31 Responses to “Man, I don’t know.”

1. 

   Ben Railton

   November 6th, 2024 at 9:14 am

   To paraphrase one of my favorite quotes, “In the dark times / will there still be movie reviewing? / Yes, there will be movie reviewing / About the dark times.”

   La lucha continua,
   Ben

2. 

   CJ Holden

   November 6th, 2024 at 9:23 am

   I was in elementary school during the first Iraq war and it obviously scared me. Not just me, but many people around me, both kids and adults. One day we talked about it in school and one of the other kids swore he heard bombs going off in the distance at night! I remember some of my neighbours hanging white bedsheets into their windows as a sign that if Saddam shows up in Germany, they will surrender. It was of course a biiiiiit of an irrational fear, but keep in mind that back then “war” was, at least for countries like mine, something that didn’t happen anymore. Vietnam was decades ago! If there was a war, it was in some “third world” country and we weren’t involved. But suddenly we had A-fucking-Merica involved and it was live on TV! They even cancelled my Saturday Morning Cartoons one week! I expected to see YOGI BEAR and instead saw the news.

   Still, it felt kinda alien and unreal to me. I was scared, but not SCARED-scared.

   When 9/11 happened, we were of course in an “Aw fuck, it’s WWIII” mood for a while, but even that normalized itself pretty quickly, because again, it was a war in a foreign country and despite some “minor” acts of terror, there was no 2nd 9/11.

   It did make me feel a bit safe, because I knew that the world is a horrible place, but even if some foreign terror leader decides to start shit in one of our “civilized” places, we will take care of it. So of course when other shit went down, like North Korea threatening once a week to nuke the rest of the world, I was like “Yeah, right, not gonna happen. You talk the talk, but not even you are willing and able to risk another world war, asshole!”

   But what can I say? I am actually scared now and I’m sure so are you. I have been scared since 2016! This isn’t some “foreign war”, this isn’t even just Trump, this is a bunch of actual Nazis manipulating seemingly every single government around us and doing so successfully. Is this the end of the world? Do I have to learn how to shoot a rifle, just in case I have to join an underground resistance? Should I buy some hockey pads and huge spikes for my bicycle in case the world goes MAD MAX?

   I still believe that humans are good. That when Trump will go full DEAD ZONE on us, some military general will shoot him in the head instead of just pushing the red button after being threatened with getting his hand chopped off. That…I don’t know, Biden and Harris start a coup, arrest all of these motherfuckers and start a good dictatorship or whatever.

   But shit is bleak, yo. Even I spent the day sleeping, listening to Ambient music and watching harmless kids movies.

   Just remember to stay good.

3. 

   Aktion Figures

   November 6th, 2024 at 10:12 am

   I forget where it comes from off the top of my head, is it Watchmen? Where a complete dead-end of a president sits and contemplates whether or not the big red button *clicks* when he presses it.

   That’s the scariest proposition and we’re inching closer to that person having that deluded power. Imagine that guy on the highway you had to swerve to avoid your entire family dying in a burning wreckage just because he wanted to check what speed he can pull.

   Fucking terrifying.

4. 

   BR Baraka

   November 6th, 2024 at 10:27 am

   it sucks

   not much else to say

   hope never ends

   but this is a kick in the stomach

5. 

   Nick Proctor

   November 6th, 2024 at 10:35 am

   I’m sorry Vern – it is heartbreaking. If it’s any consolation, it’s guys like you and sites like this, the quality of your writing and the kindness and tolerance that underpin it, that provides a bit of hope and maybe a welcome distraction as the world goes up in flames around us. Take it easy man.

6. 

   Ben C.

   November 6th, 2024 at 11:04 am

   Nick, agree 100%. It’s love and community (and anger) that will get us through. I find some of the love and community in my life on this site, and I appreciate it every day.

7. 

   Kevin W

   November 6th, 2024 at 11:18 am

   KKKaplan: have fun finding out your Dear Leader doesn’t give a fuck about you or your country.

8. 

