A lot of replies here (obviously from people not already aware of The Discourse on this point) were genuinely confused variants on “But why, they’re right, that’s a valid concern.” Let me leave a short thread for future readers explaining why that stuff is always unwelcome on here. (1/n)
It’s totally understandable if you’re dooming about any facet of the American experiment right now. So your feelings are “valid” in the sense that they represent real anxiety, and I get that. But to vent that anxiety in other people’s spaces is wrong for three reasons.
First, it’s factually wrong. There will be elections in 2026 and 2028 under Trump, just like there were elections last year under Trump and during his first term. This despite one of the two major parties now harboring a lot of anti-democratic elements and ideas.
I’m not particularly interested in convincing anyone on this point and won’t try, the future is the future. But if the left side of the political spectrum is still the domain of scholarship and expertise, take note that you don’t find scholars and experts you worrying about canceled US elections.
Second, and probably most importantly, it’s tactically wrong. “No point discussing political opposition to fascism, there won’t be elections anyway” cedes victory to your enemies. It’s defeatism and nihilism.
Finally, it’s wrong AS A MATTER OF ETIQUETTE. Entering a total stranger’s discussion and leading with your private anxiety is as off-putting in social media replies as it would be in real life. If you wouldn’t interrupt a stranger at a party to announce that America is doomed, don’t do it here.
If you are anxious and sad about the state of the world, that’s fine, and there are plenty of strategies for dealing with that. But I think you already know that drive-by online dooming isn’t a strategy. It’s selfish and adolescent. It’s a contagion that only spreads the worst of you, not the best.
Take a second and think before posting the easy Eeyore reply. You might have something substantive to say instead. Or, even better, you can say nothing at all.
https://bsky.app/profile/kenjennings.bsky.social/post/3mbuedepurs2x
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Second, and probably most importantly, it’s tactically wrong. “No point discussing political opposition to fascism, there won’t be elections anyway” cedes victory to your enemies. It’s defeatism and nihilism.
That’s not what people are saying when they say that. They’re saying we need to start fighting harder NOW. If we wait until midterm elections do or don’t happen we are fucked. There’s no guarantee the outcome will be favorable anyway and Trump has already alluded to fucking with elections.
“There’s not going to be an election in 2026” is defeatism. The message to fight for it is, “We need to make sure there’s still an election in 2026”.
As things stand, defeatism is justified. If Dem leadership don’t get their shit together and start taking action that’s where we’re headed. Based off their performance so far there is no indication that they intend to do so. We are stuck with a 2 party system so it has to be them. If you want us to stop saying defeatist shit stop letting us get defeated.
What a fucking waste. You will all deny the reality of the situation until the last second and go, “who could have known?”
Dont be a pussy and block the people who are issuing you a warning. Realize this is the world you are living in right now and stand up.
“Trump said multiple times he wants to cancel elections. We know he’s literally incapable of joking and has no respect for the constitution, so we have no reason to think he’s not serious”
“Just a distraction from the Epstein files! Vote in 2028!”
I have kinda given up hope Americans know what “tyrannical government” means, let alone fighting against it
He lost me at “but to vent that anxiety in other people’s spaces…”.
It’s not “your space”, it’s a public forum.
Don’t want people commenting on your opinion? Don’t air it in public, or just block and move on.
No need to write a book about how they’re wrong to express their opinion in the same way you just did. It just comes off as sanctimonious.
Fell free to point out my own hypocrisy and we can go in circles.
It’s not “your space”, it’s a public forum.
I’d argue there’s a spectrum from a totally public forum to a totally private forum, and replies to social media posts on platforms where users are followed are somewhere in the middle.
It’s kinda like comments on a blog post. The blog owner still controls the space, including the power to block users and delete their comments from that page, and enjoys a privileged position with respect to what is essentially publishing and moderation powers in that particular space.
It’s within that particular accountholder’s powers to block, ignore, or mute other commenters’ ability to interact with the content posted (including simply turning off replies for certain users or all users). So in that sense, the platform itself is public while that particular user’s profile page and the feed of that user’s posts is curated by that user.
And perhaps most importantly, these commenters are leveraging Ken Jennings’ account popularity to magnify their own comments’ visibility. They could post something on their own, but they also know that their replies to Ken Jennings have a much higher reach than their own original posts would.
