Goredho

I've owned 3 reverends, still own 2, and they are great guitars. Probably my favorite brand at the $1000 new price point.

Yep. What I am observing are small business owners in small towns and everyone downstream from them on the local economic ladder. Not just the guy that owns the plow service, but the drivers that work for him. Not just the excavating company owner, but the workers he hires. Or not just the souvenir shop owner, but the employees that man it. Life isn't better for them than it ever has been here in the mountains of Colorado. I am not making that up for internet points or whatever. They are struggling more today than they were pre-pandemic and they voted for change -- any change. That is the reality here. Your mileage may vary.

I am not trying to piss you off. "Intardnet" was not meant to be disparaging to you personally, its my generic term for the internet these days. And I am making a proverbial you statement about people sharing their limited experiences on the internet like its gospel. It applies to me, too. Your observations are your observations and I am not saying they are wrong given what you are observing, just that they don't align with my observations. If you interacted with the people I am around, you would have a different set of observations and potentially a different opinion. If I interacted with the people you are around, I would have a different set of observations and maybe a different opinion. I still love and respect you, bud, but will go fuck myself as requested. Now to find some good pr0n...

That's the sum total of it for the vast majority of Trump voters. Not all, but most.

Um, I'm pretty sure Prima Nocta has been your mom's platform for quite awhile now 😜

Agree, good post.

How do we know that isn't happening? I mean, the dildo thread is full of unsubstantiated memes like this. Who knows where they are coming from? It could be a racist piece of shit emboldened by Trump, could be Russia using his win as an opportunity to sow chaos and fear, could be someone just in it for the lulz or it could be people on the left taking a page from the Trump playbook to use manufactured fear and anger to try to fuel a movement. The scariest part? I don't have a strong sense of which of those is most likely true. We live in a post-factual world now, and the disinformation genie is not going back into the bottle.

:shrugs: I guess your experiences are very different from mine. As for my "mansplaining", I don't know how what I am saying from my own observations is any different from what you are saying from your observations. At any rate, you can tell me how many people are living better than ever, but that does not align with what I personally witness in what is essentially a rural white ghetto. It does align with the lives of people in my professional circles, and the people I know back in urban areas with relatively healthy economies. So I'll have to continue to trust my own direct observations vs your intardnet posts. Feel free to respond to my posts or not, I don't really care. One thing this election cycle certainly shows is that Surly is a really poor lens through which to keep tabs on and understand the broader world.

Yeah, this is a big part of the problem. People like you (and I) want to tell people how they should feel about the reality they are living. I am not saying Biden/Harris caused their problems or Trump is going to fix their problems, but you are saying, "Yeah, they don't have a problem." I over the top vehemently disagree with that position. I see a very different daily life experience for many, many people than what you describe. Not for the lawyers, doctors, engineers and other relatively wealthy professionals that dominate the conversations here. But for the person trying to make it in a small town with a small business. You can say their lives are great all you want, but... it's just not for a lot of people. I have tangible, first hand experience witnessing a reality different than what you choose to believe in. Anyway, I am not trying to convince you, you are fine to preserve your opinion, but sitting in a house on the hill and looking down at everyone in the valley below and saying they've never had it so good is a HUGE part of the problem. If you are truly interested in understanding what's going on in this country, I would encourage you to drive to a small, economically depressed town and going to the locals coffee shop. Get a coffee, be quiet and still, and just listen to the conversations around you.

