Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Enfant Terrible
Exactly right. Yeats was a genius.
dlwchico
Perfect.
Comrade Scrutinizer
Well. If this plays out like it seems, at least we won’t have to worry about the next election.
Davey C
Jesus fucking Christ. I didn’t think my mood could get any worse until I read that. Thanks, Cole.
Imonlylurking
Well, fuck.
PsiFighter37
We are so fucked.
Feingold lost in WI. No way for a Democratic Senate now.
We are so royally fucked. Jesus. F. Christ.
Comrade Scrutinizer
Or Eliot:
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
patroclus
The election isn’t over yet. Hillz is closing in Michigan and in Wisconsin, Madison and Milwaukee have yet to come in. Pennsylvania looks good. It’s close but not yet over.
Mary G
@Comrade Scrutinizer: No. I am so pissed off at these morons and I am ready to start looking for a 2020 candidate.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
The Canadian government’s “how to immigrate” page has crashed.
dmsilev
Looks like a unified GOP government. Expect the filibuster to last roughly 20 seconds, and then all Hell breaks loose.
Suzanne
Arpaio is gone.
Soylent Green
Buffalo Bill ’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blue-eyed boy
Mister Death
No One of Consequence
Good and hard.
Time to go long on armbands and jackboot polish…
It *can* happen here apparently.
Good lord, I don’t relish the cleanup work ahead of us.
– NOoC
eric
Benchmark Politics @benchmarkpol
Currently a 50k vote difference in Wisconsin. Madison is good to make up 100k, depending on other counties
patroclus
Down 60,000 in Michigan and 50,000 in Wisconsin with the urban areas still out.
eric
Benchmark Politics @benchmarkpol
Only a 30k vote difference in Michigan. Detroit alone can make up about 130k difference.
jacy
@Suzanne:
There’s that!
patroclus
Michigan closes to 24,000!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
S. Latitude 47° 9′, W. Longitude 126° 43′
divF
@Not Over: John get rid of this guy. “Suck on it.” rates a trapdoor.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@PsiFighter37: Yeah that Feingold loss was a bad sign.
guachi
55% approval for Obama and everything he worked for is completely gone.
It’s unbelieveable. I’m a white guy in the military. So I’ll be ok.
But I have so much empathy for everyone else out there who will be screwed.
:(
I’m so sad right now.
dmsilev
Banhammer, Aisle Three.
WarMunchkin
I need a hug. I’m also watching this shit with a bunch of white people (I’m not white) who keep joking in the most obnoxious way possible about Trump winning. This isn’t a joke to me. This isn’t a joke to every single dyed in the wool Democrat. This is all of our achievements getting fucked. I need a friend, and I’m just watching this horror alone.
eric
mi 15k
Gvg
I really find it hard to understand how the polls could be so wrong. PEC is saying trump outperforming polls by a lot.
Well the GOP has been obstructing everything for 8 years. We’ll have to fight back. I wasn’t expecting this. Could I be as brave as civil rights people in the past? I haven’t conceded this election yet but I am sure we will have some fights ahead. And Adam’s grey area….I am now suspicious of these results so far.
princess (now general) Leia
This.
“I know we are all thinking, what country is this? Who are these people? All I can say now is, come what may, if you are one of the people who will be targeted, I will do my best to have your back. You are not alone; you are far from it; you are loved; you are valued. But this is a bleak hour in this country’s history.
The race is not over, but that this vile loon could get so many votes is a civil war, a collective madness, an act of intellectual and moral violence.” – Rebecca Solnit
divF
@WarMunchkin: Hug !
schrodinger's cat
@WarMunchkin: {{{ }}} Virtual Hugs to you.
Suzanne
@No One of Consequence: This is how wars start. We’re fucked. So so so fucked.
patroclus
@Not Over: Huh? Kerry’s not running. We’re following the 2016 election returns here – I think you are at the wrong blog.
Michigan w/i 15,000!
debbie
It is time to fully abandon polling.
Citizen Alan
@Not Over:
Someone please dox this fucker so we can pay him a visit and go Negan on his ass.
debbie
@Suzanne:
That is good news.
enplaned
Cassandra was the daughter of Priam, King of Troy. It was her curse to be able to tell the future, but to not be believed when she did so.
I can’t tell the future, but right from the beginning, right from 2013/2014, I knew Hillary would be a bad candidate. I don’t hate her — I don’t think she’s worse than any other politician in terms of morals, ethics, etc. She’s a smart lady, works hard. But that doesn’t matter — the country doesn’t like her. And a lot of what she did played into the narrative already laid out for her — emails, whatever.
I can’t tell the future, and god, I hope she somehow pulls this out tonight. But I have a pretty damn good idea of what it’s like to be Cassandra — and it’s like a waking fucking nightmare. And it’s been like that for most of this cycle and it’s goddamn awful tonight. I haven’t slept properly for weeks, months worrying about this goddamn election. And every fucking nightmare is coming true.
If you think I take one ounce of satisfaction from this, you’re fucking wrong. I have never been so unhappy to be right. But win or lose, Democrats better start seeing reality for what it is if they want to make progress. And they can start with the reality that the Democratic powers that be are completely fucking incompetent to have greased the skids for Hillary and putting her forward as our champion.
We need to stare reality in the face if we’re to get by this. No flinching.
Frank Wilhoit
How about Auden’s response:
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I’ve never felt scared for the fate of this country before, never in my life. Even when Bush the Younger came into office, I wasn’t scared that we might not make it through the next four or eight years. Tonight I am.
patroclus
NH closes to w/i 9,000.
redshirt
Brinks Truck Ascendant. :(
eric
Benchmark Politics @benchmarkpol
Down to 0.6% in Michigan, lots of precincts in Detroit, Flint, and Ann Arbor out. Likely to flip soon.
reggie mantle
How you like your queen now?
CaseyL
I’m trying really hard to hang onto some hope here. Watching C-SPAN has been a depressing experience.
debbie
@efgoldman:
Would Ferlinghetti help?
divF
@reggie mantle: Still better than your king.
Eric U.
@Gvg: the republicans have never paid a price for obstruction against Obama. Compliant media is largely to blame for a lot of it
I know I’m prone to catastrophizing, but the thought of a Trump victory with Republicans in control of congress and SCOTUS makes my mind race without seeing what could make them do anything sane.
Fair Economist
One thing I’m noticing is that the exit polls have been off, often by a lot, basically everywhere. Not sure what to make of that.
StonyPillow
Can’t sign off tonight without offering hearty congratulations to the DLC. No American political organization over the last quarter century has been more successful. Yet once again, a job well done.
GrandJury
@eric: Your a voice in the wilderness…but a welcome voice none the less. I wish I was as optimistic.
Cermet
@patroclus: The absolute key is now WI; I agree MI looks like it will turn back Blue. We need WI to start edging up; hope you are correct on the cities but far too many white college educated women and males are going for the small handed white pig. This is still scary.
jacy
Some frontpager needs to take some action. Now is not the time for some people.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
I’ve never had to pie two commenters in one day before. Maybe it’s the same commenter twice. Either way, pie looks good on trolls.
Michigan, on the other hand, looks fucking terrifying.
guachi
Does anyone have any idea on if there are lots of uncounted ballots outstanding from places that otherwise have reported?
Like provisional or mail in ballots? Democrats made up lots of votes in 2012 with late counted ballots. I don’t think it’s enough, but I’m wondering.
Amir Khalid
I feel horrible, and it’s not even my country.
Baud
@efgoldman: Washington has been called for Clinton.
Caravelle
@Gvg: From scottinnj downthread : “Basically I think the polls underestimated how many rural voters would come out. They clearly were meh on Romney but something got them motivated on Trump. It seems in say rural areas that went say 1200-400 for romney went 1350-350 for Trump. Those extra few hundred vote times dozens of counties matterred.”
reggie mantle
@divF:
Yeah, you keep telling yourselves that as you lose your health insurance and your LGBT loved ones lose their rights to marry. Thanks, Hill-Bullies!
Mai.naem.mobile
@Not Over: you mean your itsy bitsy tiny little cock asshole?
eric
@GrandJury: WI is the real challenge.
No One of Consequence
@Suzanne: Really I am so stunned, that it is the best I can come up with. Snark seems insufficient at this point. Cleverness on Twitter is not going to change the Supreme Court remaining conservative for the rest of my life. It isn’t going to change how my fellow citizens will be abused, and traumatized even further than they have been for this entire campaign.
– NOoC
Skepticat
I had been reading this poem and Sinclair Lewis’s hideously prescient “It Can’t Happen Here.” The center can’t hold … but it can happen here. When G.W. Bush was elected, I was very, very disappointed, but I sort of sighed and thought, “Well, perhaps he has some good ideas and can accomplish something good.” I see nothing but the abyss now. I knew things in the political world were bad, but I guess I didn’t really think they were catastrophic. I didn’t think there was any way this many people could be so … ill-informed. Guess the world’s all right and I’m all wrong.
Fair Economist
@Eric U.: I think media has been the central problem. There was basically no discussion of climate change even though it’s probably the most critical issue we face. The media suppressed all issues for an endless discussion of emails in which Hillary discussed NYT stories.
I suspect the media is feeling it went too far right now looking at those Dow Jones futures.
dmsilev
ABC calls FL for Trump.
Emma
@Not Over: May your sons learn the lash. May your daughters feel the whip. May your soul live in each and have to suffer their pains. Forever.
Percysowner
So advice to women. Start saving your money. Find a state/country that allows birth control. Go get an IUD ASAP, unless you want kids, because abortion isn’t the only thing that is going to go away. Birth Control is dead.
divF
@reggie mantle: And Bernie would have saved us ? Assumes facts way not in evidence.
Jim Parene
@Not Over: I really would like to meet you, face to face.
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
I lived in NYC from 1978 to 1995. I know Donald Trump. We are so fucked.
guachi
FL for Trump? Then it’s well and truly over.
There is absolutely zero chance Clinton can win now.