In other words, there’s a fundamental difference between capturing a screenshot and posting a reply somewhere else, versus replying on platform.
You’ve got a point. I’ll copy and paste my reply (editing pronouns) directly to his bluesky.
“Ethical dilemma” of blocking or muting, what a weenie.
Try not caring enough about their opinion to do either, toughen up buttercup
I don’t see how it’s rude to comment on a public discussion, but yeah I guess if you want to feel like a martyr on social media go right ahead with that.
“Oh my word, another stranger commenting on my commenting about someone else commenting. I have the vapors!”
Take your own advice and say nothing at all. See? No comments about your no comment. Peace will descend upon you, gentle soul.
I agree with Ken, but disagree with his reasons (in particular I think hiis first point is wrong) Here’s mine:
- Doomerism like this is a self fulfilling prophecy, you are giving them permission to do the thing and discouraging the many people fighting to try and make the next election happen properly.
- Most autocratic nations have elections, they just aren’t fair or free. American elections have never been completely fair, but have also been declining rapidly. The original statement thus promotes a dangerous false dichotomy (“see nothing to worry about, we had an election those gosh darn fear mongers don’t know what they are talking about”)
- It’s not productive. Your belief that there will be an election in November or in 2028 should not change any of your behavior, it’s simply a demoralizing statement with no call to action, that is the opposite of what american freedom fighters need. Ultimately all it accomplishes is to make a bunch of anti-facists dislike Ken for making anti-facist statements.
I’ve been saying that all along. These people who say we can’t run on punishing Trump, we have to have something to vote FOR, need to understand that until we crush MAGA, and purge it from our government and society, we can NEVER move forward. MAGA is a SERIOUS National Security Threat, and if they aren’t dealt with decisively, they’ll keep destroying any good in this country, until they are.
I’ve got a list of improvements America can make, including Medicare 4 All and Campaign Finance Reform, but right now, crushing MAGA is absolute top priority. The time for diplomacy is far past. We need Warriors to be candidates, not appeasers. It’s time for LEGAL retribution for their CRIMES, not their politics.
I’ve been saying that all along. These people who say we can’t run on punishing Trump, we have to have something to vote FOR, need to understand that until we crush MAGA, and purge it from our government and society, we can NEVER move forward. MAGA is a SERIOUS National Security Threat, and if they aren’t dealt with decisively, they’ll keep destroying any good in this country, until they are.
Democrats ran on that once already but were unwilling to actually do it. They have no credibility now.
I’ve got a list of improvements America can make, including Medicare 4 All and Campaign Finance Reform, but right now, crushing MAGA is absolute top priority
Centrist democrats won’t crush MAGA. They’re ALLIES. Schumer and Jeffries just fucking proved it.
Oh, yeah, if the Dems can get the majority in the House, the first rule of business needs to be to fire the MAGA comedy act of Schmuck & Jeffries. We need to meet toughness with toughness, and we need leaders who are willing to do that.
You act as if anyone is actually running on punish Trump. They aren’t. They’re running on “ignore all the bad things about me or we’ll force Trump on you again.”
Simple: We need to punish MAGA, but it can’t be what we run on.
Remember: Trump did not mention annexing Canada or Greenland once on the campaign trail. It was literally the day after the election he first mentioned it.
I can’t take a chance on a candidate, only to find out after he’s elected that he wants to follow an appeasement strategy, like Obama. At the time, I said that if we didn’t slap down the Bush administration for their crimes, things would only get worse, and here we are.
Nope, they can talk about all the other things they want to do, but their priority has to be dealing the the serious National Security Threat that is MAGA. Anybody that doesn’t take a strong line on that issue is t going to have my attention for anything else they want to do.
Entering a total strangers discussion
Yeah, you lost me here. You posted it ON THE FUCKING INTERNET FOR EVERYONE TO SEE. Heaven forbid someone comment and interact. Oh no! Woe is you!
What a load of entitled bullshit.
Suck an egg.
But if the left side of the political spectrum is still the domain of scholarship and expertise, take note that you don’t find scholars and experts you worrying about canceled US elections.
