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Wellness Wednesday for November 6, 2024

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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I voted for Harris and I'm annoyed that I have to deal with 4 more years of Trump, but I'm mostly fine. I am even looking at the silver lining a bit since he has some interesting people in his orbit.

But all of my liberal friends are so bummed. I'm not sure what to do about it. I kind of want to take them and just shake them a bit and say look everything will be fine. Stop believing the propaganda. We're not descending to Christian fascism! We're not going to have a national abortion ban! This will almost certainly not affect your life in any way! Nothing ever happens!

But I think that might be the wrong approach.

I guess I'll let them process their grief and come out of their shell when they're ready.

In the meantime, my urge to troll right now is 11/10 since a small part of me uncharitably considers these displays as very histrionic grief vanity. But I am resisting, for now.

I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that a Trump admin would almost certainly not affect liberals complaining about it, or that a descent into fascism is so ridiculous as to be hysterical. Based on his past record, this is blatantly not true. I don't think you could actually state the former confidently about any president in history, unless you want to make a larger point that the executive branch doesn't wield any meaningul power.

But a few examples that clearly dispel your point. He had a hand in appointing SC justices who overturned federal abortion access. This affected women across the country in states that are not solidly blue. You might say they could still travel or access things illegally, but this is already a sizable effect. Further to that point, unless you want to argue the Supreme Court has no effect on any of these people's lives and could not for their foreseeable lifespans, it seems a strange argument to make that their lives will not be affected at all. Are you that confident the SC will dither meaninglessly for 40 years?

Trump's recent tariff comments. 10% tariffs on imported goods would have an incredible effect on the economy at large, and jobs nationally and internationally.

Perhaps most importantly, he whipped up a crowd around the Capitol and pressured his VP to ignore election results. What do you think might have happened if Mike Pence had agreed to go along with Trump on his scheme? You have to admit it kinda takes the sting out of mocking your friends for worrying about an end to democracy when the guy they're worried about actively already tried to end democracy as it is practiced in this country.

'Nothing ever happens' is the retreat of someone who has not yet been greatly personally affected by policy.

But a few examples that clearly dispel your point. He had a hand in appointing SC justices who overturned federal abortion access. This affected women across the country in states that are not solidly blue. You might say they could still travel or access things illegally, but this is already a sizable effect.

The bomb was already dropped though, in 2020. How would electing Harris in 2024 have changed the impact of this at all? The token conservatve flagship issue was achieved and isn't getting restored without an enormous political shift the other way.

Further to that point, unless you want to argue the Supreme Court has no effect on any of these people's lives and could not for their foreseeable lifespans, it seems a strange argument to make that their lives will not be affected at all. Are you that confident the SC will dither meaninglessly for 40 years?

What issues do you have in mind?

I thought we were discussing the impact of Trump as president vs the counterfactual world where a democrat is president. Abortion does not get repealed with a left leaning SC which would be the case under a democratic president. So clearly the trump presidency had an impact in this regard.

I notice I'm a bit confused by your response. You admit that the abortion change was a pretty big swing. Do you think there's no issues at all remaining on Trump's/republicans agenda for this presidency that will differ significantly from a Democrat? The tariffs and not certifying elections are still points to implement that would affect a lot of people. If RFK gets into some important FDA adjacent position, changes to water fluoridation or vaccine availability will have large impacts on publish health.

If you really want to focus on the SC, I can't predict the future cases that will arise there. But it should be enough to look at their past rulings to determine that they have an impact on a non negligible amount of people.

Obergefell was held up when it became contentious again in the 2010s. If that law had been repealed, do you think it has no impact on people? If it was repealed 3 years from now, would that be enough impact for you to consider?

Based on his past record, this is blatantly not true.

I disagree. His past record shows that his presidency will not be significantly different from any other.

Really? Which other president in recent memory came anywhere close to denying the certification of an election?

I made a few points demonstrating why I think his presidency was exceptional. If you want to disagree, do you want to provide your own reasoning?

Stop believing the propaganda.

This is a good message. I've called out more-liberal friends on this one, at least when the propaganda is really obviously objectively false, to good effect. I don't think I've completely convinced anyone that "the fact that someone as smart as you falls for this stuff so easily once you identify it as being on Our Side is also why you should cut Trump voters a little more slack about the stuff they fall for", but at least there's motion in the right direction. I think this comes easier from me (Libertarian voter, can steelman Trump but would still pick Harris for "lesser of two evils" if I was in a swing state) than it would from an actual Trump supporter, but if you actually cast your vote for Harris then you're in an even better position to insist that you're offering constructive rather than malicious criticism. When the Boy Who Cried Wolf finally gets eaten, IMHO it's perfectly fine to point out that his prior lies were part of the problem and that you don't have to be Pro-Wolves-Eating-People to notice.

We're not descending to Christian fascism!

Also probably true, and personally I'd note the "we have to take away Musk's companies" and "we have to ban The Misinformation" style left-wing fascism while I was pointing it out. But I've never gotten the chance, since I'm not friends with anyone this panicked, and if you do then being very careful about how you try to calm them down might indeed be the way to go here for the sake of the friendships.

We're not going to have a national abortion ban!

Maybe not? Probably not anything sweeping. But I wouldn't be surprised to see something relatively weak, third trimester with rape/incest exceptions or something. With a decent Republican lead in the Senate and probably a small lead in the house, there's at least a chance.

This will almost certainly not affect your life in any way!

And this is almost certainly wrong. It won't be the most important thing in most people's lives, but the federal government writes laws by the thousand and writes regulations by the million and spends dollars by the trillion. Even the second and third order effects on people not directly impacted can be huge.

But I wouldn't be surprised to see something relatively weak, third trimester with rape/incest exceptions or something. With a decent Republican lead in the Senate and probably a small lead in the house, there's at least a chance.

I can't see Democratic senators skipping the filibuster on an abortion ban, Republicans not having three or four Senators flake if the rest of the Republicans try to nuke the filibuster over it, and then there's the lawsuits. The 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban had a third of the Dem Senate cross over to get passed, as a comparison.

That said, I think there are stronger examples. At the regulatory level, I'd expect to see the EMTALA abortion rule nixed, either by the Trump admin removing the rule and/or refusing to support it, and there's a variety of funding levers that can get tweaked (at least until the APA challenge) even if 'officially' no Medicaid money was supposed to have gone to abortion. There's likely to be a lot changed on trans matters, whether through judicial avenues (Skrmetti's getting heard in December, but there's a number of follow-up cases slotted in) or regulatory ones (compare the Dear Colleague letter volleyball). College debt delays and forgiveness might not have survived judicial review moving forward, but they're definitely not going to survive a Trump admin.

And there's a lot of stuff on this sorta path in a variety of spheres. Some of them are unlikely for structural reasons -- a lot of people have tried to pull Project 2025's radfem porn opposition as likely to result in active prosecutions or financial chicanery that the Trump admin just won't be able to pull the DoJ or CFPB into focusing on -- but most of them much more plausible. Sometimes just because the Biden admin made such hilariously aggressive rules, and these people are upset that they're going to lose the benefits of them. But that's still a thing with impact.

This will almost certainly not affect your life in any way!

And this is almost certainly wrong. It won't be the most important thing in most people's lives, but the federal government writes laws by the thousand and writes regulations by the million and spends dollars by the trillion. Even the second and third order effects on people not directly impacted can be huge.

I should say, won't matter in any legible way versus the counter-factual.

Like, obviously inflation affected people but it is debatable whether this would have been worse than high unemployment, and it's not clear at all that Biden would have done one and Trump would have done the other.