For the love of God, don't ever again vote for a politician you are hoping will "shake things up."

[Aristus]

Anyone who has lived through an earthquake will tell you, "shaking things up" is not a good thing.

Ever opened a can of soda after "shaking it up"? Stop doing that!

As robust as we think our country is, democracy itself is a delicate, fragile, precious thing. "Shaking things up" gets us to where we are today.

We need surety. We need certainty. We need stability. We don't need anyone to "shake things up".

[ck4829]

1. Abolitionists, the civil rights movement, people working against genocide, etc. would all disagree

The key is to strike a balance, there is no point in shaking things up without working for justice at the same time.

[Sherman A1]

2. Precisely

Life is not just as simplistic as presented in the OP.

[treestar]

7. They worked within the system

The only time things were "shook up" was the Civil War. That had to happen.

But in this century, we do not need that.

You are defining "shake things up" differently. Those who voted for Drumpf wanted to shake things up to a point where the Constitution was no longer the law of the land, i.e. an authoritarian government.

Shaking things up doesn't ensure a progressive government. It risks getting the other thing - and the chaos creates a need for order. Thus the risk is great that authoritarianism will seem to create order. That is miserable, whether from the left or the right.

[ck4829]

8. They were put in jail, helping an escaped slave was a crime, Gandhi was charged with sedition

And as for "we do not need that", we do.

Systemic injustices, while definitely not up to the level of slavery, still exist to this day:
Purdue Pharma also worked within the system.
The insurance company that denied Nataline Sarkisisyan and others care worked within the system.
Pre-existing conditions weren't "abnormal things", they were created from within the system.
Mass shooters up until they pull the trigger often get their guns from within the system.
The government and media that justifies shooting unarmed black people with "But they were no angels" result from the system.

I'm sorry, if you want to be a "Good American" then more power to you, but there is nothing that can be said that will change how I operate... I'm not going to simply sit on my hands, pay my taxes, and vote one day every other year and leave affecting that system to other people.

[treestar]

12. Of course it can be changed from within

What are you saying you will do?

Protesting, marching, writing, etc. all within the system.

Everything you described is within the system.

You aren't willing to kill people to get M4All. That can be done within the system. You don't have to elect a moron who will fill the system with unqualified people.

[rwsanders]

23. I'd love advise on how to go there (doesn't have to be in the forum).

I'm getting old enough I no longer have anything to lose from consequences. I may lose my wife soon and then I will truly be free as in V for Vendetta.

[Caliman73]

38. Not true at all.

The Civil Rights movement was opposed by people in both parties. It was seen as a threat to the stability of the country and MLK was asked repeatedly to stop the marches and protests. He was killed by extremists still aligned to the prevailing system so as to stop the movement.

It isn't about "shaking things up" or not. It is about why and how you do so. The Black Lives Matter movement was trying to shake up the system. Occupy Wall St was about shaking up the system. The system subsumed both movements and now, where are they?

The people who wanted to "shake things up" with Trump was not about changing the system for progress it was about reaffirming the status quo. It was about taking America back to a time where White Christians were firmly in charge and didn't have to take into account that a very large minority of people also have valid experiences and identities.

It is a much more complicated and nuanced situation. We do not want to fall into the binary thinking that is common to conservatives. Sometimes the system needs to be shaken up. You have to do it in smart ways and with an eye on who is leading and how we are keeping them accountable but you cannot just say that you should not try to challenge and shake up the system.

[lunasun]

3. So say those with privileges

[ck4829]

6. Very true

[greenjar_01]

4. "He's a disrupter!" Yeah, I'm feeling pretty fucking disrupted right now

Great work, assholes!

[ck4829]

5. They didn't disrupt anything that should be disrupted

Medical debt collectors weren't disrupted. The NRA wasn't disrupted. Right wing think tanks weren't disrupted. ALEC wasn't disrupted.

What did they really accomplish on the "shake things up" scale?

[procon]

9. When people want to "shake things up", they have a goal

in mind. Our history proves this out, but no one joined any antiwar protests just for protesting, and no one supported the civil rights movement for the marching. They had goals.

Trump has no goal, he never did. He only wanted to create chaos, to shake things up, that was the whole purpose.

[ck4829]

10. Indeed

[Demovictory9]

26. Trump can't see past his mirror

[Caliman73]

39. I have to disagree. Trump has goals. He has no plan, but he has goals.

The goal for Trump is power and money. His own power and stealing other people's money. They are the same goals that have guided him through his entire life. What Trump never has, is a plan. He has techniques but no overall plan. People like Tony Schwartz and David Kay Johnson who have known Trump and followed his life, have said it over and over. Trump is good at reading people's emotions and manipulating them. There is no strategy but there is technique.

I agree with everything else you said. Protesters don't just like marching. They want to bring notice to what issue they support. They also have a plan for how to make change. Some want to change laws, like MLK Jr. who was talking to the Kennedy then LBJ administrations about the Civil Rights Acts. You have people who want to change parts of the system or completely disrupt it like the Founders who did not want to live under monarchy and had plans to create a non-monarchical government based on democratic ideals from ancient Greece and the Enlightenment ideals.

[procon]

40. Point well taken, quite true. nt

[sop]

11. It was all just a con. "Shaking things up" was merely a benign-sounding campaign slogan, a ruse

to get the rubes to vote for him. "Shaking things up" can be a good thing, but Trump is a lying POS, only out to further enrich himself.

