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> "You have to live inside DC norms since birth or will be blacklisted, even if it is just a joint in high school... Otherwise, how will the ruling class keep running things?"

Politics and positions aside, a refreshing thing about this year was seeing that someone flaunting almost all those norms can still get mass voter appeal.

(Though at the same time, the establishment on both side has reasons to love Trump: Democrats can point at his violations of norms and out-there ideas instead of addressing their own issues, and Republicans can let him soak up the media attention to reduce attention on their passing more of their generally-not-that-popular agenda.)

Speak for yourself plenty of east coast liberals equally sick of shit here and can't stand the military. Here in VA military is shoved down your throat and any mention of not liking it is almost herecy

I totally get that, and even put in a disclaimer to that effect! (Limited space in comments, etc).

Keep fighting the good fight.

What don't people like about the military? Also what is the connection between the military and surveillance?

>People on most sides of me are afraid of being rounded up

Rounded up for what? No one I know has that fear.

DACA: whether ther 1/4 million approved or the 2 million eligble, it is unknown whether they will be targeted for deportation. Undocumented workers: past Republican administrations have engaged in work place raids as an enforcement action on workers themselves, rather than on employers engaging in illegal hiring. Muslims? It's not unreasonable for them to debate in their own mind whether the president is sincere, and if sincere then they have every reason to consider being rounded up. If he was insincere that results in its own trust issue.

DACA and the undocumented: that's a legitimate fear. Muslin Americans and Muslins here legally: that's legitimate but I'm confident our institutions are strong enough to prevent something that blatantly unconstitutional from happening.

Many Germans said that in 1933. I know because I interviewed my grandparents before they died, and they told me so. They fled to Palestine, but many of their friends stayed behind saying, "It can't possibly get that bad." None of their friends survived.

I find it terrifying this gets down voted. We should always keep in mind what the parent said no matter who is running this or any other country. Things like that have happened several times before in history in different scales and we need to remain vigilant to prevent something like it from happening again.

> I'm confident our institutions are strong enough to prevent something that blatantly unconstitutional from happening

I say this in all seriousness: why?

The long history of the Republic. Our Institutions have failed us whether it's slavery or the Japanese internment, Jim Crow, women's rights, LGBTQ rights, the hysteria after 911. But in each case we eventually recognized our mistakes and made corrections.

Edit: also the treatment of First Nation peoples

You readily acknowledge "Our Institutions have failed us" multiple times, but you're arguing they can't fail us again because of "The long history" - I think you're arguing against yourself. And while this is digging further into the past, you left out The Trail of Tears from your list - an iconic example of the president ignoring the law because he can. That man is now on our $20 bill, so it seems he's been rewarded by history.

Saying injustices happen and are eventually rectified is one thing (which seems to be your argument), saying injustices can never happen again is something completely different.

"Eventually" is a long wait for those suffering under the perils thereof.

What are the corrections made relating to the treatment of First Nation peoples?

The Japanese internment has already been trotted out as a precedent for creating a registry of American Muslims. That doesn't sound like recognizing our mistakes and making corrections to me.

It is a test of the citizenry whether such assaults on those institutions is tolerated. Korematsu v. United States is an example of how those institutions alone aren't necessarily strong enough when citizens don't really give a hoot. Korematsu is widely regarded as bad law, not case law. But until there's another test, it's speculation. And even contemplating it being tested is scary, but I think less scary than ambiguity.

Being from china, eastern europe, south/central america, the middle east or being black. There's also persecution for being a single mom or lgbtq, but that doesn't fall under "rounded up".

I haven't talked to any climate scientists recently, but I suppose living in antarctica for a year gets you on the "maybe losing your job" list.

The "america first" chant on Friday didn't help. Neither did the "for americans" rhetoric.

Thinking that only the "Trump voters" are safe is a kind of thinking that borders on hysteria and is hard to take seriously. Undocumented immigrants are the only people who should have a reasonable concern of being deported.