MomSense
@Amir Khalid:
I feel horrible, too. Can I come live in your country?
patroclus
@Cermet: Agreed. Madison is still mostly still not in, but much of Milwaukee County is. It’s about a 64,000 deficit right now. I’m getting increasingly optimistic about both New Hampshire and Michigan (and Pennsylvania) and Nevada looks good. It’s up to the cheeseheads now. This is still winnable!
Mnemosyne
@Gvg:
Turns out there really were a lot of white people in America who would only vote for an open white supremacist, none of that wishy-washy The Muslims aren’t that bad Republicanism they got from Bush and Romney.
Racist voters came out of the woodwork because Trump appealed directly to them. They want a country of the white people and for the white people, and fuck everyone else.
Elaine Benis
@Gvg: Russian hackers?
Adam L Silverman
@Not Over: That’s enough of you.
Suzanne
@No One of Consequence: I am sitting here with my daughter and we both are just so distraught. Fuck.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks.
guachi
NYT just moved MN barely to Trump. That’s the entire midwest except IL voting for Trump.
Cacti
Looks like “unlimited corporate cash” found its way back.
Mary G
The Bundy verdict worried me, but I didn’t think it would be this bad.
dm
It’s always amazed me how each new Republican President has made me nostalgic for his Republican predecessor (well, Bush senior didn’t make Reagan look good, but Bush junior sure did).
Bush, Jr., must be thinking his place in history isn’t going to be so ignominious now.
MobiusKlein
@WarMunchkin: hug, love, and faith.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks.
Mnemosyne
@reggie mantle:
Uh, you really think that the racist white Trump voters would not have turned out in droves to vote down the Jew? You think that Trump would not have run a white supremacist, anti-Semitic campaign if his opponent was Bernie Sanders?
Elizabelle
@Adam L Silverman: My hero!
Was just composing an email to ask you to ban that creature. Thank you.
GrandJury
@Percysowner: Actually, Trump is not really big on anti-abortion. Pence is going to be running things though and he’s gonna be that’s for sure.
patroclus
Cortez Masto up in Nevada – that’s just a hold, but welcome.
MomSense
@Suzanne:
Oh Suzanne. I’m distraught too. My son is sitting with me on the couch and he just yelled “fuck you Gary Johnson”. I’m glad he’s got some fight in him because we certainly aren’t making it easy for his generation.
Steppan
@dmsilev:
Thanks kindly.
Chris
@Adam L Silverman:
My God, THANK YOU.
This blog’s excessive tolerance of trolls is really the only thing I have against it; thankfully it has its limits.
cokane
Wisconsin or defeat
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: de nada!
Timurid
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
I have no real marketable skills (LOL History professor). I’m pretty sure I would not be welcome anywhere in the First World as anything other than a tourist. So if the ship goes down, I’m going with it…
Tripod
The horror
Steppan
@Steppan:
Oops, hit the wrong post.
Thanks for the cleanup, Adam.
Back to being fucking terrified.
Baud
@cokane: I don’t think we’ll get Wisconsin.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: I have been wondering about pollsters. It’s so hard to get folks to pick up their phones — landline or cell — for an unknown, out of state number. Noticed that repeatedly with this campaign.
Origuy
@guachi: CNN has MN with a 5% lead for Clinton. Hard to believe Trump could take that.
patroclus
@cokane: The problem is that Wisconsin isn’t closing the way Michigan is – still 68,000 down.
bmoak
Feingold loses in Wisconsin. I don’t know how Hillary can pull the state if that happens.
Mike R
Removed as never mind too pessimistic. Not talking or typing until tomorrow.
bemused
@WarMunchkin:
How can they joke about it? Jesus.
Elizabelle
@Chris: Usually I just scroll past people I don’t want to read, but that one was malicious and cruel.
Very appreciative of Adam maintaining watch over the blog comments.
Chris
@dm:
I’ve been saying for years that whatever Republican came next would be exponentially worse than Bush. Yep, it’s happening.
Goblue72
Wanna BJ-splain some more to me about how Democrats totally responded to white working class concerns but they were just too stupid to appreciate all the awesome stuff we did? Or how Sanders was just about petulant Berniebros.
I’ll really enjoy that because apparently losing isn’t proof.
Clinton losing a lot of white working class areas that Obama won. But please proceed BJ peanut gallery. You clearly have the answers. And absent that, your snark will lead you to victory.
fuckwit
@Gvg: Bradley effect . white people afraid to admit to pollsters that they were going to vote for an ignorant obnoxious racist rapist. Then in private, voting for him
dmsilev
Martha Raddatz sounds like she’s about to cry. I can sympathize.
patroclus
If we just lose Wisconsin, it could end up at 269-269.
sdhays
@Goblue72: My god, can we do this tomorrow? Asshole!
GrandJury
Cheer up people. As bad as this is. 2018 is going to be worse.
Cermet
If Madison doesn’t do it, game over. Damn. The small dick, white skin pig and his ass licking followers (some here for some reason) will win. Damn us all to hell and that is what will begin. People that needed help will discover that they will only get less. Tragic but understandable.
Caravelle
Going to sleep now. I’m not even sure I want to tune into the news when I wake up.
Patricia Kayden
@guachi: The polls didn’t reflect all those angry awhite males, I guess. Sam Wang’s projection was way off.
Jeffro
All I care about at this point is that the missile launch officers ignore whatever comes out of the White House
I don’t mind doubling down and trying to save this country two and four years from now but I need it to not be a pile of ashes
Mnemosyne
@Mike R:
Fix’d. White voters turned out in unprecedented numbers because Trump ran an openly white supremacist campaign.
Period.
And anyone who thinks that a Jewish candidate would have won against an anti-Semitic white supremacist is a fucking moron.
debit
@Goblue72: Please enjoy your gloating in Trump’s third world hellhole.
Omnes Omnibus
@guachi: You have said that for hours. Your panic makes me wonder even more about the Navy – more than I had before.
PsiFighter37
@GrandJury: We are in for a world of hurt the next 4 years.
Good God. This is the mark of permanent American decline, electing a suntanne assclown for president.
hueyplong
Having a real problem seeing Wisconsin work out.
It’s clear now that Republicans will run on something approaching a Nazi campaign for the forseeable future. Dog whistling is over. These guys weren’t compromising types when they shared power. They’ll be insufferable now. And his violence-loving followers aren’t exactly going to be shy in public.
I can pass because I make Hugh Hewitt look tan. I worry about lots of people I know.
It’s pretty scary to contemplate a Trump administration’s personnel.
Oh, man, I can’t watch Ghouliani.
? Martin
@GrandJury: Maybe, maybe not. Democrats job now is to basically give Trump and the GOP rope. Let them destroy the economy in time for voters to wake the fuck up.
Lizzy L
25% of the vote in, Doug Applegate is leading Darrell Issa.
No One of Consequence
@Suzanne: Thankfully I put my son to bed a while ago, before I started to pay attention. I am very concerned that we cannot right this as a country, as a society with this level of division, and this level of disinformation. Ignorance is held as a right, a reason for stubborn pride. The removal of civility as a given, and informed and engaged citizenship may very well have claimed us all.
Damnit if Lily wasn’t so, so prescient: “No matter how cynical you are, you just can’t keep up.”
– NOoC
p.s. I’m not about to find out what gun oil tastes like, but this is a gut punch. Many of my fellow Americans found this man not only ‘not obviously unfit for office’, but rather, they gave him their votes. I really cannot process that. Not in these numbers.
Gin & Tonic
I think this is the end of the post-WWII world order. Seriously.
Time to learn Mandarin.
reggie mantle
@Mnemosyne:
Bernie won Michigan and Wisconsin. Clinton’s losing there.
Baud
@Lizzy L: California is a treasure.
PaulWartenberg2016
@? Martin:
only problem with that scenario is that we will not survive that.
Suffragete City elftx
“When Christ and his Angels slept”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@reggie mantle: ah, your cunning plan was to exclude Republicans and independents from voting. Now it all makes sense.
Cermet
@patroclus:lol; that is the exact same as Hillary zero. Thug house. WI has to turn; NH is strangely holding the small dick white pig’s lead. That seems rather strange. A increase or decrease but holding that small lead exactly through these many hours is just strange.
Patricia Kayden
Congrats to the racists like Rudy and David Duke and all those alt-righters and White Supremacists. They’ve won. This is their country now. Let’s see how many non-White people they can screw over at home and abroad.
Mnemosyne
@Goblue72:
Trump ran a white supremacist campaign and white voters showed up to vote for him.
Period. This wasn’t class issues, or economic issues. It was racism. And you’re fucking happy about it, you stupid fuck, because you still don’t recognize how deep racism runs in this country.
GrandJury
@Patricia Kayden: It was the polls that were way off. Sam just interprets the polls. I think all the aggregators got it wrong. Nate less so but was also wrong.
RareSanity
As a minority, I can not even form the words to describe the negative feelings I’m having right now.
This isn’t just “uneducated white men”, this is the majority of white people in this country, that happily voted for Donald fucking Trump to be President of the United States…it’s fucking disgusting.
Origuy
@Gin & Tonic: I guess I need to get back to studying Russian.
Citizen Alan
@Emma:
He wouldnt care i bet he molests his children nightly. He cannot possibly live his children and take so much joy in ruining their future.
guachi
What I see:
1. Obamacare completely toast. Nothing to replace it. Premiums skyrocket. Uninsured skyrocket.
2. Stock market crashes 1000 points.
3. Countries of the world move to Russia/China for protection. Or just away from the US.
4. Economy moves into recession if anything resembling a trade war happens.
5. Massive instability keeps markets down. Interest rates move up.
dmsilev
ABC question to their panel: “How much thought has Trump put into into actually being President?”
It’s going to be a long long four years.
JMG
I don’t know what to do. The work of 85 years since the New Deal will be undone by St. Patrick’s Day. To fulfill Trump’s promises, he HAS to create a police state. Rounding up 10 million people is impossible otherwise. We are now the most dangerous country in the world, to ourselves and everyone else. I can’t sleep (thank God I haven’t been drinking, I can’t do anything. It’s beyond sadness. It’s sorrow, fear and not a little hatred. Life isn’t all that bad for the millions of people who voted to make it infinitely worse for millions of their countrymen and women. Fuck them for venting instead of thinking. Trump won’t address any of their discontents. All he can provide are very bloody circuses featuring scapegoats as victims.
