The Most Active Threads Since Friday

The most active thread over the weekend was the thread that I previously discussed about plans by the Elite Club National soccer league to change the age cut-off date for players. This thread has been at or near the top of the most active list for months. I think that it is worth reflecting on the fact that, despite all that is happening in the world today, the division in which kids born in the fall should play soccer is dominating discussion. After that thread was one titled, "Anyone else depressed that our country elected a disgusting man to the presidency?", and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster lists several negative personality characteristics of President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump and describes his cabinet picks as "the lowest of the low". She wonders how Trump's followers do not see this and says that she is very depressed about this situation. This is one of many threads that have been posted since the election in which liberals are demonstrating their difficulty dealing with the result. During the campaign, many liberals predicted a number of terrible outcomes if Trump were to win. While some Trump supporters agreed that such things would come to pass, they were excited at the possibility. But much more often were posters who accused those issuing warnings of being "chicken littles" who were simply fear-mongering. The most obvious example involves Project 2025, which has been the subject of multiple threads in the political forum. Trump opponents repeatedly warned that Project 2025 would be the blueprint of a second Trump administration. When Trump disassociated himself from the project, many of his supporters took that at face value. They routinely accused those warning about Project 2025 of either lying or being misleading. Now that Trump has won, he has selected the architects of Project 2025 for high-level administrative positions, and many of the Project 2025 ideas are being promoted by Trump's cabinet choices. It is clear, in this case, that the "chicken littles" were correct. While there have been several threads demanding that Democrats engage in self-reflection in order to understand why they lost, I am not aware of any calls for those who told us that concerns about Project 2025 were simply fear-mongering to do their own self-reflecting. To the contrary, as this thread shows, Trump defenders are still not willing to face reality. Despite all evidence to the contrary, posters repeatedly tell the original poster that she is overreacting and that there is nothing to fear from Trump and his loony bin cabinet. One poster even called the original poster a "childless cat lady", suggesting that some posters are experiencing a sort of arrested development that has left them frozen in October. I think we are in a strange situation in which depression and anxiety are the more logical reaction than remaining calm (which requires some self-delusion), but I am worried about the impact of widespread severe depression and anxiety. If you are on a beach and see a tidal wave approaching, is it better to panic or set up a picnic lunch to assure yourself that everything will be fine? Obviously, the best solution is to run like hell, but most of us don't have that option.

Next was another thread that was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Biden pardons Hunter", the thread is obviously about the pardon that President Joe Biden issued to his son, Hunter Biden. This only happened late yesterday, so the fact that this thread received so much engagement is remarkable. The controversy involving Hunter Biden actually goes back to the first term of President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump and his first impeachment. That impeachment was the result of attempts by Trump to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by withholding U.S. weapons unless Zelenskyy investigated Joe Biden. Digging up dirt on Biden became a top priority of the Trump administration, with Attorney General Bill Barr actually establishing an exclusive conduit to streamline anti-Biden information. This immediately became a pipeline for disinformation. Trump and his associates soon trained their sights on Hunter Biden, who had ties to Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company. Hunter became a particularly important target of the Trump administration. As a recovering drug addict who had clearly been paid almost solely due to his father's importance, Hunter was a ripe target. When the contents of his laptop computer became public, it created a full-blown scandal that, while more prurient than felonious, kept attention on Hunter. Despite the multitude of investigations launched by both Congressional Republicans and the Department of Justice, all that could be found on Hunter was a very minor gun charge — he had lied on a background form when purchasing a gun that he only owned for 11 days — and nine charges related to not paying taxes. Hunter worked out a plea deal with a special prosecutor that would have resolved matters, but Trump and other Republicans complained bitterly, resulting in death threats against many involved in the matter. A federal judge then declined to accept the plea agreement. Several things are clear from these events. First, it is very unusual for the gun charge to be prosecuted in the first place, and almost nobody receives jail time for any of these violations. Trump clearly applied inappropriate political influence to stop the original plea deal. Even before that, the intense focus on Hunter was solely due to his father. From beginning to end, this was a politicized investigation that had more to do with Republican attempts to discredit Joe Biden than it had to do with Hunter Biden or an interest in justice. As such, it is my opinion that Joe Biden was entirely correct to pardon his son. As could be expected, MAGAs in this thread are outraged. They believe that it exposes Joe Biden as the corrupt leader they have always believed him to be and justifies pardons that Trump is expected to provide to January 6 insurgents and other supporters. Even some Democrats are upset, considering it a violation of Biden's earlier pledge not to pardon Hunter and interference in the justice system. Such posters really are going to be the ruin of all of us. Their normalization of Trump's politicization of the Department of Justice plays directly into his hands to politicize that department even further. Trump not only pardoned his daughter's father-in-law, Charles Kushner, but is planning to nominate him to be the Ambassador to France. If anyone is concerned about pardoning family members, let them start there.

