Thought Experiment 15 months in...

[ProudLib72]

Take the person you are now--the way you currently think about the country. Cast your mind back to the person you were prior to November 2016. Compare the two versions of yourself. Are you more jaded, more cynical now? Do you feel more despair? Would the 2016 version of yourself dislike the new version? Would the 2016 you think the current you is crazy, over the edge?

I'll go first...

Proudlib 1.0 was pessimistic by nature anyway. However, that version could not even fathom the depths of depravity our country would sink to in just over a year. Proudlib 1.0 would not believe Proudlib 2.0. Version 1.0 would be skeptical and think version 2.0 was making things up. Version 1.0 would know that the Orange Stain was going to be horrible, but version 2.0 actually feels it. I'm sure my current version would feel it was wasting its breath trying to convince the former version that I needed to wise up and start preparing for the absolute worst.

Your turn to mark the changes...

[lapfog_1]

1. Depressed...

and things are more or less exactly as I predicted on election night.

The only "surprise" is the depth of corruption exposed so far AND the lack of real outrage (or any outrage) by the elected members of the GOP.

[BigmanPigman]

2. BigmanPigman 2.0 is the same as 1.0.

I come from a family of realists. We are NOT pessimists as some would argue. I told everyone (you can ask them) that the fucking moron would win as soon as I saw him on that golden escalator ride down to the pits of Hell (aka tRump Tower). I knew it because I know how closed off, isolated, apathetic and just plain ignorant (willingly ignorant) Americans have become both individually and as a nation. I am angry and frustrated none the less, but not one bit surprised. I never underestimate the stupidity of the current, average American and will get worse before it gets better.

[ProudLib72]

4. I remember my wife going to bed the night of the election

It already looked bad. I stayed up hoping for a miracle. Proudlib 2.0 knows that there are no such things as miracles, only GOP machinations.

[onethatcares]

3. otc2018 is banging his head against walls

and trying to understand how my fellow Americans can support this guy. otc2016 never thought he would be elected, he thought better of citizens, as of this date he's still banging his head, he's trying not to get too depressed over the realization he is fucked, no matter how the next election turns out and that his fellow Americans ( percentage) really do want to get rid of the things that are good for them. otc2018 wonders what happened to the dreams of the 60s and the statesmen that once existed, otc2016 knew those statesmen weren't perfect but they worked for the common good at times. otc2018 is cynical, skeptical and sad,

[2naSalit]

5. 2naSalit 1.0

wasn't much different from 2.0, just more certain that the depression is for good reason and that, as usual, nobody who would need to be convinced to vote a certain way doesn't care to listen in the first place, I seem to have some kind of invisibility feature that's made me go unheard most of my life.

So, as a political scientist, I have been generally nauseous since the selection, far more so than when W was selected - which back then I felt was the prelude to this admin, Obama wasn't supposed to happen but did. What still haunts me is why Obama didn't blow the whole thing wide open long before the election.

The more you know about government and politics, the more horrifying this whole catastrophuck is.

[ProudLib72]

6. Proudlib 1.0 had taken a single PoliSci course in grad school

During W's reign of terror. The topic was US politics in the Middle East. That represented the extent to which Proudlib 1.0 had analyzed the far right agenda, and he was appalled at the time. Remember how outraged we were that Powell lied to congress? Those were the Halcyon days in comparison.

[2naSalit]

7. Yeah...

I was in the last year of my masters in polisci when he was selected.... I predicted the Iraq /Afghanistan wars that very day in December and talked my nephew out of joining the National Guard because I knew he'd be going to war. Fortunately he listened.