Chris
@Gin & Tonic:
Yep.
And you might have better luck with Russian.
patroclus
@Cermet: There’s still some blue areas out in NH – it’s only 12,000, but you’re right, it’s been stable all night.
Mary G
25% of the vote in:
Trentrunner
@Mnemosyne: It was also MISOGYNY.
The President-Elect bragged about sexually assaulting WOMEN. Multiple women confirmed it.
His vanquished opponent was a WOMAN.
These facts are not incidental.
Duke of Clay
@Not Over: Enjoy it while you can. In five years you’ll have burned your uniform and will be saying you never supported tRump.
GrandJury
Now Facists run the gov’t. I can’t think of a worst scenario. I’m not saying it’s going to be Hitler and Jew death camps all over again. Just sayin that these people have the same mindset. Thankfully Trump is not as smart and organized as Hitler. So he couldn’t pull it off even if he wanted to.
Mnemosyne
@reggie mantle:
Bernie wasn’t running against Trump. He wasn’t running against Breitbart.com and Stormfront.
You can try to tell yourself that the massive surge of white voters for an openly white supremacist candidate is just a total co-inkydink, but it’s not. Sanders would have been toast against Trump, because he’s a Jew.
Omnes Omnibus
@reggie mantle: You really ain’t that bright, are you?
Jesse
@reggie mantle: I like her fine, you repugnant piece of shit.
Jonothan
@patroclus: I love you.
? Martin
@Gvg:
Polls weren’t wrong. The turnout model, which isn’t part of the poll, was wrong. White protestants turned out in massive numbers. I’ve been saying this for some time – predicting turnout is fucking hard, and your polling models depend on turnout being predictable. This election it wasn’t.
In 2012 the turnout model was also wrong but in the other direction. Obama outperformed the polls.
donnah
I can’t believe the country would vote against all their best interests, but they have. Waiting to see what happens when Trump doesn’t bring jobs back to coal states, when eases on EPA controls let pollution and climate change accelerate, when the economy tanks into near-Depression numbers, and the Supremes start rolling back relevant laws. I guess the Republicans will enjoy the destruction of the country.
frosty
@? Martin:
Voters will not wake the fuck up. The economy will be destroyed. We’ll be eating cat food if we’re lucky.
CaseyL
@? Martin:
The Dems aren’t going to be a position to do anything. The GOP will have the Senate, the House, and the White House – plus what they’ll do to the SCOTUS will put any recovery out of reach.
And as we’ve seen, when the economy turns to shit, Americans aren’t exactly known for “waking the fuck up.”
I am beyond disgusted with my fellow countrypersons.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@? Martin: That’s a “Nach Hitler, uns” strategy. You know that, right?
Elmo
My marriage might be safe as I live in Maryland – ssm was voted in by popular referendum before the SCOTUS weighed in.
Obamacare is dead – my wife with her preexisting conditions is safe on my insurance for now, but who knows?
That’s all I have for now.
Corner Stone
@? Martin: STFU you fucking assface clown. The GOP burned the fucking economy down and less than two years later US voters put GOP politicians back into control of two houses of Congress. Fuck you and this polyanna, burn it down it to get better bullshit.
James E Powell
This is a disaster beyond any reasonable person’s expectations.
Words fail.
debit
@Goblue72: And seriously, fuck you. I really hope you enjoy the next four years if Trump wins, I hope that your fine sensibilities keep you warm and comfortable while the rest of the world goes to shit.
Betty Cracker
@GrandJury: How so? Trying to figure out what in 2018 would be worse than Donald Fucking Trump as president and in control of Congress in 2017.
Baud
Georgia for Trump.
Hurling Dervish
@Skepticat: If anything, I think the right poet for tonight is William Burroughs:
Keith P.
So the current sentiment is that Trump is going to win? I can’t watch MSNBC (Giuliani is on), and I’m too tired of seeing how many people CNN can cram onto one screen.
It looks like Hillary is going to lose Michigan, which is one she had to keep. That makes it look to me roughly like she is going to lose, but I don’t want to think that.
? Martin
I will also point out that Clinton will probably win the popular vote by 1.5%-2% but lose by 70EVs.
We’re going to have to come to terms with that. That’s a problem. Democrats are going to be right to be pissed about this. Most Americans want a president Clinton, but we aren’t going to get one because voters in Wyoming carry way more power than voters in CA.
redshirt
At this point I hope Obama just declares Martial Law, opens up the FEMA camps, and begins the New World Order.
Mnemosyne
@Trentrunner:
Yes, that didn’t help. But anyone who thinks that Bernie Sanders would have stood up better to Trump’s white supremacist, anti-Semitic campaign is a fucking moron.
divF
@donnah:
The WWC will blame POC, and the well-to-do will get their tax cuts. Problem solved.
SenyorDave
WI is going to go forTrump. Dane County, which has Madison, can only give Clinton about 40k votes if she maintains her current margin there. Milwaukee county can give her another 15k, but the rest of the state will only hurt her. Unless we get some crazy precinct splits, I think she loses WI.
PS hate to be bearer of bad news. I got these estimate form Politico county maps. They’re very cool, pretty much the same thing John King uses on CNN. You can see the current totals, the % of vote in, and just do the math from there.
Steeplejack (phone)
Christ, might as well throw in the Doors’ “The End” and the climax of Apocalypse Now.
Just drove home from my brother’s house without steering into a bridge abutment. Minor victory.
? Martin
@Keith P.: She may well win Michigan yet, but she’s almost certain to lose Wisconsin and she needs that as well.
dmsilev
@CaseyL:
To be fair, we ‘woke the fuck up’ in 2006 and 2008. Of course, it took the biggest foreign policy disaster in a generation followed by the biggest economic disaster in three generations.
JT
Lurker on a plane to Beijing. Not sure what to say except I am shocked by this. Just posting as I have no one to commiserate with. I am just so disappointed in our country.
IndianaFrustration
Detroit Free Press, cowards, took down their post predicting Michigan for HRC.
At least the live Colbert show on Showtime lightens the mood.
Ella in New Mexico
Anger beats logic, every time.
Timurid
@? Martin:
Problem is, I will be destroyed with said economy.
I work in higher education, the glass-lunged coal mine canary of economic sectors.
I do not have tenure. And, by the way, I’m not white and I’m not straight.
Those contradictions are going to get heightened right in my face…
Gin & Tonic
@Chris: Already know that, but I’m not going there under any circumstances.
Keith P.
@? Martin: Wow. Just wow. I think I’m going to be sick for a while.
I guess all this stuff about ground game or aggregate polling and demographics didn’t really mean much.
guachi
@Keith P.: Yes. Trump will win. The writing was on the wall minutes after polls closed at 8pm.
gogol's wife
@Gin & Tonic:
We’re all going to be living “there” if Trump wins.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@Timurid: You’re in better shape than I am. I skipped college when I was a kid so I could work and move out of the parents’ house, and I’m only now going back. A couple of years too late, obviously.
But at least my 401(k) will collapse, so at least I’ll be forever working, assuming there are any jobs. Ha!
Hurling Dervish
Disregard previous comment. I was just saying that the best poet for tonight is William Burroughs:
lol chikinburd
@Betty Cracker: I’m hardly ready to write off 2018, myself. Another 2006 might not be out of the realm of possibility — and if we take some state houses with it, it would be the right time to.
Wishful thinking, maybe, but tell me what else you got.
hueyplong
Gotta say, the actually possible scenarios outrun my imagination. People claiming they voted against someone with “bad character” are putting actual crooks and sociopaths in control if Trump appoints the cast of awful people who have been loyal to him.
Mnemosyne
@donnah:
Nothing will happen, because it will all be the fault of the blacks/Jews/Mexicans/Muslims and if we just suppress them harder, everything will be better.
We’re talking about people who literally don’t care how bad off they are as long as they have someone to look down on.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
So does this mean we should have nominated Bernie back in June?
Trentrunner
@Mnemosyne: No, the control experiment is Joe Biden, not Sanders. I think Biden would have won. Sexism, primarily.
Cermet
@patroclus:Can hope but the rate white college educated people are voting small dick’s way, looks to be a lead that will not vanish. Besides, without WI, and MI still not blue, really doesn’t matter.
patroclus
Both Michigan and Wisconsin have widened – Michigan down 41,000 and Wisconsin 81,000. Not looking good. Maine, Pennsylvania look good. NH down to 10,000.
GrandJury
@Betty Cracker: Dem turnout in midterms are always worse than presidential years. That’s what happened in 2010 and 2014.
Obama was the only keeping the whole house of cards from falling.
Mnemosyne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Yes, because the Jewish candidate would have done so much better against the anti-Semitic white supremacist. You dumbfuck.
? Martin
@Corner Stone:
I don’t think it’s a good plan, but I don’t know what the fuck else Democrats should do. Democrats didn’t vote in 2010. It’s not that the GOP won over voters, they voted, we didn’t. There is one simple formula for Democrats to win:
Democrats win when Democrats vote at the same rate as Republicans.
When we don’t, we lose. Period. That’s is. Democrats need to care about this shit, and too many Democrats don’t – particularly young voters. Old people turn out for every election. That’s killing us. That’s the only thing that need to change.
Patricia Kayden
@guachi: I’m also wondering if marriage equality can be reversed and if DADT can be reimposed. Rightwingers hate gays so I don’t think they’ll be off the hook.
I can also see ramped up attacks against Muslims here and overseas. Plus more wars against Brown peoples.
IndianaFrustration
I’m giving up on the election news and going to go watch Walking Dead to familiarize myself with the future in 2 months
FormerSwingVoter
Well. The sun will still rise tomorrow.
Elizabelle
Hope the media congratulates themselves for going on for months about Hilary Emails Clinton.
Mostly, I am shocked by the stupidity of Trump’s voters, and the repudiation of President Obama.
Although: please Hillary. Win, win, win.