Apparently, a good portion of his base actually thought "shaking things up" meant Trump would drain the swamp, give them all big, beautiful healthcare, bring back all the lost factory and coal mining jobs, and "make America great again." The rubes were bamboozled.

[TryLogic]

32. Yep. He is a con man. But, wait there is more...

[bdamomma]

13. not only

"shaking things up", but killing people too. Among other pathological things he is doing.

[Bettie]

14. So, you are saying

"Sit down and shut up; let the old, rich white men run everything".

Got it.

Not going to be able to do that.

[ck4829]

15. +1. I believe MLK had something to say about that mindset...

Emphasis is mine.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail
https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

I'm white but I'm not going to be a "white moderate".

[Bettie]

19. Thank you for posting this

it is precisely why I wasn't supporting moderates, who want everything turned back to the "pre-Trump" settings.

We need to strive for better. We need to BE better than that.

[Locrian]

29. exactly

There is no mythical "there" to go back to. Nor is "there" - the period that birthed this abomination - the right place to be either.
A positive future of change and progress is the path we need to take - not back to some illusion.


Stolen from a post on facebook:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Nothing should go back to normal
Normal wasn't working.
If we go back to the way things were, we will have lost the lesson.
May we rise up and do better.

[JudyM]

22. Excellent quote. And IMO, the deeper truth.

[Aristus]

16. No. Quite the opposite, actually.

I've read so many reports of people (exactly the kinds of people you think they would be) who voted for Trump in 2016 so he could "shake things up".

In the wake of President Obama's dazzling success as President from 2011-2017, the only conclusion one can draw about people who wanted a President to "shake things up" is that they hated having a black man as President. There is simply no other conclusion one could reasonably draw.

President Obama fixed so many of the things that were wrong with the country in 2008, and what he was unable to fix was largely due to the fecklessness of the Republicans who took over Congress in 2010.

[TryLogic]

33. Sure looks that way.

[uponit7771]

27. Obama wasn't an old rich white dude

[Generic Brad]

37. I am 100% certain that is not what he was saying

In Minnesota Jesse Ventura was elected governor once. He took a budget surplus and in four years squandered it and got the state into a huge financial hole. He convinced people who were very much like MAGAts to roll the dice and take a chance on him too. He stunk as a leader and was more interested in promoting his flailing acting career and announcing XFL games than he was in doing his job as governor.

The takeaway should be that we should categorically reject the celebrity/con man/joke candidate who promises to shake things up; not that we preserve rule by white men.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

17. As Sam Rayburn once said

"Any jackass can kick down a barn. It takes a carpenter to build one.'

[Aristus]

18. That's a fact.

The jackasses are in charge right now...

[FiveGoodMen]

20. We shouldn't want to "shake things up" but we definitely need to "make things better"

[Aristus]

21. I couldn't agree more...

[love_katz]

25. tRump tricked the people who voted for him.

He tapped into their hatred and fear of social change. He used what amounted to double speak to trick them into voting for him. He meant the opposite of what he was saying with that slogan. The only shaking up Tangerine Twitler planned on doing was to anyone who was trying to create a more just and sustainable way of living.

[TexasTowelie]

28. Rebellions and revolutions usually do not end with favorable outcomes.

There are exceptions to that statement, but it takes a serious gambler to risk it all and I don't believe that most people are willing to take that risk.

[Locrian]

30. agree, except....

>>serious gambler to risk it all and I don't believe that most people are willing to take that risk

it's not the serious gambler - it's the person who thinks they have nothing left to lose

[TexasTowelie]

34. You're correct, that is another possible participant. nt

[TryLogic]

31. Don't ever again vote for a Republican Senator.

[Aristus]

36. Or a Republican, period.

n/t

[not_the_one]

35. a geologic term may be applicable here... CATASTROPHIC GRADUALISM

Just as small, very small, and teeny tiny changes in pressures on the earth's crust slowly accumulate to a point of adjustment (initially tremors and low level earthquakes), in many cases the correction required to again reach stability results in a MASSIVE earthquake... which then allows the cycle to start again with things settling down and remaining relatively stable for years, if not centuries before another correction.

The same can happen with politics, but usually on a shorter time frame...

Our political actions and inactions have been allowing our center of politics to be ever so slowly shifted to the right. For a couple of brief moments it was shifting left.

(Unfortunately, due to my own limited understanding, my shifts are grossly oversimplified...)

To shift left was to enhance individual rights and freedoms by believing in equality and human rights. To shift right was to enhance corporate power, the power of the wealthy, by exploiting fear of the other.

To shift left brought economic balance to a much larger segment of the population. People of wealth and power, and the Corporations felt it was at THEIR expense.

To shift right was to consolidate more wealth and power into the control of the wealthy and corporations. A larger segment of the population felt they were NOT benefiting from these societal advances, yet felt like THEY were doing all the work that benefited the wealthy and powerful.

The shifts in either direction have been slow and gradual. The republicans have been working for decades, slowly chipping away, every push taking us further right. Our brief course changes back to the left, with Clinton and Obama, are immediately halted, with many successes completely reversed.

Just like the frog slowly acclimating to higher and higher water temperature, we now find ourselves in a position of either jumping out of the pot, resulting in a YUUGE correction of our political structures, OR a surrender to our rich and corporate Lords, who maintain their boot on our neck by exploiting the willfully ignorant, the uneducated, and those who fear the "other" based on biases and prejudices fed to them by those who continue to BENEFIT from this arrangement.

Make no mistake. This gradual warming has reached the point of a catastrophic adjustment.

The question is, will we survive as a Democracy that allows the individual rights and freedoms that are our core?