4-Year Survival Plan

Esper said:

Swastikas in the bathroom stuff

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Cheque please!

Who here has gone into the mens restroom and not seen something gross or racist? If you haven't seen a swastika in a public restroom before, than you literally do not live in the country known as the United States of America.

Tell us, in what way does calling for riots and mass protests and blocking freeways and bi-ways help the matter? How does pointing at graffiti and saying:

Help solve the issue? Do you believe that creating a large scandal and whipping people into a feeding frenzy helps calm things down? Or do you think that maybe, just maybe, if people saw this graffiti and notify the store or property owners and having them paint over it would help the issue? Personally, I feel that promoting hate by giving attention to the attention seekers escalates the problem, not deescalate. Ever see those movies where the president is like "No. We can't cause a panic until we're absolutely certain those aliens won't obliterate the shit out of us"? Same thing.

Perpetuating such drivel while we have absolutely no way of knowing who actually wrote it. I've seen Mexican gangbangers spray paint swastikas before here in California, and I've seen it in highschool as well. I've seen boys and girls use something particularly heinous to make a funny or garner attention. All the 9/11 jokes, all the abortion fetus and dead baby jokes, the rape jokes (I've heard it both from males and females), the holocaust jokes. It's like this: "You find it funny or offensive? Great, here's some more of my material". It also doesn't help when you have liars in your midst like this one. Makes you think twice about whether or not it's the truth, right?

This can perhaps be construed as yet another plot device to discredit President Trump, right? So, if I spray paint my own garage door with racial slurs as well as homosexual slurs and add '#Trump Forever 2016' and take a picture of it, do you think that I could perhaps use it as a ploy to say "Hey, look what Trump supporters spray painted on my garage! He needs to not be our president!"?

Getting tired of it. Isn't it a wonder that so many racists have come out to play after he won? Don't you think that true racists would be spray painting signs and wall around the clock to prove their love for Trump? Seems like a huge coincidence that all of the racists across the country decided to wait until Trump won to spray paint and tag things? Doesn't that seem like a huge coincidence to you? I might believe it if I saw it throughout the entire campaign, but I didn't and I'm hard pressed to say that most of these were painted by actual Trump supporters. Call me skeptical, but when you have the largest internet news source, The Young Turks, blatantly lying about Trump 'backpedaling' and reneging his 'Build a Wall' position it's hard for me to believe anything or everything I see on the news these days as factual.

JDJacket said:

Cheque please!

Who here has gone into the mens restroom and not seen something gross or racist? If you haven't seen a swastika in a public restroom before, than you literally do not live in the country known as the United States of America.

Tell us, in what way does calling for riots and mass protests and blocking freeways and bi-ways help the matter? How does pointing at graffiti and saying:

Spoiler:

"LOOK OVER HERE GUYS AT THIS ****ING GRAFFITI I FOUND ON THE DISGUSTING STALL OF A POORLY MAINTAINED MALE RESTROOM! WE NEED TO GET OUT THERE AND SHOW EVERYONE THAT THIS GRAFFITI IS SOME KIND OF NEW THING TO THE WORLD AND THAT EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE NO CLUE WHO WROTE IT OR THEIR SKIN COLOUR OR THEIR RACE THAT GRAFFITI IS WRONG GUYS! NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF HISTORIES HAS THERE EVER BEEN RACIST COMMENTS SCRAWLED ON A GAS STATION RESTROOM DOOR! NEVER EVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE GANGLAND GRAFFITI! WE NEED TO RIOT IN MASS SO THAT WE INCREASE THE LIKELIHOOD OF US GETTING OUT OF CONTROL AND NEED TO BE SUPPRESSED BEFORE WE START FIRES OR START ATTACKING THE POLICE OR INNOCENT CIVILIANS!"