Timurid
For what it’s worth, my Republican friends are panicking hard tonight…
(They are mostly academics, so much more educated than the norm. From earlier discussions they were 2/3 reluctant Hillary vote and 1/3 Johnson or random write-in.)
guachi
Patroclus, it’s over. Has Clinton conceded yet? Is there any talk on the networks about Clinton conceding?
debbie
@Trentrunner:
Call me spiteful, but I hope those lawsuits against him go forward.
raven
Damn, I fell to sleep @ 8:30.
SiubhanDuinne
A few months ago — actually, maybe almost a year ago — I did a casual analysis of my FB friends and, among other things, realized that about half of them are either foreigners, foreign-born American residents/naturalized citizens, or expat Americans.
They are all fucking terrified right now. All of them.
Emma
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Sure. The communist honeymooned-in-the-Soviet-Union who hid his tax returns and whose wife was involved in shady real estate deals. He would have been beloved.
Mnemosyne
@Trentrunner:
Biden might have squeaked it out, if only because misogyny would not have been in play. But I can’t fucking believe these morons who think that the Jewish candidate would have done better against an anti-Semitic white supremacist. What fucking planet do they live on?
debbie
@Timurid:
NPR just interviewed Rich Lowry, who seemed kind of twitchy.
dmsilev
@Mnemosyne:
I hope you have this on a macro, because it seems to be coming up a lot tonight.
debit
@FormerSwingVoter: It will and life will go on. For a while. Until Donald decides to use nukes.
ETA: Sorry, I don’t mean to be doom and gloom. I know it’s not over until it’s over.
Kay
I think it’s particularly hard for women, because at least black people and Latinos didn’t vote for him. White women voted for him, and plenty of them were college-educated looking at the “ex-urban” margins.
SenyorDave
If Trump wins, his supporters are actually going to expect something. Basically, they want everything they believe they’ve lost, like manufacturing and mining jobs, and that is something Trump can’t give them. But he wll take away something from them, like access to health care. This will be a strange couple of years. And I don’t really see much of a path to a Clinton victory anymore. She had to hold serve on WI and MI, and I can’t see how she wins WI.
Cermet
@Omnes Omnibus:
I am losing it = gotta stop reacting like a dumb shit
debbie
@Kay:
Pantsuit Nation is already talking about resistance.
? Martin
@Timurid:
No, I get that. A lot of people are going to suffer. This is going to be horrible. What does it take to get Democrats to vote? How fucking many Democrats bought into the email server narrative and said they were holding their nose to vote for her? Fuck people – get out of your goddamn fairytales.
SiubhanDuinne
And Trump takes GA
Fuckshitsonofabitchmotherfucker
dmsilev
Trump is up 4 points in Wisconsin, and still up in Michigan. Yeah, this is over.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
I don’t say this very often, but right now, I’m ashamed to be white.
different-church-lady
@efgoldman: That’s what’s killing me, friend — there’s no escape. It feels like there will never be any escape.
debbie
@raven:
I did too. What a rude awakening!
MJS
There shouldn’t be this much sadness in life. There just shouldn’t. A few minutes ago I was thinking that there were plenty of other places on this planet where people treat each other with respect and dignity. I was thinking I could find one of those places and move there. But that’s undoubtedly the same misplaced optimism that had me thinking this country wouldn’t elect a racist, sexist, infantile fascist.
lol chikinburd
Just glad mom didn’t have to see all this. If she didn’t go when she did, and the whole campaign season didn’t kill her, this would have.
Baud
@Kay: Can’t say I feel anything about Trump voters. I only care about the innocent victims now.
Mnemosyne
@SenyorDave:
They want the black/brown/Muslim/Jewish people held down. That’s all they care about. And they’re going to get it. All the “economic anxiety” stuff is bullshit.
Patricia Kayden
@guachi: He has pretty much been ahead all night. I hope that Secretary Clinton is doing alright. Much love to her and her family. She ran as best as she could and put her best foot forward. Very sorry about this outcome.
? Martin
@Timurid:
Good. Shove their fucking faces in it.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Don’t give up hope, it’s all we have at this point.
On the other hand, I seem to be experiencing the flight portion of the “flight or fight” response. I am literally shaking and I have the very strong urge to run away, even thought i know that will not help. The only other time I have ever felt like this was after my dad died. Your brain knows that running away won’t help anything, but it’s a very powerful urge.
I am hoping against hope that somehow Clinton will prevail.
frosty
@lol chikinburd:
The Dems may have to get some new volunteers. I pretty much burned myself out on this one. I can’t go on with every subsequent election being the Gotta Win It’s the End of the World… even if it is. I’ve had four in a row now, not to mention the mid-terms.
Emma
@Baud: Yes. I don’t care what happens to them. At all.
patroclus
NH down to 7,000, Michigan down to 31,000.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: Ditto.
Renie
looks like she will win popular vote; that makes this worse
Percysowner
@SenyorDave: The next question is do we get a 2020 election. Trump really could pull a President for Life move. I’m really scared and angry.
CaseyL
@redshirt: I was thinking the same thing. Alas, he wouldn’t – he’s not that way. There’s also the minor problem of the military not going along with it.
sunny raines
How about some Niemöller:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Or better yet – Edmund Burek:
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Chris
@Elizabelle:
I knew Trump voters were stupid fucks, it’s the sheer number of “both sides do it but liberals are worse” people that enrage me.
Elie
Do you folks think this is real? Do you think we were hacked? I don’t know… I am willing to accept that maybe I am wrong, but this just screams to me something is not right…
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@SenyorDave: The idiot promised to reopen the Philly shipyard.
Mai.naem.mobile
Well, I didnt post this the other day but my sis drive by the early vote location in downtown Chandler(Phx suburb.) She said there was a huge line and I asked her race,age and sex. And she said more whites,more.middle aged,equal sexes. Even though ut was the early voting location in Chandler, keep in mind downtown Chandler is pretty much an almost all Hispanic area. I figured that was not a good sign right there.
dmsilev
I figure that as a Jew of Eastern European descent, I’m certainly not right at the top of the list of people who are about to be declared untermenschen, but probably still in the top ten. Not not not looking forward to this.
Timurid
@? Martin:
I voted. I donated. E-mails? What e-mails?
So where’s my fucking trophy?
cain
@GrandJury: Just shows how powerful Obama was. Hillary didn’t have it in her to make the deal unfortunately.
Dog Dawg Damn
Guys and gals and non,
What do we do? How do I look my nieces and nephews in the face? How do I explain this country isn’t what it supposedly stands for? How do we reckon with the undeniable fact that hate trumps love?
We need to mobilize and organize. We need to grind the process of Trumpism to a halt. We need to get in the streets and speak up, but I’m worried we don’t have the backbone. I know I don’t.
Cermet
@debit: lol;no, the military officers do not have to follow such orders and they won’t. This has nearly happened under cheney. He failed.
enplaned
@Mnemosyne: Bernie Sanders wouldn’t have run if Hillary had stood aside, or if he did, he’d have been small potatoes. He was the canary in the coal mine about the fact that she was a weak candidate and there was strong demand for an alternative. He was never a viable candidate per se – he was only ever a symptom of Clinton’s weakness.
But he can be criticized for backing Trump’s points. If it was just Trump saying it, that was one thing. But for someone ostensibly of her own party to say that shit, that made it that much more legit. And it licensed the media to go where they wanted to anyway.
Omnes Omnibus
@guachi: Okay, you are a troll. Got it.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Elaine Benis:
I am the opposite of a conspiracy theorist, but I really am wondering. It just seems so off.
CaseyL
I think this community, right here, is the only place on-line I can bear to be from now on. I’m so grateful to live in Seattle, otherwise I don’t think I could bear to leave the house tomorrow.
JT
What a shit show, as a white male I am deeply ashamed of this result. I just can’t wrap my mind around it. We live in Western Wa and I can’t think of anyone I know who supports Trump so I am in a big bubble but this is just an absolute failure of our system.
Patricia Kayden
@Kay: That reminds me. Planned Parenthood will be defunded now. Sigh.
Russians got their man.
Timurid
@Renie: The electoral college was just an accident waiting to happen. And it’s an obvious path for post-Trump Republicans to manipulate future presidential elections.
amygdala
Oh, man. Having said that, when the economy tanks, which seems likely and one party controls Congress and the WH, 2018 could be an opportunity to turn it around.
Assuming we’re all still here.
Fair Economist
@reggie mantle:
He won the Democratic primaries. He wouldn’t have won the general, not against a bunch of anti-semites. Also remember a non-trivial part of his support was Republicans who wanted a weaker candidate to run against. In some states as many as 1/3 of his supporters would have picked Trump over him.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Patricia Kayden: Yes, the court can reverse marriage equity. DADT? Really? They’d just put back in the pre-DADT policy, they investigate any rumor about service personnel being gay and can their ass.
MJS
@? Martin: You’re still thinking there’s any such thing as “Democrats”? Everyone thought this election would destroy the Republicans. Nope. It’s the democratic party that’s now done. Lose an election to this shitheel, and you have no hope of coming back. The best we can hope for is a coalition with the now miniscule contingent of Republican never-Trumpers. But we’re the party that’s going to be out in the wilderness for years to come.
Mai.naem.mobile
@Elie: thats what I keep thinking. I find it hard to believe the polls were that off and I feel like I am acting like one of those ‘its rigged’ morons.
guachi
I’m not a troll. Is Clinton waiting for it to be completely called to concede?
I mean, I assume that’s what she’d do. But her advisors have to see the writing on the wall about the election results.
Patricia Kayden
@JT: Two of your Electors have promised not to vote for Clinton so there’s that.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mnemosyne:
Curious to see how that turns out, Will Cruz or the next demogog be denouncing Trump as a sellout come 2020? I half expert his own base to turn on him after six months when the magic unicorns don’t show up.
On the other hand the pressers will be hilarious with Mr Stream of Consciousness.
Timurid
@Patricia Kayden:
Putin will be regretting his master plan soon enough.
And in other news, DOW -800.
Suzanne
I hope that every uneducated white person who voted for Trump loses their job, their healthcare, and their homes. Because fuck you. You don’t care about me, ergo, I don’t care about you anymore. Suffer.
