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I don't know; I had concrete plans to quickly leave the US if Trump had actually retained the presidency after losing the election. I think it would have been a

I don't know; I had concrete plans to quickly leave the US if Trump had actually retained the presidency after losing the election. I think it would have been a smart move, and wouldn't have been possible without close attention to the news. One of the nice things about Biden's presidency is how much less attention the news seems to merit, these days.

handrous 5y ago
The thing about "there's been an actual, successful coup in the world's (for now) only superpower" or anything similarly unusual is that it tends to break through simple disregard for the news in a hurry. Something like that seems to happen once a decade, or maybe once every five years at most, and are of the "say granddad, where were you when..." variety. Even the studious news-avoiders might wish to watch history unfold, and even they will rarely miss it unless they actively try to, given how everywhere information is now. Meanwhile, did you find any of the Trump-related news for those four years (hell, over five, really, counting the election) particularly actionable, in an "I really needed to know that right this minute" sort of way? I kept up with all of it (it was entertaining, for sure) but never did, personally. Even CDC guidance and such during the pandemic filtered down to state and local ordinances by the time they mattered much. Mask mandates quickly resulted in posters at store entrances, and most provided free or cheap masks, especially at first, so there was little likelihood of being caught out there. I anticipated panic-shortages before the news caught on when I saw a way-above-normal number of household paper products in shopping carts at the local bulk store-by the time it was in the news or became a meme a few days later, the shortages were already a problem. Some help that would have been—and realistically, we'd have probably been OK if we'd been affected by them, we'd have figured something out with only very little inconvenience. Regardless, even a news-avoider would have realized that they should maybe pop in slightly more often than usual to see what's up, specifically, with the whole pandemic thing, well before it had much effect in the US. Most big stories still don't actually matter. Pulse nightclub shooting, or the one in Vegas, or the Boston Marathon bombers? Quick news mattered—locally. Living several states away, I could have found out a month later and it'd have made no difference. Assange extradited, US pulling out of Afghanistan—US invading Afghanistan, for that matter? Russia invades Ukraine? Brexit? Libyan revolution? "Immigrant caravans"? I care because I'm a bit of a politics and news junkie, but if I'd ignored those the harm to my life would have been zero. They're not local events, for me, and they're just not that important to my day-to-day life. I could have found out about Brexit a year after the vote, would have made no difference (there's a joke in there about how long that process has taken). 9/11 disrupted air travel and phone service nationwide, but was of the rare "you could hardly miss it" variety so one was unlikely to encounter those problems before becoming aware of it. I'm actually having trouble thinking of another event in the last 30+ years, in the US, that wasn't local and that had a "light cone", if you will, of actual effects on my life that hit in less than a week, and for which foreknowledge was in any way actionable. Typically, they never "hit". If they do, then finding out when that happens is just as good.

handrous 5y ago

The thing about "there's been an actual, successful coup in the world's (for now) only superpower" or anything similarly unusual is that it tends to break through simple disregard for the news in a hurry. Something like that seems to happen once a decade, or maybe once every five years at most, and are of the "say granddad, where were you when..." variety. Even the studious news-avoiders might wish to watch history unfold, and even they will rarely miss it unless they actively try to, given how everywhere information is now. Meanwhile, did you find any of the Trump-related news for those four years (hell, over five, really, counting the election) particularly actionable, in an "I really needed to know that right this minute" sort of way? I kept up with all of it (it was entertaining, for sure) but never did, personally. Even CDC guidance and such during the pandemic filtered down to state and local ordinances by the time they mattered much. Mask mandates quickly resulted in posters at store entrances, and most provided free or cheap masks, especially at first, so there was little likelihood of being caught out there. I anticipated panic-shortages before the news caught on when I saw a way-above-normal number of household paper products in shopping carts at the local bulk store-by the time it was in the news or became a meme a few days later, the shortages were already a problem. Some help that would have been—and realistically, we'd have probably been OK if we'd been affected by them, we'd have figured something out with only very little inconvenience. Regardless, even a news-avoider would have realized that they should maybe pop in slightly more often than usual to see what's up, specifically, with the whole pandemic thing, well before it had much effect in the US. Most big stories still don't actually matter. Pulse nightclub shooting, or the one in Vegas, or the Boston Marathon bombers? Quick news mattered—locally. Living several states away, I could have found out a month later and it'd have made no difference. Assange extradited, US pulling out of Afghanistan—US invading Afghanistan, for that matter? Russia invades Ukraine? Brexit? Libyan revolution? "Immigrant caravans"? I care because I'm a bit of a politics and news junkie, but if I'd ignored those the harm to my life would have been zero. They're not local events, for me, and they're just not that important to my day-to-day life. I could have found out about Brexit a year after the vote, would have made no difference (there's a joke in there about how long that process has taken). 9/11 disrupted air travel and phone service nationwide, but was of the rare "you could hardly miss it" variety so one was unlikely to encounter those problems before becoming aware of it. I'm actually having trouble thinking of another event in the last 30+ years, in the US, that wasn't local and that had a "light cone", if you will, of actual effects on my life that hit in less than a week, and for which foreknowledge was in any way actionable. Typically, they never "hit". If they do, then finding out when that happens is just as good.