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Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague
I'm torn about it, because my whole thing right now is that President Trump represents every possible bad outcome up to and including an existential threat to humanity, in my view.
I know it sounds hyperbolic, but I actually think he's so erratic, so unpredictable and so narcissistic that he's completely disconnected from the real world results of his decisions. In other words, I think Mike Pence, or basically anyone else who might have decision making authority, would have a sense of awe and terror at the prospect that they might catastrophically screw up human existence on a total or near total scale. I don't think Trump has that kind of sense, that reality won't weigh on him.
I'm not saying I think there's a significant chance of an extinction event (though he has nukes, so it's not zero either), but what he does could end up seriously damaging our civilization, to a point where what life looks like doesn't much resemble what it looks like at the moment. People are currently failing to process that risk owing to a combination of normalcy bias, a lack of any frame of reference for how terrible things can become with a few major ill-considered decisions, and just not wanting to think about the prospect.
So while Pence is certain to be worse for some peoples' rights - gays and women among them - we're all likely to be alive at the end of the day. To reiterate the metaphor from that video I and Enoch Root posted earlier, if at the end of this Presidency, the plane is on the ground and we're all alive, that's enough for me; I don't care if I've got a concussion from hitting my head during the landing, or even broken an arm.
So if Pence wielding more influence gives us a better chance of walking away from this one, wounded or otherwise, I think the downsides just have to be borne, and fixed to the extent possible under the next President (or next Congress if anything can be done there in the interim).
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I get what you're saying, for humanity at large, Trump is obviously the bigger issue. For a straight man living in Canada, obviously Trump is the bigger problem.
For a woman or a gay person or a trans person living in the US, however, we have Mike Pence who tried to take money earmarked for HIV treatment and instead wanted to give it to groups that perform conversion therapy on gay/trans youths. Conversion therapy that leads to a not insignificant amount of suicides, as well as many unsuccessful attempts. He tried to throw gay couples in jail just for
attempting to obtain a marriage licence. In his desperate need to punish Planned Parenthood because he doesn't agree with their mission, he managed to spark an HIV outbreak, and I'm sure that will cost lives, because rural Indiana is unlikely to be an easy place to get HIV treatment, especially if the GOP manages to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
While I understand what you mean about Trump and nukes, and that is obviously a massive concern--that he has Pence as his running mate and that he's putting someone else who is blatantly against LGBT rights as the head of his domestic policy is terrifying to people. Because while Trump is a loose cannon, it's very possible that we manage to keep him under control and that he doesn't start WW3.
But as of right now, there is nothing stopping the ultra conservative GOP Congress/House from influencing domestic policy that makes life much harder for a lot of people. I really need people who aren't directly affected by all of those consequences to stop acting as if it's a silly concern to have.