Maybe Someday

by JanieM

Preface: I’ve had a draft of this post rolling around in my head for a while. I picked some photos to go with it, then let it sit around some more. It’s just a little slice of life, and probably relevant to a number of us, but it also feels incredibly trivial in the light of wars, assassinations, the ongoing attempted destruction of American democracy, climate change, and anything else you’d like to add from the headlines. Then again, vaguely nodding toward the serenity prayer, life is quiet in my corner of the world right now, so on a day to day basis this is just one of the things I think about.

Open thread.

**************************

My to-do list includes several projects that are, in effect, endless, including the one where I try to get rid of all kinds of stuff I don’t need anymore. (Or never did.)

Some people tackle a project and don’t stop until it’s finished. Not me. I chip away at things and get them done eventually, but the very nebulousness and lack of urgency of this task makes the chipping away even more desultory than usual. I putter in my attic in spring and fall, when it’s not too hot or too cold up there. I purge no longer needed financial records once a year. I take boxes to the Goodwill now and then – mostly clothes and books.

Okay, mostly books.

I have several motivations:

1) Most mundanely, it’s nicer not to live amidst too much clutter. I do keep it more or less at bay in my living space, but my storage areas are full to the brim.

2) If the owner of this property ever decides to sell, I’ll almost surely end up in a much smaller place. Moving will be much easier if I’ve already done most of the sorting.

3) I’d rather not leave the task as a burden to my kids after I’m gone.

My sister has made a useful distinction about sorting: there’s some stuff I still need or want, including things that no one will want when I’m gone; there’s some that my kids and grandkids might at least want the option of treasuring; there’s junk. My problem areas include the categories you’d expect from a dilettantish intellectual dreamer:

-- file cabinets full of papers – financial stuff, old journals, a finished mystery that never got published and its half-done sequel, and much, much more;

-- photos, both digital and printed;

-- all the stuff on my computers, which partially overlaps the content of the meat space papers and photos;

-- family history items, mostly from my mother’s side: genealogical records, photo albums spanning seven generations, letters from various eras, including several wars;

-- and the books. I’ve gotten most of my books out of the attic and either spread them in bookcases around the apartment or taken them to the Goodwill. But I’ve gotten rid of enough books for now. The ones I still have include the ones I’ve most loved, some of which I’ve read again and again. They form a sort of life history, marking milestones in my understanding of life on earth, access to certain states of mind and emotion, memories of relationships. To get rid of them would leave me feeling unmoored, floating context-free.

All of this is probably familar to anyone who’s embarked on a similar project. But one thing it took me a while to realize: a lot of the stuff I’ve squirreled away belongs in the “maybe someday” category. Maybe someday I’ll write a whole series of those mysteries. Maybe someday I’ll go back to where I left off in math, or maybe a semester or two earlier for review, and pick it up again, and use the momentum to keep going. (I used to have dreams in which this goal was the core plot element. I’m sure it meant something important….) Maybe someday I’ll learn more about linguistics, or anything at all about genetics. Maybe someday Ill get fluent in French…or German…or Italian…or Irish. Maybe someday I’ll play the piano again, or the fiddle….

The thing is, I’m in my mid-70s, and “someday” is now. (If it hasn’t already come and gone.) Most days, I feel like the building in the pictures: still upright, but a bit ramshackle. Facing reality, I’m not going to do many, if any, of these things, especially since I’ve taken up photography as a serious hobby, in an artistic partnership that’s working very well. Between that and grandkids, I’m well occupied.

1) The Shack. Bigger version here.

2) Boarded up. Bigger version here.

3) And locked. Bigger version here.

Comments

[CaseyL]

I visited Mom in Florida last month for the purpose of helping her clean out an accumulation of not-used-anymore stuff. Three and a half carloads to Goodwill ensued.

I came home, and looked at my own clutter with new and unappreciative eyes. "My god what a lot of stuff!" Every room has clutter to some degree.

