.
Routine physical with the new provider assigned by my medical group, and my blood pressure was a little higher than the last visit. Told the doctor I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, since I write for a political blog. He happily told me that he didn’t bother voting, because he had a real job, and it was just so unfortunate that “we” couldn’t be offered a candidate who was honest and hard-working who truly wanted to make things better for all Americans…
For some reason, this discourse did not lower my blood pressure at all!
Speaking of oversharing, I know some of y’all think I post too much inspirational happy-talk, but maybe we should be doing more to pass around those memes and excerpts. Per NYMag, “Talking About Politics on Social Media Actually Does Make a Difference“:
… A report from the Pew Research Center found that 20 percent of social-media users modified their stance on a political or social issue because of something they saw posted to social media. Additionally, 17 percent reported that social media helped alter their perspective on a specific candidate. Democrats were found to be more likely than Republicans to say that they changed their views because of social media…
As we pick ourselves up and start again, what’s on the agenda for the day?
.
OzarkHillbilly
“First thing we do, kill the rich.” -Shakespeare
Well, it was something like that.
Betty Cracker
I couldn’t sleep at all Tuesday night and had a very busy workday yesterday, so that sucked. I crashed hard around 8 PM and slept like a rock until 4 AM, so I definitely feel more human. Still haven’t been able to eat anything. I’m living on coffee. I feel like I did after 9/11: sick, depressed, horrified and filled with foreboding.
Russ
I now know how the people who voted for Trump feel.
NeenerNeener
I’m still reeling from finding out yesterday that one of my coworkers, who seems to be a nice, compassionate lady and a natural fit for a Democrat, is a tribal Republican who believes all the nasty stuff about Clinton and thinks a “successful businessman” like Trump is what we need for a president.
I don’t know how I’m going to work with her now knowing that she voted for a conman who would steal Jesus off the cross if he wasn’t nailed on.
On the other hand, the two middle-aged guys behind me were speculating about if Michelle Obama could be convinced to run for POTUS someday, so I guess my workplace isn’t total assholes.
satby
Ironically, leaving the country. I’m flying out tomorrow for the wedding in Delhi. I have too much to try to finish today and tomorrow before I go, and my despair yesterday really slowed me down. The only thing I finished was my enrollment on the exchange for next year, if I’m lucky I will have one month of health care, get a checkup, and have nothing discovered that will keep me from ever getting insurance again.
rikyrah
Morning, Everyone ???
It will be a few more days before I can write Good Morning.
rikyrah
@satby:
Have a good trip and safe travels.
satby
@rikyrah: Right there with you.
And thanks. I hope to get perspective and come back ready to fight, but I’m just so tired of some of the people who share my skin tone in this country. Most especially the contingent who still couldn’t be bothered to vote at all and now are disgusted.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: On the Comey rat-fucking: It appears you were right, I was wrong. All the soft Dem votes stayed home. I though the Clinton GOTV would overcome that and it didn’t.
Not that that makes you feel any better.
Poopyman
@rikyrah: Hugs to you, Sunshine! We know how you feel.
BRyan
Commenting here instead of responding angrily to an email from a friend — longtime Republican who announced early on “I just love Donald Trump!” and never saw a reason throughout the campaign to change that view — who writes that a seniors organization in her town is asking for donations of/for coats for the poors, and it makes her so sad so she’s going to Goodwill to buy some stuff to donate — yeah, great. You just enthusiastically voted for an utter buffoon and a Republican lock on Congress that will guarantee more pain, poverty and suffering among those poors you feel so sad about, but how nice you can assuage your I Haz A Sad by chipping in for people who can’t afford coats. How about for their medical coverage? How about for decent public education? How about a living wage? Well, here’s a used coat.
She’s well-intentioned, I tell myself. But there’s a real disconnect there. What is that?
OzarkHillbilly
@satby:
Too late for me.
ETA safe travels and enjoy yourselves.
Kropadope
On the plus side, I’ve been conversion therapy curious for years.
OzarkHillbilly
@BRyan:
Charity is a private choice, not a public duty.
Betty Cracker
I’ve got a Trumpster dilemma. A man my husband used to work with needs some help on a document that happens to fall into my area of expertise. Not to go into detail, but it’s a somewhat urgent matter, and the guy is in a bad place and needs my help.
Anyhoo, he sent me the document yesterday afternoon, and I emailed back letting him know I’d have a look today instead of yesterday evening because I had a “late night.” Didn’t mention the election, and this guy doesn’t know me, but he must have surmised I’m a Democrat since he knows my husband is. In his reply, he said something like “Tell me about it! Now we all have to come together and support Trump, and I would have said the same if Hillary won.”
I kinda want to reply, “Oh, you voted for Trump? Then fuck off.”
My husband is friendly with this guy, but they don’t work together anymore and aren’t ever going to get together socially. He (my husband) is amused at my dilemma over how to handle it and isn’t urging me to do one thing or another. In other words, he doesn’t care if I tell the guy to fuck off. Should I? It feels kinda petty. But on the other hand, why should I give a stranger who enabled a racist, sexist, xenophobic demagogue the benefits of my education and experience for free?
sukabi
@Betty Cracker: well, as a drumpf supporter he knows a great business person when he sees one, so he won’t mind in the least if you charge him twice your rate, in advance, for your work….
And if he doesn’t like that he can fuck right off.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Betty Cracker:
Friend posted this to FB yesterday morning: Neuroscience Says Listening to This Song Reduces Anxiety by Up to 65 Percent It did get me through last night, and I don’t even like this genre of music.
Rob
We lost because we nominated the worst candidate we could have possibly chosen. And whenever anybody brought it up, they were accused of being idiots, mysoginists, or Republican trolls. So many in our party became so enthralled at the idea of the first woman president, that we never asked ourselves if HRC was the right woman. Clearly, she wasn’t.
Mai.naem.mobile
I hate watch CNBCs Squawk Box in the morning for the turd Joe Kernen. I was fully expecting to watch it on Wed to see him on suicide watch…ha ha I guess the last laugh is on me since I couldn’t get myself to even watch it yesterday. I cancelled all my DVR news stuff. Not even sure I want to watch Bill Maher on Fri.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Me too.
@rikyrah: Not for four years.
BRyan
Oh, i didn’t get from what you related that he was a Trump voter, more a kumbayah let’s-all-make-nice vibe. (i’d still think he was an idiot, but wouldn’t want to
punish him quite so hard.) Maybe I just read it wrong.
Oops. Meant as a reply to Betty
Anne Laurie
@Betty Cracker: Honest answer: Will you feel worse, in a week or a year, if you don’t help this putz out or if you do?
My first impulse, like yours, would be to discover a pressing getting-paid-for-it job that would keep you from helping Mr. Trump Voter in his time of need. But then, because I was raised by Dorothy Day Catholics, I’d worry about adding to the vast list of personal failures that haunt me in my insomniac hours.
Your personal calculations are not mine, so you have to weigh the two sides for yourself!
Anne Laurie
@Rob:
I’m sure you honestly believe this.
And I honestly believe you are wrong in every sentence of your comment, and should go away somewhere that will properly appreciate your stance — preferably a place far, far away from here.
Betty Cracker
@Rob: Yay! Let’s play another round of trash our candidate!
Anya
Yesterday was my birthday and I was in a complete despair. I did not sleep a wink the election night. All day yesterday, I felt like the world was ending. I was young enough on 9/11 to be shielded from the horor by my parents so this hit me harder than 9/11. I fluctuated between feeling numb and sobbing. Close to 10pm last night, I started to rationalize and find ways why certain things might not be as bad as they seem now. But honestly, I am worried about a lot of things. I am worried about our country, but I am also worried about individuals, like Trump’s accusers, the Khans and other private citizens who came forward and campained against Trump. I am worried that the FBI will be used to settle scores. Mr. Khan is a muslim so I am specially worried about him. I am worried and terrified for all the people who will lose their health care, including those who voted against their own interest. I am worried about upcoming natural disasters under a Trump administration. I am worried about the Dreamers. I am worried about young black men and BLM activists. Trump was elected on the promise that he’ll hurt a lot of our fellow Americans and undocumented immigrants. All of that stuff worries me. The sad part is that I expect Comey’s FBI to become a repeat of J. Edger Hoover’s FBI with more means to spy on Americans.
Trump’s America scares me. It also scares me that the Dems are taking the wrong lesson from this election. They might abandon minorities and focus on the grievance of the “white working class”. When POTUS leaves the office, we will be leaderless, except for Pelosi.
On the other hand, I am not as worried about SCOTUS as I was yesterday. It will go back to status quo of 5-4 split. I don’t want to think about when RBG retires. By then I hope the Trump presidency has exploded to the point he is left with no credibility.
Ironically, because of Russia, I am not worried about the Iran deal or Trump getting us into war with Iran.
Mai.naem.mobile
@Betty Cracker: charge him a rip off rate, send part of it to Planned Parenthood and tell him you did because he would have done the same for the NRA(only RW org that comes to mind)if Hilz had won.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@BRyan:
I’m currently waffling about a long-time friend who is midway along the road to disability. If I do decide to remain friends, there will eventually be a moment when I end up saying, “You’re the one who’s been voting Republican for decades; you have no right to complain that they did away with SSDI just like they’ve been promising to do that entire time.”
satby
@Betty Cracker: first, no he wouldn’t have said anything about supporting Clinton because none of them do that, so he started out with a lie. Dealing with liars is a deal breaker for me anyway.
Betty Cracker
@BRyan: It’s not so clear from the line I quoted, but I do know he’s a Trump supporter. He used to harass my husband (in a friendly way) about being a Democrat when they worked together.
@Anne Laurie: Le sigh. Yeah. A bit of wisdom I’ve acquired over the years (but too often ignore) is this: You’ll never regret behaving graciously.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker:
That’s exactly how I feel, Betty.
p.a.
I’ve avoided the usual Tgiving dinner with the wingnut side of the family thanks to an invite from my goddaughter.
Here’s an example of the wingnut thought I hear. (As Dave Barry said, “I am not making this up):
Saddam Hussein hid all his WMD in 30 minute windows when US spy satellites were not in range.
MLK: communist
Giving away the Panama Canal= DOOOOMMMM
Jimmy Carter Bill Clinton Barack ObamaHillary Clintonis the worst criminal in history
Limes are unripe lemons
WaterGirl
@satby: I’m having trouble with my email and am getting notifications that you haven’t received my last 2 messages. Know that I haven’t been ignoring you and that I am sending my best wishes for your trip!
satby
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: honestly, I already say stuff like that to the morons who complain about stuff that their red state legislatures have screwed them over on, like the people in Michigan complaining about the paved roads that are being ripped out and replaced with gravel so they don’t need to be maintained. They voted for that. And what they think they save on taxes they spend on needing heavier duty vehicles, more gas, more repairs. Because FREEDUMB!
Baud
@Anya: Belated birthday. I won’t say happy for obvious reasons.
Mustang Bobby
I am taking a hiatus from posting political stuff on my blog for the rest of the week; today I put up a year-old news story from northern Michigan about a guy who found a 95 lb Petoskey stone and DNR wants him to put it back. I have turned off morning TV and switched the radio to serious jazz from WDNA in Miami. I signed up for Netflix so I could watch “The Crown” and other diversions. I’ll come back after this weekend, but it will be to work to make sure that this “experiment in democracy” we’ve just been through is both a learning experience and terminated as quickly and as legally possible.
satby
@WaterGirl: Oh! Thanks, I think I just figured you were nearly comatose with grief like we all are.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: The people who voted for Trump should experience the consequences of their actions. Count me as a vote for telling the guy to fuck off.
OzarkHillbilly
@Rob: Of those who ran, who would have been better? The guys she beat? Your argument is lacking something…. Oh I know, facts to back it up.
Chris
“Democrats are more likely to change their views because of social media.” I think Democrats are more likely to change their views, period, if only because they’re more likely to think rather than believe.
