In some places, you're not an adult until you climb up a tree, stick your hand into a beehive, and steal a fistful of honeycomb. — Baden

Ha! I'm an adult then, sorta. True story, I once leaned over to the right putting my hand and full body weight on a wasp's nest. YEOOOOOOOOOOWWWWW! No honeycomb, but I'm still some kind of adult. A stupid one probably.

Thanks Michael and Jamalrob.

Jamalrob, I voted for Sarah Palin because she can see Russia from her backyard. :-) So your application is accepted.

Could commentators please share the following information about themselves?

1) Have you ever been to America?

2) At what point in American history did you become an adult?

My answer, lived in America my entire life, came to maturity during the Vietnam War.

If only the Democrats had the cojones to fully embrace the label and be a communist party... — Baphomet

Exactly, what we need in America is to follow the example of Cuba and Venezuela! Brain dead cojones, that's what is needed!!!

What can Biden do to "unite" this country then? — Baphomet

He can not go to the podium every day to tell blatant lies while jamming his finger in to the eyes of everyone he's ever met for our entertainment.

I'm seriously questioning whether the current Biden win may in fact not be worse than a Trump victory — StreetlightX

Which of the two do you want in control of America's nuclear weapons? It's amazing to me that all the oh so very clever analysts here and elsewhere can't seem to stay focused on the biggest threat to modern civilization for more than 10 seconds. Biden too, same thing, barely a mention.

Yes, yes, I know, I know, you feel Biden is a baby killing war criminal with blood dripping from his satanic fangs etc etc blah, blah, blah. But he didn't just fire the Sec of Defense for no rational reason at a time of maximum vulnerability. Biden may be highly objectionable to leftie progressives, ok, but no one is questioning Biden's sanity.

Boring Biden is just what the country needs right now, not more hysterical screaming by the extremist "one true way" partisans on all sides.

There's been something quite beautiful about watching Trump's presidency being slowly euthanized by cold hard numbers and irrefutable facts, not so much going out with a bang but an untrustworthy liquid fart. — Baden

It ain't over until it's over. He just fired the Sec of Defense, not an encouraging sign.

Quite to the contrary, their lack of virtue is often considered an argument in their favor, as they serve as conduits for the anger of their supporters. It's not who they are as people - it's what they stand for as figureheads. — Echarmion

It might be helpful to think of Trump as the lead singer in a rock band. Think Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, almost the inventors of modern white rock n roll. Jagger's job is to channel the egos of the audience. Recall Jagger strutting around the stage and the faces he makes etc, all pure expressions of ego. The egos of we the audience have been beaten in to submission by centuries of social pressure. But our ego is still very much there and Jagger's job is to give it's real nature a public expression. We applaud wildly upon seeing our true self in the spotlight up upon the stage.

Channeling the egos of thousands of fans or millions of followers is a very heavy drug for the performer too. Jagger seems too smart to have been sucked in to actually believing the ego story he is weaving, but many performers do get sucked in and in one way or another overdose on all the ego energy they are channeling. They drink themselves to death, dope themselves to death, blow their brains out with a shotgun etc.

This is probably what's happening to Trump. Like many of us here on this forum, he's quite intelligent and very clever, but emotionally unsophisticated. And so when thousands of total strangers go wild for him at his rallies, he buys in to it, he takes the bait and believes the story. The first job of any successful salesman is to sell themselves to themselves.

At first I thought all this business about the election being rigged was just another one of Trump's games. Now I'm thinking he's probably having an ego meltdown, while his family works quietly behind the scenes trying to bring him back down to Earth. The concert's over, the lights came up, and everyone is leaving the auditorium, but Trump can still hear Keith Richards grinding the groove behind him, and he's just not quite ready to stop strutting.

I can't get no...
Fake news action!!!
No, no, no!

The sun rises in the east. A simple, readily observable provable fact. Except that the sun doesn't rise.

From one perspective the answer is clearly yes. From another perspective the answer is clearly no.

although I’ve come to appreciate Bush snr’s lack of ego. — Wayfarer

Yes, Jeb is much like his father. Decent guy, competent at governing, but not such a great candidate. Anyway, the Bushes are over, so it doesn't really matter at this point.

I'm not convinced we're simply not able to cope. — Echarmion

What we fail to grasp about the knowledge explosion is that it feeds back upon itself, resulting in an accelerating process of change.