Sure Ken, that’s because all the scholars and experts on fascism have already fled the country.
I don’t see these “scholars and experts” offering much of anything besides telling us to roll over and take it while Trump admin crashes this country into the ground and ruins millions of people’s lives. If they think we can wait until midterms to put a stop to this they are part of the problem.
Wow all of them? Not a single scholar left in the entire country?
‘Scholar and expert on fascism’ is a subset of all scholars. Not that its not a bad claim, or that them leaving the country wouls stop them from commenting… it would free them to do so
Wow that’s a lot of projection from someone terrified that erudite and well reasoned civility politics might not actually be a good assumption to just carry forward.
But if the left side of the political spectrum is still the domain of scholarship and expertise, take note that you don’t find scholars and experts you worrying about canceled US elections.
Oh, really Ken?
Its that simple huh?
https://theweek.com/politics/america-competitive-authoritarianism-trump
Yeah try maybe actually catching up with the experts on how fucked the situation actually is.
Yeah yeah there are likely to technically be elections, but they’re likely to not really be legitimate or actually serve truly democratic (small d) purposes.
This is a cope turned into a scold about Ken’s little fantasy hugbox reality not being respected by actual reality.
Grow the fuck up.
Hugbox is the right term. The line about invading someone’s personal discussion, that you posted yourself in the fucking internet, reeks of so much entitlement. This wasn’t a good take by Ken at all. Very out of touch.
This is gonna age like milk lol
Maybe, but saying that there wont be elections helps ensure that there wont be elections.
Its the climate doomerism side of climate action. The doomers and the deniers are part of the same coin that gets us no closer to a solution.
Paul Revere telling people the redcoats were coming actually was what brought the redcoats?
It’s not about “there’s no point discussing opposition because there won’t be an election anyway,” it’s about “don’t wait until 2028 to act and hope on voting your way out of fascism.”
That might a valid way to feel, but it’s definitely not what’s being said here. This is a mound of doomerism with no additional context and no take away that people need to be prepared to act. In fact, it makes it seem like there might be no point to acting
~~The first Bluesky user user’s post includes an assumption [there will be an election]. The second comment refutes the assumption [an election is not guaranteed].
How is the second user wrong and why do you consider it doomerism? Based solely on the two messages the first user could just as easily be construed as the more apathetic one, talking about hypothetical indirect action in the future. Operative word: construed.
The two don’t even seem to disagree (in fact it’s strongly implied they both think members of the Trump regime are worthy of punishment). They just argue against strawmen, conjured from the unspoken parts of the other’s argument – as always on those microblogs.~~
Edit: Nvm, I’m confused by the format of the Lemmy post
I do believe there will probably be elections (and that they’ll do everything they can to make them unfair).
But to think there’s a 0% chance Trump could move to cancel elections is naive at this point. Add it to the mile-long list of things “he’ll never be able to do” that he has done. He’s literally already threatened to do it.
If Trump calls to cancel elections, and some red states don’t hold them, the.correct response is “ok, you have left X seats vacant in congress.”, which would be worse for Republican power than a 20-point D swing. (Especially since it makes the 2/3ds vote for removal after impeachment correspondingly lower.)
If Trump rolls out ICE to physically stop elections, then we’re in a state of violent civil war. Which cannot be collectively planned for.
This isn’t abortion or gay marriage being overturned by the court. It’s a very straightforward bright line whose precedent was set during the US civil war, and there is zero benefit to spending any time spreading the presumption that cancelled US elections mean MAGA peacefully stays in power.
Trump has already called for cancelling elections. He use his normal prevarication bullshit like “People say I should cancel elections. You should cancel elections, but I’m not going to say it” or some doublespeek nonsense.
If Trump calls to cancel elections, and some red states don’t hold them, the.correct response is “ok, you have left X seats vacant in congress.”, which would be worse for Republican power…
There is no such thing as a given “correct answer” in this scenario. While it is constitutionally true that elections are up to the states and 100% within each state’s purview to manage and control, what there will be is chaos.
Complete chaos at every level, including all the seats up for grabs that do or do not see their individual powers and responsibilities transferred peacefully, and the states that want to have elections now having to wage an inner political battle just to carry on in the face of some sort of presidential cancellation.