Mai.naem.mobile
We didn’t nominate the worst candidate. For a Democrat you have to find an attractive,telegenic person who has a people personality who is also a good ‘explainer in chief.’ They also have to be youngish(i.e not old), have either a poor or middle class childhood and preferably gone to an elite college. They should have a compelling personal narrative. Married, preferably with kids. Bonus for equally attractive spouse and cute kids. They have to be smart,quick on their feet,free of sleaze and short legislative career. Now, go find this person.
oldster
My candidate was chosen by the majority.
Your candidate was chosen by the KGB.
I’m considering adding that to my signature block on all emails.
One lesson I take from the last 8 years is that Massive Resistance works. And I intend to practice it.
Trump never acknowledged the legitimacy of our president, one of the greatest presidents this country has ever seen. The Republicans refused to work with him. They refused to be open-minded or give him the benefit of the doubt or come together for the good of the country. They practiced scorched-earth obstructionism from day one.
And I intend to do the same, in any small and trivial ways that I can.
Anya
This tweet captures the challenges a lot of people are facing:
@Baud: Thank you!
Mwangangi
I view Trump voters as my enemies. I know I wouldn’t help one. I don’t even think it’s petty. My demographic is two parts of a nativist Bingo for them. I know my Black, Muslim self, who doesn’t believe that racism is over and who won’t agree to disagree, is going to be left out in the cold of a Trump America. That time could be better spent emptying the ocean onto a beach a teaspoon at a time.
cosima
@BRyan: That story is oh-so-familiar to me. My husband and I are tree-hugging oil company engineers (I’ve not worked since we moved to the UK and our youngest was born). Our oldest went to the International School here, and the ladies at the bus stop always badgered me to join them for coffee mornings. Never went. Did ONE lunch with them when the nicest of them was moving back to the US. Was subjected to a rant from one of them who lived in a castle (because of course, her husband was a VP), talking about the horrible job that her cleaner did, but she felt awful for her having to feed several children, cold house, etc., so for xmas she’d given her the bath robe that her husband had brought her back from Four Seasons or some such place when away on a business trip. It was not still wrapped, and she’d been using it. One of the other ladies (using that term loosely) said ‘you are so thoughtful! that’s just like you!’ and she said ‘well, he can just get me a new one.’
WTF was the cleaning lady supposed to do with that? Not giving her £20 for xmas, gave her a robe for her & the kids to huddle under to stay warm instead?! That is loving Christian kindness of the sort that I can well do without, and is rife. I despair for the country, I really do.
I’m still having my news-blackout as I’m still feeling as though I’m in mourning. At least here in the UK I have only sympathetic people around me, and there is zero chance that I will have to talk to someone who voted for Trump. I don’t know that I could contain myself if I were confronted with that. In my husband’s office he is the only American so at least this election he is spared the Republican b.s. that is prevalent in other oil companies.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
I have. More than once.
Chris
@BRyan:
Yeah, she’s got good intentions. That and a quarter will get you 25 cents.
I’m long past the point of excusing people because they (claim to) have good intentions.
Mustang Bobby
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Posted it. Now all I need is a massage.
WaterGirl
I’m so glad you guys are all still here at BJ. It’s really a comfort to me. Here’s what I wrote in the dead music thread when I woke up an hour and a half ago.
Awake in the night, crying and shaking again and feeling despair. It is a comfort, though, to see all the nyms and be reminded of all the good people here.
I cancelled all my appointments yesterday and spent the day in my PJs watching TV to escape the reality of what happened, just trying not to think. Not so successful at trying not to think. I accomplished one thing, I did pick my peppers before the big freeze tonight and took some to friends who love them. I did one load of laundry and managed to eat something.
The 5 stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance – where is profound sadness on that list? I guess I’m not even at the first stage yet.
JPL
Trump is going to change the nation..
Federal funding of education will be slashed
The EPA dismantled.
Medicare privatized
Taxes slashed for the wealthy
The bankers will be unleashed
Nationwide stop and frisk
etc
I don’t know how we come back from this.
cosima
@Betty Cracker: The ‘free’ at the end of your post? No way! Save your ‘free’ efforts for worthier causes. Sounds like something that you should be charging the going rate for, possibly adding a +20% as$hole surcharge. Not your problem if he was so busy sending pro-Trump emails to his friends that he found himself up against a wall in terms of timelines.
Kropadope
@oldster:
So, both sides should do it (actively sabotaging any hope of political comity).
Chris
@Anya:
I think the revelation of the year is that the FBI has always been a J. Edgar Hoover institution.
I do worry about Iran, because I don’t believe Putin can control Trump, even with something like blackmail.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: Hello, All. Thanks for being around. I’m washed out like many of you. And yes, Comey really put the icing on the anthrax cake. Nothing ever before like it.
Lucky for me — my students rather saved me from myself yesterday. They had just had a mid term and they mostly were visiting me all day about that. This was a positive distraction! But one young woman who is Angolan/Lebanese and identifies as Islamic came in and spent about an hour telling me how she feared some of her classmates. Her word not mine — “feared.” But she was unbowed and so powerful. Again it cheered me up.
satby
@JPL: And the 25% who voted for him and approximately 40% who couldn’t be bothered to vote at all will reap the whirlwind. That we’re stuck with the same crop is the tragedy.
Betty Cracker
My college student daughter reports that there was an anti-Trump demonstration in Tampa’s Ybor City last night. I’m still on news blackout too, but apparently this is going on nationwide. Resist, resist, resist. We can’t stop the unqualified clown from assuming the office, but we can make it clear he doesn’t have the support of the majority.
Anya
Not as bad as all the other horrible thinsg he’ll do to the country, but I’ve just read that Trump will be meeting POTUS today. Jesus fucking christ. I can’t. It just hit me again.
WaterGirl
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Seven years ago my kitty soulmate was diagnosed with kidney failure and they said he was so anemic that he wouldn’t make it through the night without a blood transfusion. They said some kitties can have a terrible reaction to a transfusion and won’t survive, but it was the only option. Quiver was great in the morning when I picked him up, he ate some turkey baby food, I thought we were going to be the lucky ones.
Maybe an hour later he started throwing up, his poor little body heaving, and throwing up multiple times in an hour. A few hours into it, I really thought I was going to have to take him to the vet and do the unthinkable to stop his misery. I was recording how often he he throwing up to help me with my decision-making
The idea of playing calming music for him came into my head and I made a playlist of calming but uplifting music. I’ll be damned, but within minutes of starting the music the times between puking slowed from 4 or 5 minutes to 7 or 10, then 12 or 15, then 20 and 30 and finally an hour. He recovered from the transfusion and we had 10 more weeks together. I played that playlist over and over that day and played it often in the weeks after that.
So I believe that music can really make a difference. Maybe it’s time for me to look for “quiver’s playlist” on my iPad, though I’m afraid that might bring more sadness because he was diagnosed on oct 4 and died in mid-december. That was the year I found balloon juice and I spent many an hour reading Bj with my sweet quiver in my lap.
Betty Cracker
@Kropadope: Political comity? LOL!
satby
@Chris:
I’m in the same place, and it’s already cost me a relationship with my cousin and his wife. But people can’t have it both ways, they can’t vote for an unqualified megalomaniac supported by the KKK and still be considered nice people who mean well.
We got a good hard dose of the banality of evil, and pushing back in even small ways is a way to stand against that.
Kay
@Rob:
There was real weakness in the Great Lakes states going into this. Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin not only elected but re-elected Republican governors who have not done anything for the “white working class”. They were drifting Right for 6 years prior to 2016. Part of that is because two of the governors, MI and WI, very effectively damaged labor unions and labor unions are (still) essential to getting Democrats elected in the upper middle states. Part of it is because of the lack of documents for Dem voters in places like Milwaukee.
Everyone is shocked but they’re grabbing a media narrative on the “white working class” and I would just urge caution on doing that. For one thing a shit-ton of Trump voters aren’t “working class” . For another he didn’t bring out “secret voters” or “new voters”- there was no increase in vote totals.
There are liberals who want to promote the idea of a white working class revolt because that furthers an argument they were already making. That’s fine- advocates use what they have- but it’s more complicated than that in the midwest. That’s an easy answer that ignores what was a fundamental weakness for Democrats going into the race in states like OH, MI and WI – voters in those states were choosing Republicans at the state level. I was afraid it would bleed and affect Democrats in a national race and it did. Clinton has headwinds in those states and the headwinds had been building since at least 2010.
Democrats have a couple of options. They could re-invest in Great Lakes states but in some of them they’ll have to replace the organizational work that was done by labor unions. Or, they could focus on states like VA, NC and GA as the places they’re most likely to make gains- revive an older midwest market (which isn’t really growing, frankly) or focus on an “emerging market” is the basic question.
Phylllis
@Betty Cracker: You shouldn’t. Your time and expertise are valuable. Tell him it will cost however much it costs any other of your clients to complete the work. Then don’t hand the work over until you have payment in hand.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kropadope: On what issue would you give Trump “political comity” on? I can’t think of a single one that he might actually do. Anything you name that I might go along with with caveats the Repubs would never allow out of Congress. Never.
Chris
@JPL:
Yep. As I keep thinking, there’s simply no silver lining. We’ll be dealing with the consequences for decades.
JPL
@satby: Trump has alienated half the citizens of the country, many who now have to worry walking down the street. Voting in our country has become to difficult for some. If you are a hourly worker, it costs you money to stand in line. Sure I’m upset that some don’t realize that their vote matters, but somehow we need to turn that around. A nude model now replaces the classiest first lady ever.
@WaterGirl: I guess I’m in the second stage.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: @cosima: Free? I hadn’t caught that. Definitely would not do it for free. Offer to charge him, make it at least double what you would normally charge. No need to say “fuck off”, but it would feel good in the moment to do so!
Mustang Bobby
@Phylllis:
I’d ask for payment up front and hold off until the check clears.
satby
@Kropadope: political comity? Like the comity Obama has enjoyed for 8 years? Yeah, that kind.
Anya
@Betty Cracker: It’s all over the social media. I was arguing with someone on twitter who claimed that this is similar to when the republicans apposed Obama from day one. I replied: “President Obama campained to be the president of all America. He campained on a message of hope and unity, while Trump campained on the promise of division and inflicting harm on some groups in our society. He campaigned on a platfom of overt racism, ethnic targeting and religious bigotry. It’s our duty as Americans to fight him.”
daveNYC
@Betty Cracker: Trashing the candidate is pointless now. She lost and will probably never run for office again. Unfortunately, trashing the electorate is about as useless, since we’re basically stuck with them and obviously the demographic thing isn’t working out as well as we hoped.
I think the campaign itself could do with some trashing though. Huge advantage (theoretically) in GOTV, fund raising, and basically everything else that one would think of that makes for a successful campaign, and yet they lost. Obviously the answer isn’t to nominate a frothing nutbag and give them unrestricted twitter rights, but what we did do didn’t work either, so there we are.
Baud
Does anyone have any stats on millennial voting? They were talked about before the election, but I haven’t heard how that turned out.
Chris
@cosima:
Rich people tossing a scrap to the poor every once in a blue moon for the fawning applause of the other rich has always been a thing.
There’s a good Doctor Who quote about this, about how “that’s how you live with yourself, because once in a while, you happen to be kind.”
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@JPL:
One foot in front of the other, moving all the same.
OK, time for my favorite book passages for difficult times. I’m gonna cut out the plot-related stuff; you don’t really need the paragraphs of reflection on how he gets to this point in his life. From The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold:
Kropadope
@OzarkHillbilly: @Betty Cracker: So should the Senate Democrats be secretly meeting right now to oppose Trump at every turn regardless of the merits and put “making sure he’s a one-term president” above the needs of the country?
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: It seems surreal to even talk about “options” now. We don’t even know if the Democratic Party is going to be allowed to exist after January.
Anya
@Baud: Had only millennials voted, Clinton would’ve won in a landslide.
