Full Eeyore

For classical liberals, a moment of peak demoralization.

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President Joe Biden on November 6, 2023 in Bear, Delaware. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

From time to time I’ll run across a pre-war newsreel and wonder how theatergoers of the day felt watching it. Was there meaningful dread at seeing things unravel politically in Europe and the Far East or tedium in the expectation that chances of a disaster were remote?

I would have been in the “dread” group, not because I’m perspicacious but because I’m pessimistic. And I would have reproached myself for just that reason: Someone prone to dread usually ends up worrying over nothing. 

Bear that in mind and discount my opinion accordingly when I say that this is the most discouraging moment conservatives of my bent have experienced since January 6, 2021.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Sadly this seems pretty apt

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  2. Mirabelle

    "It isn't time to worry yet."
    Atticus

    I'm curious about the decrease in lifespan worrying about politics causes.

    Maybe lay off reading JVL for awhile.

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  3. Wes.Bridges

    My kingdom for someone to stand athwart history and yell, "Stop!"

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      Eahay19

      Liz Cheney tried to. One person alone can’t do it. The situation is too big for one person to prevent. She committed political suicide doing so, and it didn’t perceptibly move the needle at all. The situation is too far gone for a single person to change, and I fear what that means for my beautifully imperfect country that I love.

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  4. Wes.Bridges

    Yesterday's debacle in Virginia did nothing to improve my mood.

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    Simon J. Dodd

    The only thing that might stop Trump, the one narrow shaft of light descending from the heavens and bearing the faint resemblance of an actuarial table, is the thing no one wants to be so gauche as to say aloud: That the fat f*ck might just *die*. (It's okay. I can say that. I'm Porcine-American myself.) Short of that, I see nothing changing the dynamics of this race.

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      Eahay19

      Or changing the dynamics of this country’s political, cultural, and social outlook. The social outlook is what I’m afraid of the most, because the political and cultural outcomes follow downstream from the social outcome.

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    PSM

    I share your dejected outlook. At times, I've had slivers of optimism that perhaps this utter mess would provide sufficient enthusiasm and support for a third party candidate, but then I look at the various candidates being bandied about, and some are nuts (Kennedy) and others are wildly uncharismatic (Hogan), and I just feel dejected again.

    At one point, I had not just hope but confidence that our armed forces would refuse an unconstitutional order in a second Trump term, but then I see the social media posts from my friends that serve, and I am dejected again.

    Seeing the rampant illiberalism on both sides of the aisle leaves me wondering if the American experiment has run its course, and we've crumbled from within. The one sliver of hope I can cling to is that we've had bad and illiberal periods in our history and made it through before; I have to assume people living through those times felt the same way we do now.

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      Eahay19

      That’s a truly chilling thought… that this beautifully imperfect, far-seeing, awfully wonderful, optimistic, and gorgeously flawed American experiment might have already run it’s course and died, and we’re sitting here unknowingly but viciously trying to fight over the scraps. That thought depresses me more than any other right now.

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  7. RGS

    I have mixed feelings about last night's big win for Dems. I'm glad the extreme pro-lifers are being repudiated. But the strong Dem showing makes a Biden candidacy even more likely. If the opinion polls are right, that's a disaster for us all.

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      Eahay19

      But which is the worse disaster, a Biden presidency or a Trump presidency?

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      1. RGS

        As someone who has never voted for a Democratic president, the choice is still simple for me: I will take someone who at least rhetorically adheres to the principles of democracy, no matter what his policies, than someone who would trash it without the slightest care. Whether I can actually get myself to pull the lever for Biden is another question.

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    Marty

    A recent poll on a three-way race -- Biden, Trump, Kennedy -- showed Kennedy taking more votes from Trump than from Biden, with Biden winning the plurality, Trump second, and Kennedy third (with a remarkable 22% of the popular vote). That's grounds for hope, I think.

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      Simon J. Dodd

      A ray of hope, to be sure, but an awfully thin, tenuous one.

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        Marty

        These days, I'll take anything I can get. :-)

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  9. Grafakos

    A red wave was widely predicted last year. We all know how that turned out. I'm not sure I believe the polls this time around are any more accurate, especially a full year before the election.

    Still discouraging that these two geriatric geezers (and these two horrible political parties) are the only choices available.

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    BloggerBarbie

    I don't know what to do about the election. Or about the real problem, which is the culture that's put us in this position. I hate everything about this world we've created over the last few decades. Maybe the Democrats need to draft a Kardashian to even up the playing field and put us all on the same level of populist taste. Kardashian/Hilton 2024. And sadly enough, with the other choice being Trump, I'd vote for them.

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