You write as though red states are red and blue states are blue and they can be expected to act that way, and you’re dead wrong. Red states have solid blue urban centers and blue states have large unbroken swaths of rural red, and every election is a surprise in this regard. Even hard red areas in Florida have been going solid blue lately. Who even knows where the lines are anymore?
Add to that the fact that this is not just about who goes to Washington: it is also about judges and coroners and water board commissioners and county taxes and boards of education and everything else from local to federal, and the people who are due to vacate those positions, and those who would like to have those position or at least keep others out of them.
So for every state that actually tries to have an election after some kind of election-canceling fuckery from the orange pedo, there will be an in-state battle over when and how and for whom, which some states will win and some will lose, and the line between winners and losers will NOT fall neatly between red and blue. The line may not even fall at all, meaning that this scenario could easily start political battles that never end and simply play out in court for decades to come.
To reiterate, EVERY item to be voted on in the 2026 mid-term elections has a battle ahead of it: referendums that need direct resolution, bonds that need approval, taxes that will be levied or not levied, candidates at every level that want to gain power or stay in it, as well as other forces that will absolutely want to make a meal out of the situation, not to mention propaganda (much of it foreign) that will seek to control the entire public narrative for its own ends.
The ONLY certain outcome of cancelling these elections is chaos. It is literally impossible to say how any of that will shake out at this point.
Your “correct response” take is incredibly naive. If you want to believe that what will be left after the orange shitheel sabotages elections is some central force that ignores everything else on the ballots while it calmly divvies up local, state, and federal positions and somehow neatly keeps the empty seats empty for those who would have been elected but were not, feel free. But it’s a total fantasy.
You’re jumping the chaos a whole generation of facts early. And mangling two distinct foot-guns from the American right.
Sure, Trump could trigger a violent civil war. But so can King Charles. And just like with Parliment, the game for what happens is entirely known–and makes his own gruesome death more likely than any other action he could make
Either MAGA participates in an election they might lose, or they trigger a civil war they would likely splinter over. Whether that civil war is against a nominally elected Congress of non-MAGA states or against the governors of non-MAGA states is almost a moot point.
The only thing that makes any chaos possible from Trump calling for an election delay is internet chattivists insisting that his blathering would have some chaotic effect.
Elections of non-local jurisdiction aren’t ran by local areas. If Florida or Texas cancels elections their blue urban areas go as unrepresented as their red ones, and if red localities in California or New York try the same they wind up with Democrats winning a bunch of seats they otherwise wouldn’t.
Sure, you might have some members of the current Congress try to retain their seats, but absent an election 100% of the House and 1/3 of the Senate become private citizens in January. They could fuck around and help Trump start his civil war, but there’s no “chaos” there. It’s a very short constitutional crisis, that either ends in the unelected losers going home or the same violent civil war Trump could start tomorrow by claiming that the DNC is a terrorist organization.
And a violent civil war would have plenty of chaos, but none of it would be electoral.
All of that presupposes the existing order continues uninterrupted in the event no elections are held, with a whole lot of other suppositions and ridiculous assumptions thrown in.
Let me list a few, such as “unrepresented” areas because current seat holders would just go home: even the Virginia AG who is not an AG and has been ruled as such by the appropriate court hasn’t gone home.
And “Democrats winning a bunch of seats” in elections that do not take place. How does that work?
And assuming that winners of Congressional elections would even be sworn in and seated by a speaker or Senate leader who stands to benefit by not having enough members left for quorum, as Mike Johnson has already done with Adelita Grijalva: why not just swear in some and not others, or none at all, since there is no rule book anymore, as they are already doing?
Or even that there would be the political will to treat the situation as a “constitutional crisis” that can be legislated out of, when in fact there is NO adherence to the Constitution anymore anyway and they are doing whatever they like, again as we are already seeing today.
Thinking that critical parts of the system will hold when others are torn down the middle, or even more bizarrely that there is direct line from your version of a canceled election to an outright “civil war” is nothing short of delusional. If you want to go find people to kill because elections have been sabotaged be my guest, but actual civil war, with civilian armies bearing arms and leaving their homes to go and shoot each other, takes far more provocation these days. It’s not 1860 anymore.
