discriminated against without federal and/or state civil rights laws. I do think more local control would put cause hyper negative polarization to back track.
Hi Elliott,
It's hard to fully comprehend what happened during the last two weeks. There was an assault on the Capital of the United States to prevent the ceremonial counting of the Electoral College votes. One line that stood out to me from your reaction piece: "Despite the silver lining, yesterday was the first time in history that that transition of power was not peaceful." If we need 25,000 National Guard and additional police to successfully transfer power, I'm not sure if that fits the definition of a "peaceful" transfer of power. That's what I've been thinking about during the last two weeks.
Hopefully, Trump getting banned from Twitter helps reduce the violent rhetoric out there.
Misinformation dropped dramatically the week after Twitter banned Trump and some allies
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/16/misinformation-trump-twitter/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wp_main
Hopefully things will be safe in DC.
-Elliot
Elliot,
I especially like chatting with you because we just get to swap the “t”s in our names. Fun stuff.
Similarly to the sentiment from your comment, it is also hard to grapple with the consequences of DC’s lockdown, and the related violent transfer of power. I think we tend to assume we’re at the lowest point of a V-curve, where the top is liberalism and the bottom is authoritarianism. But we really have no idea what the right side of the graph looks like.
That’s alarming, obviously, given what has happened in other democracies recently. But it also provides some room for home, as the future is not preordained.
Hopefully one day we will look back at this as a dark spot that led to light, as opposed to a relatively light spot amidst a darkening timeline.
LOL on the spelling of our names. I like that we have similar views on the current state of democracy in the United States.
I'm not sure what the future will hold. Will Trump and/or Trumpism control the Republican party in 2024? I think Trumpism or some sort of authoritarianism will likely still be around in 2024. I think the images of "American Carnage" will define Trump, Trump 2.0. wannabe Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and House Republicans.
Politics is hard to predict. After the 2008 election, if someone told me that Trump would succeed President Obama in 2016 and in 2020, Biden would win the primary and the election after coming in 4th in Iowa and 5th in New Hampshire, I would've called them insane.
We had a rough start to the 21st Century, hopefully the healing will begin.
-Elliot
This coming Monday, Joe Biden will be inaugurated in DC...
No, Wednesday the 20th
Eddie,
Thanks. It is weird how we sometimes write one word while thinking the other. I swear I wrote Wednesday, even counting to be sure, and yet there is “Monday” staring me right in the face.
Yours, E
I am worried we are headed to a dark time. Not sure I know what the solution is. More local control may help. I mean county and city control, not state. Though there are some issues though that will always be federal. Local control has major issues too as certain groups would be discriminated against without federal and/or state civil rights laws. I do think more local control would put cause hyper negative polarization to back track.