Mnemosyne
@enplaned:
Oh, so you’re saying a completely imaginary candidate would have won.
Well, if we’re going that route, I think a unicorn that farts ice cream would have beaten Trump. Why didn’t we nominate a unicorn that farts ice cream?
Kay
@Baud:
It’s so sad because this isn’t the beginning of the decline. It’s the proof of the decline that’s already happened or is happening. Trump never tells the truth but all these people think it’s the truth.
It’ll be all propaganda. In a way he’ll create the paranoid conspiracy world they imagine exists- it’ll be like “oh, Bureau of Labor Statistics- Breitbart makes those up” He IS the collapse of institutions and norms. He’s a reflection of something that already took place.
Baud
Ugh. Now Pennsylvania is going red.
lol chikinburd
@Elie: My first reaction was “either there was a massive, massive Bradley effect, or somebody’s pulling some shit”. Occam’s razor strongly suggests the former of those. This is a really, really racist country.
Mike R
@Mnemosyne: Geez, was trying to be nice, but yeah, I live in a rural red environment and for the most part avoid my neighbors as much as possible. I stand corrected.
CaseyL
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: I kept hearing that it wasn’t possible for Russia to hack election machines, because they’re not on networks. They’d have to hack the individual systems in an impossible-to-count number of localities. Not sure how you get around that.
frosty
@lol chikinburd:
My mom passed away November 1st. Same sentiment here. Although I wish I’d gotten her to vote absentee in NC.
khead
About to be fucking bitter.
cokane
Damn, this is going to be bad :(
? Martin
Well, on the upside, we’re safe from the risk that someone will employ poor email policy. Pretty sure Trump doesn’t know how to use a computer.
Keith P.
@amygdala: True, true. We can turn start turning the ship in 2 years, particularly if the world goes completely bonkers in the Trump era. Jesus, I can’t believe I’m even saying that. I’m really feeling ill over this. What an absolutely shit year. The worst.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jesus Christ, he’s pulling even in PA with mostly red counties to come
debit
@Suzanne: Yes. This.
ETA: I am finding it difficult to refrain from contacting someone I knew who voted for Johnson and really being nasty. I truly hope their “protest” made them happy.
Baud
@Kay: Agree. We’re in a whole new world.
Waldo
@debit: yeah, he’ll pretty much do what he wants with impunity. Settle scores. Jail his opponent. Grab all the pussy his little hands can hold. Nuke Belgium just cuz he can. Who’s going to stop him?
Omnes Omnibus
@enplaned: So, who should have run? And fuck you for giving up before it is over. Seriously, that form of flop sweat defeatism that I saw tonight was embarrassing.
MomSense
I really don’t have words. Have to put a load of laundry in the dryer and get up early to get kid to school. I feel a kind of anguish that is hard to describe.
SIA
@frosty: So sorry about your mom.
The Dangerman
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Bernie would have had his ass handed to him; no way a Jewish Socialist gets elected.
Biden might have won. Warren might have won. Actually, I think Warren probably wins bigger than Biden. Maybe.
You know who would have fucking kicked ass is she had run? The current First Lady. But, she didn’t run.
HRC still might save us from the nightmare but … this thing was ugly from the fucking start, I don’t see the turnaround happening.
aussie sheila
Dearest BJs,
As a long time lurker here I feel very bad for you, your friends and families, especially women and POC and of course, for the rest of the world, including us down under!
It is a terrible result all round, but at the risk of provoking some ire, can I offer this small crumb? It was always my view that the race would be a lot closer than a lot of you thought. Brexit was always at the back of my mind, and of course, the election of four Senators from our own racist pos party, One Nation in July had me primed for the worse in your election.
As such I thought that even if HC eked out a narrow win, the Dems would be slaughtered in the mid terms, and would lose the next general in 2020.
As it is, if the result is that the US has elected a genuine fascist for the first time to the Presidency, there is a chance that general revulsion at the incompetence and cruelty that such a regime promises might permit a deeper regrouping of progressive forces over the next 2-4 years.
Here’s hoping that you prevail over the next couple of days, and if not, that your righteous anger fuels a big fight back over the next years.
Thinking of you-love to all
Patricia Kayden
@MJS: True. This is so unexpected. But Democrats came back from a drubbing in 1980 and 1984 so there is hope.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
And dear god, one of the kits DAZ has for sale this morning is a Post Apocalyptic Camp Construction Kit.
I can’t even.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
Sadly, yes. It’s all of the white people who desperately want to live in a fantasy world, and Trump is going to provide it for them.
Fair Economist
@? Martin:
They happily voted for somebody who:
Groped women frequently
Had numerous affairs
Refused to release his taxes
Cheated thousands of contractors out of money
Promised ethnic cleansing.
The Republican were all “sure, we’re fine with that!”
Too many Democrats: “Oh, she wrote some emails about NYT articles. I just can’t vote for somebody like that.”
Waldo
Abc panel just blamed Obama for spurring trump to victory.
SIA
@MomSense: Same here. Physical pain around my heart and too much adrenaline to sleep.
Cermet
MI isn’t getting closer; NH has a little as has WI but far too slowly. Have to admit, Hillary appears to be toast. So, once more union and ex-union, college educated white females(!) let us all down. The burbs just failed; hope they enjoy what has happen because I really do see a bleak future and not for the reasons many here are saying. Hope the small dick ass lickers leave us in peace. They had better learn to eat the shit of their betters because that will be all they ever get.
Kay
@Mnemosyne:
One of Ryan’s staffers is already Tweeting they’ll repeal and replace Obamacare. They’re going to throw millions of people off of Medicaid. Ryan wants a 5000 health insurance subsidy to replace Medicaid.
patroclus
NH down to 5,000. But Pennsylvania is now narrowing to 8,000 w/ a Clinton lead. Wisconsin still widening at 88,000 – although Milwaukee’s coming in in 30 minutes. Michigan is at 31,000.
Mnemosyne
@The Dangerman:
I doubt it. Vagina + “Pocahontas” means that the same white supremacists show up to vote for Trump.
frosty
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Me neither. I’m tired. I’ve got to put my energy into my job and keep my clients happy. Fortunately they’re all local/state governments so at least we’re on the same page.
patroclus
Ugh! Trump just takes a lead in Pennsylvania. And he’s leading in the national popular vote by 1.3%.
goblue72
@Mnemosyne: You keep telling yourself that Team Clinton lost because the other guy was just awful. You keep telling that to yourself. You were wrong this entire election season. A whole lot of you.
But please, tell me more about those stupid Berniebros.
I am NOT happy about this outcome. Depressed? Yes. Devastated even? Absolutely. Horrified? Beyond belief. If somebody decided to Lee Harvey Oswald the Trump, I wouldn’t cry one bit. I might even cheer. I am pissed off beyond belief by the Democratic Establishment who have decided that sucking up to Wall Street money was somehow not going to blow back at them someday.
But yeah, all those yokels who voted for Obama in exurban and small town counties that are now going Clinton in the Upper MidWest because the Dems totally know what they are doing.
Renie
I now understand how Hitler came to power.
Fair Economist
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
It does, but it’s off everywhere by roughly similar numbers. Hard to see a hack of that scale with 50 different electoral systems.
lol chikinburd
@Timurid: There is that sense that the fuckers caught the car, yes. Scorched earth suddenly doesn’t so much favor them anymore. Small consolation given how many others will suffer, of course.
@frosty: Very sorry to hear about your mom.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
I really feel like I don’t want to live anymore – this isn’t anything I ever thought could happen. I’m 61, and seriously, I think I’m done. I’m not equipped emotionally to deal with this level of despair. I’m not going to kill myself, but I’m not able to deal with this. I don’t understand anything anymore, and don’t want to watch what happens next.
Emerald
@Baud: California indeed IS a treasure, and I think we need to secede.
We can take Oregon, Washington and Hawaii with us, and become the United States of the Pacific.
Hey, we’ve got the fifth largest economy in the world just in California. We recently passed France. We’d be just fine.
amygdala
@Omnes Omnibus: Any light you see at the end of the tunnel (that isn’t the headlight of an oncoming train) in WI?
Cermet
@aussie sheila: Whether you are right or not, the ugly will happen. Seriously doubt the ass lickers learn any lessons because they will be the first cut off at the knee’s.
Aleta
@frosty: I was just saying the same, right before I read this far.
Timurid
This is literally a race war.
Kay
@aussie sheila:
It’s nice to think that but it assumes there will be “news” or “information”. They create their own reality. They managed to convince people the economy sucks. They can probably convince people the economy is good after Trump tanks it.
debit
Guys, I’m going to bed. Good night and may the morning be brighter for us all.
reggie mantle
Fucking Hill-Bullies talked me into thinking the badly wounded Hillary Clinton was a viable candidate. And now she’s losing Michigan and Wisconsin and may lose Pennsylvania. Thanks, fuckers.
redshirt
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Same. I don’t even know how or why or what the fuck is happening.
Run, Lillian!
@Mnemosyne: Thanks for holding the line here. The Bobs are feeling emboldened and coming out in force with their idiocy. Tells me everything I need to know about them and their compassion for the women and minorities who are suffering this evening. I am just devastated. Having people ostensibly on my own side come in to kick me when I am down is just too much. Keep fighting the good fight.
amygdala
@Keith P.: We grieve a little, assuming no miracle happens in the next couple of hours, and then channel Churchill: “When you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Splitting Image
@patroclus:
He won’t win the popular vote. He might win Pennsylvania though. And that would make WIsconsin and Michigan moot.
Omnes Omnibus
@guachi: Troll or pantswetter? Your choice.
patroclus
Wow, I’ve been hopeful, but this has gone South quickly w/ losing Pennsylvania now. I suppose it’s still possible, but not particularly likely. I’ll stop with the hopeful updates and just let the trolls gloat now unless something really good happens. This is very depressing. The consequences will be severe.
Corner Stone
That Russian propagandist that posted “RIP Ukraine” and then Russia attacked Ukraine. And then recently posted “RIP Democracy”. And now?
My brain is fucking fried right now.
redshirt
538 reporting that Clinton underperformed with Latinos compared to Obama 2012.