The next most active thread over the weekend was titled, "Wife dies and husband adopts their 1-year-old out to the aunt.", and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that she has had a friend for about a year and recently found out that when he was in his 20s, his wife, with whom he had a child, was killed in a car accident. He then arranged for his wife's sister to adopt the child who, at that time, was a year old. The original poster also says that her friend has been divorced twice and had a vasectomy. She thinks that the guy just doesn't want to be saddled with a child so that he can have a lively social life. She asks whether she is being too judgmental or whether the guy is simply awful. There are a number of issues raised in this thread, and it is really somewhat difficult to know exactly what the original poster is hoping to get out of it. From reading the original poster's responses in the thread, it is apparent that she changes personalities a number of times in order to reinforce her belief that the man in question is a terrible person. That raises the question of why, given how bad she thinks he is, she still considers him to be a friend. Regardless, she clearly wants everyone responding to agree that he is terrible and challenges anyone who suggests otherwise. The original poster's own contributions to the thread explain its length. She posted nearly 60 times. While claiming to be a proponent of and involved with adoption, the original poster is the target of considerable criticism from adoption advocates. They challenge her use of the phrase "adopt out," which, they explain, is old-fashioned and no longer in use. They point out that adoptions to relatives are extremely common, making up almost half of them. Several posters are of the opinion that it would be better for the child to be raised by capable parents than a single dad who might struggle or not be able to care for the child himself. On the other hand, many posters agree with the original poster that the father essentially abandoned his child, which was a terrible thing. They have little patience for anyone who would excuse or justify such an act. A couple of posters describe personal experiences in which they might have offered their children to relatives for adoption, and they were roundly castigated. Whenever anyone suggested a scenario in which such an adoption made sense, the original poster hastened to find reasons why the example was not comparable to her friend's. The original poster clearly has made up her mind about her friend and well may be correct about his character. But I am not sure what point there was in posting about the situation if she was not willing to entertain alternative views. Her mind was obviously made up by the first post and has not changed in the slightest even 19 pages later.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum and titled, "RTO and No Childcare." The original poster says that she has seen in many of the threads about returning to the office that posters frequently cannot return due to a lack of childcare. She says that her own childcare requirements were provided for because she had been in the military. Moreover, she has felt that generous telework policies that resulted from the COVID pandemic have been extremely helpful to working mothers. She notes that there is a childcare shortage in the area. She concludes by asking whether anyone will not be able to return to the office due to a lack of childcare or due to childcare costs and, if so, whether they are women. The first poster to respond simply wrote, "Another reason why 1950s America was better." I don't know whether that poster is MAGA, but this certainly expressed a belief common among Trump supporters. This really highlights what the new administration likely has in store for working mothers. From Vice President-elect J. D. Vance on down, Republicans have made it clear that they value mothers far more than so-called "childless cat ladies". To the extent that return-to-office policies result in women leaving the workforce and becoming stay-at-home moms, many in the Trump administration would consider it a positive outcome. Several posters are not that sympathetic to childcare challenges. For instance, one poster suggested that "People will just have to do whatever they did before COVID." What this argument misses is how much things have changed since then. In a few months, it will be five years since the lockdowns started. For many — perhaps most — parents, childcare needs have changed significantly. Other posters believe that moms have been unfairly taking advantage of work-from-home policies by combining parenting with working from home. They believe that these moms should have obtained childcare already and, therefore, returning to the office should not change childcare arrangements. In response, posters who have school-aged kids point out that their kids are at school most of the day and don't require much attention for the few hours during the workday that they are at home. That will change, however, if these posters won't be home due to being forced to return to their offices. A number of posters have already returned to the office or are prepared to do so and have already provided for their childcare needs. Most such posters have little sympathy for anyone for whom childcare might be a hardship. This thread features aspects of work-out-of-the-house moms versus stay-at-home moms conflict, additional conflict between proponents and opponents of return-to-the-office policies, and conflict over which types of childcare are appropriate. At the same time, it is not an all-out flame war. Posters reasonably and, for the most part, calmly debate almost everything you can think of as it relates to mothers returning to the office. The thread is currently 24 pages in length and shows no sign of slowing down.