It's not like other countries don't deport undocumented immigrants either whether leftist or rightist so I don't see how when the US does it it's especially denouceable. [keep in mind, that Obama deported more than W].

I've lived in other countries [China as well as Eastern Europe], and it's not uncommon for regular police to either enforce immigration themselves or cooperate with the immigration office when people overstay their visas or sneak in.

One of those groups (east europe/russia) is being defended by trump. Others have escalating troubles that predate him.

There's plenty of blame to cover both parties.

People seem more concerned that the system elected him than anything else. How bad (in this discussion, xenophobic) will the next president be?

I have noticed a profound, bipartisan disappointment with both parties.

Many people in the press conflate border control with xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment. I didn't vote for the guy but my take is he isn't looking to kerb legal immigration (with the exception of people form "terrorist hotbeds") so much as require all immigrants to get the proper visa as well as get expelled if they overstay a visa --normal operating procedure for most mature governments.

I can understand the preoccupation that he might especially kerb people from the ME. However I see this constant conflation seemingly to scare all immigrants into thinking that the new administration is "anti-immigrant" whereas I see it as anti-illegal/undocumented immigration.

This conflation creates division. The same occurs with a myriad of other issues. Someone could have supported Trump at the inauguration on Friday, marched in support of women's rights on Saturday, and been entirely consistent in the views they were espousing. However, a common viewpoint is that these are somehow mutually exclusive when in fact they are far from it.

Exactly. Many people were/are surprised by the large proportion of [white] women who voted for Trump and some people continue to think that only misogynists could have voted for Trump.

It's clear many people are _trying_ to sew division where none exists in order to advance an agenda [in the immigration case there are people who because they favor unregulated immigration do purposely conflate things in order to raise concern with legal immigrants --people completely unaffected by any new immigration laws]

Exactly--enforcing the laws that should be enforced is not the same thing as running cattle cars into extermination camps! The hysteria must stop.

Do you really honestly think that's where things are heading? I mean, in your heart of hearts, do you truly think that?

When I cross a street, a simple second can separate me from getting plastered by a car or a cyclist. But it's not the same as actually being plastered by a car or a cyclist.

Also, rayiner and I seem to be similarly calibrated w.r.t. concern over this stuff. It is striking that I end up on the 'calm down' side of in-person conversations, given rayiner's opposite experience with democrats.

I don't want to be dismissive of the concerns you've highlighted, they are certainly valid, and I'm no fan of Trump, and even less a fan of some of the people in his cabinet, but as someone who falls into some of the demographics you've listed (non-white, poor immigrant working on becoming middle class) I have more pressing concerns.

Don't get me wrong, mass surveillance, the continued and most likely expanded drug war, climate change skepticism, and a long list of other existential threats, all worry me, but they don't really worry me as much as housing costs, employment, not being killed by the Mexican gangs in my neighborhood, not being mugged while riding the metro, or being killed by the police because of mistaken identity and itchy trigger fingers.

Also, to clarify so there is no misunderstanding, when I mentioned Mexican gangs, I'm not using Mexican as an uniformed euphemism for Hispanic/Latino, I'm specifically talking about Mexican gangs who are active in targeting non-Mexicans, and in particular blacks, with violence to try and force us out of entire neighborhoods.

Again, this isn't to dismiss the valid concerns you've raised, just giving an example of things that concern me more immediately.

That sounds completely rational.

Multiple people I know (from a range of demographics) have talked to me about the concerns I tried to summarize above. None of them would post that here, so I felt obligated to speak up.

(I'm not personally worried about the stuff I mentioned, just weirded out that it is a repeated conversation)

>Rounded up for what?

differentness, dissent, journalism.

Is this even grounded in reality?

Obama went after whistleblowers more aggressively than any prior president, so that grounds the 'journalist' part

Does Obama still have that authority?

No, but he set the precedent.

There is also Trump's war on the media (from yesterday's CIA speech):

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/21/media/donald-trump-war-with-...