re: #131 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus

I wish I were in a celebratory mood, but I am not.

Trump was always horrible, will be so till the day he dies.

But what was revealed in this election is that roughly half of your fellow Americans really would be fine with instituting a fascist leader.

In the name of Je$u$ for many of them.

So no, we are not in a good place.

Notice that the Dems lost House seats. It is possible though not likely that the Dems could pick up a Senate seat.

So no, I’m not jumping with joy.

What lay ahead for Biden is difficulty after difficulty. A government that has been plundered, a pandemic the end of which has yet to be put under control (and just wait until one of the vast number of mutations make reinfection more likely), a world community where right wing authoritarianism is ascendant….

Just call me Eeyore.

you are not wrong

however one of todays’ responses at electoral-vote.com to a similar sentiment bears posting:

…we would caution you against concluding that 70+ million Americans voted for authoritarianism, per se. Our general impression, from the reading we do for this site and the feedback we get, is that Republican voters are much more inclined toward compartmentalization in their voting. By that we mean, first of all, that they tend to vote based on one or two or three issues, like abortion, or the economy, or tax policy. We also mean, however, that they tend to be more comfortable than Democrats, on the whole, when it comes to deal-breakers. Many of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) supporters would have deserted him if he turned out to be a behind-the-scenes racist or pu**y grabber, or even if he committed some lesser sin, like taking a bunch of money from the petroleum industry. Joe Biden would have been in deep trouble if he turned out to have a secret Chinese bank account, or if he was revealed to be a tax cheat. Indeed, Biden was almost done in by allegations of sexual misconduct far less serious than those lodged against Donald Trump. He was largely saved by the fact that Tara Reade turned out to be roughly as credible as, well, Rudy Giuliani.

By contrast, Republicans in general, and Trump supporters in particular, seem to be generally comfortable with the formulation, “I really don’t approve of X, but the GOP candidate is right on Y issue, and that’s what I really care about.” How many times have we heard things like, “I don’t like the tweets, but the economy is good,” or “Yes, he lies, but he appoints anti-abortion judges”? So, it is probable that a lot of his voters either excused the authoritarian behavior, or are low-information folks who didn’t even recognize the general pattern.