Mustang Bobby
Someone at the office said it’s like the Beverly Hillbillies won the election. I rose to the defense of the Clampetts. They had their quirks, but they had their dignity and a firm moral foundation. To me the closest comparison on TV are the Kardashians; crude, boorish, and without an ounce of tact or sense of history.
satby
@Kropadope: And how will the agenda of the Orange one meet the needs of the country, not the kleptocrats?
Baud
@Anya: Thanks. Mixed bag though. Low turnout, high third party voting, racial divide. Kind of what was predicted before the election.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Rob: Fuck right off with that shit.
Matt McIrvin
@Anya: But white millennials still voted for Trump.
The kids are still as racially polarized as ever; the demographic balance is just different.
Matt McIrvin
@Kropadope: I doubt that whether they consider the merits is going to make that much operational difference.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Chris:
Which is why Trump has never been accepted by other rich people. He won’t toss a scrap into the pot when expected to, just shows up at the gatherings to schmooze. They quit inviting him.
Chris
@Kay:
Thanks for this. The “white working class” narrative is going viral, it’s going to be the takeaway from this election, and… it’s bullshit, and worse, bullshit that validates and excuses the Trump voters and deliberately whitewashes what they actually voted for.
As for people fantasizing about how much better an old school economic campaign would have gone, none of them seem to have an explanation for why an increasing number of Midwesterners are not only flipping the bird to Democrats in Washington or Democrats in the state house, but to their own labor unions. Economic populism simply isn’t the force among white voters that it used to be. They’re looking for different things now.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Booman has a piece on how the Democrats can address the rural-urban divide through anti-trust crusading that brings jobs back to small town America. I guess he’s going with the “economic anxiety” argument. I don’t buy it (well, not completely), but even if it were true, it seems pretty clear now that policy doesn’t make a difference to these folks.
I was talking to my husband about it last night, and we discussed a couple of possible interpretations of the reality show clown’s ascension. You can look at it as an aberration, the Jesse Ventura experiment writ large. I didn’t study that election in depth, but IIRC, a lot of the sentiment surrounding it was the same, i.e., giving the “establishment” the finger, an “outsider,” etc.
The more ominous interpretation is that the white nationalist movement that has roiled Europe in various forms has finally reached our shores in a catastrophic way. Trump himself indicates alliance with that group by constantly invoking Brexit. And certainly the Breitbart trolls are all-in for an American version, and they are running his show.
Anyway, back to watching PandaCam!
Baud
@Kropadope: I’ll support whatever they decide to do. They are the ones who were able to get themselves elected.
Kropadope
@satby: It probably won’t, but it couldn’t hurt to search for points of agreement, to try to see our concerns addressed in legislation, and generally just wait til they do something effed up before going into last stand mode.
WaterGirl
@JPL: I am holding out hope that after Barack Obama takes a few months off, he and Eric Holder will come back and help us organize and take action on voting rights and gerrymandering that will allow us to (hopefully) take back the senate in 2018 and position ourselves for 2020.
That’s my only hope in all of this. In the crazy times that have been the last 8 years, I have been very happy to have Barack Obama driving the bus, steady as he goes. Personally, I can’t see where we go from here. I simply do not know what to do. I’m sure the shaking and crying will stop after while, but I wonder if the despair will ever lift or we will be stuck with despair for 4 or 8 or 10 years. It’s my hope that Barack will be able to get us fired up and ready to go, ready to fight to help turn the ship back around. If we have to be stuck in the wilderness, I”m at least hopeful that Barack will figure out some way to lead us out.
I hope some other leaders emerge, too, as they have in the black lives matter movement. I don’t think it’s gonna be me, though, I have been knocked flat by this.
Anne Laurie
@Kropadope:
The last ship in that flotilla, comrade, sailed during the Bush/Gore election theft.
My only real quarrel with President Obama is that he didn’t have a better grasp on the fact that his Republican opponents respect force and nothing else. It would’ve been much easier to keep the GOP in line if he’d taken the advice from one of them to ‘pick up some crappy little [Congresscritter] and slap [him] up against the wall, now and then.’
debbie
That’s some bedside manner your doc has, Anne. I’d think twice.
Kay
@Rob:
I also know no one wants to hear this but I work with these people every day- the white working class- and I gotta tell you, white working class men liked Obama and part of the reason they liked Obama was they related to him as a man. Obama likes sports and he’s a really good father and he has a beautiful wife and he’s successful. They liked him-connected to him as men in a way they didn’t with John Kerry.
The white working class are not the most progressive group of people as far as gender. Ask any woman who works in a male-dominated skilled trade or manufacturing. There was ONE woman who made it past year one of my son’s skilled trade apprentice group out of a class of 22. The rest basically fled.
daveNYC
@Anya: If more [i]demographic group that favors Democrats[/i] had voted, then Clinton would have won kind of goes without saying.
Voter turnout was 55.6%. Why was it so low, and how do we increase it?
JPL
@Mustang Bobby: We elected the Kardashians to office..
Betty Cracker
@Kropadope: Yes. Resistance to a racist, sexist, xenophobic demagogue is not only in the country’s best interest, it is imperative for its survival in recognizable form. If Trump or the Republicans happen to accidentally barf up a piece of legislation that would help the American people, by all means, Democrats could support it. But I don’t expect that to happen.
Anya
@Kay: Thank you, Kay. I was making these points, inelegantly on Twitter. I know I am becoming obsessive about this and at the risk of starting a BJ war, I was very dissapointed in Sanders press release. Not only did he advocate this fallacy he also legitimized Trumps campaign. He made it seem as though Trump had an actual message or a platform of campaigning on income inequality & a promise of creating an economically just society. Other than screaming about stupid trade deals, what did he promise? Seeing Sanders press release broke my heart. I know I am being a drama queen but it really was like pouring salt to the wound. It’s also a stupid messeging mistake.
Baud
@Chris:
@Betty Cracker:
If the theory is true, why can’t some non-establishmemt upstart from the left win their votes. The tea party did it on the right. So did Trump.
I hate all the talk and advice. I would like someone to prove that their electoral ideas have merit.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Betty Cracker: Yes, but. Public protests are nice for the sentiment of the thing, but are mostly opportunities for surveillance and authoritarian crackdown. Resistance needs to start locally, off the grid, and requires forming networks of individuals.
Betty Cracker
@Kropadope: Yes. Resistance to a racist, sexist, xenophobic demagogue is not only in the country’s best interest, it is imperative for its survival in recognizable form. If Trump or the Republicans happen to accidentally barf up a piece of legislation that would help the American people, by all means, Democrats should support it. But I don’t expect that to happen.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I think you have to look at how they were moving right at the state level in OH, WI and MI. They were. A lot of the white working class had already voted twice for Right wing governors by the time Clinton rolled into town and the Right wing governors in these states haven’t done jack shit for them.
debbie
@Mustang Bobby:
I think it’s more like the White version of Ghost Dancing. That all this shit their parents used to rhapsodize about would magically descend from the Skies of Trump and save them. They’re deluded and don’t realize how hard they’ll hit bottom when what they think is coming their way ends up dooming them. Right to Work. No pensions. No security. Maybe at the last moment, when it’s too late, they’ll come to realize that there is no line and that they were never going to get to the front of it.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
This.
Not literally, but in effect the same – they’re about to go all-in on vote suppression, they’ll have a Supreme Court willing to rubber stamp it all, and an FBI that’ll happily harass political opponents. We’re heading down a road where the barriers are about to be much, much higher.
@Matt McIrvin:
Yep. Sadly, I don’t know what the hell it’ll take for white people not to be dominated by racial prejudice and clueless entitlement, but my generation hasn’t done it, whatever it is.
Comrade Scrutinizer
Read Sarah Kendzior.
Eta: how did fucking autocorrect fuck that up?
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Same here in FL. Uber wingnut Rick Scott was elected twice, albeit with less than 50% of the vote each time.
debbie
@Kay:
Kay, do you think Labor will really just overlook SB5 in regard to Kasich and the Ohio GOP?
OzarkHillbilly
@Kropadope: Stopping Trump IS IN THE NEEDS OF THE COUNTRY. I asked you a question, you are choosing not to answer it. Why?
Comrade Scrutinizer
@debbie: No, what they’ll do is blame all the usual suspects and start the ethnic cleansing.
Original Lee
The MSM is thrilled with the Trump win. They are salivating over all the changes to U.S. policy that are coming – so much shiny newness for them to cover! And a hint of anticipation for the many juicy scandals that a Trump administration will inevitably trail behind it. They are very very happy now. Fuckers.
JMG
@Kay: This. Absolutely this. Obama is the ultimate cool guy. Trump is an imitation cool guy. Way back in 2007, before emails, I was struck by how many white guys of my acquaintance, not all of them working class, either, had a deep antipathy to Clinton that had nothing to do with ideology or partisanship.
.Anxiety is surely the proper reaction to Trump, but despair isn’t. Remember, a good number of Trump voters and I’ll bet almost all the nonvoters are feeling at least a little anxiety as well. If you want to politically engage with people who aren’t on your side, an attempt to find common feelings will probably go better than discussing ideas.
As he steps in the poo time and again after Jan. 20, you can then say, “See, this is what I was worried about.”
It is fortunate that Obama will still be on the political scene, still engaged and a vigorous and gracious contrast to his successor. Voting rights is a good issue. Only those who are totally into racism would say people shouldn’t be able to vote.
As the anecdotes about rich people giving trinkets to the poor to feel better show, even those who are cruel from habit don’t like to think they’re cruel. Trump rubs people’s noses in his love for cruelty. Call that out when you can.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
I wouldn’t do shyt for him. Yes, I have been pushed to this. Let him find a fellow Trump voter to do it for free.
Anne Laurie
@debbie:
I fully intend to demand I be re-assigned. I like the network and this branch is conveniently located for me, but they’ve got a turnover issue — I’ve ‘lost’ two nurse practitioners I really liked & three doctors [two of whom I never met, because they officially ‘supervise’ the NPs] in the last couple of years.
(First-world problems!)
Mustang Bobby
@Kay: Michigan in particular bounces between Democratic and Republican governors with amazing regularity. From Democrat Richard Blanchard to ad-for-spermicide Republican John Engler, then Jennifer Granholm (who can’t run for the White House, unfortunately), to Snyder. It seems to be a tug-of-war between upstate and the Detroit metro area, each one getting their turn.
Kay
@Anya:
I’m afraid two things are going on. Lefties want to explain the loss as something other than a rejection of liberals and Righties want to explain the win as something more noble than racism and xenophobia. Both camps strike me as excessively defensive and eager to latch onto the “white working class” reason. I would just urge caution with that because it fits both of their narratives so perfectly and media clearly love it. There’s more to it than that.
Florida frog
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: great passage from a fun book.
Baud
@Baud:
I mean, given the voter suppression that’s going to be affirmed, I can see an argument that the Dems should be more centrist to capture more white middle class votes. Not my preference, but there seem to be more centrists than progressives who get elected in swing states and districts.
p.a.
@Kay: But they have, Kay. They’ve kept the blahs down, they’ve kept their gun rights safe, they’ve angered and insulted liberals. Maybe that’s what the people want.
o/t but I like Barry Ritholtz.
Anne Laurie
@Anya:
Starfish
@Betty Cracker: Oh look! You are so busy raising chickens that you don’t think that you will have time to look at this man’s document after all.
Kropadope
@Betty Cracker: Well, given the double-standard the parties are held to (the Democrats are actually expected to behave better) perhaps allowing for the possibility of collaboration rather than up-front stonewalling would be a good thing. People give Obama shit for it, but he actually got a lot of good work done.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
I feel you, BC
Chris
@debbie:
They’ll never realize it.
The entire “heartland” and probably the white population as a whole is now where the South was post Civil War, sinking rapidly into desperate poverty but voting again and again for the leaders who make it that way because they deliver the feel good rush of blaming blacks and race traitors. I don’t know how you break that cycle; the white South STILL hasn’t, and it’s been 150 years.
socraticsilence
I’ll give Pew this- I’m a Democrat and seeing the online supporters of Donald Trump definitely makes me hate him more.