This is a really good post. Bottom line, democrats need to quit focusing on Trump and Republicans and focus on themselves and voters. All the project 2025 stuff, yeah, its scary. But they are hypothetical problems that have not yet manifested. And you are trying to get people to act on them when they have real, tangible financial problems today. It truly was the economy, stupid. Just like covid economic impacts, inflation wasn't evenly distributed or felt. Living in a rural area, I can attest that prices went up way more in the shitty grocery store in our nearest town (population 1,006) than they did in a Safeway in Denver. There are just more logistics involved in getting goods to the shitty rural grocer in the middle of a food desert, and each hop on the way, an inflationary bump was tacked on to what the consumer ultimately paid. I still make a city salary, I didn't feel that much of a pinch. But people around here who are trying to make a living locally, it has been a time of famine. Dems need to focus on connecting to the voting masses and communicating with them, especially those that are moving away from the party. They need to listen more than they talk. They need to be at least as educable as they want to educate. Then they need to work with those voters to form policies to make their lives better. Not theoretically better according to traditional government statistics and reports. They need different metrics that reflect the pain being felt by different demographics. They need metrics not skewed by being inclusive of people like us who aren't feeling the pain and who will ultimately be fine either way. What was really on the ballot was traditional, mainstream governance vs radical, unknown change, and voters overwhelmingly chose radical, unknown change. Because their lives have continued to get shittier with traditional, mainstream governance. So democrats trying to sell fear of the opponent and hope through re-election didn't resonate as much as Trump just saying, "America has gone to hell." HIs message aligned more with their daily experience. So I think for many, it came down to, "Do I vote for this switcheroo preaching a feel good kumbaya message that doesn't align with the reality I am experiencing? Or do I vote for this asshole who at least accurately describes the reality I am experiencing and who says he'll fix it?" Those are not nazis, misogynists, bigots or racists. Those are people struggling to make ends meet and afford the lifestyle they had pre-pandemic. Maybe Trump gives them all the dildo of consequences, and if he does, they will grow disillusioned with him just as they did both parties in their mainstream form. Then maybe the message of MAGA doom will resonate with them. But I think that's generally a losing proposition. I mean, there is no guarantee that Trump fucks them over, or that they are able to connect the dots to see who is fucking them and why. Dems have lost the trust and faith of the common man, and its going to take a radical change within the party to win that back. The silver lining is actually Trump himself. If he can takeover and reimagine the Republican party in a a populist fashion, then someone can do it to the Democratic party. But it aint going to come about through the usual suspects conducting political business as usual.

Last post of mine here before I take a break and focus energy into more productive pursuits. So I am obviously not happy about how things turned out, but I do see two good things resulting from last night's election. First, that it was a Trump win by a comfortable margin means that we aren't going to have a January 6th repeat unless the left wants to do their best MAGA impersonation. I would be surprised if they do. That means there's some time before anything big happens. Second, there will be no more hypotheticals to be afraid of. The house is still in the air, but Trump's movement is looking set to hold all branches of the federal government. That means they will have very little impediment to getting whatever they want done, done. This means there will be no more illusions. If they start using project 2025 as their governance punch list, it will be apparent and real for a lot of people who ultimately wound up viewing it as a hypothetical vs real danger. Beyond that, there's not much else to say. Change is undoubtedly coming, but maybe it's not as bad as we envisioned. Maybe some of it is good. Either way, I wish everyone peace and safety across the turbulence that will be coming.

Look at Colorado, look at the ballot measure election results. Everything I voted for passed and everything I voted against failed. If you wind up not wanting to raise your daughter in CO, you likely don't want to raise her anywhere in the U.S.

I am not generally a religious or spiritual person, but I choose to believe YGIFS has gone full Obi Wan and is doing his part from beyond the veil.

Is this your Arnold Palmer moment?

Uh, for @Underdog's sake, lets hope that @BearSchlong's username doesn't check out.

THEY'RE EATING THE VOTES

Yep, I thought I knew of 9, but it’s going to be more like 6.

Well, you could do that. Or you could go to Chili's early and get a head start on a Chris Farley death bender of chili cheese fries and mexican martinis. Take the gummy with you as a coup de grace should Trump win. I wish I could tell you it will be painless.

Give yourself credit. I wouldn't view the opinions expressed in this thread as indicative of anything except how a bunch of damn lawyers feel about the great American divorce .

What a long, strange trip it’s been.

Hey guys, anyone got any extra hopium lying around? I think I’m building up a tolerance.

I don’t disagree.

I got starlink in and set up at our place in the Colorado Mountains and... its a damn good product. Went from <30mbs and unable to connect to the work vpn to over 200mbs and able to work from home again. I wish Elon wasn't such a fucking asshole.