Story time.
I filmed the Trump inauguration, in particular a team of us split up and covered the various groups participating in “Disrupt J20.”
Each of us followed a different “group” - someone hung with the LGBT focused protestors, another with indigenous peoples, etc. I hung out with…let’s say the tough and rowdy folks (I’m a white dude who had made a very convincing laminated press pass. My work was legitimate but we didn’t have formal credentials in time for this coverage so we sort of landed on a grey area tactic on that front). “Black bloc” is what they settled on for their own little banner of sorts. Lots of covered faces.
It was an exciting but generally not dangerous day. DC police are actually pretty good at de-escalating/handling situations that are escalating with a pretty firm but not power tripping response. I do not like giving any police credit, but I can tell you firsthand that they were not going to make the situation worse. At least not anything I saw. This is not an endorsement other than to say they clearly had experience and common sense from what we saw in the specific matter of handling massive organized protests. I only say this because I’ll always give credit where credit is due and more you’ll see later.
I filmed folks break windows of BofA, a trash can was thrown and lit on fire, it got rowdy but even so it sort of capped itself off. The group self regulated and it never got truly violent.
All of this is to say that there was one moment where I truly felt concerned for my life. NRA TV showed up. These guys were cosplaying like they were walking straight out of Kabul, it was insane. Then a bunch of MAGA-hat wearing folks came up to me while I was filming an interview encircled me. The interviewee was a black woman who clearly was becoming increasingly uncomfortable and pushed away out of the circle. Before I could step away, one of them grabbed my shoulder and screamed “fuck you fake news!” and pushed me. I immediately threw my hands up and said “do not fucking touch me I am a member of the press” and one of them shouted “you’ll get what you deserve race traitor.” At this point (callback to the top of this comment) a DC police officer started walking over and clearly looked concerned. He looked at me and I nodded and he moved a little faster. This is not bullshit, it happened.
I am relieved to say they all walked off quickly and left me alone after that. But it was the first time in my life I ever felt like my line of work was dangerous. After my first kid was born I stopped covering protests, I’m sad to say.
Images like this show why it’s so important to vote
Voting Vs “My vote doesn’t matter anyways.” or “They’re all the same anyways.”
And for those of you who are in a similar situation as me, where your presidential vote for the most part doesn’t matter (Trump’s going to win by a minimum of 15 points in my state), your votes on down ballot issues do matter.
Local and state elections are where change starts. So get out there and vote, even if it’s mostly doing harm reduction.
The same is true for blue states.
If your vote is not important because your state is locked in on a presidential candidate, local issues / candidates are worth voting on. They can have a more direct impact on your day to day.
you could also vote for a different president candidate, like “none of the above” while voting for a local candidate you do like.
Why would that mean anything?
There are really only three choices. Democrat, Republican, and “I don’t care you guys pick”.
It’s doesn’t mean anything because that’s what everyone thinks the choices are.
If someone other than D or R started to get some serious traction, you could see a snowball over 8-12 years.
Not really, the feedback cycle is that as a third party gains traction, the party most similar will lose support till the other party will dominate. This still continues till the third party quits or takes over and the previous pary stops.
This leads to Republicans sponsoring third parties more similar to Democrats and Democrats sponsoring parties more similar to Republicans.
The only way to get out of this cycle is to implement some other sort of voting, ranked choice for example. I’m all for that, but until then, voting third party will only hurt the ideology closest party.
harris’s will be more packed than obama’s
Queen Elizabeth II:
No, no, no… The orange man has assured me that it was the biggest crowd of all time. Probably more people than had ever been in one place at the same time. And he surely wouldn’t lie to me.
2021 had very few people because of corona.
2021 had very few people because of corona
Just another day of Biden supporters repeating claims trump supporters used to make.
Biden didn’t get elected because people wanted him to be president, he got elected because in the general he was the only option not named trump.
Expecting him to draw a crowd like 08 Obama is just ridiculous
They actively discouraged people from coming because of corona. That’s why it isn’t comparable.
Also it was weeks after January 6th, security was high and I’m sure everyone who was there was on edge imagining a crazy MAGA supporter with a gun or a bomb.
But even without that stuff, Biden never had what Obama had in 08.
People travelled from all over, it was a huge deal and people were literally celebrating in the streets nationwide.
Some of that was because we getting rid of GW, but most of it was excitement about Obama.
In 2020 there wasn’t excitement from anyone, just relief.
I was at George W.'s inauguration with a school group, and it wasn’t as packed as Obama’s but it blew Trump’s out of the water, and it was cold and windy AF.
I was at George W.'s inauguration
Washington? Wow.
must has been the second one
**Lmfao
I wonder if it confuses the shit out of foreigners when we refer to Bush Jr. As George W.
It ain’t George Washington. President George Washington always gets his name stated, no abbreviation.
I was pretty sure it was gonna be a shit show as soon as the election results came in, but the fact the dumbass lied so obviously and pathetically only hours into his term really ironed in how fucked the next four years were gonna be.
Reminds me of Spicy’s first presser…. His tone and attitude had me immediately realize the next 4 years would be rough…