Help solve the issue? Do you believe that creating a large scandal and whipping people into a feeding frenzy helps calm things down? Or do you think that maybe, just maybe, if people saw this graffiti and notify the store or property owners and having them paint over it would help the issue? Personally, I feel that promoting hate by giving attention to the attention seekers escalates the problem, not deescalate. Ever see those movies where the president is like "No. We can't cause a panic until we're absolutely certain those aliens won't obliterate the **** out of us"? Same thing.

Perpetuating such drivel while we have absolutely no way of knowing who actually wrote it. I've seen Mexican gangbangers spray paint swastikas before here in California, and I've seen it in highschool as well. I've seen boys and girls use something particularly heinous to make a funny or garner attention. All the 9/11 jokes, all the abortion fetus and dead baby jokes, the rape jokes (I've heard it both from males and females), the holocaust jokes. It's like this: "You find it funny or offensive? Great, here's some more of my material". It also doesn't help when you have liars in your midst like this one. Makes you think twice about whether or not it's the truth, right?

This can perhaps be construed as yet another plot device to discredit President Trump, right? So, if I spray paint my own garage door with racial slurs as well as homosexual slurs and add '#Trump Forever 2016' and take a picture of it, do you think that I could perhaps use it as a ploy to say "Hey, look what Trump supporters spray painted on my garage! He needs to not be our president!"?

Getting tired of it. Isn't it a wonder that so many racists have come out to play after he won? Don't you think that true racists would be spray painting signs and wall around the clock to prove their love for Trump? Seems like a huge coincidence that all of the racists across the country decided to wait until Trump won to spray paint and tag things? Doesn't that seem like a huge coincidence to you? I might believe it if I saw it throughout the entire campaign, but I didn't and I'm hard pressed to say that most of these were painted by actual Trump supporters. Call me skeptical, but when you have the largest internet news source, The Young Turks, blatantly lying about Trump 'backpedaling' and reneging his 'Build a Wall' position it's hard for me to believe anything or everything I see on the news these days as factual.

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RE: racists having a field day - they don't have to have voted for Trump, but I don't even have a shadow of a doubt that they feel egged on by his election. Personally, I don't think it's necessarily a permanent change - the excitement might die down after a couple of months. Still, I think it's much less reasonable to pretend that it's all a liberal ploy instead of people feeling like they can finally express the views they have.

RE: TYT - they mentioned that legislators approached Trump about a more practical approach to erecting barriers on the border which amounts to a fence. I don't see how that's blatantly lying. A 10 feet concrete or whatever wall isn't the most practical thing to have, and honestly it's not hard for me to imagine Trump going for something more practical.

Esper said:

Guys, please. The reason people are afraid is because in the last few days there have a lot of incidents of intimidation and assaults by racists and other assholes.

[strong racist language, be warned]

Spoiler:

Read about a few others here if you'd like. I'm not going to go into all of them, but suffice it to say that the worst people in America feel emboldened to harass, assault, and threaten minorities and women. That's why people are afraid. They see this as a sign of what's to come. Yes, these things have happened in the past, but we're worried about it getting worse. Just in my own area, a friend was almost run off the road by a truck with the passenger shouting "get out of my ****ing way libtard" and someone's young child was in a classroom where one kid told another he would have to pack up and leave because he was Mexican. Other friends of mine said that at a parent-teach conference all the teachers were afraid for their kids.

ANYWAY, to get back to the purpose of this thread, I think one other thing people can do to help is to ignore the mainstream media. They're focusing on only the flashiest elements of the protests which paints them as just violence mongers instead of actually going out and speaking to people who are protesting (or cherry picking the people they do speak to).

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I thought the racists would be emboldened by a Trump loss too? This isn't some argument against Trump. Whether he won or lost, all the racists and sexists would have been verbally and demonstrably inflammatory. These are isolated and individual cases, not in any way comparable to the RIOTS by liberals.