   Crudnasty

   November 6th, 2024 at 11:25 am

   Kaplan- you voted for a serial rapist and pedophile Fuck off with your concern trolling about protecting women from men.

9. 

   Kevin W

   November 6th, 2024 at 11:27 am

   Crudnasty – you said it better than I did, thank you.

10. 

    Glaive Robber

    November 6th, 2024 at 11:37 am

    Wow, Kaplan. Thanks for stopping by to act like a total boy among men. Very valuable addition to the conversation.

    Some people don’t understand that this election was more about President J.D. Vance and his Heritage Foundation buddies. A 78 year old manchild with a grudge and a limited understanding of how the world works will make vindictive decisions that get people killed. But The Heritage Foundation? That shit will be apocalyptic.

    There is zero positive spin I can put on this devastating result. Stay safe, guys.

11. 

    jojo

    November 6th, 2024 at 1:20 pm

    I honestly shocked to come home to discover how honestly shocked the interwebs seems to be.

    I guess there’s a larger difference between those who have to deal with a diverse section of the population irl, and those in the wfh or whatever bubble that can pick and choose what they want to look at and/or deal with than I knew (or even imagined).

    As a member of the former, it seemed everyone made peace with certain expected results at least a couple weeks ago. So today was just a lot of “Well… I did what I could…” among the disappointed. So it’s a bit odd to come home to “I’m CRUSHED. I can’t even crawl about bed for a zoom meeting. HOW COULD THEY EVEN SCHEDULE SUCH A THING??”

12. 

    Kyle

    November 6th, 2024 at 1:26 pm

    I live in Trump Country and just a few hours from where Vance was born. To GR’s point I learned just really this week having a discussion with some of my customers that Vance is the draw especially for millennial Trump supporters and younger I think. He’s the guy behind Trump they always wanted that Pence never gave them. And these people have not read his shitty book. Just loved the shitty movie.

13. 

    Zed

    November 6th, 2024 at 1:39 pm

    The most optimism I can muster today is that Trump and his cronies are nasty, backstabbing people, and regimes like that generally don’t last very long. Even so, the damage they can do in the meantime will be enormous and long-lasting.

    Vern, I enjoy your reviews very much, but I come here every bit as much to read the comments (even though I myself comment rarely). In dark times, communities and spaces like this offer all the more solace. Not saying you need to keep writing, but you ARE doing something in the world that matters. To quote a certain BLADE actor: don’t let the bastards get you down.

14. 

    Felix Ng

    November 6th, 2024 at 1:55 pm

    Never give up everyone! It’s only over when we stop fighting.

    On the plusa side, human blimp Steven Seagal might be invited back into the US.

15. 

    MaggieMayPie

    November 6th, 2024 at 2:09 pm

    I wouldn’t say I’m shocked, but I did start to let some hope build, so it is a blow. I think deep down inside I couldn’t let myself think he would win again. Once again I’m forced to face the fact that America hates women so much they would rather elect a lying, cheating, cowardly, stupid, deranged, inept, bigoted, convicted felon, rapist than a qualified woman. While it’s not necessarily shocking, it’s very disheartening to keep getting this shoved into our faces.

16. 

    Peter Campbell

    November 6th, 2024 at 2:37 pm

    Over in the UK we’re shocked too. We got rid of the conservatives after 14 years of truly insane hell this year and hoped some optimism would continue over in America. Alas not. This is a painful time but it won’t last forever.

17. 

    jojo

    November 6th, 2024 at 3:13 pm

    Once again I’m forced to face the fact that America hates women so much they would rather elect a lying, cheating, cowardly, stupid, deranged, inept, bigoted, convicted felon, rapist than a qualified woman.

    While I will concur that America is FAR more sexist than racist (I’ve been saying that since reading the fucking NY Times cover a Sarah Palin rally, and spend three paragraphs on hair, make-up, and clothes, give two sentences to what was actually said, then conclude with a summation that her wardrobe, hair-do, and lipstick choice of the previous rally was superior. Things have gotten a little better since then), but in this case, the qualified woman in question didn’t seem to do herself to many favors towards the cause.