Kay
@Mustang Bobby:
Democrats keep telling themselves that but I think it;s more profound than that. Democrats lost big in state government for 6 years prior to Clinton’s run. She came in to very weak situation in MI, WI and OH. I felt like it would “bleed” over to national and a Presidential race and it did.
Betty Cracker
@Kropadope: To point out the obvious, Obama was an intelligent president who was interested in improving the country. Trump is a narcissist and sociopath who is interested in personal aggrandizement and score-settling. It’s absurd to compare the two situations.
rikyrah
@Mwangangi:
Come sit by me, because that’s how I feel.
Kay
@Chris:
White working class voted for John Kasich, twice. He’s a person who came out of DC, a vehement free trader, and the only private sector job he has ever had was a make-work job in finance he got as a result of being a former House member.
Kropadope
@OzarkHillbilly: How am I supposed to answer a question that requires knowledge of the future. I don’t know what the Republicans will necessarily try to pass and what opportunities will present themselves to mitigate the damage or maybe even do some actual good. But scorched-earth opposition basically ensures you’re shut out of the process and makes you look like petulant children.
p.a.
What happens if tRump is serious about infrastructure modernization, or anything else that may cost $ and actually improve anyone beyond the R’s BigMoneyBoyz lives, and McConnell et al tell him in effect: just sit there in the corner and let us run things little boy?
I know the odds are low he actually cares about much beyond payback to anyone of any or no political party, but let’s consider it an intellectual exercise.
Baud
@Kay: Does Rand Paul strike you as representative of the white working class? Yet he wins Kentucky handily.
Iowa Old Lady
@Betty Cracker: My niece messaged me that exact same thing yesterday: She felt like she did after 9 /11.
I can’t seem to get over it either. It’s like my brain refuses to accept that this really happened.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: And Rick Scott, Medicare fraudster fat cat and tea party hero. There’s lots of evidence that the economic anxiety argument is bullshit on stilts.
rikyrah
@WaterGirl:
I will be at anger for awhile
Gindy51
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Ugh, I could only list to the first 45 seconds before shutting it off. Yuck.
Hal
I’m hoping Obama sticks around Washington and helps dems reorganize and get ready for 2018. In the very least, if we can take back Congress, some of Trump’s pending policies can be stopped until 2020.
rikyrah
@Kay: smart thoughts Kay
Cheryl from Maryland
@Betty Cracker: Give him an estimate for your work. You have no reason to be on any basis with this man, even if he was a Democrat, other than a professional one. Besides, in the coming apocalypse, we’ll need all the money we can get.
Kropadope
@Betty Cracker:
Two things: First off, Congress writes the laws. People seem to keep forgetting that. Secondly, no matter how bad we think they are, they think the same thing and I don’t think it’s helping anything to go down to their level.
Iowa Old Lady
@Rob: Fuck off
Betty Cracker
@p.a.: If Kasich’s account of the VP offer made by Uday or Qusay Trump is to be believed, Mike Pence will be running policy, and he’s a bog-standard sanctimonious bible-humper giving cover to bog-standard GOP fat cat bag men. There will be no projects unless they lopsidedly benefit Trump or his cronies.
Baud
@Hal: He says he’s staying in DC until Sasha finishes high school.
Kay
@Baud:
I said this once before but I’ll say it again. I was proud of Hillary Clinton for not budging and moving towards Trump on demonizing racial and ethnic and religious minorities. There are trade-offs Democrats make to reach the white working class. Bill Clinton made some and we ended up with boot camps for juveniles because it was important he be “tough on crime”. I don’t want to do that again. I’m done with that.
JMG
The “white working class” which includes a lot of retired geezers like me (I don’t fit the demo, graduated college, have money) has little to no interest in economic policy. They are seeking remedies for a perceived drop in social status, Being considered nothing more than equal to nonwhites is the primary but not sole cause of that complaint. Truth is, Trump can rip them off to the point of ruining the lives of their offspring as long as he delivers a few symbolic victories over THEM.
I see no course of action to cope with that except to make it clear that you the individual do indeed see another individual’s racist thoughts and actions as justifying seeing them as of a lower social status. In short, fuck ’em.
JPL
@Iowa Old Lady: Trump’s economic policies can do more damage to our country, and ISIL now has the religious war it wanted.
Iowa Old Lady
@Betty Cracker: You could say something like “I’m sorry, but I can’t get behind Trump. He’s sexist, racist, and ignorant. And at the moment, I don’t feel I can do a good job on your documents.”
Mike R
@rikyrah: You will have a lot of company. Knowing what Ryan and McConnell have in store isn’t really a calming thought. This feels much worse than when Nixon was elected or Reagan and he just made my skin crawl.
socraticsilence
@Kropadope:
Tell me the compromise on overturning Roe or repealing Gay Marriage?
MomSense
@Kay:
Kay it seems like new voting restrictions played a significant role. Omnes says that the voter ID law cost us 10 x the margin we lost by in votes that were lost.
Here’s a link to a daily news article.
new voter laws
OzarkHillbilly
@Kropadope:
And he did it all despite Republicans doing everything they could to stop him. There is absolutely nothing they will do that I will go along with. There is lots they could do that I would go along with but nothing they will do, and if you think I’m wrong than all I can say is stay away from on-line betting.
Bupalos
Betty what I would do is pair your generosity to him with a request that he support a cause you are raising money for with a donation, framed as “now that my friend x is having y issue because of z policy that is changing,I need to support her, would you consider making a donation?”
This allows you to exercise your natural generosity while letting him know that elections have consequences.
Baud
@Kay: I agree. She ran the campaign I would have wanted her to run. She lost, so there should be a post mortem. But I’m not on board with the Bros who come here to trash her.
JPL
@Bupalos: What a nice idea. If I were in that position, I’d just say hell no!
OzarkHillbilly
@Kropadope:
I think I see the problem: You haven’t been paying attention.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker:
Did just about the same thing here, Betty (mine was more like 10pm-5am. Also, nothing really affects my appetite. ;)
I’m horrified too…kind of skipping the foreboding because that would imply I’m not quite sure how this is going to turn out, when I think we already know some of the things in store for the U.S., things guaranteed by a Trump win.
What I’m not certain of is what’ll happen when Trump pardons his own self after the Trump U case is decided, and/or once the CIA drops a helpful bombshell or three about Trump’s Russia connections. Then we’ll start to hear the I-word get thrown around, and we’ll see if this long-anticipated GOP civil war really gets kicked off in style.
In the meantime, we had our day of shock and mourning yesterday. Time to start making plans on how we want to organize & fight back for 2017, 2018, and 2020! (I think it starts with door-to-door voter registration and then ensuring that every voter has an acceptable ID in their hands 6 months before these elections. We can overturn the ID laws once we’re back in power)
Betty Cracker
@Kropadope: Two things: I know who writes the laws, thank you. I was responding to your comment about Obama’s attempt at bipartisanship, so a reply about the character of the president was directly relevant.
Second, yes, Republicans think Obama is a secret gay Muslim, black nationalist, socialist Kenyan. That view is not based on objective reality. Our (or at least my) view of Trump is reality-based.
Do you torture yourself similarly on policy issues? Gee, maybe we should try to work with and accommodate those climate change deniers and abortion-is-murder activists — for comity!
It makes sense to work with people with whom you disagree if compromise is possible to help you reach a common goal. Authoritarians, racists, etc., must be opposed. Period.
Kropadope
@OzarkHillbilly: Tell me about the difference between “suspect” and “know.”
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
They’re already normalizing Democrats as a non-entity. They’re thrilled. The natural order has been restored. There’s a big rich white guy in the White House. Finally, someone who can “bring the country together” meaning “ram thru giant tax cuts and savage ‘entitlements’.
Trump is like Bush II on steroids with “trickle down”. He’ll borrow and spend like a drunken sailor and none of it will “trickle down”. Never forget- these same people fawned all over Chris Christie and Chris Christie was a lousy governor and a bad manager. That’s in addition to being a lying crook who should have been indicted along with the underlings who took the fall for him.
Gindy51
@Baud: Barry Ritholtz http://ritholtz.com/ has a graph on his blog of the voting. Looks like the millennials, minorities (voting restrictions?), and under $50K were the ones who did not show up for the Dems.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
Rick Scott, heck. Try Donald Trump himself.
It is bullshit, but worse, it’s bullshit that validates, excuses, and whitewashes the real reasons the Trump campaign was as successful as it was, and downplays the reality of what nonwhites will have to deal with under a Trump presidency. You know the whitewashing narrative of the Civil War according to which it was all about poor hardworking white Southerners standing up for their States’ Rights against the oppressive Yankee government – rather than a Southern aristocracy backed by a racist white population trying to preserve its right to brutalize and oppress the most vulnerable demographic in the country? We’re doing it again. It really is phenomenal how much this country will bend over backwards to make white people with racial anxieties feel better about themselves.
JMG
Here’s another issue that can be and should be dealt with at the local level. Working for the safety of Muslim-Americans and their places of worship, as well as other targets of sporadic white nationalist violence. Whites support police violence against the Other, but most disapprove of freelancing it.
Chris
@Kropadope:
Yes, Congress writes the laws.
And because of the last six to eight years, we actually have a better idea how they would act than how Donald Trump would act, and it’s all horrific, and entirely consistent with the Trumpenfuhrer’s worldview.
Kropadope
@Betty Cracker:
So let’s behave exactly as the Republicans did rather than take things on a case-by-case basis. It’ll be good when we do it because reasons.
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: A reader sent me an idea for a “farm team” post to discuss rising stars at the state and local level. I think it’s a great idea. Stay tuned!
rikyrah
@Kay:
Everything you wrote didn’t have shyt to do with ECONOMIC policies to help the White working class.
Kay
@Baud:
I might run for school board. It’s so funny because I just hated school, even college. I used to take the stairs rather than the elevator to the library in law school so I wouldn’t be accidentally trapped with a professor and have to …chat with them. Ugh.
I would like to work on making a really solid public school. The most fun I’ve ever had in politics was passing the levy to build the thing. Now I’d like to make the inside better :)
When my daughter was coming up she had a close group of girl friends. They’re still friends. They used to gather at my house and they were funny-clever. I would just listen to them chatter. They referred to their middle school as “the sad factory”. They went in happy and came out sad. I don’t think it has to be so grim.
JPL
@Chris: Although Cooper is ahead, they still haven’t called the NC governor’s race. McCrory’s policies hurt the state, but his voters turned out because the gays are icky. There’s a strong religious component to what is going on.
Baud
@Kay: That’s the best news I’ve heard since election day. Do it!
Kropadope
@Chris:
So, you’re sure it will all be 100% horrific and there will be no opportunities for the Democrats to make some positive contributions to the legislative process?
Chris
@JMG:
Though to be fair, you’re describing the average white person as a whole rather than the average white working class person. Trump won white people in all demographic categories, regardless of things like class and age.
As for “reaching out,” 1) I don’t see how we’ll ever be better at playing to the anxieties those people care about than the GOP, and 2) worse, reaching out in that way will immediately crater our approval among nonwhite demographics. Focus on turning out that vote and getting around voter ID laws – but reaching out to the “Nixon/Reagan Democrats,” no.
Betty Cracker
@Kropadope: I said in an earlier reply that if the Republicans happen to accidentally cough up a piece of legislation that helps the American people, Democrats should support it. I guess you didn’t read that part because reasons.
But yeah, there should be a plan to actively resist and oppose the illegal and authoritarian proposals that Trump has promised within his first 100 days as well as a plan to remove the manifestly unfit and unhinged pustule from office as soon as legally possible.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: We will fund raise for you! :)
Baud
@Betty Cracker: She’ll be in the pocket of Big BJ!