All Hillary supporters, and you too, professed how Trump supporters would not accept the results of the election and preform terrible deeds. Well, how about we look at how the liberals (the supposedly tolerate and accepting liberals that uphold democracy and ardently fight discrimination):

This video generally (but with limits- does not display the full extent) displays what is occurring:

-includes the riots
-includes people attacking a Trump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mh6-zhaB5w

Lets not forget what happened even before the election, where Hillary supporters verbally abused and physically assaulted a homeless woman guarding Trump's star:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoZ_utS0LuA

Another complaint about Trump was that he never denounced the KKK, which is actually pretty bad. But Obama and Hillary are yet to denounce the riots, which are actively damaging property, reducing order, and increasing the sectional divide in this country.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...s-obama-clinton-to-speak-out-on-protests.html

You can't at all compare not denouncing the KKK, a literal hate group, with the protests of citizens against a man who causes minorities to fear for themselves and others becoming president.

You can't compare the empowering of bigoted people and a fairly big upturn in racist/bigoted activity, like after Brexit but significantly more prominent, with ""Liberals"" protesting.

Honestly I don't really trust videos without supporting evidence claiming to be "from an anti-trump protest" because i've already seen more that one that weren't but were being claimed to be to further the "Trump supporters are the REAL oppressed victims here :^((((" narrative

People in this thread, who aren't of any minority as far as i'm even aware, are considerably downplaying both Trump/Pence's horrible history on minority rights, their capacity for harm and the harm they quite literally promised during the election cycle.

Just because the ban on Muslims dissipated from his website, or because he did a complete 180 on bathroom bans (And then did another 180 on the issue soon after) doesn't mean you can go "see! he was good all along! silly minorities, how about i tell you more about how you're overreacting :^))))))"

I really don't/didn't want to get into specifics with specific people just because it took me so long to actually look at this thread there's a huge backlog of stuff i'd be replying to, and honestly i'd probably get worked up beyond what falls under rules of civil discourse, this last week i've been doing that more than i really should've

Prepare for the next Grand Theft Auto game.

If there is one thing I am certain....Rockstar games is going to have a FIELD DAY with this election.

Kanzler said:

RE: TYT - they mentioned that legislators approached Trump about a more practical approach to erecting barriers on the border which amounts to a fence. I don't see how that's blatantly lying. A 10 feet concrete or whatever wall isn't the most practical thing to have, and honestly it's not hard for me to imagine Trump going for something more practical.

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Please read this as a comical commentary and not a cynical, mean or rude "Yeah, I'm ****ing better than you. Much better than you. You are garbage" Ana Kasparian kind of way.

Here. Me on the articles:


Ugh. Jacket on TYT. Never gonna say that again. . . If you have no desire to listen to his whiny voice I'm forcing myself to do a pseudo transcript for you here:

From 1:47-3:32. Oh god. Prepare Uranus, Cenk's words are incoming:

" . . . Ha haa! I love it, I love it. You- would that would have been as good a chant? He-an-an-he-and policy proposal that got everybody excited? "We're gonna build a fence! It's gonna be double layered!" Double layered. Not single layered. *Cenk reads a quote from Reuters* Okay. . . a House Republican aide- Republican aide and a Department of Homeland Security official said a wall was not realistic because it would block visibility for border agents and cut through rugged terrain, as well as bodies of water and private land *end quote*

Yeah! That's pretty much exactly what we said during the election, they're like "nah, no. Not a problem at all. Gonna build a wall it's gonna be beautiful. It's gonna be big." Day one "Aoh not a wall. Fence. You guys were right. Totally unrealistic." Okay. Huahuehah *Cenk laughs* My favourite eh- term out of this whole article is in Reuters describing this was another way of describing the wall it's a *quoting Reuters* ". . . fence extension . . ."^*

kuuu~hhahaha! Fix your fence! Fix your fence! *intake of breath* Okay. Now, uhhm . . . if he's not doing a wall, what is he doing? Wu-what are his actual plans for what's gonna happen in the Trump White House? Ahh~ it turns out, naa~h it was all for corporate interests anyway, he did that whole popular shtick to get you guys to vote for him tsch *sharp intake of breath*

so let's find out uh, who are the folks who're super excited about what's going on and one of them turns out to be the car companies- oh wait. Didn't we accuse or-uh I say we meaning uha *slight guffaw* uh the media an-and the Trump side went nuts, the Republicans all went nuts, O-Obama was just trying to help the car companies "Oh-that-when-he rescued Detroit crony capitalism! We shouldn't have rescued those guys" let's find out what's happening on day one we'll go to the Wall Street Journal . . ."