Yes, everyone will claim they know this already, but we don't think through the implications of what 'accelerating' really means. Accelerating means faster and faster. So if social change is unfolding at 80mph now, that will become 100mph, which will become 150mph, which will become 200mph etc. Accelerating means that the shift from 100mph to 200mph may happen faster than the shift from 50mph to 100mph.

A notion that we will be able to successfully manage this process requires the assumption that human beings will be able to also change at an ever accelerating pace. That's not a credible assumption.

If you plot an ever accelerating growth of knowledge (and thus social change) against the (at best) incremental growth of human maturity you will see these lines diverging at an ever faster pace. We are ever more like the 10 year old boy who has been handed a case of booze, a loaded handgun and the keys to the car.

Thousands of hydrogen bombs, which bore us. Does that sound like coping to you?

I watched some of the 2016 presidential debates, I don't know how Jeb looks up close, but from afar, he came across as a kindly suburban accountant type, devoid of anything resembling charisma, originality or wit. Unfortunately, perhaps. — Wayfarer

Yes, Jeb Bush does have a significant charisma deficit, agreed. I would describe him as a competent technocrat. Conservative, but reasonable and intelligent. None of the Bushes would have anything to do with Trump.

I agree with the sentiment, but in its place I'd claim globalisation is the driver. — Tim3003

What's driving globalization (and automation) is the development of knowledge. Globalization and social insecurity are symptoms of the knowledge explosion. The faster we develop new knowledge, the faster society changes, and thus the less secure people can be in their situation, leading to political instability.

The next backlash is going to make the Tea Party look like a teddy bear’s picnic. — StreetlightX

OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG!

Even if we had the stringent condition of 100% certainty, we still don't need to wait for every vote, we merely need to wait until one person's lead exceeds the uncounted votes. — Kenosha Kid

Ok, that makes sense. Is that what happened here?

I still think it would be smarter to simply wait until a deciding state officially announces a winner. Hey, it'll make for a longer party!

The popularity of Trump was down to his being a political outsider - ie not the Republican party. — Tim3003

Yes, votes for Trump are fundamentally a rejection of the status quo political class. The evidence for this is Bernie Sanders, who represents the same kind of rejection on the left. Two very different candidates with two very different policies, united by their ability to speak to a loss of faith in the status quo.

What's driving this at a most fundamental level is the accelerating development of knowledge, which is driving social change at a pace faster than our ability to adapt. For every steel worker who lost their middle class union job to globalization and automation there are 20 people thinking it might be them next, and it probably will be. Perhaps the only candidate in this election to intelligently address the underlying driver of the uncertainty contagion was Andrew Yang.

The reach for extreme remedies by the broad public is going to get worse because few to none of our cultural elites, not politicians, scientists, academics or philosophers etc have the slightest clue how to effectively respond to the accelerating development of knowledge and the destabilizing social change it generates.

The heart of the problem is that the accelerating development of knowledge is challenging us to look at ever more fundamental issues at an ever faster pace. And we're just not ready.

And so a person with a rare talent for projecting confidence comes along and offers us simple solutions like Make America Great Again, and we don't know what else to do or who else to trust, so we give it a try.

His personal charisma - as witnessed by a successful TV career - is considerable, whatever we think of his politics he is great at communicating with the uneducated and fearful conservatives of rural USA. — Tim3003

It's more complicated than that. The "uneducated and fearful" rural folks you speak of have correctly identified that the status quo political class is corrupt, and more importantly, incapable of dealing with the challenges of the 21st century. They are united with the educated and urban folks who have come to the same correct conclusion. Bernie Sanders is even more radical than Trump because, unlike Trump, he sincerely believes in his prescriptions. Bernie Sanders would be a far bigger gamble than Trump, who has left the country largely unchanged.

Furthermore, while I'm ranting, the insistence of SO MANY liberals on insulting rural and working class Americans is an act of pure stupidity. Nothing that we liberals care about will ever be achievable and durable without bringing a great many of the red states folks on board. So long as insult based polarization persists then anything we might achieve will simply be reversed the next time the political pendulum swings.

We don't win until we make some kind of peace with all those red states you see spread across the heart of America.