    From my perch, her campaign (well, Plouffe’s and Cutter’s campaign for her) was probably the most bewildering I’ve ever seen. I could give 50 object examples, but it really can be summarized by me stating I honestly have no idea who she thought her constituency was, so I in turn have no idea if she reached them. But, those I interacted with on a daily basis who I thought were her constituency (poor to lower-middle class working folk of various creeds, colors, religions, etc) seemed to just get pushed further and further and further away from her. Would it be enough for a lying, cheating, cowardly, stupid, deranged, inept, bigoted, convicted felon, rapist to do a Bill Clinton routine for a couple weeks to soak up these votes? I think we have an answer.

18. 

    Mr. Subtlety

    November 6th, 2024 at 3:22 pm

    Jojo — the real crushing blow is not just to find out we lost — it was always a knife’s edge election– but to discover that we lost everywhere, at every level. Probably won’t even get the popular vote. Trump gained with basically every group, and everyone he didn’t gain just sat it out. Harris got hundreds of thousands of votes less than Biden; even people who aren’t Trump fans didn’t deign to stop him, either didn’t give a shit or just wanted to spite the Democrats. This isn’t even some artifact of a broken electoral system — America knows exactly who this guy is and what he’s going to do, and we decided that’s what we wanted. This is a mandate for ethnonationalist oligarchy, and it’s not just here, it’s everywhere –can’t even flee to Europe or Canada, even if they’d have us, because it’s just happening there too– and I don’t think we’re going to see the end of it in our lifetimes. Because once these guys are in, they’re never leaving; I mean, they’ve been very clear about that. This was maybe our last chance to hold it back, and people just couldn’t be bothered. That’s what hurts. That’s why we’re crushed. Where’s the peace to be made with that?

19. 

    renfield

    November 6th, 2024 at 3:31 pm

    My fear, among many, is that the Dems are just truly incapable of adjusting their strategy. They are far more committed to protecting megacapitalism than they are to changing material conditions for marginalized people or dismantling our imperial posture.

    In other words, this outcome was literally preferable to them than any sort of democratic socialism or however you wanna term it. Like, their class and ideological interests coincide more with the GOP than with ours (as normal, non-ruling-class people, whether you consider yourself a socialist or not (apologies to any ruling-class people on this forum, just kidding go fuck yourselves)).

    And what’s even more terrifying to me is that I don’t get how you build an alternative grassroots leftist movement in the face of Musk’s AI crypto hellscape / trillion-dollar media apparatus that is brainrotting the subsequent generations into embracing cruelty and believing in the simplistic and stupid answers that fascism provides. Especially not after Proj ’25 gets rid of the dept of education and makes it illegal to address mental health.

    Sorry, not seeing any sort of silver lining on this one.

20. 

    jojo

    November 6th, 2024 at 3:40 pm

    Sorry, it was just a little strange to go from “Well, can’t say we didn’t see this coming…” all day long, to “OH THE HUMANITY”

    I understand that internet tends to be a bit amplified in the drama department, but I never experienced that level of amplification. I guess for a moment, I thought those “people who just block what they don’t what to see/hear a day generally have no idea what’s really going on” people have more of a point than I ever realized. But after some time, I realized it’s probably just overly demonstrative venting.

21. 

    jojo

    November 6th, 2024 at 3:52 pm

    [i]My fear, among many, is that the Dems are just truly incapable of adjusting their strategy. They are far more committed to protecting megacapitalism than they are to changing material conditions for marginalized people or dismantling our imperial posture.[/i]

    A bit ago, I read a book by Thomas Beer that pretty much had this exact sentence. Just instead of a fear, he was stating it as a fact.

    It was written 102 years ago. Just saying.

22. 

    Crudnasty

    November 6th, 2024 at 4:02 pm

    One trivial but topical (to the websight purpose anyway) thing that struck me, amidst all this is- how does someone like James Gunn proceed with this Superman reboot now? How does a non-maga creative type even approach a movie that champions something that literally represents Truth, Justice, and the American Way, when all of those things are now in the real world laying in tatters or twisted into a cruel mockery of their true meaning? Does this actually ruin a Superman movie, or do we get escapism and a giant robot from space or something and they just pretend everything is sanitized status quo otherwise?