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Boom. Verbatim right from the donkey's ass. So, does Trump or his managerial staff ever actually state Trump "IMMEDIATELY backpedals" by saying he is looking for different alternatives as of yet? No. Saying that Trump "IMMEDIATELY backpedals on Wall" is a lie. Where is the journalistic integrity? Apparently not with Cenk. I'd probably watch them more to see how they weasel about, but I'm afraid I might get spat on.

^*TYT uses ellipses incorrectly. Instead of '. . .' as they should be TYT uses them thusly '...'*

Cenk and his video:

I figured that people weren't directly comparing the pro-Hillary/anti-Trump riots to Trump not denouncing the KKK, but were rather more saying that two wrongs don't make a right (and the severity relative to each other does not matter). This is assuming that they are indeed riots and not protests though.


But I think that part of the reason why Trump got so far was that people have over the past handful of years drawn battle lines where they shouldn't have. CarChar actually said something like this the other day, and I think it kinda got overlooked (probably because it was in a thread that I merged into the election megathread, go me), even though its a very good point:

CarcharOdin said:

People are tired of shame. People are sick of being shamed for having their opinions and choices.

I don't know if you've noticed this, but in the past several years with all the "SJW" "feminazi" "#NotAllMen" "MRA misogynists" blah blah blah BS, shame has become a more common tool in political discussion and discourse than ever before, we've both even seen it on this very site.

Blaming third-party voters or non-voters and shaming them as social pariahs who are at fault for Hitler 2.0 (not your words, but the general atmosphere I'm seeing in a lot of places) are just more fuel for the fire for creating more of one the types of people who swayed towards Trump two days ago.

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.....

I was going to type more in relation to this but then decided not to, as a) I'd probably just fuck it up and b) this is humanity we're talking about, I don't expect anyone to give a fuck. Might as well just wait and see what everyone else says.

Yes, exactly. I think that's the biggest thing here. Trump didn't win because of racism, misogyny, or anything else of the sort. In my eyes, Trump is the product of what the left has become (I'm saying that as a liberal). The narrative that anyone who votes for X is a racist, sexist bigot can only push people so far before they put their feet down and say no. They don't want to be put into a basket of deplorables.

We saw it in Brexit and we saw it in this election. The people are tired of it. I'm one of them. It gets quite draining when your Facebook feed is drowned out with how 'racism has won' and other such nonsense. It makes you afraid to even tell them what you think.

Caaethil said:

Yes, exactly. I think that's the biggest thing here. Trump didn't win because of racism, misogyny, or anything else of the sort. In my eyes, Trump is the product of what the left has become (I'm saying that as a liberal). The narrative that anyone who votes for X is a racist, sexist bigot can only push people so far before they put their feet down and say no. They don't want to be put into a basket of deplorables.

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There was no narrative involved though, is the problem. I honestly don't know where this "they called everyone racist!!! tahts why he wno!!!" thing comes from, because it wasn't a mainstream thing. Calling Trump bigoted in all the ways he is, was very much mainstream but calling everyone who votes for him that wasn't.

There was and is a lot of "A vote for Trump is a vote for racism/sexism/xenophobia/homophobia" because it is, and there's no real way to deny that. Regardless of if people are racist or not, they're voting for the racist candidate who wants to implement racist policies. "I'm not racist/homophobic/xenophobic! I don't like his bigoted policies!" is an incredibly poor argument because regardless of if you like them or not you're still voting for them, still supporting them with the vote you're using.