Mind you, I do go through my clothing, books and housewares a few times a year, and take a box or three to Goodwill each time. This is more like random oddments I've accumulated over the 25+ years I've lived in this house: tools and gadgets, souvenirs, buttons/badges, collectibles, random electric and tech items.

So I, too, am engaged in a desultory attempt to weed out what I really and truly will never need or use.

It's not easy. Example: I bought a Dremel, full kit (tool, attachment, case, the works), ages ago; have never buckled down to learn how to use it, but have no intention of getting rid of it, either. I may want to be buried with it, for use in the afterlife :)

[CharlesWT]

A Place For My Stuff

[Snarki, child of Loki]

CaseyL: if you hold onto the Dremel when you die, it might get you into Valhalla.

The eddas aren't totally clear on that point.

[nous]

Technically, I think you'd need to be wounded by the Dremel just prior to dying for it to count as dying in battle.

The mini cutting disc is probably your best choice there.

[CaseyL]

nous: "The mini cutting disc is probably your best choice there."

Among the accessories is an adorable tiny container of 1/2" (I think)cutting discs.

Probably not impressive, compared to longswords and battle axes.

[Girl from the North Country]

Just watched Jon Stewart on Tucker Carlson and his Russia stuff. I'm so glad he was already on board in time to skewer the hypocritical little creep.

[wj]

A friend got me a sweatshirt recently. Across the front "It's not hoarding if it's books". I don't buy as many as I once did, but notwithstanding the public library's best efforts, they do continue to accumulate. (I'm only buying those I expect to go back and reread, but even so...)

My wife occasionally mutters something about getting rid of stuff and moving into a smaller house. But since at least 3 unused bedrooms are shoulder high with her "stuff" (and Amazon et al make regular deliveries for her) I'm not taking the whole thing seriously.

[Michael Cain]

I started replacing my paper books with e-books several years ago. The paper collection is down to a couple of shelves of mostly non-fiction. I've read stuff off screens since about 1980 -- I don't mind it and for some things it's better.

Spent an hour or two a day for six months almost that far back digitizing the vinyl collection to CD and donating it to the local used vinyl store. 400 CDs take up a lot less volume than albums.

Now that my wife is in memory care I'm slowly working through her enormous accumulation of stuff. I thinned mine a lot when we moved three years ago, but I couldn't keep her on track for that and she just piled things in boxes. One of the next chores is to go through the multiple big boxes of framed family pictures and unmount them. I don't know what Goodwill will say when I show up with 50-60 empty frames with glass.

[GftNC]

Crikey, this is a tough one: who is most likely to be lying, Tucker Carlson or BoJo? I can't remember the expression, but I am sure there is one for having to make this kind of choice....

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/21/boris-johnson-withdrew-from-tucker-carlson-debate-after-navalny-death

Carlson claimed he approached the former prime minister, and a member of Johnson’s team said “it’s going to cost you $1m” and “then he will explain his position on Ukraine”.

Carlson added: “I’m not defending Putin, but Putin didn’t ask for $1m … This whole thing is a freaking shakedown.”

He said: “If you’re making money off a war, you know, you can deal with God on that, because that’s really immoral.”

A spokesperson for Johnson said: “This account is untrue.”

[JanieM]

He said: “If you’re making money off a war, you know, you can deal with God on that, because that’s really immoral.”

I wonder what Tucker made off the Putin interview...

And wait, it's not immoral to lie and lie and lie and lie some more, and help get people killed, war or not?

(I thought of Hobson's choice, but that doesn't quite fit this situation.)

[Girl from the North Country]

I wonder what Tucker made off the Putin interview...

Excellent question. And clearly, it's to increase TC's' visibility and prestige (at least to the ignorant), so to increase his future earning power.

It's quite like having to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea, but in my opinion there's nothing wrong with the deep blue sea!

[Pro Bono]

Speaking of Thomas Hobson, since I have nothing to say about Tucker Carlson: his Conduit runs towards the centre of Cambridge a few yards from my house. His stables, where he invited customers to choose the horse nearest the door, were about a mile away at what's now the site of St Catharine's College Chapel - there's a milestone dated 1728 pointing my way.

