The General American Politics Thread

[Mad Convoy]

I think the biggest worry on the human rights side, next to forced registration of Muslims, is what the extremist portion of Trump supporters are going to do in the coming years. Yes, its true that Trump once asked them to stop that and fired one of his transition team for supporting a self-proclaimed Pizzagate* investigator that opened fire on an innocent pizzaria-- but we're kind of past the point where "Stop it!" is going to be of any effect. Heck, the Daily Stormer already has a list of people they'd like Trump to allow the extermination of-- they don't mention anybody specific, and has since backpedaled (though the list has not been taken down), but the categories are broad enough to apply to pretty much how they perceive anybody who criticizes them. America doesn't have any active hate groups powerful enough to organize mass killings now, but all it takes are a series of convenient events to galvanize support and maintain momentum. The KKK is still recruiting, after all. And what would Trump think? Well, he probably wouldn't like it, or would at least put on appearances about not liking it, very much but being such a weak, inexperienced, morally dubious leader, he'd probably take the usual conservative path of leaving it to the states to deal with it. For some states like MA and CA, that can be trusted to fight for social issues, that's great since their attempts at dealing with hate crime wouldn't be obstructed by the federal government. For states like GA and AK... they would barely try with the result being horrific and inefficient. Not to mention that the hate groups are often worse than Trump-- while Trump just wants to deport immigrants, many of the extreme part of his followers want to outright kill and/or enslave immigrants, and considering that Trump has backpedaled on policies like the Wall, they may well decide to take matters in their own hands since "that sell-out Donald" won't.

*For those who aren't aware, Pizzagate is one of the most bizarre and spouted fake controversies to come out of the Clinton emails. It posits that words like "hot dog" and "pizza" found in the emails were actually being used as code names by Hilary Clinton and her aides to cover a secret pedophilia child-trafficking ring-- and since the emails mention a DC Pizzeria called Comet Ping Pong as a possible promotion location, that restaurant must be a front for the pedophilia ring.

As for war, I think Trump's conflict of interests would probably be a rare sort of benefit. He has business connections across the world, something which has been confirmed to include Russia but possibly includes the Middle East as well-- and unless they're weapons dealers or extreme ideologues, they would not be very happy if he instigated a war as that would likely have a negative effect on sales (people don't generally go out shopping often if they feel like in doing so they're putting themselves at risk of being caught up in armed conflict or bombed), and could even destroy company buildings and product and kill valuable workers depending on where the business is primarily based and what the workers do there. They would thus sever their contacts with him, or make him pay big time for their support in the future. So he would be pretty strongly opposed to war, even if it is just for personal gain. Last I checked, Trump's businesses don't sell weapons or other useful tools for war either, so he wouldn't benefit from the sales boost in those industries either. Whether that'd be enough to actually stop guys like Flynn from getting their war, I don't know, but there'd definitely be a conflict of interest that'd keep Trump wary of one.

The anti-abortion thing is pretty frightening. For one, back-alley abortions are really horrible-- while the procedure itself is simple enough for a novice to learn and you can cheaply and easily MacGyver the needed equipment for it with stuff like wire racks, it also requires a lot of precision and clean equipment, not to mention a back-up plan if something goes wrong. A back alley abortion clinic isn't guaranteed to have any of those things. No women should feel like she has to be subjected to them. Plus If Ohio manages to get away with defying Roe vs Wade, you bet other states will soon follow. I really hope that it gets smacked down.

(Though I wonder if people would adopt an vestigial "angel house" type of system like what used to be used in places like Norway if the anti-abortion trend continues. The way that form of dealing with an unwanted child goes is that the mom gives birth, only to hand over the baby a "special caretaker" to make the baby disappear, usually by simply leaving the baby to be killed by staff then acting like it never existed, but sometimes by staging an accidental death at the caretaker's center of operations. I don't think that's very good, like at all, but there might be some anti-abortion people willing to look the other way because its technically not abortion.  Or they might be good at hiding themselves, as a woman living in a society where unwanted or pre-maritial pregnancies are heavily stigmatized might have figured out how to hide her pregnancy.)