I think pushing the narrative that Trump supporters voted for Trump because... Trump supporters were called racist, or homophobic? Is fairly disingenuous and not really reflective of the issues/aspects that actually allowed Trump to win

Caaethil said:

We saw it in Brexit and we saw it in this election. The people are tired of it. I'm one of them. It gets quite draining when your Facebook feed is drowned out with how 'racism has won' and other such nonsense. It makes you afraid to even tell them what you think.

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Then, perhaps maybe, don't vote for racism and then complain about it (I know you didn't in this circumstance). Racism did win, because Trump was the racist candidate wanting to do racist things. I think, if you're afraid of people knowing what you think on social issues like this, generally you should re-think why you do think the way you do?

I'm surprised about how much backlash Esper's latest post got -- This thread is about the survival tactics that people are going to have to use after a Trump presidency, and Esper showed a number of stories that showed hate crimes that are specifically linked to Donald Trump election.

Like, how is the immediate reaction when seeing a number of hate crimes linked to Donald Trump to go "Oh but the liberals are rioting so they're terrible too!" Like that absolutely isn't the point? Sure, violent protest and destruction of property isn't always the most effective measure, but this isn't the time to do a a"Haha gotcha they're bad too!" moment. Any google search can find you a number of cases of hate crimes against minorities that specifically cite Trump. It's very clear that these people are emboldened by his candidacy to be awful, and there should be a discussion on how to combat that vs. The Liberal protests that will die down.

For the pereson that said these are isolated incidents, read a bunch of these over again. Many of them have a clear common theme: It mentions Trump. If you seriously don't think they are connected then I have no idea what to tell you.

It's just overall very disappointing that the attitude taken here became this defensive "I have to be right look at how bad the liberals are" and outright dismissing hate crimes that have been brought up. Shame.

Star-Lord said:

I'm surprised about how much backlash Esper's latest post got -- This thread is about the survival tactics that people are going to have to use after a Trump presidency, and Esper showed a number of stories that showed hate crimes that are specifically linked to Donald Trump election.

Like, how is the immediate reaction when seeing a number of hate crimes linked to Donald Trump to go "Oh but the liberals are rioting so they're terrible too!" Like that absolutely isn't the point? Sure, violent protest and destruction of property isn't always the most effective measure, but this isn't the time to do a a"Haha gotcha they're bad too!" moment. Any google search can find you a number of cases of hate crimes against minorities that specifically cite Trump. It's very clear that these people are emboldened by his candidacy to be awful, and there should be a discussion on how to combat that vs. The Liberal protests that will die down.

For the pereson that said these are isolated incidents, read a bunch of these over again. Many of them have a clear common theme: It mentions Trump. If you seriously don't think they are connected then I have no idea what to tell you.

It's just overall very disappointing that the attitude taken here became this defensive "I have to be right look at how bad the liberals are" and outright dismissing hate crimes that have been brought up. Shame.

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I'm with you on this. Let us forget how Trump suggested he wouldn't accept the result of he lost. Neither side is better than the other.

The current conversation is completely missing the point of the thread as well. We're supposed to be talking about the (slightly humorous) prospect of surviving the big bad eval Trump presidency. So let's um.... do that instead of how much you hate those gosh darn liberals.

Well, part of surviving the big bad evil Trump presidency is figuring out the extent to which you'll have to survive. And a major point that the, dare I say, liberal conversation is missing is how Trump shouldn't be taken literally. What that boils down to, for me, is that Trump's presidency would not be as hyperbolic as his campaign. It's not that we shouldn't be taking these recents events seriously, it's that we shouldn't be taking them as seriously as we have taken Trump's word, if that makes any sense.

Caaethil said:

Want me to show you the anti-democracy riots of Clinton supporters? Because I can if you don't want to look for yourself.

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Protesting is part of our free speech rights. The fact that a few bad eggs have planted themselves in the middle of these protests to make them look bad does not invalidate the rights of the people protesting, nor does the media and/or police's slandering calls of "riots" change that fact.