To give some context: Hobson was born before, and died after, William Shakespeare.

[hairshirthedonist]

Sure, you Brits have all that history. But we Yanks have ... Alabama.

Never mind.

[liberal japonicus]

this sounds exactly like me, but I keep starting or restarting projects cause if I don't, I just end up doing nothing. Which then has me oscillate between three options
1. treat the stuff I need as disposable/easily replaceable
2. spend time and thought trying to get something that would really last
3.try to repurpose something I have, which usually requires me to get something new, which brings me back to 1 and 2.

I have been playing around with polyglotclub.com, which is a website that links you up with native speakers, but what I use it for is the chatbot in different languages. It's got the air of a late nineteen hundreds website, but the chatbot is tuned to be a conversation partner.

[JanieM]

@CaseyL -- my mom downsized twice after all her kids left home, once to move from a house to a slightly smaller house nearer to my sister, and much later (and after my dad was gone) to move back to a very small apartment in my home town. I wasn't involved in the first move, but I spent a couple of weeks helping with the second, and I was surprised and impressed at how practical my sentimental mother became when push came to shove.

When she went into a nursing home at 96, we four siblings and two spouses spent a couple of weeks emptying out her apartment -- a bittersweet time full of memories and quite a bit of laughter: four of us, same parents, same parish, same extended family, nine years from oldest to youngest -- and we all had quite different childhoods.

@CharlesWT -- thanks for the Dan Carlin. In that last move for a night across the island, he forgot to mention his cell phone.... (Yeah, I know the riff was pre-mobile-phones.)

When I go away overnight these days I take my laptop, my mobile phone, a couple of cameras, chargers for everything....oh yeah, a toothbrush. ;-) (I don't necessarily need all that stuff, but what if I get stuck there for longer than a night!)

[JanieM]

I never watched Jon Stewart faithfully years ago, but did enjoy him when someone pointed out something especially incisive (and funny). I haven't watched his recent stuff.

No doubt I live in a very small bubble, but most of the reactions I've seen have been more like this. For anyone who *has* been watching him lately, is this just another round of pundits gotta pundit? (i.e. Robinson) Or is Stewart doing more harm than good.... (Because in effect Stewart too is a pundit who's gotta pundit.)

[Pete]

Any chance there's a digital version of that finished mystery?

[JanieM]

Pete ... :-)

It exists as a Word doc......

[CaseyL]

JanieM - You have grandchildren, nieces and nephews. It changes things when there are none of those. (Odd fact: none of the peer generation in my immediate family had kids, and only one of us even got married. Not just me and my brother, but also my first cousins.) So that means no one is interested in taking all this family stuff off our hands.

[Pete]

It exists as a Word doc...

I'd love to read it, if you care to send it. Let's see how you measure up to Greenlaw. :-)

[JanieM]

CaseyL -- yes, that's quite a different set of circumstances. Even as it is, we (my generation) have realized that not everything we treasure means anything to the next generation, much less the one after that.

I had two amazing grandmothers, still very vivid in my memory, with lots of stories woven around them. And I was taken aback one day to realize that they are as far from my grandkids as my great-great-grandfather who went from Ohio to Oregon in covered wagon is from me. He was a character from a mythical past, good for the sake of the stories but meaning nothing to me as a living person.

My grandmother (his granddaughter) is so "present" to me that it's an effort to understand that she will be nothing to my grandkids but a figure out of a mythical past.

So it goes.

[JanieM]

@Pete -- I haven't read any of Greenlaw's books, so I can't make a comparison even in my own mind. But my story is more like a cozy mystery -- or, since I don't really like that label (and it seems to cover an awful lot of territory), just a story set in Maine with a thread of mystery thrown in.

I'm not at home right now but I'll try to remember to send it to you. It will be fun to see what you think.

[JanieM]

PS Useful feedback, even if "no this doesn't work" would be nice. I got sidetracked from the whole enterprise by grandkids and photography, but maybe it's worth reviving.