Chris
@JPL:
I tend to include that along with racism. Racism doesn’t explain everything – there are other tribalist, identity-based prejudices that pop up, like sexism, homophobia, and religious bigotry. But racism is by far the biggest one, and the rest is largely the same exact mentality, slightly adjusted.
@Kropadope:
100%? No. 99%? Yes.
Furthermore, my point was “let’s do 100% obstruction all the time.” My point was that if you’re trying to reassure us by saying that because Congress passes the law, Donald Trump’s issues aren’t as big a deal as we think, the last eight years suggest you’re very wrong.
(This isn’t even including Trump’s rock star status with the GOP base, which means that every congressman out there has a strong incentive to back him on everything or be primaried out).
JMG
@rikyrah: There aren’t any policies that’d work to change their ideas about Democrats. The economy was never so robust as in the 1960s and resistance in northern states to racial equality laws and proposals was almost as savage as in the south. They turned to B. Clinton and then Obama because their economic plight under the two Bushes was so severe as to make them seek desperate remedies. Now that times are better, and in the manner of all humans at all times this means they assume good times are here forever, they can turn to their real concern, making sure they have a superior place in the social structure because of their skin color and secondarily gender.
guachi
Obama for DNC chair?
Kropadope
@Betty Cracker:
Oh, I read it, but subsequent responses made me less inclined to believe it.
Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire)
@Mwangangi: Please stay safe out there. Know you have people who have your back, even if we are the extreme minority.
MomSense
@Kay:
I’m looking at the demographics and it looks to me like Clinton won the white working class. She lost the exurban and suburban whites with median incomes over 72k.
Baud
@MomSense: Whoa. You sure? I thought Trump got all white groups.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kropadope:
As to this, I believe in certain things. I believe every American of proper age has the right to vote. I believe that the environment needs to be protected, that climate change is an existential danger and that we need to do everything we can to stop it. I believe that ALL people should be treated equally by the law and that no one should be able to kill with impunity (read “BLM”). I believe that when union men and women are no longer allowed to stand together, there will be no reason for corporations to allow anyone to stand at all. I believe money is not speech. I believe a woman’s body is her own and every body else needs to MTOB. I believe torture is not “enhanced interrogation”. I believe that when Mexico “sends” people across our border in search of a better life, they are not sending their worst, they are sending their best.
I believe I have only scratched the surface of things I believe in that Republicans stand in stark opposition too. You may think my fighting for these things makes me look like a petulant child but I think it means I stand up for the things I believe in and I will fight for them. And I have no delusions about how Republicans** feel about me for it: They hate me.
Just in case you haven’t noticed, they hate you too.
**when I say “Republicans”, I do not speak of the avg GOP voter, Tho many of them hate me too, there are more than a few who vote GOP for varying reasons. When I say “Republican” I speak of the GOP politicians and the ones who directly work for and support them.
Patricia Kayden
@BRyan: Why don’t you ask your friend about that disconnect? How would we know? It’s amazing how many people have racist friends who are perfectly comfortable with having someone as dangerous as Trump in the White House.
Chris
@Chris:
Obviously, that was meant to read “my point wasn’t “let’s do 100% obstruction all the time.””
@MomSense:
Have you got a link – preferably not just polls but a breakdown of counties by demographic and the like? (Not that I’m doubting you, I just would like something as rock solid as possible because I’ll eventually be using it).
Betty Cracker
@guachi: We need to find someone really good for that role, but as important as it is, I think that’s too small a job for PBO. He’s already said he and AG Holder are going to try to roll back gerrymandering and voter suppression laws. I hope the elevation of the apricot-hued racist authoritarian hasn’t soured Obama on America permanently. He’ll be desperately needed in the coming fight.
PVDMichael
For the next two years, can I make a proposal that every Democrat (elected official, pundit, aspiring elected official, voter, activist, commenter) when asked about 2020 says the following: “We are concentrating all of our energy on 2018. There will be time to talk about that later”
And anyone who answers otherwise should facing SHUNNING.. major SHUNNING.. :)
Patricia Kayden
@Betty Cracker: When President Obama won, did Republican politicians and laypersons rally around him and support him? Or did they form Tea Parties and rally against him with ugly, racist signs depicting him as a witch doctor? Limbaugh hoped that POTUS failed. Beck called him an anti-White racist. Republican politicians promised to obstruct his every move.
No, I will not rally around Trump. He is not now and never will be my President. Period.
Chris
@OzarkHillbilly:
This. All of this.
And if anyone hasn’t learned that from the last eight years, I don’t know what to tell ’em.
@Betty Cracker:
More to the point, Obama’s time, come January 2016, is past. He can still remain active, but once he leaves the White House, he can no longer be the voice of the Democratic Party. And for him to do so would cripple the party even worse than it currently is – we have to learn to develop structures that don’t depend on charismatic leaders, much less past charismatic leaders.
Gin & Tonic
@MomSense: I’m too lazy to look it up, but clearly recall reading that Trump got more votes among those with incomes >$250k than those <$50k.
Chris
@PVDMichael:
This.
@Patricia Kayden:
This, but mind you, I think that’s less a statement of feeling on your part than a recognition of the objective truth. He made it very clear his entire campaign that he had no interest in being your president, or the president of anyone other than white racists.
gogol's wife
@Betty Cracker:
I vote fuck off.
Patricia Kayden
@MomSense: To the extent that Jews are considered to be White in the U.S., the majority of them voted for Secretary Clinton. Another White demographic which did not vote Trump.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kropadope: I suspect the Republicans mean exactly what they say because they have meant it in the past and that this time they will go whole hog because they know they have a narrow window.
I know you are naive to think that maybe they won’t.
gogol's wife
@rikyrah:
Yeah, and good luck with that.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Maybe don’t do it for free. If it is a business transaction, could you feel more neutral about the guy?
HRA
I spent more time in front of this screen yesterday calming down my friends than ever before. At the same time there was a massive fire down wind and in evidence from my back windows at one of the former Bethlehem steel plants which was converted to a recycle plant.
Throughout this campaign I never asked or was asked about who to vote for in my family of 21 registered Democrats that consists of 10 middle aged and 10 millennials.. We had all devoted ourselves to getting Obama elected both times. We even had the help of Republican friends and in-laws.
On election day, they came to the house or text me about their vote. One person voted for Trump. He had voted twice for Obama. The rest are a mixture of Johnson and Stein voter along with no votes.
I do not believe my family is unique in how they voted. What I do believe is something needs to be done to revamp the DNC from the top down.
Everyone calm down. Follow the advice of President Obama. “The sun will rise in the morning…” We have survived as a nation through many other calamities. We will survive again..
Shalimar
@EBT: So a serious question. How fast can McConnell and Ryan kill off the social safety nets?
From last night’s thread. They aren’t going to kill it next year. They’re going to convert the safety net into block grants and vouchers in February, then kill the programs 2-3 years from now when they are “failing”.
JPL
This is from ABC News
Kropadope
@Chris:
Yeah, well the original person I responded to, the response which people are taking such great exception to, actually did argue that the Ds should obstruct in that manner.
Starfish
@Rob: We could have chosen Martin O’Malley. [sarcasm]He was truly an inspiring candidate. [/sarcasm]
Betty Cracker
@Chris: Agreed, except I’m coming to believe that maybe charismatic is a requirement for the modern presidency (along with a penis). Who was the last president who conspicuously lacked charisma? GHWB? And he was a one-termer who basically rode the charismatic but awful Reagan’s coattails into office. To quote Nirvana, “here we are now, entertain us!”
matryoshka
Given that this is the day our fine president has to sit down and make nice with the gloating shitgibbon, I have to add my voice to all the ones saying they don’t feel capable of politeness with Trump voters. I work with people who have gay kids and voted for him; all of them have daughters; many of the people we serve are minorities of various kinds. I cannot even look at these idiots. I won’t let them get away with saying that they didn’t vote for him when things start getting real. I have three words I can say to them with full attention: You built this.
Patricia Kayden
@Anya:
I wish Democrats would take a lesson from Republicans and do to Trump what Republicans did to President Obama. When Republicans lost all three chambers in 2008, they didn’t vow to support President Obama. They did the exact opposite. And look how it has paid off for them. They are now in control of everything and can do whatever they like completely unobstructed. Our side needs to learn how to organize at the grassroots level and then effect political change within the Democratic Party. We need to push it more to the left and then organize voters to take back our government.
I hate how spineless Democratic politicians are in contrast to Republicans, who are evil but organized and determined.
Patricia Kayden
@HRA:
You do know that there are many people who may not survive Trump’s term(s). There are millions who will be thrown off the ACA who could die without access to medical treatment. I wouldn’t be so flippant with that “we will survive” meme. It may not be true.
OzarkHillbilly
@guachi: Obama has earned a nice vacation from electoral politics.
JMG
The primary cause of my despair Tuesday night and Wednesday until dinnertime was this: this election revealed that half of America, and well more than half of white people (of which I am one) do not believe and never believed in the ideals of our country as were taught in school. They don’t even pay it lip service. To them, America is nothing more than their personal economic situation and need to feel superior to others and they will gladly harm themselves to keep that sense of superiority. The white nationalist backlash in Europe doesn’t surprise me. There’s no idea of being Hungarian. You were born that way or not. But we were allegedly different and our history has been the struggle to live up to our ideals for the country. We’re on the verge of throwing away all the gains made towards those goals, a step that will take far longer than my remaining lifetime to reverse.
I still have despair, but anger is gradually pushing it out of my mind. Fuck those people. I will never let them win without fighting.
charluckles
I really hope we don’t lose track of how the FBI and the media fucked this country. To me this is where our ire should be focused, we have the evidence to back up our assertions, and there is still enough rationality in those places (I hope) that our concerns may have some affect. Also right now, our media is sorting how they will handle Donald Trump and the Republican congress. Based on the media’s behavior during the election, I am fearful at best.
I for one will be making it clear that I think Donald Trump is an illegitimate President, I won’t participate in normalizing him, his behavior, or the actions of our media and FBI. I don’t know what that means for our country, I don’t know if it will change anything, and maybe I will change my mind after I cool down, but right now I am angry.
Betty Cracker
@Patricia Kayden: But comity!
Patricia Kayden
@guachi: POTUS and his lovely family for a nice long vacation in Jamaica or some other warm country. He’s been through enough. I can’t imagine how horrible he must feel having to meet with a man who denied that he was eligible to be our President because of a racist claim that he wasn’t born in this country. A man who is not fit to tie his shoelaces. A man who is openly racist and sexist. POTUS is such a classy man. And look how America has repaid him for all that he has done.
Humboldtblue
I love this “time to work together bullshit”. Go right ahead, go stand in the street while Trump supporters smear you with shit cover you in feathers stick your ass on a rail and ride you out of town. They despise you and all that you stand for and made that abundantly clear by voting into the white House a man who ran on a platform of white racist resentment.
He literally encouraged his supporters to assault you where they find you.
But you go ahead and pretend that “working” with the people who would rather see you in a prison camp is going to make things better for the country.
Clinton failed to get Democratic voters to the polls. There weren’t any surprises in this election, the same people who always vote Republican did so again. Trump got far fewer votes than either McCain or Romney. It was Clinton who failed to get the Democratic voters out in numbers.
In 2012 more than 72% of registered Californians cast a ballot, locally that number was 70%. On Tuesday just over 51% of registered voters cast a ballot and locally that number was 42%. That’s not the “working white man” gambit or any other nebulous descriptor of the election results, that’s Democratic apathy.
There is nothing to compromise with a Trump presidency. I have no respect for him or those who support him and I am certainly not going to do anything other than point and laugh, mock and obstruct.
You do as you wish and pretend you’re Obama and reaching across the aisle. I live in the real world where the vicious ignorance that drives the GOP is a real threat to the health and safety of millions of Americans and they would sooner beat you like a dog in the street than claim you are equal to them as citizens or even human beings.
Kay
I don’t want Hillary Clinton to undergo a show trial, but since media, the Trump Campaign, the FBI and Republicans said she was guilty of unspecified email crimes, why WOULDN’T they pursue it?