And I'm more than aware of the decent core of Americans — Wayfarer

Generally speaking, America is made up of the folks who had the gumption to get off their ass, take a big risk, and leave other countries that were failing them. And so, generally speaking we are um, more energetic than Europeans, both for the better and the worse. When we fuck up, we go all the way, and do it right! :-) And if you don't believe me, I'll wave some guns around in your face to prove it.

Not quite. Biden's lead is 41K, the uncounted votes number 68K. The modelling is more sophisticated than that; for instance, the uncounted votes are postal and postal votes overwhelmingly skewed towards Biden (which is why Trump thinks they ought to be illegal); the majority of the uncounted votes are also in blue-leaning counties, etc. My point was just that you don't need to wait until every count is voted to know who won. — Kenosha Kid

Well yes, one can make various calculations and projections. I get that.

But why be fancy pants about it? Why not just wait until all the votes are counted?

It seems that Biden giving his victory speech before the votes have been counted just feeds in to the conspiracy theories. It's also a tad risky. All the professional pollsters have been wrong two elections in a row now.

Maybe we're all just a tad too found of cleverness?

I expect that unless the Democrats actually do win control of the Senate - and it's still a possibiilty, athough slight - the GOP will continue as they did under Obama, to block, obstruct, frustrate, divide, undermine and deny. — Wayfarer

Agreed, that's most likely the script for the short term. For the longer term the GOP is in a death spiral.

America is in transition from being a European nation to a world nation. As the saying goes, we'll be a minority majority nation soon, more blacks and browns than whites. The Democrats get this and so we elected Obama, and now Harris. The GOP base is built upon a population which gets relatively smaller every day.

Had the GOP run Jeb Bush in the last election they might have been able to turn the death spiral around, as Jeb Bush is intelligent and gets all of this. He's married to a Hispanic too. But, that opportunity was squandered when the GOP sold it's soul to a con man.

Credit should be given here to Lyndon Johnson. He knew that by signing the civil rights bills of the sixties he was handing the American south to the Republicans, but by doing so he preserved the future of the Democratic Party and prepared it for the 21st century. Please recall, a century of horrors in the Jim Crow south was presided over by Democrats almost exclusively. Johnson liberated the Democratic Party from that shameful heritage.

If the GOP collapses in coming years the next thing to worry about will be further corruption with the Democratic Party in the absence of credible competition. The Dems held the House Of Representatives for decades, got too comfortable, and the whole thing got pretty slimy.

If this seems like a lot to worry about, don't sweat it, as the Yellowstone volcano is overdue for another explosion and once that happens the history of America will be effectively over. :-)

Come January 20th we can close this thread, yeah? — Maw

Sounds good to me. At that point, all discussion of Trump should end, or if we're going to talk about him after that it should be to investigate why we're still talking about him.

If it's 100,000 to 80,000 and there are 15,000 votes remaining, you have the same winner no matter what those 15,000 votes say. — Kenosha Kid

Ah, I see, was that the case in Pennsylvania? I was following it for awhile but perhaps didn't make it that far.

As Charlie Brooker said, it's like taking a crap after four years of constipation — Kenosha Kid

Ha! Yea, that pretty well nails it.

Don't you find it odd that the whole world is celebrating Biden's victory because....

The Associated Press says he won.

I don't doubt they're right, and we're doing the happy dance of joy here too.

Just another reminder of how impatient we Americans are I guess. We just can't wait until the votes have actually been counted.

Anyway, who cares, on with the HAPPY DANCE OF JOY!!

Faith is what one does, not what one thinks — unenlightened

Casting my vote here.

The biggest danger is that some armed right-wing groups will start some trouble, and Trump will praise and encourage them. — Relativist

That's a danger for sure. But I'm as yet not willing to rule out some larger danger. I don't know what, but we shouldn't take it as a given that Trump will just whine and complain and then peacefully leave the White House. Some of his soap opera hysterics is just calculated show biz, but there's a not entirely stable person underneath the show biz. Losing this election is a very public humiliation. It's unclear to what degree his psyche can handle that.

I'm not trying to be a hysterical alarmist, but there is at least a possibility that the next 90 days could be the most dangerous period of the Trump presidency. He still has fully legal vast powers until Jan 20.

What if he tries to start some international crisis? What will the military chain of command do if Trump gives them some dangerous order? Remember, the military is all about chain of command, chain of command, chain of command. Who in that chain of command is going to stand up and say, "Nope, we ain't doing that"?