Just before covid came I got paired up with another would-be mystery writer through a program of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She suggested that I change what I considered to be a finished first draft from third person to first. She didn't like that I used the word "westering." (Which I later realized is used quite prodigally in LOTR, which is probably where I first encountered it as a teenager.) She called me a "had" person because I used the past perfect tense now and then. I don't think we were each other's likely audience....

[Pete]

@Janie

Thanks! I look forward to it!

I've only read Greenlaw's The Lobster Chronicles and All Fishermen Are Liars - none of her detective fiction. So I couldn't really compare. Just thought I'd mention the (relatively) local competition. :-)
Come to think of it, there might be one of her cookbooks floating around here somewhere...

[Pete]

"It was a dark and westering night. A shot had rung out. The maid had screamed."

I mean, I can kinda see her point.

[JanieM]

Only ever "the westering sun"........... ;-)

As for "had" -- lol.

[Girl from the North Country]

I haven't contributed on sorting/chucking/decluttering because I am a borderline hoarder, who is trying to fight it with a lot of help from my friends! It seems to me that every time I throw out something (which may not have been touched for years), I need it within a month.

On Jon Stewart, it seemed to me that his initial piece on Biden and Trump was a lot more frank about Biden and the age issue than many Dems would like, and I was a little taken aback by it, but on the other hand it was kind of inarguable. To me, it seemed he never even hinted that Biden was in any way as bad as Trump. And I think (and I bet he thinks) that being honest about the Biden cons establishes that he can not just be dismissed as a Dem/liberal stooge. But of course, to many Dems any criticism of Biden is disloyal and unforgiveable (I hope I don't offend anyone when I say that I think of this as the sapient syndrome). I am hoping that Stewart's ongoing coverage will give an accessible viewpoint on the campaigns to anybody in the relevant demographic (whatever that is) who is still undecided about who they're going to vote for. But then, I am much more tolerant of pundits than Janie is.

[JanieM]

And I think (and I bet he thinks) that being honest about the Biden cons establishes that he can not just be dismissed as a Dem/liberal stooge.

So it's about him (Stewart), not about the election, or Biden (really), or what's best for the country. Check. Pundit central.

But of course, to many Dems any criticism of Biden is disloyal and unforgiveable (I hope I don't offend anyone when I say that I think of this as the sapient syndrome)

To me it's not a matter if disloyalty in the least, it's a matter of practicality. The endless piling on about Biden's age is aiding and abetting the people who want to slide the country into fascism. Again, usually just to show how clever and both-sidesy the pundit or opinionator is.

Anne Laurie posted this last night. I haven't listened to the whole thing, but at AL's recommendation I started at about 17 minutes and listened to just a bit of it -- I just got home and will finish after I'm fed. But every one of these professional clever thinkers could be doing what O'Donnell did instead of the opposite.

Biden is going to be the nominee and has always been going to be the nominee. Tearing him down to show how clever and with it you are is ... tearing him down. Great job, folks.

[JanieM]

Me: Biden is going to be the nominee

Of course, he could die. Clickbait could die. I could die before the election and never know what happened. But as it is, it's all silliness to think the Ds will boot him, and as long as that's true, influential people would do better for the country (IMHO) to use their influence to point out the reasons why it's a good idea to keep him on.

[nous]

With regard to Stewart, as I said two threads ago, what I think Jon Stewart did well was to actually cut through the pundit bullshit and focus on the important things.

Look, the next nine months or so-- and maybe more than that, depending on the coup schedule-- they're going to suck.You're going to be getting emails with insane subject
lines like, hello, Jon.

It's Chuck Schumer.
[laughter]
Donald Trump is right behind you with a knife.
[laughter]
Donate?

You're going to get inundated with robo calls
and push polls and real polls.And people are going to tell you to rock the vote
and be the vote and vote the vote and finger-bang the vote. And it's all going to make you feel like Tuesday, November 5, is the only day that matters.

And that day does matter. But, man, November 6 ain't nothing to sneeze at, or November 7.

