The 2020 election. More info and predictions.

This does sound hopeful, and I'll continue to hope.  What's being done to the rule of law however, and to immigration law, is worse that I ever would have even imagined any administration could do.  Worse than any of the predictions I've seen or ready anywhere. Horror movie bad. Every day I try to stay hopeful as I see Trump and Sessions take an ax to immigration laws in ways that are savage.  This isn't hyperbole, what they are doing is pure savagery.  As someone who's been representing immigrants for almost 30 years I feel angry, but also feel that maybe this is why I was put on the Earth, and this is my moment to use whatever is left of the law to shield as many desperate people as I can. So, I see this as a fight and I'm not going to let it defeat my work, but it is seriously depressing. If this goes on until 2028 I don't know what this country is going to look like, but I won't lose hope that we can turn it all around.

So many thoughts go through my head thinking about this. I've been watching the handmaid's tale, and last nights episode kept me awake later, tossing and turning with anxiety. Mrs. Waterford strikes me as very like Ivanka, all perfect in public, but deeply complicit and cruel underneath. 80 plus percent of evangelical "Christians" voted for Trump and in today's news I found out that in those detention centers where they keep children that they've ripped from their parents they have posters of Trump everywhere. These are concentration camps, and the people who run them are fascists, as are evangelical "Christians". Years ago before all this happened I discovered the work of Chris Hedges. I began reading his weekly column and then proceeded to read his books. Before Trump he predicted that a demagogue would arise in the United States and win over the loyalty of large sections of the public, his writings have been so prescient that it scares me but he's proven to be right many times. Sometimes I wonder if he has psychic ability, certainly he is a person of faith. He also claims that electoral politics will not save us, that only massive grassroots movements can. I've been watching the progress of the Justice Democrats and Our revolution as they try to take over the Democratic party from the Corporate wing. I support them because I believe that allowing unlimited money into the political system is a major reason for why we have the mess that we do on our hands now. I've seen some successes and some failures, but overall I've learned that the Democratic party will fight them to the death and that maybe this is not a worth it fight. I've begun to interpret the visions on this site as follows: By 2028 the Democratic party will have thoroughly been transformed by those coming up now challenging it's establishment. The GOP will be dying a painful death with nothing to offer people anymore. But and this is a big but, by the time all these fights work themselves out a large majority of people will no longer be paying attention. The movements that have started since 2016 will grow and diversify and many will not focus on electoral politics at all but on solving local issues at the community level. I'm already seeing this happen, not long ago I came home to find a green compost bin with my name on it sitting on my porch. My town of Cambridge has passed a local ordnance requiring everyone to start composting. Things like this will continue as people migrate to places where their worldview is more welcome and establish communities that look after our environment and our people. Some places will become third world hellscapes and those are the people who will reap the hate that they have sown over the course of their lives, the rest of us will move on. I don't know if the United States will survive as a united whole, but we are fighting a civil war in our hearts and minds right now and it's one that no one can win, because the other side lives in an alternative reality where climate change doesn't exist and Trump is a prophet. There is no reasoning with that mindset, so I think the predictions on this site show us the direction forward and in the end there is hope. 

I'm sorry for the rant, I'm just trying to express my views and air a little of my fears out.

@Natalie

I honestly can't take a lot of American Evangelical Christians seriously. The majority of them saw Obama as the anti-Christ but see Trump as the second coming of Christ. They put more faith in Trump than they do Jesus himself. 

It's just pure insanity.

I think the ongoing support of such a large percentage of the population, and the Christians in particular, has been the biggest shock and disappointment for me.  I truly cannot understand the connection that allows Christian people-- or anyone that truly loves America, for that matter-- to give their support and trust to this man, when he is against everything that Christianity and America stand for.  He is like one of the mercenaries that Jesus cast out of the temple, a thousand times over.  His outrageous behavior and lies are so blatant, so offensive, and yet they are unshaken in their support.  It's almost like some kind of grand-scale hypnotism.  I truly wish someone could explain it to me.  I can understand the support from the racists and the gun-lovers, but the otherwise good-hearted people?  I just do not understand.  

Jeanne, I have to agree with your gut feelings about Trump.  He is doing what he is told, I have no doubt.  Along with his insatiable craving for admiration and power and riches, maybe he is also trying to avoid blackmail or threats of some kind.  I even wonder if members of Congress have been threatened, although I suppose the threat of losing the support of their voters is enough to keep them quiet.

I hope Mueller will be ready soon, and that he and the investigation and the indictments won't lose validity because of all the attempts to discredit the justice department.

I have a fantasy that the Democrats will take the majority this year, and somehow Adam Schiff will become Speaker of the House, and then when Trump and Pence and Ryan are all removed from power, the Speaker will assume the presidency.  Hey, a girl can dream.  Adam Schiff represents my neighborhood and I think he's a hero.

I was watching "Real Time with Bill Maher," a challenging program to watch, certainly, when a young Republican whose name I forgot said at the beginning of this last episode, "The Constitution is a durable document - for now." This guy is the fascist sort, and everything else he said was terrifying to someone like me - sensitive to the false promises and abject cruelty of fascism. (It's a gift. I was the only one in 5th grade history class who didn't vote for the candidate who turned out to be Hitler.) It was as if no one else heard it; no stop, no question, just a quiet assumption that eventually it would break. Or that maybe he didn't mean anything by it, at all. Still, the words "for now" played on a loop in my head for days. Maybe this is how Trump supporters hope to put off the 2020 election until "we figure this whole [voter fraud] thing out." President for life, stripping women and other minorities of the right to vote, and various other heinous goals of the Alt-Right. I don't know. It played in my head while I listened to Rachel Maddow describe the visit to Moskow the Repulican Senators are on right now, without the obvious note that those Senators have been cut into a finacial deal to overthrow their own country, rig the election, and ask for more interference so the GOP can strip the rights and wealth of 99% of all American citizens. What reasonable person cannot see that there is a lot of money involved, and a lot of treason, too? I look forward to the end of the GOP. I hate that with it, they will destroy the Enlightment document that we know to be our best selves as a nation.  

Also, I'd really like Adam Schiff to be President. 

@SDJ

It's rare for me to watch Real Time but that is one episode I would like to watch and good on your observation skills to take note of what that young Republican said that everyone else seemingly ignored.

I don't think a lot of people can accept that we have a very dangerous group of people setting the stage to take full control in the near future. Yes, it can change but only if people can currently accept that a dangerous change is in process.

I've talked to so many people about this and the usual response is "Oh, it'll be okay. We got this." or "That'll never happen." Of course, we do not want to live in fear but we shouldn't live in naivety either.