It’s far more likely people will remain at home because any civil war will NOT be geopolitical, another concept you seem to struggle with: there are no lines on the physical map anymore where, when you go there, you know what they believe. You just think you do.
As I said in my prior comment, believe what you want. But you write fantasy well, and this is more of the same.
Blocking you now on the grounds of sheer insanity. My reality may be shit, but at least it’s tangible.
Wow. What a committed dooner.
Since this very depressed person says they’ve blocked me there’s no reason for me to respond to them, but if you’re casually reading this I would like to point out that the poster demonstrates some dramatic ignorance about US politics. Specifically:
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It’s an unelected US Federal Attorney who is refusing to vacate their position. There is a federal AG who is a member of the President’s cabinet, but the state of Virginia directly elected theirs in off-cycle years, and Democrat Jay Jones was just elected for a term starting Jan 14. It’s entirely ordinary for the lame-duck incumbent to still be in their position, and even to be a bit of a nuisance on the way out.
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Each two-year Congress starts when a simple majority of elected reps meets literally anywhere,.with the first order of business as swearing in new members and establishing the rules for the new Congress. There’s very solid precedent for what to do if some don’t show up or even if there are no house re-elects: the recent days-long impasses over Republicans picking a speaker, for example.
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While MAGA does appear to be a fascist group willing to ignore rules, it’s also one built on a theory of constitutional authority and American democracy. There is no precedent for them ignoring elections, even the ones they don’t like – just the various traditions and courtesies that are entirely outside the constitution. If Trump tries to cancel the 2026 or 2028 elections, expect that some currently-MAGA allies and voters would harshly react against them. (Especially with the already-apparent fault lines over the Epstein Files.)
I think that it’s much, much, much more likely than civil war or cancelling elections to just expect the sort of harassment and bad-faith shenanigans that has already been done, both in pseudo-aoarthide states like Texas and in “purple” states where Republicans hold jerrymanderrd legislature but lose statewide elections.
You are of course free to make up your own mind and even be a doomer like @ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world . But I don’t think obsessing over the eminent breakdown of American democracy is either health or useful.
Please for the sake of the rest of the world just collapse already, this farce is getting pathetic. And preblaming “doomers” is laughable.
Trump thanks you for your dedicated service.
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If you are anxious and sad about the state of the world, that’s fine, and there are plenty of strategies for dealing with that. But think you already know that drive-by online dooming isn’t a strategy. It’s selfish and adolescent. It’s a contagion that only spreads the worst of you, not the best.
This is the juice for me. Worried about the next election? Me too! What are you going to do about it? Dooming in the comments isn’t action, and if you’re trying to get me to act, then insisting that there’s no point in any of this is a weird way to do it.
If you believe that and don’t think there are any action steps, fine. But don’t slather that despair everywhere. We don’t need it; we’ve already got enough despair. Some of us are trying to do something about it.
Have a plan, try to get people on board with it. But just insisting that everything is doomed is just as useless an online activity as insisting that everything is great.
If you think you’ve already lost you’re guaranteed to lose. Hope is NECESSARY to make a successful attempt.
its hardly pointless dooming when trump has literally expressed vivid interest in getting rid of elections because he is terrified of losing and facing accountability.
“Entering a total strangers discussion” - They posted it on a publicly accessible forum, my dude.
Also, you are probably right the US will have elections, but will they be fair? Will they be free of federal tampering? Will ICE be posted at polling booths and arrest anyone brown who tries to vote? A rigged election is not a legitimate election
Will ICE be posted at polling booths and arrest anyone brown who tries to vote? A rigged election is not a legitimate election
Will voters stay home for fear of that because of what ICE is doing now, even if ICE doesn’t actually interfere on election day?
The chilling effect of ICE, dang.
They posted it on a publicly accessible forum, my dude.
Yes, but there is a qualitative difference between posting an original top level post, versus posting a reply under another user’s post. Twitter-like platforms generally give users the power to control replies to their posts in a way that is less than perfectly open public access. It’s probably somewhere in between a forum where everyone can post (and where moderation rights are generally independent of who created a post) versus a blog where the blog owner can moderate the comment thread under their own posts.