If your guy loses, bad things might happen. But the country is not over. And if your guy wins, the country is in no way saved.

I've learned one thing over these last nine years. And I was glib at best and probably dismissive at worst about this. The work of making this world resemble one that you would
prefer to live in is a lunch pail [bleep] job, dayin and day out, where thousands of committed, anonymous, smart, and dedicated people bang on closed doors and pick up those that are fallen and grind away on issues till they get a positive result. And even then, have to stay on to make sure that result holds. So the good news is I'm not saying you don't have to worry about who wins the election. I'm saying you have to worry about every day before it and every day after forever.

His big point was simply that the issues here are not something that can be reduced down to the age and competence of the two senior citizens who are likely going to be our only two viable candidates, and that we should really be focused on what needs to be done.

He didn't criticize Biden's age, he joked about how badly Biden's media team is doing at keeping attention on the real issues.

I've thought a lot about this, and what I keep coming back to is that none of my fears are about whether or not Biden is up to four more years. My fears with his age mostly have to do with something happening to him before the election that takes him out of the running and creates a real sense of vacuum because all of the Ds efforts have gone into propping up Biden and none into the issues that will take down Trump. I want to see a strong contingency/continuity plan and a strong team.

Don't try to police what people can and can't say about Biden's age. His age is not the real fear. Focus on why keeping Biden's *team* in charge is vital to our being able to keep the international order from cratering. Trying to stop conversation is a hopeless task. Better to direct the conversation to a more important topic.

[nous]

The italics. The italics.

Fixed -- wj

[nous]

I'll give you three words why I'm worried about Biden's age:

Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

Here's another three:

Dianne F@#%ing Feinstein.

Look where those got us.

I'd really like to see someone lay out the case for how the Dems will manage a similar crisis with Biden, because those two cases are exactly why this issue is not going away no matter how much the DNC makes loud shushing noises.

[wj]

Unlike with Ginsberg, if something happens to Biden it won't be a Republican President picking a replacement.

[JanieM]

all of the Ds efforts have gone into propping up Biden and none into the issues that will take down Trump

Do you have evidence that this is happening? Ads? Speeches?

Don't try to police what people can and can't say about Biden's age. His age is not the real fear. Focus on why keeping Biden's *team* in charge is vital to our being able to keep the international order from cratering. Trying to stop conversation is a hopeless task. Better to direct the conversation to a more important topic.

I have no illusions that my irritabilities about the age obsession and about pundits is going to stop anyone's conversation. In fact, my central point was a wish that people with a bigger platform would, like O'Donnell, "direct the conversation to a more important topic" -- like why we need to take down Clickbait.

My impression is that Ds are talking a lot about issues like abortion, Ukraine, Gaza/Israel, the economy.... But then, I live in a backwater in more ways than one, and I don't watch conventional TV at all.

[Girl from the North Country]

So it's about him (Stewart), not about the election, or Biden (really), or what's best for the country. Check. Pundit central.

No, if this is what you concluded from what I wrote, I must have expressed it badly. What I meant was, that with a view to heading off criticism which would negate his purpose of demonstrating how Biden is a much better choice than Trump, he was determined to show that his view was not so one-sided that it could be dismissed as merely that of a partisan hack. And what is more, I think he is doing this, in fact has only come back, because he thinks he can actually contribute to swaying the opinion of a demographic who may need informing. And, if so, I think he's right.

Assuming (through the italics) that nous's own actual words start with "His big point", I think when he says this, he is exactly right.

He didn't criticize Biden's age, he joked about how badly Biden's media team is doing at keeping attention on the real issues.

I think it's possible that Jon Stewart came back because he thought he could perform a public service (like when he lobbied for the 9/11 first responders), and that he might be able to help fight the good fight. And I think that many people need to hear that voting for Biden is the right thing to do, despite the faults in his candidacy and campaign, and that they will only believe this when it is discussed by people who do not ignore or sugarcoat his shortcomings.

[nous]

Do you have evidence that this is happening? Ads? Speeches?