Because it was made-up bullshit, of course, but don’t they have to APPEAR to care about this once the election is over?
I was told on CNN that the email outrage was because Clinton was being treated differently than other people. If that was true then it’s true now. Now that the political objective has been achieved email crimes no longer matter?
Eric U.
@Rob: actually, the mass of people like you that do the republicans bidding and discourage Democratic voters are why we lost. The republicans have been pushing that shit for decades now, and idiots on our side are all too happy to help them do it. So fuck off.
JMG
Arpaio is 84, under criminal indictment and his wife is in failing health. He’s extremely unlikely to go to Washington. I don’t see how Christie will, either, because he’d have to testify under oath about Bridgegate at any confirmation hearing.
PS: Humboldt Blue, I agree with you. Finding out the reasons Democratic voters didn’t show up for Clinton is job one. Job two is getting them to show up in 2018 and 2020.
Iowa Old Lady
For me, the feeling this reminds me of isn’t the aftermath of 9/11. It’s what I felt after the shootings at Kent State, when National Guard gunned down students protesting a war that I thought was pointless, which friends of mine were drafted to fight, die, and be maimed. I was a student at Michigan at the time. On a daily basis, I crossed the diag where demonstrations took place. That could easily have been me who was dead.
And my fellow citizens said things like, good, they deserved to die, killing was too good for them.
I felt like my country was a place where I didn’t belong, a place that hated people like me.
Original Lee
@Jeffro: I have been thinking about this, and IIRC one of the issues is getting the necessary documentation together to get the IDs. While it’s useful and necessary to fight voter ID laws, I think we also need to help people get the IDs so they can vote regardless of when the battle is won. In some states, it can cost at least $200 to get the paperwork to get the ID.I’ve been hearing about VoteRiders but haven’t had a chance to research them. They’re on my list of groups I’m considering on helping during the Drumpfdammerung.
hovercraft
@Betty Cracker:
This neatly sums up my feelings.
I know I can’t let the darkness win, bit it;s still too raw, too new fro me to just move on. It keeps popping back into my head that Trump and all he brings with him, his awful surrogates and family, all now be on positions of power. They will have power over policy that affects my life.
I know this will pass and we will survive, because we have to. I just need a little more time to come to terms to what has happened, to what this country has lost because of what it did.
One day at a time.
Kay
@Iowa Old Lady:
I get that, I really do, I’m a political minority where I live, and all I would say to you is there’s a way to embrace it.
Don’t apologize and don’t hand them the power to determine if you’re a “real” American. You are. That’s settled. There is a way to operate in this environment with dignity and without kissing up to them or compromising what you believe. They lean authoritarian and people like that respect it when you won’t be bullied.
Baud
@Kay: Seconded.
Anya
@Kay: We shouldn’t let them. I think we can prove with data that voter suppression had an affect. I am hoping Obama will mention this during his expected sit down interview about the election. We shouldn’t be always forced to use media and winger narratives. Trump won WI by a smaller margin the difference between Obama and Clinton’s margins.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Betty Cracker:
You’re from the south, come on “While others might be more circumspect, considering the persona of your candidate of choice I can see why you are so enthusiastic to share this, so good for you and bless your little heart.”
JMG
@hovercraft: That’s perfectly OK. You can’t live life at 100 percent political intensity at all times. Get your energy and as much sense of well-being back as you can, then reenter the fray,
OzarkHillbilly
White Won -Jamelle Bouie
We are still the country that produced George Wallace. We are still the country that killed Emmett Till.
via LGM
ETA and yes, all should go read it.
Chris
@matryoshka:
The only way I can be polite to conservatives is if the subject of politics never comes up. And even then it’s usually out of pure necessity more than anything else; I mostly ignore my uncle and assorted righties, not because I really like them, but because I don’t want every family reunion to turn into a war.
@Patricia Kayden:
What works on one side of the political spectrum doesn’t necessarily work on the other. It’s easier to be obstructionist-uber-alles if you know that your voters are behind you and don’t give a shit about any damage you might do to the country in the meantime (we actually have to consider that last). It’s easier to be obstructionist-uber-alles if you know that the majority of the elites and institutions are behind you – that the media won’t call you out, that the men with guns won’t object to your orders, that the corporate types and lobbyists and all of Official Washington are behind you.
Starfish
@daveNYC: Both candidates had very high unfavorability ratings, and it shows!
Ruviana
@Anya: Haven’t read the thread yet but is there concrete evidence that “the Dems” are throwing minorities under the bus? I expect the punditocracy says that but I’m not seeing it here or among actual people. The coalition is the Dems. We need to speak dor that.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
There’s a Cracked.com article making the rounds saying “white people, please stop saying it’s going to be okay.” I agree, and I relate and empathize and I’m not even nonwhite.
Iowa Old Lady
I tend to withdraw and stew in my anger. Doing something positive would probably help. Embracing it is beyond me today, but I like the thought.
D58826
@JPL: And Caribo Barbie is on the Short list for Interior. details from Buzzfeed on some of the others. All Trump loyalists, no experience needed. Dear God make it stop.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/preliminary-list-shows-potential-trump-cabinet-picks/ar-AAk6VI3?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=iehp
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Iowa Old Lady: @Iowa Old Lady:
Oh come on, consider
a) it wasn’t a majority of the your fellow citizens – no it’s a large group of jerks in the right place.
b) not all of them voted for this idiot out of hate – it was brand loyalty and fan bois just as much as hate.
c) Every conservative I have encountered on and off line seems to be just as horrified Donald Trump is president as we are. Among some conservative cricles it turns out Donald is considered a Demoncrat sleeper agent who took advantage of the screwed up GOP primary and is bent on destroying the GOP from the inside. Who knows, but Donald Trump ran basically as a big government democrat plus racism.
Another Scott
@HRA: What I do believe is something needs to be done to revamp the DNC from the top down.
Not to pick on you, but this is a convenient place for me to rant a little. I’d like to see a front-pager run with a discussion like this in coming days/weeks.
I have seen lots of talk like this over the months (or decades) blaming the DLC or DNC or DWS or some other TLA for some disastrous loss. I’ve never been convinced. For example – I think it’s pretty clear that Bernie didn’t lose because of DWS and the DNC – they’re not simultaneously so powerful to thwart the will of the people while being incompetent to win in the fall.
One can’t fight and win a battle with nothing. National politics aren’t wired for Democrats the way they are for the GOP – witness Obama having trouble getting official speeches covered while Donnie got ~ $2B in free air time. Democrats need a national organization to push a coherent national message.
DFA was supposed to be the juggernaut organization that pushed progressive candidates to victory. AFAIK, they had almost no impact this cycle.
I donated to Planned Parenthood, the NAACP, and the ACLU last night. If the DNC needs to burned to the ground, or “revamped from top to bottom”, then please be specific: What should replace it? Who should run it (or revamp it)? Who decides who is worthy to have power there and who isn’t?
How do we end up making our national messaging worse through infighting rather than stronger and more coherent?
I don’t think the DNC is the problem – sure it can be improved. But the DNC seems to be a model of efficiency and messaging compared to the state party and leadership in Virginia (for example)…
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
JPL
If Joe Arpaio is Homeland Security, will non whites be forced to wear pink jammies?
Oldgold
More interesting information as what really happened.
In 2012, exit polls showed Romney with 27 percent of the Latino vote. Trump got 29 percent. In Florida and Texas, Trump had earned 35 and 34 percent of the Latino vote respectively, In North Carolina, he had a whopping 38 percent. In Nevada, he captured 27 percent and in, New Mexico he got 32 percent.
The white blue working class angst narrative is being overplayed.
HRA
@Patricia Kayden:
I do not intend my remark of “We will survive again” to be flippant. I base it on our history past and somewhat more present along with my own personal survivals. We do not give up.
Baud
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Promising massive tax cuts and deregulation is running as a big government Democrat?
Kathleen
@Chris: I love your posts. I think we’ve had a coup fueled by racists. Any script to fuel racism wull be presented. Dangerous times.
ETA So now we’re arguing about the color of the shirts.
JPL
@Oldgold: Just like Melania, they came here legally. Of course, we know Trump’s wife wasn’t employed legally.
Patricia Kayden
@D58826: Trump had no experience which qualified him to be President so why should any of his cabinet choices have qualifying experience? This is what we are going to deal with for at least 4 years and then the repercussions for another decade or so.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
No Kay, they don’t. The objective was to stop her and their supporters knew all along that it was all bullshit.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@D58826: Again, chill out.
This is Palin the quitter we are talking about. She isn’t going to be working 12 x 7 looking for destroying the national parks system or crap like that. Much better some GOPtard idiot than some Movement True Believer with a work ethic.
And, you know, she also hates the GOP as much as anything else. interesting.
SenyorDave
I think this is the time for panic. The GOP is prepared in 2017 to DESTROY the social safety net. Yes, from 2002 – 2006 the GOP controlled everything. The difference is that GWB was still popular for much of the term, the economy appeared to be in good shape, and they didn’t care about the deficit. The fact that they had turned a $200 billion surplus into a $500 billion deficit didn’t matter to anyone. GWB cut taxes (revenue) and increased spending (expenses). IOW, he and the GOP created a structural deficit, and nobody cared. The Republicans were bad, but there’s bad and there is DEMENTED. The fact that it all came crashing down in 2008 and Obama helped to rescue the country is history that will be re-written with the help of our useless media. The current GOP House and Senate is different, it is filled with evil people, who actually want to make people’s lives worse just for the sake of it . And Trump and his brain trust (Giuliani, Christie, Gingrich, Ailes, Bannon) are past evil,they are malevolent. My guess is they are far worse than we know- you think Bannon is just a racist anti-semite, I think he’s a David Duke with media influence, Trump’s not just a sexual predator, he’s a rapist with an appetite for underage girls. For these people the country is there for the taking and a bonus is if the poor/lower middle class get screwed. F Bernie Sanders working with Trump – does he seriously think he won’t get played in the end? Trump has made a career of playing decent people.
Kay
Here’s where I am if anyone is interested. I respect elections. The public wanted a cretin and a cheat as President and they wanted a far Right one-party government.
They got what they voted for. It’s not my job to take what they wanted away. I was never a heighten the contradictions person, I’m tempermentaly too conservative for that, but then my fellow Americans never elected a dangerous lunatic and his idiot family before. They put me and mine at risk. They should enjoy all the downside of what they just did. They didn’t care about the risk they took on my behalf and so I don’t care if they catch the downside.
I’m not going anywhere.
Chris
@JMG:
Truth be told, the “ideal” that America was a special place where your ethnicity and origin meant nothing was always a bit of bullshit. It was very clear right at the outset that the promise of America was only open for a certain kind of person, which didn’t include nonwhites, women, or even poor white men.
The founding fathers were hypocrites. But we already knew that.
The big divide is between people who understand this, but who think the ideals are noble and worth fighting for even if they didn’t live up to them, and try to change the country so that it actually does reflect those ideals (liberals). And people who may or may not understand this, but for whom the ideals were always just a polite veneer of bullshit meant to pretty up and cover up the supremacists practices that for them were always what it was really about (conservatives).
There are two Americas, and each of them can justifiably trace their mentality back to the founding fathers. How they choose to relate to them is the big difference.
Peale
@Baud: if one more leftie lectures me on how Trump ran to the left of the Democratic Party I’m going to seek 2nd amendment remedies.
Humboldtblue
@OzarkHillbilly:
And those “whites” are the same fucking people who would have voted for any other Republican candidate. Again, Trump got far fewer votes than Romney and even trails McCain. White resentment won for Trump because Democrats decided Clinton wasn’t worth coming out for. His piece is spot-on but this narrative is sticking and it’s a false one.
The legacy of white racial resentment and the Republican party is easily documented and what many people are now being shocked by is that these angry resentful and racist white people are no longer ashamed of being seen or heard in public. They didn’t vote for their economic security they voted to say “fuck you” to safe spaces and liberal universities and foreign languages listed on government documents and phone trees.