W.T.F.?!
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@redshirt: your redshirt may be telling you something. I want to be a redshirt too.
GrandJury
The world just became a much more dangerous place. I think I am going to check out of here for awhile too. No TV or news either. It would be too painful to bear.
Patricia Kayden
@Dog Dawg Damn: Get in the streets to protest Trump? Hmmmm. No thanks. We’re going to be living in a police state very soon even more so than what we have now. Stand Your Ground may be nationalized.
Mnemosyne
@goblue72:
Actually, those places are ones that went for Romney in 2012, but went for Trump in even bigger numbers this year. White protestant voters turned out in HUGE numbers this year, many of them people who didn’t vote at all in 2012. Really, you think that was all because of “economic insecurity”?
You can tell yourself that this wasn’t white racists mobilizing and turning out in large numbers, but you’re lying to yourself. White racists voted for Trump, and won it for Trump.
frosty
@Baud:
Shit. I gave it everything I could. The count tonight at my polling place was 2:1 against, which I didn’t think was too bad, considering. A lot fewer visibly angry old white people than 2010. But a surprising number of younger (and female) voters that weren’t on my list of Ds. Shit.
sunny raines
@Suzanne:
I’m with you – everyone for themselves in trumpland – phuck the idiot working class – lazy ignorant sumvabitches. I’m going to laugh my ass off when trump and the republican Congress won’t deliver anything trump fed those craven imbecilic fools.
Corner Stone
I seriously think Kornacki and et al at MSNBC are happy about a Trump victory. How in the fuck did this happen.
seaboogie
The distilling moment of all of everything I’ve watched during this election was outside a Trump rally a few months ago. There were some Hillary supporters protesting Trump with their “Love trumps hate” signs. And across from them were Trump supporters, including a woman who was rage-shouting “Hate Will Win! Hate Will Win!” It was shocking, and it didn’t want to believe it. Now I do.
Run, Lillian!
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I feel the same way, I am absolutely devastated and genuinely unsure about how I am going to get out of bed in the morning. I don’t want to live in a country this hateful.
redshirt
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I’m already dead. Don’t join me.
Mnemosyne
@reggie mantle:
Still waiting for you to explain how Jewish Bernie Sanders wins against an anti-Semitic white supremacist.
Cermet
LOL; that is all folks. The white older male college and non-college educated have won. They will get what they voted for. As one – white, college educated and old, I pity everyone else. The last time a know – nothing fool took office a few hundred thousand brown people died. Hope this doesn’t occur again but not holding my breath.
Corner Stone
@goblue72: FUCK YOU
Emerald
@FormerSwingVoter: T
Not so sure of that.
Patricia Kayden
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: We will get through this. We have to and we will. It won’t be fun or comfortable but we can bounce back.
Mnemosyne
@Run, Lillian!:
I wish I didn’t have to. I am disheartened to discover that the demographic group I’m a part of is racist beyond my wildest nightmares.
And I’m even more disheartened that supposedly liberal white men still have their goddamned blinders on and refuse to realize that Trump won because he ran as an open white supremacist.
Tim C.
It’s going to be President Trump.
It’s going to be bad.
But.
We have work ahead. And we won’t fucking give up. ACA Gone. Roe V Wade Gone. But there are mid-terms in two years. the fucks can’t govern. They never have been able to. It’s going to be bad… but we have to keep trying. We just can’t give in to despair.
lol chikinburd
@aussie sheila: Appreciate the sentiment; the hope that there’ll even be meaningful elections two and four years from now is what sustains me.
I guess that and also the realization that we’re in the midst of a massive psychological warfare operation, and that despair is a weapon against us. Optimism, even irrational optimism, has strategic value, or at least prevents the fuckers from winning entirely.
vtr
There’s something wrong here. Is it possible there there are errors outside probability?
cckids
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: You know what?? Die. Just FOAD already. Bernie would have been a smear on the road under the tanks of Trump’s KKK. He doesn’t have a tenth of the moxie Hillary does.
Patricia Kayden
@Corner Stone: Maddow looks shaken up to me.
frosty
Thanks to all the front pagers and regular commenters (you know who you are). I can’t say you’re keeping me sane, but it helps.
This is the only site I can bear to click on tonight. There’s no fucking map that jumps out at me as soon as the page loads.
Kay
@Corner Stone:
Because it will be exciting and most of them are multi-millionaires. It’ll be a thrill a minute.
I think I’m done. Realty tv show star as President is too gross for me. I don’t want to follow it.
The Dangerman
@Mnemosyne:
I dunno; I don’t think the country is as misogynistic as you but I could be wrong and the Pocahontas thing wouldn’t have played well in a national election.
If this plays out the way it appears, this was a change election and anyone with the last name “Clinton” is the polar opposite of change. Maybe that means Michelle Obama doesn’t win either, I suppose, but her favorables are sky high while Hillary’s negatives are up there instead.
Fuck.
goblue72
@Mnemosyne: There are counties in the Upper Midwest and elsewhere that went Obama in 2012 that are either going Trump or are going far less for Hillary. Not a lot of votes in each of them, but they are adding up.
BTW, this is how Romney won the Governorship of Massachusetts when he ran against the Dem party machine’s hairball known as Shannon O’Brien.
Caravelle
FWIW before I go to bed I’ll just leave this quote by a young woman I heard on Youtube today :
“They ask us quite often: Why if you’re dissatisfied do you stay in a place ? Well, if you didn’t care a lot about it you wouldn’t stay…”
Now the USA isn’t Wellesley college; for most people it’s not a place you chose to go to and could easily leave. And the problems the USA has are also quite something else compared to the problems students at Wellesley college faced. In particular it wasn’t life or death for them the way it is for some people here. But still, even when things go bad at the top and it seems like the people themselves are the problem, I’m guessing a lot of people here still think there are people and values in this country worth fighting for, and insofar as things go wrong or not as well as we hoped, it means those things need to be fought for all the more.
Omnes Omnibus
@goblue72: We had a primary. Do you not understand elections?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Patricia Kayden: Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace look a bit rattled
cckids
@WaterGirl: I’m there with you.
reggie mantle
@Mnemosyne:
“Jewish Bernie Sanders”, you anti-Semitic fuckhead, didn’t have have the baggage your Queen brought with her. But you just keep on telling yourself that being a Jew was the disqualifier for Sanders.
frosty
@SIA:
Thanks, but overall it was a relief after 4 years of increasing dementia. We followed her wishes in the living will and she departed peacefully with hospice care.
Caravelle
@The Dangerman: Well, as someone on PBS pointed out, for a “change election” the Senate and House races aren’t moving a lot.
hueyplong
@Suzanne: “I hope that every uneducated white person who voted for Trump loses their job, their healthcare, and their homes.”
They will. Guess who they won’t blame. They already believe lots of things that aren’t true. Do you think they’ll scale back on that kind of thing when conditions worsen? I do not.
Hill Dweller
@The Dangerman: I’m sure the media will characterize it as a “change” election, but Obama would wipe the floor with any potential Republican opponent(were it constitutionally possible).
SIA
@frosty: I can understand that. Best.
Juju
I think I’m going to lose my health insurance.
Gvg
Is racism really it? Obama won, it’s Clinton losing. Admittedly Trump ran on every kind of bigotry I ever heard of. I have to say my life has been ok and I have rarely encountered the slightest sexism. That makes this campaign a real shock to me even before tonight.
Peoples ignorance about economics has been bothering me for 20 years.
I guess we are the desperate party of obstruction now.
Amaranthine RBG
@Mnemosyne:
Still waiting for someone to explain to me why we should give a shit about the opinion of someone who would lose a battle with a box of wheat thins.
Caravelle
@redshirt: I’ll be interested in an accounting of the effects of voter ID laws and other voter suppression strategies.
Mnemosyne
@reggie mantle:
Uh, did you miss that Trump just ran an anti-Semitic, white supremacist campaign that had white Protestants show up in unprecedented numbers? You think they wouldn’t have turned out to vote against an actual Jew?
This campaign was racist white people against everyone else. Unfortunately, it turned out that there actually are more of them than there are of us once you have a demagogue to get them riled up.
Daulnay
Before this last few weeks, I’d have said that Bernie being Jewish didn’t matter. But Trump’s put actual anti-Semites in charge of his campaign, and they’re definitely part of his support. As for this:
This country is appallingly more misogynistic than I thought. My mother died last year, she was a proud feminist and Hillary supporter. Tonight would have killed her if the horror of the last several months hadn’t.
frosty
@Emerald:
I graduated from college there. Can I immigrate? And bring my wife and kids?
reggie mantle
@Juju:
I KNOW we are, due to pre-existing conditions, including cancer. We’re fucked. FUCKED, thanks to Clinton’s baggage. Thanks, Democratic establishment. You may have killed my wife.
Chris
Oh, fuck me. The pundits just said “and in many ways we too are on trial” after listening to some idiot blathering about the liberal media.
We’re in for four more years of “we must become more humble and conciliatory towards the wholesome small town and folksy people who we ignored in our great liberal arrogance.” And not one of them will reflect on what it means that they had their finger on the scale for Trump the entire time.
God, I hate these people.
JT
My daughter is at University of Washington while we are out of the country and she is distraught. Has her friends but she is deeply confused by what is happening. The thoughts about how much damage can be done over the next two to four years is frightening.
Mnemosyne
@The Dangerman:
Did we just watch the same election? Of course it would have played well. These voters watched Trump bash Gold Star parents whose son died serving his country and they said, Yeah, hit those Mooslims again, Donald!
NoraLenderbee
I cannot imagine the mod at the Javits center tonight. No–I can, and it’s just crushing my heart.
I’m like everyone else? how the hell did this HAPPEN?
Fuck you, Americans. You’ll get exactly what you deserve. Unfortunately, so will the rest of us.
Omnes Omnibus
@GrandJury: Fucking Coward. We know who you are. I have nothing but contempt for you.
The Dangerman
@Caravelle:
True. And, as someone else pointed out, Obama would have won a 3rd term if allowed.
I’m befuddled. I don’t think it’s misogyny but … I could be wrong. I know a lot of powerful women in powerful places. Maybe it’s being in California. Again, befuddled.