I intended that comment to be in the context of how Ds *respond to* the age issue, not in terms of overall focus. It's clear that a lot of people are worried about Biden's age. What works better as a response, trying to reassure them all that the things they see should not be a source of worry, or telling them that it's not just about the person, it's about the plan, and the team that's in place to enact that plan come what may?

I know which of those I find more reassuring.

Remember the 80s: Reagan is old, but he has a strong cabinet and a good vision for the future.

Don't fight the issue. Accept it and account for why it won't be a problem.

[Pete]

And I think (and I bet he thinks) that being honest about the Biden cons establishes that he can not just be dismissed as a Dem/liberal stooge.

Normal-times Pete agrees with this. Stewart has been pointed in stating that TDS is comedy informed by a certain point of view and not an agenda delivered in comedic fashion. That POV has made him a standard bearer of the progressive wing and the left in general, deserved or not, but it's not a position he's sought out. And it's kinda ridiculous to hold him to a purity test he never asked for.

However,

To me it's not a matter if disloyalty in the least, it's a matter of practicality. The endless piling on about Biden's age is aiding and abetting the people who want to slide the country into fascism.

In-These-Times Pete says this is the reality. Any criticism of Biden - especially coming from the Leftist Poster Boy - is gonna get firehoused right into the faces of the benighted target. The "both are old" equivocation seems to be gaining traction and the more it's repeated...

Unlike with Ginsberg, if something happens to Biden it won't be a Republican President picking a replacement.

Once again, I admire your optimism even if I don't necessarily share it.

[nous]

Unlike with Ginsberg, if something happens to Biden it won't be a Republican President picking a replacement.

Good if that something happens after the election is over.

If that something happens before? Does it fall to Harris to carry the torch and convince voters to vote as if it were still Joe? Do others try to step in and build some momentum?

Gotta be addressed and put out there or people are going to stew over the uncertainty.

[Girl from the North Country]

Sorry for repetitious quality of my 06.52!

The good editor was off for the night.

[CharlesWT]

Biden is going to be the nominee and has always been going to be the nominee.

To some of us, a vote for Biden looks like a vote for Harris for president or four years of Weekend at Bernie's.

The almost only thing the two candidates have going for them is how intensely their base hates the other candidate. A lot of independent voters are faced with flipping a coin, voting third party, or staying home.

[nous]

Flipping a coin? Seriously?

I can understand an independent not being enthused about Biden or Harris, but the idea that Trump might be equally acceptable as an outcome befuddles me.

Harris v Haley? I could fathom that being a tossup for an independent, but not Trump.

Not after January 6th.

That's one effed up coin.

[CharlesWT]

That's one effed up coin.

True when the two parties are just different sides of the same coin.

[JanieM]

On a different topic, I got a kick out of BJ's John Cole's version of a story about AI and corporate liability. For that story, skip the top bit about Republicans and IVF, and start reading just below the video.

I just had a back and forth with a chatbot a week or so ago, also on an airline website. I asked it a reasonably simple question and it gave me a confident but completely non-responsive answer. Three tries and I got a human being. (Allegedly. At least he/she/it/they seemed to understand the question, because the answer was apropos.)

[wj]

the two parties are just different sides of the same coin.

Charles, I really do wonder that you see no significant difference between people who you disagree with, but who you might be able to vote out in favor of someone you like better, and people who you also disagree with, but who you will never be able to vote out. Or, on current trends, even be able to safely speak out against.

Just can't wrap my head around the idea that the difference is too small to be important.

[liberal japonicus]

Re: John Cole’s discussion of Air Canada’s chatbot, I been working on a post about that so if could hold any thoughts for that, it would be appreciated.

[Girl from the North Country]

Charles, further to what wj (and nous) said, I can't help wondering too: I guess it's understandable that as a libertarian you disapprove of both parties' policies, but can you really not see any difference between voting for someone who tried to stage a coup to reverse a legitimate election, and was/is prepared to stack the justice system with incompetents so that anything he wants to do is just rubberstamped, and someone who has been a "conventional" president for four years (no matter how disastrous or otherwise you think his effect on the country has been)?