These asshole didn’t vote for Trump because he’s going to usher in a new dawn of manufacturing jobs, they voted for him because they are resentful and that resentment is driven by the fact that the marginalized minorities have gotten a voice and representation and it pisses them off. The Trump supporter is the guy who has been seething he can’t call Obama a nigger without widespread condemnation and now he can.
They’ve been seething that they can’t rip the head covering off a Sikh and call him a terrorist Muslim without it being a crime and now they can. They want to be able to publicly and openly act on their racial resentment and they voted for a man who proudly and loudly did so on the national stage.
They weren’t going to vote for Clinton or any other Democrat so stop pretending that this mysterious “white working class” is a surprise, it’s not.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
Baud!2020!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud:
and a massive jobs, protectionism and infrastructure program too. While none of it makes sense to a rational person, that’s what those Rust Belt workers were hearing.
Chris
@charluckles:
You know, an alien race coming back in time and applying our own standards of liberalism, democracy, and good governance to ourselves would probably end up finding a lot to lump us in with banana republics and other third world nations.
(Which is, of course, what the GOP wants us to be).
rikyrah
@JMG:
Thus, this was always true.
And, this is why all of you talking about being concerned about the White Working Class can kiss my ENTIRE Black Ass.
I asked this towards the end of a couple of threads ago, and I’ll ask it here:
What policies towards the White Working Class SPECIFICALLY should Democrats have proposed?
What policies for the WORKING CLASS that Democrats have proposed would have worked AGAINST the White Working Class?
I say that the policies for the Working Class would help ALL the working class – WHICH IS THE ENTIRE PROBLEM.
The White Working Class DOESN’T WANT policies that help ALL the working class. If helps someone NOT WHITE, then how good can the policy be?
Because, when you point out – the obviousness that GOP ECONOMIC POLICIES aren’t for the Working Class, then they bring up Jesus, abortion, gun rights, whatever shiny object that they can use to justify voting against their own economic self-interest.
Baud
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Trump promised everything under the sun. But that doesn’t mean he was running as a Democrat.
Patricia Kayden
@Humboldtblue:
AMEN!! I don’t see anyone here saying we should compromise with Trump so I assume your comments are directed to people elsewhere. My fear is that some Democratic leaders are already offering an olive branch to Trump (Warren, Sanders). We need to be in fight mode. Given what Trump plans to do, Democrats shouldn’t be working on him for anything. His policies will further hurt minority communities and women.
Kay
@SenyorDave:
I hate to say it but Bernie Sanders has a huge ego. He’s flattered by the attention Trump paid him. It’s not at all appealing. He’s acting a little like the President in Exile. Not a good approach.
Patricia Kayden
@Oldgold: Wow. So Latinos voted 30% for a man who insulted Mexicans on the first day of his campaign. Speechless.
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: Door number 2. But they did not give finger to establishment. They re elected Rethugs. Southern Beale had great post yesterday but I’m link challenged.
Emily68
@Anne Laurie: We nominated the candidate who got more votes than her opponent in the primaries. Also note she got more votes in November than her opponent.
Suzanne
I have decided just to say what (I think) Jeffro suggested yesterday:
“I’m sure you voted your values when you voted for Trump.”
I don’t have anything else for the next four years except for smug condescension, so I’m going to go with that. I also really don’t mind letting Trump supporters suffer. It’s the rest of us who I will continue to work for. But Trump supporters? I will enjoy shaming them and then watching them squirm.
Every vote is a values vote.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
But…economic anxiety, though
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Scott: Also you don’t get change from the top down. The people at the top built that. You get change from the bottom up (or at least the middle)
Chris
@Humboldtblue:
Thiiiiiiiiiiiis.
@Kathleen:
Thanks! That is always nice to hear for a commenter. :)
rikyrah
@SenyorDave:
Exactly this.
Peale
@Oldgold: the Jon Podesta email about conservative Catholics hurt quite a bit. They also did a good job painting Hillary as an abortion extremist with the idea that she favors abortion on demand even at term. All five of my immigrant friends who voted for him brought those two items up quickly as reasons. Near the top o the list.
Gin & Tonic
@Kay: Bernie Sanders is now, as he has always been, about one thing and one thing only: Bernie Sanders.
Kay
In 2010 local Republicans elected a Tea Party city council. You couldn’t talk them out of it- moderate Republicans tried.
They fucked everything up and blew 700k because they purchased an abandoned strip mall with gas pumps and then wouldn’t release the funding to convert it into city offices, which was their big money-saving plan.
They got thrown out the following cycle. It cost twice as much to clean up their mess and do the renovations because the property had been empty for 2 years and there was massive water damage.
There have to be consequences when people take risk.
Chris
@SenyorDave:
And this, too.
SenyorDave
@JPL: Just like Melania, they came here legally. Of course, we know Trump’s wife wasn’t employed legally.
I think the Democrats need to try to make this issue. At some point Trump has to start deporting people on a large scale, so prioritization will have to be an issue. Who gets deported first? Why not start with the low hanging fruit, the people they know about. Hey, like the president’s wife, she’s here illegally. I’m not being facetious. The Republicans have done shit like this for 30 years, they find weak points and they attack. That’s why they win elections, and Democrats don’t. Trump’s wife’s immigration status is a legitimate issue, given that his first campaign issue was illegal immigrants. And if they have to demonize her a bit, TFB, has any major politician ever demonized immigrants (both illegal and legal) more than Trump.
There is no point in working with Trump. He’s played people his whole life, smart people who should know better. He’s not going to stop now. In the end Trump was right. His people tried to control him, create a new Trump. Ultimately, Trump being Trump got him elected POTUS. Despite getting creamed in the debates, the sexual predator tape, mocking a man’s disability, screwing over thousands of contractors, stealing from his own charity, his birtherism, this piece of crap will be our next president. And the Democrats should work with him?
Iowa Old Lady
Good lord. Have you seen the headlines at Huffington Post this morning? They make us look cool and calm.
ETA: Our power is going to be off the rest of the morning while the electric company works on a transformer. Take care of yourselves. I’ll be back.
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
Because, Latinos, unlike Black folks, KNOW that when someone is dogwhistling, they’re talking about ALL of Black folks.
The ones who voted for Trump believe that they are ‘ special’, and that their vote for him will save them.
Uh huh
Uh huh.
Our Black Slave Catchers know that they’re Slave Catchers.
D58826
The sun is barely up and the day is headed down lower than yesterday, to wit:
1. Chaffettz promises to continue his dogged pursuit of Hillary and the e-mails.
2. McConnell after promising in 2009 to obstruct everything Obama did is now promising to wipe out everything that Obama did achieve. Just like the old USSR, make the last guy disappear from history.
3. For those hoping for better in 2018 tour are going to need pinker glasses and more pixy dust. The Senate map has the D’s defending 24 seats of which 10 are in states won by Trump, often by double digits.
4. the Trumpers will not rule out a show trial
5. And what is really depressing are the comments on an article about the Iran nuclear deal. Now arguing over the details is fine. Maybe this or that provision could have been handled differently. Even arguing that the deal should never have been negotiated is fine. But the Trumpers are convinced that at best Obama gave them access to nuclear power (which they already had) and at worse he gave them access to the bomb. Now the treaty details are complicated but its basic purpose is simple – shut down all pathways to nuclear weapons for the next 10 years. This isn’t hard to understand but the Trumpsters do not seem to understand it. How do you run a democracy when you can’t even agree on a basic set of facts.
6. Russia has confirmed that they were in contact with their old friends in the Trump camp during the campaign. How soon before Putin has the nuclear codes?
Peale
@MomSense: she lost republican voters…I’m shocked.
Kathleen
@Comrade Scrutinizer: aTerrifying. But I think she is right. All this being said we all have power. We just need to figure out how to most effectively harness it.
Suzanne
@rikyrah: You are absolutely correct. The white working class just let out a primal scream because they didn’t get the “petty lordship” for being white (and a dude) that they expected by dint of their birth (hat tip to Rick Perlstein). Fuck those people. I worked my ass off to elect a candidate who would have made your lives better in some measurable way. Instead, you voted for a candidate who wants to harm me and my daughters and my friends. That’s the thanks I get. Well, no longer. Fuck you guys. The Hillbilly Elegy guy says that too many of us look down on you. Well, he’s correct—if you are a white working class person who voted for Trump, I have all of the scorn and disdain for your stupidit and your grossness. Fuck you and the OxyContin you’re gulping to escape the pain.
Gin & Tonic
@SenyorDave:
now Trump finally gets to become the billionaire he always said he was. Friends of mine in Ukraine are saying that the US has elected its own Yanukovych.
JMG
The cooperation noises coming from Warren and Sanders are just day-after-election boilerplate. They know they’ll have to oppose him from day one, but this way they can say, “we tried” to the Villagers who eat up that bipartisanship bullshit. Not worth fretting over.
More things to remember. Donald Trump is not popular. He’ll be President, but even a goodly percentage of his voters are worried he’ll screw up. The Republican party is not popular. By the election Trump had a higher favorability rating. Last and most important, the Republicans will enact policies that take things away from people. That is the surest way to get an apathetic voter mad enough to go to the polls. That’s why tax increases get voted and get pols voted out of office.
Barbara
Since everyone has their view I’ll add mine. The numbers clearly show that Trump received fewer votes than Romney, which means people we should have been able to count on at least to some extent did not vote. Why is that?
1. We always underestimate the effect of misogyny, by which I mean specifically in the case, a level of discomfort with having a woman in charge.
2. Voter ID and all of that had an impact, but I do not believe except perhaps in Wisconsin that it made a difference. Pennsylvania does not have the kind of strict voter ID that the other states do. It passed a law but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court refused to allow the state to implement it, and then the state elected a Democratic governor. It still voted for Trump.
3. It’s still hard for me to believe that we are litigating trade agreements NOW. Maybe it was inevitable but I spoke with my mother last night in Pennsylvania and she said that it seems a day late and a dollar short to be worried about the impact of trade agreements on people living in the rust belt. But that’s the beauty of it: they can’t really be reversed, but they can be leveraged to the disadvantage of a woman who was closely associated with the most far reaching of these agreements, including NAFTA and the WTO. So, basically, the Republicans will continue to enact free trade policies but will try like heck to shift the blame to Democrats.
I have no idea what to expect, and pace to those who are really afraid, I am too, but Trump is such a wild card and McConnell and Ryan are such chumps that I think they must be on strong drugs to believe that they will have the upper hand come January. Who the fuck knows what Trump will do.
Humboldtblue
@Suzanne:
I made a point not to respond to that bullshit video because I have gotten tired of his shtick, but I would have responded in that vein. You’re looked down upon because you are willfully ignorant not because you have a funny accent. You’re looked down upon because you vote out of racial resentment and not about social and public policy.
Not only that, you know why college football in the south is better? Because no other fucking region in this country has more experience profiting from the free labor of strong young black men than the states that make up the SEC.
You know why southerners make the best fried chicken? Because even a goggle-eyed slackjawed fuckwit from Asshole, Alabama, can throw some fucking oil in a pan season a chicken leg and fry it. It’s the fucking easiest chicken dish you can make and that’s why the south has mastered it.
Kay
@Gin & Tonic:
I don’t think there’s much doubt that Sanders hurt her with the “corrupt” attacks. Trump just extended the message Bernie Sanders started. I’m in favor of primaries and Sanders can use whatever he wants but actions have consequences.
Also,I would like Bernistas to explain to me how Teachout lost in NY. She has exactly his message. Looks to me like she lost by 10 points. In NY.
They’re ignoring every fact that doesn’t align with this narrative they have, and there are a LOT of facts that go against it.