    How do you make more Marvel movies now? Do they all have to be Winter Soldier or just the first part of Infinity War without the big final victory of Endgame? If they are still gonna write happy endings- who are they going to be for? Who will believe a happy ending? What is their definition of “happy?”

    I’m wondering if we are about to get ten more Logans from Marvel, or if Superman has some disturbing Homelander undertones now, or maybe Gunn says FUCK it and tries to channel his Troma DNA into something more ambitiously subversive.

23. 

    jojo

    November 6th, 2024 at 4:09 pm

    Whoever runs on a ‘banning smartphones’ platform will get my vote (so I’ll stop trying to type on them)

24. 

    deepfriednoir

    November 6th, 2024 at 4:12 pm

    These words from James Baldwin have been rattling around my head every few days for the last year.

    “Love has never been a popular movement. And no one’s ever wanted, really, to be free. The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people.

    Otherwise, of course you can despair. Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you. What you’ve got to remember is what you’re looking at is also YOU. Everyone you’re looking at is also you. YOU could be that person. You could be that monster, you could be that cop. And you have to decide in yourself, NOT to be.

    The logic of despair isn’t for me. You know, cut your throat, right? But there’s something wrong, you know, with someone who says he’s in despair who keeps on writing. Because a despairing man doesn’t write. Anyway, it’s too easy, it’s too fashionable. I’m aware, you know, that I and the people I love may perish in the morning. I know that. But there’s light on our faces now. If you live under the shadow of death, it gives you a certain freedom. I’m perfectly happy, odd as it sounds, you know, and relatively free.”

25. 

    renfield

    November 6th, 2024 at 4:26 pm

    In case it wasn’t clear I meant Dem leadership, not the voting citizenry.

26. 

    Glaive Robber

    November 6th, 2024 at 4:45 pm

    What’s staggering is largely the demographics. 69% of white women voted for Trump? That many white women went for this guy?
    I’m Latino, and after years and years of denigrating us, we turned around and voted for this guy in bulk? What does it even mean to be Latino anymore?
    This election also had a record high turnout from normally-unengaged 18-30 males. Which is interesting because of the supposed gender dating gap in that demographic. Once again, womens’ rights are trampled by young mens’ anger that they’re not getting laid.

    I feel that a side effect of the media’s frankly-aggressive sanewashing of Trump’s last couple of years is that a lot of people really thought they were voting for the Trump of 2016. He is 78. Two years into his presidency, he will be 80. My father reached 79 last year, and he’s in much better shape than Trump. I watched it happen over the course of weeks, going from foggy-brained to speaking total gibberish. He ended up in a home because he was too eager to simply get up and follow his whims, whether it be walking down the street or getting on his bike, with no idea of where he was going or for how long. If Trump survives this presidency, his mind won’t. If Republican politicians were too scared to act against his foolish words and decisions, how will they try to cover up and whitewash it when he’s relieving himself in public? And if he doesn’t make it the full four years, we get J.D. Vance.

    We all get the criticism that we’re maybe living in bubbles. But what the fuck kind of bubble are THESE people living in?

27. 

    Crudnasty

    November 6th, 2024 at 4:54 pm

    Creative writing is going to hit new heights of absurdity as evidenced in the comment above by this AI level engrish 4chan meme that has apparently gone sentient.

    Whoever said it’s now post-reality was onto something.

    I wonder if I can get that good Strawberry Cough from Jasper via Sid in whatever camp I end up in. Will they still take my outlawed milk caps or whatever tf that guy was talking about as payment? I’m not up on this gamer slang.

28. 

    VERN

    November 6th, 2024 at 5:31 pm

    FYI: This is my home, I’m not inviting fascists in for chit-chat, so I have deleted some posts. (P.S. the guy who said he was in Sweden had a Kansas City, Missouri ip address.)

29. 