So that the two parties are just different sides of the same coin becomes meaningless and irrelevant. One party has become the lap dog of an authoritarian would-be dictator, and one hasn't.

tldr: what wj said.

[CharlesWT]

I tend to agree with Jon Stewart. Whoever gets elected won't destroy or save the country. The odds are that we will muddle through regardless of who is elected.

January 6th was a bunch of knuckleheads and opportunistic sightseers rambling about the Capitol. Very offensive, but no risk of a coup regardless of what some people wanted. The previous riots across the country left 35 people dead and destroyed billions of dollars of property, people's livelihoods and life works were offensive too. The riots with reporters, using raging fires as a backdrop, saying the protests were mostly peaceful.

The Republican Party has drifted away from its conservative and libertarian ethos to populism and a cult of personality. The Democratic Party seems enthralled to far-left progressives. Both want to chip away at individual liberties. They just can't agree on where to chip.

Both agree on growing the government and spending money. The recent inflation started with the Trump administration's printing and dumping money into the economy. Just when the supply of goods was constrained by supply chain problems. More money chasing few goods. Biden, when elected, said hold my beer. More money into an economy with supply shortages. Plus Biden kept Trump's tariffs keeping prices high on imported goods.

Both sides think that the government will run well with the right people elected. About the best we can hope for is to muddle through regardless of who is elected.

[Tony P.]

CharlesWT: January 6th was a bunch of knuckleheads and opportunistic sightseers rambling about the Capitol.

That is the stupidest sentence I have read in quite some time.

Jon Stewart's admonition that you have to think about the days before and after Election Day goes in spades for Insurrection Day. The MAGAts and their Orange Fuerher were plotting and conspiring to overturn Biden's victory long before Jan 6, and have not really stopped since. Even if CharlesWT's "knuckleheads" had not "rambled about the Capitol", the crimes committed by He, Trump and his lackeys in pursuit of stealing the election would have been enough to get them locked up in any sane country.

But we don't live in a sane country, do we? Too many Libertarians(TM) in it.

--TP

[Michael Cain]

Fortunately for me, I can make a clear distinction between the parties and candidates on the basis of the one policy subject that I continue to be outraged about. (I'm old, and find that I have a limited amount of outrage these days.) The Trump administration's record, and the record of the Republicans in Congress, is to do as much as they can to force the use of fossil fuels, and make it as hard as possible to deploy renewables and fund efficiency. The Biden administration's record, and the record of the Democrats in Congress, is to force abandoning fossil fuels and getting renewables in place.

I suppose there's an argument that they're just two sides of the coin because both of them want to force us to move in a specific direction. That's not good enough. At some point you have to take a stand on whether to go down the path that creates a billion climate refugees in the relatively near term, and makes much of Florida uninhabitable in the somewhat longer term, or go down the path where there's a chance of avoiding those.

[Girl from the North Country]

January 6th was a bunch of knuckleheads and opportunistic sightseers rambling about the Capitol. Very offensive, but no risk of a coup regardless of what some people wanted.

Depending on your definition of knuckleheads, the first sentence seems so pollyanna-ish as to be astonishing. Many who participated were retired or off-duty service people, who nonetheless thought nothing of attacking police people and others and may well have attacked politicians if they had got their hands on them. But more to the point, they were incited to do this by the man who is one side of your "equally bad" voting coin.

As for your "no risk of a coup", this was only because in his first administration Trump had not yet managed to get his hands securely on the levers of power; he was still opposed by people who believed in doing their constitutional duty. If elected, he will certainly make sure that never happens again. Don't forget what Clark, his pick for Attorney General said when told there would be widespread riots if the election were overturned despite no evidence of fraud having been found: "that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act".