Personally, I don't think the protests will accomplish much. I'm focused on getting through the next four years stronger than before and while protesting will feel good, there are other productive things that I think could be done instead. I won't tell them to stop because it's their right to protest and have their voices heard.

So don't call it "anti-democracy" please.

Esper said:

Protesting is part of our free speech rights. The fact that a few bad eggs have planted themselves in the middle of these protests to make them look bad does not invalidate the rights of the people protesting, nor does the media and/or police's slandering calls of "riots" change that fact.

Personally, I don't think the protests will accomplish much. I'm focused on getting through the next four years stronger than before and while protesting will feel good, there are other productive things that I think could be done instead. I won't tell them to stop because it's their right to protest and have their voices heard.

So don't call it "anti-democracy" please.

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I knew someone else had to see the hypocrisy/irony (for once unsure of which to use) in calling protests "anti-democratic"

Arsenic said:

I knew someone else had to see the hypocrisy/irony (for once unsure of which to use) in calling protests "anti-democratic"

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Protests are not anti-democratic. Riots are anti-democratic. They were rioting against a fair democratic election. That is anti-democratic.

colours said:

the bigger message is that minorities, Hispanics and African-Americans as well as Muslims will not be afraid to be loud if the government steps out of line.

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I don't think so, really. Reducing the thing to race causes issue with me. Being a collection of several different ethnicities, I find lumping everyone together is bad for business. 'Minorities' or other ethnicities or races have nothing to do with this movement as a whole. It's based upon mainly Clinton or Bernie supporters protesting Trump's Presidency. There are several African Americans that voted for Trump, Hispanics, Latinos, and Mexicans.

I am also wondering why or, to be more accurate, how the government stepped out of line? All the government did really was tally up the votes and report on them, right? In my opinion, to say that the government as a whole 'stepped out of line' suggests to me a much larger issue caused not by the government, but by the people who make such claims.

I'm not trying to paint any roses red, but if people are claiming the government stepped out of line, then they must be forgetting about everyone that actually voted for Trump. The government, as an inherently impartial entity itself (government, not people) it cannot make a 'misstep' by simply counting votes and saying "well, that happened" unless they (the people) warped the outcome from within. I don't think blaming the government for the outcome is productive.

colours said:

Incorrect. The point of it is to be a peaceful protest; a few devolved into riots, but that doesn't mean that the #NotMyPresident movement as a whole is anti-democratic, because it isn't. They're not satisfied with the results, therefore they're protesting. However, the message as a whole is larger than just dissatisfaction with Trump as a president; the bigger message is that minorities, Hispanics and African-Americans as well as Muslims will not be afraid to be loud if the government steps out of line.

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The #NotMyPresident movement also includes (in addition to the rioting) various property damages, violence (not including the riots, and this also occurred before the election), and other forms of "protesting," such as defacing monuments, sidewalks, buildings, etc.

So maybe some of the #NotMyPresident is not anti-democratic, but if its not anti-democratic, it is outright hypocritical. These are the same people that called for unity multiple times under the Obama presidency and during the Clinton campaign (ex: Stronger Together). Specially, Occupy Democrats called people that were against Obama "traitors," and now they are calling for people to oppose Trump... even more than conservatives did against Obama.

JDJacket said:

I am also wondering why or, to be more accurate, how the government stepped out of line? All the government did really was tally up the votes and report on them, right? In my opinion, to say that the government as a whole 'stepped out of line' suggests to me a much larger issue caused not by the government, but by the people who make such claims.

I'm not trying to paint any roses red, but if people are claiming the government stepped out of line, then they must be forgetting about everyone that actually voted for Trump. The government, as an inherently impartial entity itself (government, not people) it cannot make a 'misstep' by simply counting votes and saying "well, that happened" unless they (the people) warped the outcome from within. I don't think blaming the government for the outcome is productive

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I don't think she's talking about the outcome of the election, but rather possible future actions by Trump and the Republican-controlled government.

Nah said:

I don't think she's talking about the outcome of the election, but rather possible future actions by Trump and the Republican-controlled government.