I dunno, hopefully this is worrying over nothing....

I have a prediction! :-)

Trump will announce his candidacy for 2024 on FOX at the same time Biden is taking the oath of office on Jan 20.

You read it here first.

I think I'll be finishing here as well. — TLCD1996

Ditto.

The thing I look forward to most if a Trump defeat comes to pass, is never having to be assaulted by the vomit-timbre of his voice retching out from whatever media that so often decides that whatever he is saying is worth the oxygen that it wastes on any particular day. — StreetlightX

Agreement! I was listening to NPR yesterday when Trump came to the microphone. They played it just long enough to see it was going to be nothing more than the same old lies and pathetic whining, and NPR then pulled the plug in mid word, and went on to fact checking.

But when you break the law in order to protest, then there’s a risk of trashing the very thing you say you’re trying to defend. — Wayfarer

I think they might say in reply that there is no law to be broken. Chinese Communist leaders have the final say on everything. They are the law, which is equivalent to saying there is no law.

Trump will remain President until January 20 of next year.

What kind of trouble might a humiliated narcissist cause during the transition?

Is the worst yet to come?

What's the equation if a country willingly chooses by election some form of dictatorship?

Trump won nearly half the American vote, twice, in a legal democratic process.

Should he win this time, do we start bombing ourselves?

Thanks! I grew up here and have fought tooth and nail to remain here; California housing has gotten so expensive over my lifetime that it feels like my entire generation are going to be forced out of the state, or else live in tiny run-down trailers like I do. — Pfhorrest

I hear ya. Like hippies everywhere Baba Hippyhead once dreamed of moving to California. Had to let that one go. Much the same story here in Florida though. People will keep moving here until we finally wreck the reason people want to move here. 1,000 people a day move to Florida. Not tourists, new residents.

It's an interesting question. Would the Republican Party embrace Trump again? Imagine that Trump spends the next four years building on his near victory on a platform like TrumpTV. What Republican candidate could compete with that?

On the flip side, once Trump is no longer President he loses any immunity to investigation and prosecution. An awful lot of people on both sides are going to be digging deep to find the biggest pile of dirt they can.

I have a very original slogan for the next four years...

Lock him up!
LOCK HIM UP!
LOCK HIM UP!

That would be a great outcome. He could run again over the cell block phone in his orange jump suit.

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "the" Krishnamurti school — Pfhorrest

You obviously know what I'm referring to better than I do, which answers my question. Ojai always sounded like a nice place, so I'm happy for you that you live there.

From your story I was concerned you might be reporting from Butthead Alabama. :-)

Maybe we'll get lucky, and Trump will spur a split in the Republican party; if the Republicans won't have him back, he might run on his own platform, and take a big chunk of the Republican vote with him — Pfhorrest

I'd prefer he get hit by a bus, but failing that, I like your theory.

Ojai Valley, CA. — Pfhorrest

Have you been to the Krishnamurti school?

http://ojaihistory.com/krishnamurti-and-the-ojai-valley/

Will Trump run again in 2024?

I should be on a plane to California soon for some time in the forests myself. — TLCD1996

Yea, sounds good! Post some pics if you can.

What reality are you talking about? — ssu

Don't mean this personally, but you are hereby dismissed as a commentator on this subject.

If Biden wins....

I cast my vote that we do a find and replace on the forum database and remove all references to...

He Who Shall Not Be Named

Another couple days and it will be time to turn and walk away from this topic.

and the gist of it seemed to be that conservatives have good points that we should all be able to agree about — Pfhorrest

Ok, fair enough, maybe less than perfect writing on my part, which is not improved by my snarkiness.

I didn't mean to say we should automatically agree, but just that there are a number of points they make that are reasonable and merit respectful consideration. We don't have to agree to build the wall for example, but we can look them in the eye and say that their concerns about immigration are worth discussing.

If we want to ever have a solid reliable Democratic majority we have to de-demonize the conversations to the degree possible. The way to do that is to seek out every topic where we can have respectful conversations and focus our attention there.

Thank you for sharing the beautiful photos — TLCD1996

Thanks for enjoying them. Winter hiking season has finally arrived and I'm back in the woods almost full time. Nothing any philosopher has ever said can touch it. So for now, I'm just not gonna try. Maybe more photos in a bit.