Forget all your libertarian obsessions about the economy and regulation. This is the question facing Americans at the coming election: do you believe that the American constitution (to some extent at least) protects your democratic rights and institutions? Because many people belonging to the rightwing side of your theoretical coin have realised that Donald Trump does not care at all about the constitution, thinks nothing of demanding that his followers betray their oaths to it in order to get him into power (see Rusty Bowers et al), and would happily destroy US democracy. And if lifelong old-style Republicans (of your "conservative and libertarian ethos") have realised that this is so, and are prepared to vote for Biden, how does it happen that to you the two candidates (not parties) are just as bad as each other?

[wj]

I tend to agree with Jon Stewart. Whoever gets elected won't destroy or save the country. The odds are that we will muddle through regardless of who is elected.

For most of my 70+ years, I would agree with you. But what we are seeing today makes me think, for the first time, that we really could lose it all. On the optimistic side, the massive incompetence of the RWNJs would help keep that from happening. On the pessimistic side, there are enough crazies with heavy weapons that it could be seriously messy, even if they get smacked down in the end.

And all that assumes that the rest of the world will be much the same as it has been for the last half century, even if the US has retreated into isolationism. Which isn't the way the smart money bets. What we see when we emerge might be far nastier than what we see at the moment (Russia today notwithstanding).

[russell]

January 6th was a bunch of knuckleheads and opportunistic sightseers rambling about the Capitol. Very offensive, but no risk of a coup regardless of what some people wanted.

What "some people wanted" was to prevent the legitimate winner of the 2020 election from acceding to the office of POTUS.

So less a coup than an autogolpe.

It failed partly because Pence couldn't bring himself to do his master's bidding. It failed mostly because a relatively small number of Capitol cops managed to prevent it from succeeding.

We were very very lucky.

Whoever gets elected won't destroy or save the country. The odds are that we will muddle through regardless of who is elected.

Humans have muddled through wars, progroms and holocausts, famines, plagues of all sorts. As a species, we're very resilient, even if many individuals - millions - didn't muddle quite as well.

I'm not sure "muddle through" is really the goal we should aspire to.

DJT clearly does not give a rat's ass about anything other than his own aggrandizement. Not one thing.

The man is a sociopath.

I recognize your distaste for government of any type that extends beyond the so-called "night watchman" level of engagement with society at large. I recognize it, and also recognize that it is a naive and in many ways childish and unworldly view of things.

The government you would be willing to hand over to DJT because "hey, what's the difference" would not be a night watchman government. It would be a large, expansive, and powerful government, corrupted to the goal of furthering the interests of DJT.

If you think things are bad under poor old liberal grand-dad Joe Biden, you have no idea how freaking bad they will be under Trump.

His first term was a warm-up.

[Pro Bono]

The Democratic Party seems enthralled to far-left progressives

I seriously don't get this. In what ways are the Ds in government not to the right of, say, David Cameron?

[Snarki, child of Loki]

"He, Trump and his lackeys in pursuit of stealing the election would have been enough to get them locked up slaughtered on the steps of the Capitol in any sane country."

FIFY. I, for one, hope that the Capitol Police stock up on flamethrowers and Vulcan rotary cannons in advance of next year.

Lots of traitors need killin'.

[Girl from the North Country]

I seriously don't get this. In what ways are the Ds in government not to the right of, say, David Cameron?

I am truly sorry to say that there is nothing to get, except for an absolute obliviousness to facts, and the meaning of words.

Just as, in yesterday's C4 News, I saw MAGA attenders of CPAC saying, in all seriousness, that DJT had been the greatest president in America's history, and that America had never been so great as under his presidency. Such people are living in a fantasy world, one of the features of which is that words such as "far-left progressives" have a meaning which is unrecogniseable to anyone at all outside that particular, mad bubble.

[wj]

Such people are living in a fantasy world, one of the features of which is that words such as "far-left progressives" have a meaning which is unrecogniseable to anyone at all outside that particular, mad bubble.

Allow me to offer an easy gloss: "far-left progressive" means "anybody who disagrees with me, unless they have somehow managed to be even more reactionary and authoritarian than I am -- which means I need to up my game!"

Does that help?