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Okay, fair enough. I must say, however, "what if"s, "may be"s and "could be"s does not equate to "Is" and "will". Unless someone here can use Future Sight we're all pretty much in the Dark and much of this is all guess work and worry-warting. Some Republicans even denounced Trump, so I don't believe it's going to go as smooth as some people think it will. There are still checks and balances, you know.

colours said:

I'm sorry? Race is a lot to do with why this movement came to fruition, actually. I don't know if you recall, but a lot of why there are so many protests around this nation is precisely because of Trump's toxic rhetoric that he's been spewing throughout his campaign, whether it be against women, whether it be against African-Americans, whether it be against Muslims, whether it be against Hispanics, you name it, Trump has said something to offend a specific demographic and there's a larger portion of them that are pissed off with him than those that voted for him, so saying "well there are minorities and African-Americans that voted for him idk what you're talking about" is a weak argument to me; again, these protests are sending a larger message that they are not standing by and getting bullied by racism and bigotry and sexism in this country that's validated upon the election of a President who represents those views.



I said if the government steps out of line. If Trump's administration so much as breathe upon the values and rights of the LGBTQA+ Americans, you will find one hell of a mob on the White House, and I emphasize on that because, again, the entire purpose of this is for people's voices to be heard that they will not sit back and let Trump's administration steamroll their basic human rights.

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Ah. I missed the 'if' in there. Sorry about that. I still believe that it's far too soon to bring up ifs, as he hasn't even set foot in the oval office yet. We don't know what will happen, truly.

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, but as a minority I feel marginalized when people discount a vast inclusion of other people. Seeing the school system across the board see an increase of unprovoked attacks by simply wearing or supporting Trump doesn't fill me with confidence to wish nor condone the actions of protesters.

I believe I also made a note on Trump's policies on the LGBTQ. He doesn't mention Muslims at all. In fact, he says Islamic extremism. You can be white and be a member of Islam, we've seen it before. Pence, I feel, is Trump's Weakness Policy. Assassinating Trump would be a 'You shouldn't have done that' moment.


Individuals are smart, people are dumb. You can claim that groups of protesters are peaceful, but that's not entirely true. In fact, nearly every protest has the potential to devolve into riots because as a group mentality, people are little better than animals in their critical thinking processes.

What about blocking a freeway? What are your thoughts on that? Did you know that blocking an interstate is illegal? Blocking any traffic without a proper permit is illegal and punishable as the people [the state] see fit. Managing a large group of people is extremely difficult without a base structure and screening of turnouts. If one individual lobs a 'flame projectile' (a nice way of saying a molotov cocktail) then the entire protest is now an illegal collection of individuals and can be summarily be treated as hostile and dealt with accordingly (i.e. dispersed with CS gas).

To give you a better idea of why protests need to be dealt with harshly as soon as they devolve into riots, I'd appreciate it personally if you searched 'molotov cocktail survivors' under images. I've been gassed with CS a handful of times (seven, I think) and I have had no scars and no adverse affects and have not seen anybody gassed along with me suffer such injuries. As such, the materials and tools used to combat each side are not equally less lethal. Dousing someone in petrol and lighting them on fire is . . .

I feel protesters (mainly rioters and those that halt traffic) as a whole, are in the wrong here. I know protesting is not against the law, but ignoring laws to 'further' your cause is not acceptable. Burning people alive, damaging property and halting legal and lawful traffic are major issues. I don't feel that these protests are fueled by minorities or majorities. I believe they are fueled by unhappy people of all stripes and colours. Separating people into groups and race, in my opinion, doesn't help much. They're just people. Nothing more, nothing less.

Did you protest personally? If yes, did you have a sign? If so, what did your sign say? Just wondering if anyone from the community here actually protested.

There was a protest yesterday in Palm Springs and I have been attempting to access and retrieve all damage reported during the time the protests began and ended within that area. I don't think it'll turn up much, but I'm still interested in the police reports regardless.