I'm less judgmental, defensive or petty.

My money is on this one.

Let me try again, without the hyperbole, because I know it's not helpful. Let's just look at voter rights. Slowly, but surely, we went from a country where only white, land owning men could vote to where we are today, where theoretically everyone can vote. There was some struggling here and there, and there's still some struggles now, but we're in a much better place than we used to be and a large number of us understand we still have a ways to go in regards too gerrymandering, voter supression, etc. Just because some people in some state were able to pull off some shifty maneuvers, it doesn't mean the world has gone backwards.

If we took this a step further, we're now fighting for more granular rights for smaller groups of minorities. Do you think Trans Rights were a huge talking point in the '60s and '70s? Here we are now though, fighting for their rights because for the most part, the rights of minorities and women are pretty much one. Now we just gotta work on keeping them.

This same logic applies to education, workers rights (though that's a terrifying realm right now), the environment, health, etc. A lot of these things are hard to lose once we have them. For example, for every vaccine denier you hear about, there's hundreds of people still giving their kids vaccines cause they know they're good and right. For every dumb proposal or law that is passed, there are organizations like the ACLU, EFF, and even our own courts to try and keep things in check.

When we start to fall back too hard, too far, too fast, there's a counter response. Millions of women recently got together for their rights. Around the country town halls are being filled with people with real concerns about their healthcare, the environment, and other issues. I think I read somewhere there's a sum of about 1,000 scientists in America considering running for government positions. These times are far from normal, you're right. If they were, we wouldn't be seeing these reactions from people.

I think rd95's point is that nostalgia's a hell of a drug, and it's easy to get caught up in remembering a time that never really existed.

Remember 8 years ago when the sky was falling, because Cheney still refused to let anyone see the list of the members of his energy taskforce? It's hilarious in its own way that we all feel kind of nostalgic for that quaint time.

If Trump keeps his job for four years, I think the likeliest result will be a fracturing of the country. We lived through the Bush years; we can handle bad conservative policy. What we can't handle is deliberate assaults on our way of life. 85% of America's GDP comes from districts that voted Clinton. We all have the power to take Trump's tax cuts, say thank you very much, invest the money in our own communities, and continue to watch coal country meth itself to death. By then my last bit of compassion for them should be dried up enough that I won't even feel bad thinking that.

Thanks for the info! I've tried incognito, using a different device, resetting my router. Following that blacklist check, turns out I am on one blacklist for some reason. I've requested to be removed and asked them to let me know why I'm suddenly on the list in the first place, now I guess I wait. When I thought it was only Reddit, that was fine because Reddit isn't Reddit anymore anyway. But finding that you're blocked by a whole lot of web pages is kinda depressing. I mean, I ended up following the chain all the way to Reddit's registrar (gandi.net) and I'm blocked by all of them, registrar included. Same thing with anything to do with CDC Global.

Thanks again for the info, hope that this is sorted out easily.

It's how you can vote Republican (or democrat, I'll admit) with a clean conscience.