Sadly, the PTB’s (thanks, Debbie Wasserman Schultz) were more interested in getting HRC the win than they were in winning. Major strategic error there.
daves09
Gotta go states rights.
\The free states of California and New York and Mass. and a few others.
All those other states that want to be Miss. and Ala.? Well fuck them and as an old white guy, fuck white guys and women.
Fuck them fuck them, fuck them.
Nv. has elected Cortez-Masto so there’s that-one perswon I worked for, contributed to, and voted for, made it. YAY-goddam it.
hueyplong
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace look a bit rattled.”
They should. Trump seems to be a bit of a score-settler, don’t you think?
MuckJagger
…every time people said his support level couldn’t possibly went higher, it went higher.
More debates. I know it’s Monday-morning quarterbacking, but every time she shared that stage with him she beat the pants off him — and without the debates, he was free to flap around, with no one to call him on the nonsense.
Eric U.
Trump is deeply anti-Semitic. His response to the twitter battle with Jon Stewart was to point out that Stewart originally had an obviously Jewish name. That doesn’t exactly occur to most of us.
redshirt
@Caravelle: I’m not, because it’s all about to get a 100 times worse.
frosty
@Patricia Kayden:
This year was supposed to be the bounce back. Shit. Double shit.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
In other words, you have no answer.
Trump ran a white supremacist campaign, and white supremacists turned out in droves to vote for him. And now you’re desperately trying to come up with possible other reasons when the actual reason is in front of your face.
The United States is a racist country, and millions of white Americans put race before anything else today.
Miss Bianca
@enplaned: Yeah, I’ll be glad if you’re wrong, too. Funny, I always had sympathy for Cassandra. If she carried on like you, I think I would have rooted for Apollo to strangle her with a buskin.
Corner Stone
WTF. WI, MI, MN and PA?
reality-based (the original, not the troll)
once again, Krugman speaks for a lot of people
Our Unknown Country
Just go read it. And remember 0- after grief comes rage. So when I stop being numb, I’m gonna get pissed. Like, Joe Hill and Mother Jones pissed.
And the answer is, it was BOTH – an overt appeal to racism, making them feel empowered, rather than embarassed – and hard core, unrepentant, overpowering misogyny. Trump gave them a two-fer.
I am in utter despair – but alone among my family and friends, I am not shocked. Because 8 years ago, I left Silicon Valley and moved back to small-town deep red North Dakota.
A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that even the houses with yard signs supporting Dems for Senate, Governor, etc. did not have a Hilary yard sign. Instead, they mostly had signs for Gary Johnson.
While I never predicted this outcome – I thought the laws of statistics were still in effect – it gave me a shiver, and a suspicion that we were underestimating the depths of the misogyny.
I just cracked a bottle of Jameson’s I was keeping for Christmas toddies. And I don’t even drink!
Mnemosyne
@reggie mantle:
Yes, don’t blame the racist whites who turned out in droves to vote for Trump. It’s all Clinton’s fault that American whites are so stone-cold racist that they voted for a total incompetent who promised them revenge on every minority who ever looked down on them.
Daulnay
@Eric U.:
This x 10. We need to recognize that we’ve just left Weimar Germany.
MuckJagger
I think there are some folks that are unable to understand that not everything exists independently of each other. I’ve got friends who both support Trump and the Standing Rock Sioux. I pointed out that Trump has invested in Energy Partners and the CEO of same has contributed over $100K to Trump’s campaign, and that you don’t get to say you support the Standing Rock Sioux if you support trump?
Their response? Post more pictures that say “I support the Standing Rock Sioux” on Facebook.
Chris
@NoraLenderbee:
The closest I’ve come to being this disgusted by my countrymen is 2009-2010, with the teabagger backlash putting all the ugliness in America on display. It took me years to get used to that. And this is infinitely worse.
Larkspur
@Patricia Kayden: Yes. We just have to keep going. I’m in Northern California so I’ve been spared stuff like the onslaught of Trump campaign ads because he didn’t bother with us. At my polling place this morning everyone was cheerful and kind to each other, and because I know my neighborhood, I know that they are dismayed tonight. So due to my location, I’m buffered from immediate post-election fallout.
So if the worst happens, or the next to worse (a Republican controlled government even with Clinton winning), I’m going to have to take it one bite at a time. I’m going to have to resume my project of learning Spanish, I’m going to see if my local Planned Parenthood clinic has any plans to assist out of state women to come here for care, and maybe I can help them find places to stay. I’m going to have to volunteer for those pop-up dental clinic events to get services to people without easy access.
In other words, I’m going to try and help my area of California be as strong and resilient as possible. And honestly, these are all things I need to do anyway, what with the continuing mess that is congress.
Emerald
@Tim C.:
It’s going to be President Trump, and a Republican Senate and House, and Supreme Court. They will do whatever he wants, after this election.
It’s going to be a dictatorship, folks, with the FBI as the ready-made and enthusiastic Gestapo, the majority of the police cracking down on whomever they like. I imagine that the military will do what they are told by their new Commander in Chief.
And if the American people actually have elected this mentally ill hatemonger, then they deserve what they’re gonna get, hard.
But the innocents will suffer, and I think those of us who can should do all they can to protect them.
frosty
@The Dangerman: I’m befuddled.
Don’t discount Clinton Derangement Syndrome and another dynasty. I know the dynasty thing bothered me at least a little bit.
reggie mantle
@Mnemosyne:
Shorter Hill-Bullies: “Hey, what are you gonna do? Racism, amirite?”
Omnes Omnibus
@Amaranthine RBG: @reggie mantle: Come on?
Peale
@Chris: yep. Because he won like this, future campaigns will be like it. The conventional wisdom that Republicans needed to “pivot” and downplay the base feeding for a general presidential run is dead. There will be no kinder gentler Republican Party going forward.
Splitting Image
Looking at the results for NE-2 and ME-2, it looks like there is a very good chance that the electoral college will be tied.
Current states won: Clinton 215, Trump 244.
Still outstanding: AK, AZ, NE-2, MN, WI, MI, PA, NH, ME, and ME-2.
Assuming Trump takes AZ, AK, WI, and ME-2, where he is currently leading, he ends up with 269 votes.
If Clinton holds on to win MN, NH, ME, and ME-1, where she is currently leading, and pulls ahead in MI, PA, and NE-2, where she is slightly behind, she will finish with 269 votes.
At which point faithless electors from Utah could throw the election to Clinton because why not? Or heck, maybe the House will get to choose McMullin after all.
hueyplong
Regardless of the polls, I assumed that surely 10% of Republicans would either vote against Trump or not show up. That, standing alone, should have done the trick. But instead I keep hearing about tremendous Republican turnout in rural areas. I don’t get how they could be so energized by such an obviously stupid and hateful person.
I guess he hates all the right people.
Maybe we’ll be proved wrong, but right now it seems like the biggest fans of “American exceptionalism” have voted to end it.
reggie mantle
“you arrogant ass! You’ve killed us!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISeLwQDP8UM
Mnemosyne
@reggie mantle:
The fact that you’re not shocked and horrified by how many of your fellow white Americans are so deeply racist and misogynistic that they voted for a game show host says more about you than I think you realize.
Caravelle
@aussie sheila: The problem is that when has this ever worked ? Bush got re-elected; indeed it’s plausible that one reason he’s as unpopular as he is is that he’s unpopular on the right as well as the left, and the right started disliking him when he tried to do immigration reform. All of his abuses of power and general moral failures that came with him (use of torture for one) got entrenched at worst, quietly cancelled and forgotten about with no prosecutions at best. Meaning there wasn’t an actual moral reckoning. The main instance I can think of where the election of a horribly abusive government directly led to a moral reckoning is with Germany in WWII, and 1) involved external military intervention, and 2) STILL wouldn’t necessarily have happened without people fighting for such a reckoning specifically (watch “Labyrinth of Silence” for 1960s Germans not being familiar with the name “Auschwitz”). Otherwise it seems to tend to define a new normal which may or may not change over time for reasons indirectly related to the abuses at best.
All this to say, yep there could be a return of the left in the midterms, after a one-term Trump presidency, a two-term Trump presidency, an impeachment, or whatever. But if it does it will be because people fought for it to happen specifically, not as a natural consequence of fascism sucking and people realizing this fact.
Mnemosyne
@hueyplong:
Yep. And some purportedly liberal white men are still so deep in denial that they refuse to see the evidence in front of their eyes.
frosty
@Caravelle:
And it hasn’t happened yet in Japan.
Daulnay
As for what happened, it’s pretty simple. After the last election, there were two groups that weren’t electorally up for grabs, according to the Pew analysis:
Hard-Pressed Skeptics, about 12% of the population. They were very financially stressed, distrustful of government, thought that immigrants were a burden and taking their jobs, thought we should tend to things at home instead of abroad, that the country’s best years were behind us, and that hard work was no longer a path to success. They also tended to not vote very much. Trump ticked off every single hot button with this group.
The other group up for grabs were the Bystanders, about 10% of the population, who were completely disengaged from politics. Their most salient aspects were that they were very interested in celebrity gossip and liked the outdoors. Don’t know if Trump actually pulled any of this group to vote, but he is a celebrity.
If the Republicans/Trump actually swung those groups into the Republican camp, they would win. You don’t have to invoke a white supremacist/nazi surge to explain Trump’s win.
Link:http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/26/typology-comparison/types/hard-pressed-skeptics/
reality-based (the original, not the troll)
@redshirt:
Me three. We are waking up tomorrow in Wiemar Germany. How do we deal with that/
Peale
@hueyplong: well find out more when we get the final results, but I think in the end their undecideds turned out and ours stayed home. On the plus side, we were very close in a lot of the states that were flipped. But I’m thinking that things are going to have to ge really bad in the country before we’re competitive. I don’t know. This is like Dukakis, I hope. Not Mondale or carter.
Emerald
@Splitting Image: If it’s tied the House gets to choose.
The current House.
Plus, there’s a faithless elector in Washington who has said he will never vote for Clinton no matter what the Washington voters tell him to do.
