The Squallering Starts Early

 

squaller (plural squallers) One who squalls, a crier, complainer, or bad singer.

First, let me note that I live in a very conservative area.  In 2016, in my home county, 87% of the vote went to failed TV reality personality, Donald J Trump.  So, if you are a faithful blog reader and live far away from Southeast Georgia, please know what I'm dealing with here.

When things go bad, many people around me start to squaller about too much political talk and want to shut it down.

I noticed this particularly after the election of 2012.  Once it was clear that Obama had won re-election (which many around here were not expecting), nobody wanted to talk about it.  Politics was done, and it was time to move on to other things.  They particularly frowned at anything that my locally outnumbered progressive friends and I said or posted that was any way celebratory.

This also happened after the 2008 election, but I remember it more pronounced in 2012.  

Don't get me wrong.  There are ALWAYS people who don't want to talk about politics.  There is always squallering on social media about one thing or another. Why do people post so much about food - I don't care to see what they got for lunch!  Why are people posting so much about religion?  Why ae they are constantly kvetching about their health or their life circumstances?  Why aren't they talking about what I want them to talk about?

What I am talking about is something more than just the normal disdain for politics that many have.  A disdain that is understandable given the vitriolic nature of much of our political discussion.  

I see a turning away from politics because things didn't go your way, and you don't want to talk about it anymore.

And it's happening earlier than I've seen it before, even before the election takes place.

Many people don't want to talk about politics anymore.  Most of that comes from people who will wind up voting for Trump, but that may be just because of the area I live in.  But I don't think so.

Why are they squallering early?

I don't know for sure, but my suspicion is two-fold:

1) They know he's going to lose

I am not going to iron-clad say Trump will lose - our politics has been far too insane to do that.  I am saying they have heard and seen enough to feel like he is going to lose.

With that knowledge, they feel like it's a waste of time to talk about it.

2) They don't want to justify why they are voting for him

This, to me, is the biggie.  Even within the protective bubble they have built for themselves, they are beginning to understand that there is something terribly wrong with this man and that it may not be right to continue to support him - but they just can't help themselves.  Voting for a Democrat, even a mild-mannered centrist like Joe Biden, who has said he wants to work with Republicans and even include them in his cabinet, is just a step too far.

So, they know they will vote for Trump, but they no longer want to explain it or justify it to others.  It is easier for them to wrap themselves in the memistic* attitude that ALL POLITICS SUCK!

So, if Biden wins for many regions of the country, you can party, celebrate, even gloat.  Down here where I live?  The message is already being sent out -

Don't you DARE talk to us about politics!

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A side note about the picture at the top - 

I was really looking for a picture of Trump sqaullering, but in a sign of how Reich Wing Facebook has become, when you search the phrase "Trump Whining,"  most of the pictures you get back are not Trump but are anti-Biden memes.  

My little bubble of FaceBook may be way too protected.  When you go out there in the Trumpian wilds, there must be some pretty vile crap: Thanx and a hat's tip to Russian trolls and bots.

*don't bother to look up the word memistic.  I made it up as a way to describe those people who share and damn near worship memes of one kind or another, people who let memes influence their social and political positions.  And yes, we Progressives can be guilty of that as well.  We constantly search for the right meme that will make Trumpeteers fall to their knees, confess their sins, and be converted to the Gospel of Progressivism.  Yeah.  Probably not gonna happen.