    Dreadguacamole

    November 6th, 2024 at 6:00 pm

    I grew up in… let’s call them shithole countries, so I can say this with confidence: Trump? He’s your typical third world president. The open corruption, venality, solipcism and narcissism, the swagger, the “I’m a normal person so I can say any dumb shit I want” attitude (which people eat up, because they’re all “hey! he’s just like us!”). The bald-faced lying… well, I’ve never seen it that bad (and I saw like a dozen presidents go through office, though that’s cheating because I lived in Argentina in the early ’00s), but it’s also of a piece.*
    What gets me is that I’ve always felt one of the few good things about the difference between the first and third world is that people in first world countries wouldn’t take the sort of shit people in third world countries routinely let happen (not that there’s anything they can do about it). I guess this teaches me (yet again) that’s a thing of the past. And it’s happening here in the UK, too; Maybe we’re headed for a third world… world.

    You all will pull through. You’ve already done so, once. Your country still stands, is still rich. You’ve got good people.
    Enshittification of everything will continue, maybe at an accelerated pace, more brazenly, but it’s not like the dems would have tried too hard to hold the tide back that hard either. Late stages capitalism wouldn’t have gone anywhere.
    I don’t think Trump will do anything dramatic like cause world war 3 (he didn’t last time). Certain ideologies will become more mainstream, but… well, if he got the popular vote, then there’s obviously an appetite for it. I have faith there’s still a majority in your country that’s sane and won’t start waving nazi flags around, even among the majority of Trump’s people. The ecological side of things looks bleak, but I’ve made peace with the fact that we’re all basically fucked in that sense already.

    Don’t take it against Trump voters, at least until they prove they’re hateful individually. People make bad decisions all the time, demonizing them only makes things worse, and them more set in their ways. And anyways, a lot of the blame lies on the opposition with their choice of weak-ass candidates – I mean seriously, Kamala Harris? After tempting fate with Biden? Snatching defeat from the jaws of an easy win. We’ve done the same here in the UK, and the cost will probably be a hard swing to conservatism again on the next election. That’s despite the last, long run of cons demonstrably fucking up the country in so. Many. Ways.

    What Renfield said is important, but I think it goes beyond ideology. If there was a borderline competent, charismatic candidate, however centrist, running against them, your Trumps or Boris Johnsons wouldn’t stand a fucking chance.

    As for calling for a coup… come on, you’re angry but that’s what the other side does. Here’s hoping Trump proves corrupt or inept enough that he’s removed from office, but given that it didn’t happen during his first term… it doesn’t look likely.

    *: There’s even the case of a guy who led an insurrection (Aldo Rico) and then become a political figure. Argentine politics are fucking depressing, you guys!

30. 

    Glaive Robber

    November 6th, 2024 at 6:35 pm

    I think what bothers a lot of us is that we had chance after chance after chance after chance to stop this guy, through varied legal, justified means. And we didn’t, and it was humiliating and disastrous every time. So what happens when we CAN’T stop him?

    I can’t stop thinking of all this in these grandiose terms. Trump is literally a one-dimensional villain, and his associates are hardly more dynamic.

31. 

    Handsome Dan

    November 6th, 2024 at 7:27 pm

    I’m probably more disgusted by the Dems’ fecklessness, stupidity, and incompetence than I am by Trump himself at this point. He’s a craven shithead who I do not and would not support, but he’s just trying to press his advantage – why wouldn’t he? The total rudderlessness of the Biden and then Harris campaign in the face of that is inexcusable, bordering on treasonous. Several times over the last few months I found myself legitimately wondering if they actually wanted to win. I’m still not sure!

    Yes, I know, the voters should have rejected Trump out of hand because they should have been as good and sweet and pure as we are. But, sorry, if you’re running for office you’re in the persuasion business, and the best the Dems had to offer was “we’re not Trump (except on things like immigration and Gaza and some other stuff, where we’re even more like Trump than Trump is!)” and I’m not surprised no one bought it. Biden can drool his remaining years away on a beach somewhere and Harris I’m sure will get in on the $200,000-a-speech game while the rest of us schmucks will have to deal with the actual consequences of their fuckups. Fuck them both and everyone who ever voted for them, including me.