She has to get to 270, or we’re done.
Aleta
Rough sea now on the shore thundering brokenly
draws back stones with a roar out into quiet and
far depths, darkly to lie there
years, years—there not a sound from them.
New waves out of the night’s mist and obscurity
lunge up high on the beach, spending their energy,
each wave angrily dying,
all shapes endlessly altering,
yet out there in the depths nothing is modified.
Earthquakes won’t even move—no, nor the hurricane—
one stone there, nor a glance of
sun’s light stir its identity.
–from “Depths” by Richard Moore
Chris
@Emerald:
Yep.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be a literal dictatorship, but with the Supreme Court and both houses, voter suppression goes into overdrive, which is going to make it much harder for us in 2018 and 2020.
And needless to say, things like the ACA are under grave threat as well, as if the poor and working class won’t be fucked enough already.
Omnes Omnibus
@reggie mantle: Did you vote?
No One of Consequence
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Despair not. Keep Mr. Rogers in mind. Look to the helpers.
Seriously.
Me? I’m thinking about becoming a helper. I’d like to make America, America again. I’d like to strive to live up to our ideals.
Our collective future depends upon it.
Unplug, recharge, and look within, then re-engage.
The alternative is to cede the field. I’m not done. I survived C+ Agustus, and I can deal with Donald. The consolidation of Republican power in 2.5 branches of government, for the next 3 months then fast-track to all 3 straight-up, that concerns me greatly, for the long-term damage possible under that formula.
Though he may become President, it is not too much of a stretch to think that he might very well sew his own doom. Considering the personages involved, such sewing might be underway as we speak.
The Classic Chinese Curse has hit America smack between the eyes: May you live in interesting times.
There is more to come from us all yet. We must hold to faith to see it come to pass. First order of business after we dust ourselves off, is a new Howard Dean, and a New 50-State Strategy. Every elected office contested in every municipality, county, state, etc. Someone running. Standardizing the primary process to give new blood a shot early if they merit it. I am a born and raised Iowan. Patty Judge received my vote, but we needed someone *much* better than that. I don’t know who that should have been, but we can do better.
Anyway, much analysis in the future. Once I am satisfied that this is going to come to pass, and that there were not significant shenanigans, I am going to start working on the future. There’s enough of us to matter. Assuming that there is not a threshold level of disgust and disaster that my fellow Americans must rise to before we act.
Peace all, and please take care of yourselves. Look to the Helpers.
– NOoC
Peale
@Caravelle: yep. These things can last a long time. And even overthrown dictators still are popular.
PGFan
Always liked these line from Dover Beach, and they express how I feel right now:
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
PGFan
@No One of Consequence:
Look to the Helpers: yes.
MuckJagger
@Corner Stone:
Sure, why not? They’re the “opposition” — if Trump fucks up big time, they’ll get huge ratings.
Caravelle
@Emerald: Samantha Bee’s last show about freedom of the press in Russia was a bit funny (“I’ve made fun of him so. many. times”), especially since I hadn’t seen it coming that she would tie it to specific worries about the survival of *her* show. That was funny before his winning became a real possibility…
Also, question : if he becomes president, how will he manage his conflicts of interest with his business ? It was rather academic when he was unlikely to win, but now it’s suddenly completely ridiculous. Let me guess : the idea that the president shouldn’t have business interests that may conflict with the presidency isn’t actually written into any document or anything, it’s a mere custom that everybody followed because of plain common sense and the idea that it’s a tradition that won’t be broken because who’d do that, all Hell would break loose, except that like all such US governing traditions it will turn out that once the GOP is shameless enough to break it it they’ll find there’s no negative consequence for them and one election cycle later it’s the new normal way of doing things ?
And while I’m asking questions I never really bothered to ask when I didn’t think Trump had a real chance, what’s the law on suing the President for illegal/criminal activity engaged in before being President ? What if the lawsuits are already ongoing as he takes power ? Like, will he even have to go to that court date in December ? And if he does have to, will he go, and will he suffer any consequences if he doesn’t ?
Bess
If Republicans control Congress and the Supreme Court why would he have any conflicts of interest? He could rent out his hotel rooms to the federal government for $10,000 a night and who would do anything about it?
Peale
@Caravelle: my guess is that there will be a lot of intermingling and outright looting. Its how he rolls. We really are looking at a situation where former presidents will be moving overseas, losing candidates will be on trial and the guy in charge is raking it in. I don’t think we will have seen so much self dealing since reagan’s HUD.
Daulnay
The Dow is predicted to shed 800 points – a bigger points fall than in September 2008 when the financial crisis struck.
Daulnay
@Peale:
I think we’re going to have to go back to some of the very corrupt late 1800s administrations to match Trump. Even Harding is going to seem like a paragon of virtue.
Aussie Sheila
@Caravelle:
I get that. However I’m not as sure as everyone else here that the result was purely racism+misogyny, although it contributed mightily to the result for sure.
Right now I will leave my comments for later, once people have had time to nurse their grief..
The centre left across the world is in dire straits as a result of both the success of the Right in deflecting anger and fear onto ‘others’, and because they appear to be plumb out of ideas except to combine a kinder, softer neo liberalism with a ‘diversity’ chaser.
This does not excuse the results of course, and I am not blaming the victims of the political right’s’ dreadful fight back against the consequences of its manifest failures at every level, but IMHO it does mean a considerable need to rethink policy and campaigning assumptions on the part of the left generally.
Once again, best wishes and hugs to all.
jk
@Caravelle:
Samantha Bee has a special post election show airing tonight.
celticdragonchick
@Gvg:
See this tweet from Nate Cohn;
https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/796184879704711168?ref_src=twsrc^tfw
Brachiator
@Caravelle: We have never seen Trump’s taxes, and never will. There are no conflicts of interest. We just have to trust him, right?
Cain
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Get a grip. Nobody can control Trump. he’s not GWB. He is truly independent and will fuck over everyone. Don’t worry. If we had to lose, this is the best person to lose to. He can’t handle the presidency.
Caravelle
@frosty: Exactly. And I don’t know to what extent one happened in Spain which is the example I had in mind; Franco certainly happily lived on after WWII and that time period we were supposedly building a better world in which those things would Never Happen Again. (checking Wikipedia it does seem he toned down the horrors after WWII, but at the end of the day I’m betting the only reason he met a different fate than Hitler or Mussolini is because he wasn’t officially part of the Axis)
I mean, I think the lesson with those countries and my comment isn’t completely bleak : they’re examples of the “changes indirectly related to the abuses at best” I mentioned. Countries can and do evolve from authoritarian, fascistic, warmongering torturing governments and institutions to being… not as bad, or even as “good” as a modern liberal society gets. But the point I wanted to make is that when they change, that change isn’t caused principally by *the fascism* or *the horrified reaction to the fascism*. It’s caused by various internal and external factors, and then after and if the society has changed in certain ways it might judge its past self and be like “yeah that was terrible, and not the kind of society we are”, and depressingly rarely it might make official statements and implement concrete policies to that effect… But the direction of cause and effect will be “society leaves fascism, and therefore (is in a position where it can) judge fascism as being horrible” much more often than the other way around.
I’m not a historian or political scientist so I’m welcome to be proven wrong, but that’s the impression I get from most of the examples I can think of.
mdblanche
@Cain: Your reassurances are oddly unreassuring.
Caravelle
@mdblanche: Yeah. The problem is, if he can’t handle the presidency who is going to take the presidency away from him ? The Republican House and Senate ? Heck, his whole plan FROM THE START has been to have Mike Pence do all the work, so what would “can’t handle the presidency” look like ? Him talking nonsense to foreign powers or other groups and then his cabinet struggling to make sense of it/walk it back ? Him saying whatever he wants about legislation without any concern that it will have a resemblance to what the House and Senate actually do, and signing whatever they put in front of him ? Him tweeting shit at 3am ? All those things might have the media and reasonable people shaking their heads in shame and despair but can you articulate a causal chain leading from those things to him no longer being president, or any other positive outcome ?
ChrisGrrr
@dlwchico: Indeed.
Perfect.
Daulnay
On the bright side, he’s old, and not in the best of health. I doubt he will be able to last 4 years.
Brachiator
@Caravelle:
One thing that needs to stop right now is the fantasy that Trump can be controlled.
Caravelle
@Brachiator: He’s hard to manage, that’s for sure, but that only matters for things he cares about. Policy is not one of those things. And if it were, whatever political inclinations he has are right-leaning anyway.
Reasons I can imagine Trump would refuse to sign legislation that comes across his desk:
1) laziness
2) a personal feud with Paul Ryan or whoever is pushing the legislation across his desk
3) genuine policy disagreement with the legislation
4) a fear that signing the legislation will make him look bad in a way that matters to him.
4) might be more compelling to me if he didn’t so clearly believe that all publicity is good publicity. I can conceive of it happening, but I think it would involve somebody managing him from the other side to convince him that said piece of legislation will harm his reputation in a way he doesn’t want it to. And if that person is a Trump confidante they’re not a person whose judgment left-leaning people would trust anyway.
3) could happen, I dunno ? If it does I expect it would be like one in a thousand bills maybe. He’d need to care enough to know what it said to begin with. And given his political leanings it’s not something I think should reassure left-leaning people too much. Except for maybe things like gay rights ?
2) That’s very realistic, except that look at how the Republican leaders have been treating Trump when he *wasn’t* president. I’m pretty sure any feud between Trump and Ryan would result in Ryan kissing his ass in some suitable way to the point he’d sign that bill, and if not that one then most of the others. It could be entertaining to watch that’s for sure.
1) For some reason I feel that one might actually be the biggest factor though it’s the last one I thought of, based on all that’s been said about how he dealt with debate prep and such. It would be hilarious if it actually prevented a significant amount of legislation from going into effect, but I don’t really see that happening. His handler *have* shown themselves capable of getting him to do what they wanted once in awhile, and this would be pretty important to them. It’s fine to say Trump cannot be controlled like he’s a force of nature, but the reality is that he cannot be “controlled” like a spoiled two year-old. And like a spoiled two year-old, he can still be managed with appropriate strategies.