I agree that if people explain why they're more confident, as opposed to treating people disrespectfully who are sharing worried positions, then it's a chance to calm someone's nerves, rather than to dismiss someone's concerns.
But I think kneejerk doomposting doesn't help either, and can be so detrimental to mental health. Over the last four years this site has had way too many people suffering from legitimate feelings of self-harm, and I think that our habit of doomposting, always thinking the worst, and never level setting when something doesn't turn out as bad as we were projecting it would in our doomposts, legitimately harms mental health. I also think there's like a "Despair Olympics," where people try to out despair one another in an almost braggy way, like one upping the previous person on your level of despair and hopelessness, and then treating people who try to level-set as if they're the enemy... Like they're really Trump supporters because they believe the institutions will prevail.
This community has a strong share of people who have significant mental health challenges, and I think that the content that's often shared on here by people who are trying to outdo one another sharing despair contributes to that. 18-24 months ago there was a legitimate problem in this community of members talking about harming themselves, it's the only internet community that I've ever been a part of where it was this common of a problem. Sometimes if you have an anxious feeling, sharing it publicly to other people who also have anxious feelings doesn't actually help someone else's anxiety, it makes it worse. At the same time, downplaying anxiety, dismissing it, or worse, making fun of someone who shares an anxious feeling doesn't help anyone. Always try to take two seconds to educate someone why you're not as anxious about something, as opposed to just dismissing their feelings outright. At the same time for those sharing anxious feelings that might not be connected to reality: There's no reward for being right. Your anxiety might be right 1 out of 1000 times. Maybe you're anxious about flying, and you take 1000 flights in your life and before every flight you tell your loved ones that "I have a bad feeling about this flight..." And 999 times you land safely. But, the 1000th time, the plane blows up in midair and you die. Congratulations, your prediction that "you have a bad feeling about this flight" came to fruition, but you being wrong 999 times and finally right on the 1000th flight doesn't change the fact that you're dead, but those 999 times that you told a loved one "I have a bad feeling about this flight," made their anxiety worse those 999 prior times. So, what's the value in being right? Nothing.
"Doomposting" can sometimes be this: Predicting the worst outcome possible every time so that the one time that your worst outcome comes to fruition you feel like you can at least take some solace in the fact that "You predicted it! You knew it was coming! You got it right!" But there's no solace there, it doesn't actually make you feel better when that bad situation comes. We have a habit of self-selecting the times we got it right over the thousands of times before that we got it wrong, but the predictions don't change anything.
When it comes to the American election and the transition of power from Trump to Biden, I think that what Trump is doing is the worst thing that any president has done in well over a century. It's unprecedented. It's an abuse of power. It makes us, as Americans, less safe. It's an attack on our norms and Democratic values. Further, Trump has been insulated from reality by power-hungry Republicans who feel like it's in their interest to "Troll the libs" and that trolling the libs is better than actually trying to protect AMerican democracy. It's disheartening. But I also think it's the death throes of an administration. It's an Administration which is clearly defeated and on it's way out throwing one last tantrum. For anybody with kids, it's those times that your toddler absolutely freaks the fuck out when you're trying to put pants on them in the morning, that one last convulsion and window-rattling scream, before they submit and quietly suck their thumb and realize "oh.. pants aren't as bad as I was letting on a minute ago."
Here's a small handful of things to be optimistic about that we had been doomposting
before the election:
- The Russians did not hack our elections. How many articles in the last 4 years did you read about how the Russians were infiltrating election systems, and it could potentially unenroll Democratic voters? How many articles did you read about insecure election voting machines that could flip votes and cause chicanery? That didn't happen. More people voted in 2020 than at any time in American history. More Democrats voted than in any election ever.
- COVID did not prevent a wholesale shutdown of our election system. Remember that fear? That Trump would try to unilaterally cancel the election on the grounds of COVID?
- We feared mobs of militia, "3 percenters," Boogaloo Boys, and others, would try to cause a race war on election day or in the days following, firing at vote counters, causing chaos. That didn't happen. Election day was ... routine, mundane. The vote counting, again, was ... routine. SUre, there were protesters and counter-protesters, but, like, we didnt' even have a "Brooks Brothers Riot" like we had in 2000, so far.
- The potential for an eviction crisis did not enfranchise voters as we were worried about. There was a fear that Republicans were intentionally not passing stimulus to force voters into eviction which would then nullify their mail in ballots because they wouldn't live in those precincts anymore. That didn't happen.
- The election played our predictably and was a huge success for our Democratic institutions, state by state. Experts all predicted we wouldn't know the result until Saturday after election, and then, right on the nose at 11:45 AM EST Joe Biden was president elect.
- Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia all flipped in the days after the election, as most experts predicted they would. Arizona has held off, as most experts predicted they would.
Why am I confident that there will be a transition to Joe Biden? States have started to validate their votes officially. That process continues for the next 30 days or so. It's seemingly going on like clockwork. Trump is... what... 0/16 in court cases? 1/16 maybe? His one victory is phyrric, it's the case that's going to keep ballots submitted after election day separate in Pennsylvania. But, Biden already leads from ballots collected before or on election day. Trump's legal bills aren't being paid, his lawyers are giving up. There's more stories about Trump's failure than his success, far more stories about failure. Trump knows he lost, it's why he says he's going to run again in 2024. As we all know, Trump can't run in 2024 if he lost in 2020. Trump tries to project the reality that he wants to believe, and he says thiings over and over trying to make that reality so. Trump lives in a world that if he says something is real over and over and over and over, then he believes that it makes it real, and many of his supporters live in this world too... But, by and large, at least 10million more Americans
don't live in this world, and increasingly more and more people are saying "eh ... give it up man." You've had major editorials in the WAll Street Journal, the National Review, and on FOX News the last 5 days basically saying "Donald, you're the greatest president of all time ... but ... you lost this one, it's time to move on." Sure, the people he surrounds himself with won't admit it, but they're getting ready to move on.
Trump has every interest in trying to destroy the country if he can't be at the top of it. But every day he slips further and further from his fantasy reality. Want something to look forward to? There's a legitimate, strong chance that COVID is going to be greatly reduced come March. Just a few months away. Vaccine trials have been more successful than many thought they would be and while not everybody in the country will have access to a vaccine in the next 6 months, enough people will and they'll be effective enough where you will truly see an improvement and the chance that most communities are "bad to normal" by April, May, or June is much higher than we thought just a few months ago. And, an even better thing? Donald Trump is going to be in forced retirement, and it was our anxious asses who retired him.