MomSense
@Humboldtblue:
This is life and death for me and for many other people. I came to that horrible realization Tuesday night. I suspect Richard Mayhew did too with his last post here. I’m reupping for my insurance but I know I am uninsurable once they repeal the ACA. Day to day I’m very healthy but my blood disorder means that I could die of something really minor like a nosebleed. The medication I can take to mitigate this costs almost $800 per tiny eyedropper sized bottle. I can’t afford that. It has to be refrigerated and definitely has a shelf life so I can’t stock up. I spent several hellishly anxious years without health insurance until the exchange opened. I almost died this year from complications from a colonoscopy which I was sort of hesitant to talk about because people should definitely get them. So even with my medication, I may need to go to the hospital and then hope they will stabilize me but then I could lose everything — again. I’m one of those people who lost a home because of medical bills. This is real life. Every time I hear people scolding folks who lost their homes or went bankrupt because we just weren’t responsible I want to punch them. I tried so hard to bounce back. I worked three jobs simultaneously and couldn’t right my ship.
I know I’m not alone because I met so many people with stories like mine when we were campaigning for the ACA. I am haunted by them and their stories. There is a woman who lived every day with debilitating pain after a brain injury because she couldn’t get insurance and couldn’t afford the medication. She was so happy when she could go to the doctor and when she could access her medication with her prescription benefit. I’m going to try and connect with her now because I’m sure she is freaking out like I am. Before the ACA she was close to suicide many, many times and it was something we discussed openly and without any judgment from me.
Fuck every single person who voted for Trump and Ryan and all the other deatheaters who are psychopaths. They do not care if I and millions of other people die. Fuck every single pundit, thought leader, journalist, editor, and opinionator who somehow convinced themselves that being fair and balanced meant emails emails emails and didn’t tell our stories.
People are not going to survive Trump. Hell people are dying because of the SCOTUS decision on health care and the Republicans who denied their constituents expanded medicaid all in the service of their own hunger for power. My dear friend M got health insurance for the first time in many years at 47. Five months later she had a massive heart attack and is now on disability because her heart functioning at about 12% with medication. Lifetime caps would have meant she stopped getting treatment and that would mean death. Hopefully block grants to the states won’t result in her death but who the fuck knows.
We are going to have a family meeting via google chat tonight so I can explain to older kids the steps I am going to take now to put the house in their names as joint tenants and figure out how they want to handle my measly life insurance and 401k and their brother because I want him to be with them at least as much as he is with me now but there is not a way to do that legally right now so they will have to know how to deal with that perhaps without me. Maybe I’m over-planning and I won’t die and maybe we will be able to fight like hell to keep some of our benefits but I can’t just hope for the best.
I’m mad as hell we even have to worry about this. Greatest nation on earth my ass.
Also too fuck you Bernie Sanders. You couldn’t concede to the woman who beat you fair and square for fucking months while you intentionally drove her numbers down and planted memes of corruption and election rigging etc that trump was oh so happy to appropriate — but 20 hours into president elect trump you say you will work with him? Nice post racial country we have here. And maybe releasing income taxes is important and shouldn’t have been dismissed by you. Thanks for watering down that issue for hair furor. Seriously fuck you and every asshole who still pines for you. You are a big part of the problem. All I can say is you are not welcome in my fucking foxhole because I cannot count on you. Like I said at the beginning of this rant. This is life and death for me.
Mike R
@D58826: Short answer you don’t.
SenyorDave
I think people really underestimate the changes to come next year. I think they will eliminate the filibuster, it doesn’t matter what McConnell and the other senators think, its what Trump and his team want. Trump is in total control of the party and they know it. I believe Ailes and Bannon will be running the entire show. They will dictate the key points in all legislation, then let the House and Senate leaders do the details. Ailes and Bannon are media guys, they know how to sell a shit sandwich to the American public with the help of a compliant media.
This whole thing is starting is starting to seem almost apocolyptical to me. My wife thinks I’m getting paranoid, but if you follow Trump’s path it doesn’t seem so crazy. He couldn’t win the primaries, right. He insulted POWs, he’s done right. He mocked a disabled reporter, he’s done, right. He’s a sexual predator, he’s done, right. No, he’s fucking president-elect Trump.
WereBear
She wants to be Lady Bountiful. She wants to be the one to give the Poor their coat.
She wants that power in her hands.
Betty Cracker
@Chris: That’s as cogent a description as I’ve ever read about the differences between the two factions. Thank you.
gvg
@Chris:
It’s going to be easy for democratic officials to be obstructionist with the horrified support of their supporters as soon as any actual legislative proposals happen because the GOP is going to propose tire rims and anthrax. The specifics will make us all fight back I think. If they disguised it or offered some other issues mixed together, we would actually have a dilemma. I don’t think they will at first and I am not sure they will learn. The GOP has been purging its smartest members for years now. Trump isn’t the only idiot they have and he isn’t subtle nor does he like many of them. The budget and the debt ceiling are the ones that will give us strategic problems. I wonder if we can get Trump to just eliminate the debt ceiling. I don’t actually see a real valid reason for us to have that hoop to jump through.
Sab
@cosima: I live in the American Midwest in a heavily democratic neighborhood in a small city. Fully a third of my precinct voted for trump. I am white but my grandchildren are black what am I supposed to tell them? Learn a foreign language and emigrate?
Betty Cracker
@Humboldtblue: Amen, brother. As I remarked to someone yesterday, Trump had it in the bag the minute he started babbling about “political correctness.”
Peale
@Patricia Kayden: yeah. Look, winning the Latino vote was never going to be as simple as pointing to “the wall” and appealing to anti-racism to draw it out. I think those numbers reflect a lot of things. There are a lot of democrat leaning Latinos, but they are still leaning. My guess is that a lot of our leaning voters stayed home so the percentage of GOP voting Hispanics is going to be higher. But like everything else, we need to do a better job mobilizing our side.
JMG
@D58826: Hillary Clinton is not a sympathetic figure to most Americans. Further pursuit of her by the Congress and/or Trump administration would make her one. It’d also be the one thing that’d most quickly alienate the Villagers.
The Iran deal involves five countries besides us and Iran. They’ll all happily keep trading with Iran whatever we do so long as Iran keeps to its side of the bargain.
Half the country already hates and fears Trump. His instability will drive that number to a majority. The trick will be driving said majority to the polls.
MomSense
@Oldgold:
D58826
@SenyorDave:
They sold Trump. nuf said. Now it’s just whither you want cream and sugar in your morning cup of piss.
Humboldtblue
@MomSense: I have to get a new insurance policy as well and now I wonder if it’s even worth it.
My boss is a staunch Republican (straight up fucking resentful racist) and had some high fives for Trump’s victory. And yet, on Monday he came to my office and asked me if I knew that Obamacare rates in California had gone up 189%! I asked him what that meat and he said that he and his wife, (who have gone uncovered since Obamacare passed because ….. it has Obama’s name? ……) were told by their insurance agent they would have to pay more than 3k a month for basic health insurance.
I responded that it may be time for a new agent and that was he aware that he could sign up for healthcare without an agent, just do it himself? I then linked to several plans that were found with a 30 second google search that showed he and his wife could get very good health insurance plans for between $800-$1,000 per month. Haven’t heard a word about the scandalous rise in health care rates because of the secret gay Muslim commie since.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Kay, I just found this piece by you, and it makes PERFECT SENSE, and I just wanted to say how clarifying I’ve found it. I think you are exactly right.
Peale
@gvg: yep. Honestly I have no desire for my party to continue to be the “adult” in the room when it comes to debt ceiling votes. The GOP policies create huge deficits. Let them vote that way or vote to eliminate that stupid debt law.
JPL
@MomSense: I’m so sorry. It’s the other side that says they are pro life. The truth is they are not. They don’t care about your life.
Barbara
@Humboldtblue: The reason why I, specifically, look down on the people of J.D. Vance’s world isn’t because I think I am better. I don’t — my Christian ethos rejects that view — it’s that they have such a hard time accepting that our society is built as a winner take most, with only some softening around the edges, and their resentment seems to be starkest for those of us who are actually trying to play by those rules. I left the city I grew up in and loved because I couldn’t really make my career there. So did my sister and most of my extended family. After more than five generations centered in a single county, people now live all over the country. If they want to change the rules to make things easier for people who want to stay in hard pressed communities even if they can’t make a lot of money, that’s cool with me. If they want to search for bright lights and a bigger life, that’s cool too. What I can’t stand is keeping the rules the same and then moaning and bitching because they have it so hard and blaming people who are honestly just navigating those same rules to have a little more financial success in their lives. I know these people, guys, I grew up with them, even on the edges of my urban environment.
Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire)
@Patricia Kayden: They will regret that. The American neo-Nazis will come for them, too, legal or not.
The minute I start seeing that, my half Puerto Rican ass is off to Canada. Even if it means I have to leave my parents and brother behind. My only solace is that they live in Florida, where there are a ton of other Latinos to provide cover. Same thing with my family in California.
I’m concerned for my sister in law in Kansas, and myself here in Ohio. We have no such cover.
If you are Latino in the Midwest, have your escape plans ready.
D58826
According to Huffington Putin is about to receive the same daily security briefing that Obama gets. oops I mean Trump. Understandable mistake (I hope)
SenyorDave
My prediction, THE DEMOCRATS ARE GOING TO GET ROLLED. I work for a media measurement company, the big one, you’ve all heard of it. I’m in finance, so I don’t get the nuts and bolts, but I have read some of the material on media campaigns and it is amazing how they can push people’s buttons. I’m guessing from early on, the selling of Donald Trump was a relatively well mapped out campaign. Even a lot of the off script stuff, especially toward the end, might have been on script. Ailes and Bannon are masters at this, they sold Trump. He’s demonstrably unfit to be a zoning board member in a small town, in two month he could launch nuclear weapons. Now that’s a sales job. And there are Democrats who are going to work with him? Bye bye social safety net, hello bootstraps (nice phrase, the public loves it because all those poor minorities need to do is pull themselves up their bootstraps and stop whining).
Barbara
@Patricia Kayden: Like I said, we underestimate the impact of discomfort with power in the hands of a female.
Humboldtblue
@Barbara:
1. We always underestimate the effect of misogyny, by which I mean specifically in the case, a level of discomfort with having a woman in charge.
I would also add to that misogyny that Clinton’s wealth played a large role as well. As much racial resentment there was in the Trump campaign there was also the resentment that those darkies and illegals and Muslims were getting something they didn’t deserve from “Limousine Liberals” like Clinton who have become fabulously wealthy being connected to national politics.
Add the generic and unjustified hate they’ve been taught to have for Clinton, add her gender and then add in her wealth and her deep connections to those corrupt bastards in Washington and you have a potent mix of hate to work with.
hovercraft
@Patricia Kayden:
While that number is staggering, we can’t let white voters off the hook, they did this. Much like Prop 8, focusing on a minority group that voted the wrong way, is scapegoating. Black people added too but were not the cause of Prop 8. Latinos are likewise not responsible for Trump.
ETA: I agree with @Barbara, many people were simply not comfortable voting for a woman.
Peale
@hovercraft: agreed on that. Look, 70% voted for our candidate. We should welcome that. Focusing on the ones who didn’t vote our way isn’t going to do much.
Kay
@D58826:
I want the FBI investigated. If there’s some far Right faction in the NY office that everyone is terrified of I want to know.
I can’t rely on them to serve and protect people they dislike. I don’t feel like paying them to operate a political shop.
Trump can pay them. Send him the bill. He doesn’t even pay federal taxes. I’m sick of supporting dead beat Right wingers and their families.
D58826
another equally depressing look into the American ID in 2016 and why it won’t get better anytime soon. from the daily beast: Blood on the Mountain’ Reveals How Hillary Clinton Lost the Rust Belt to Trump
A new documentary—that screened during the Republican National Convention—chronicles the hardships of coal miners in West Virginia. The specter of Trump looms large over the film. Blood on the Mountain’ Reveals How Hillary Clinton Lost the Rust Belt to Trump
A new documentary—that screened during the Republican National Convention—chronicles the hardships of coal miners in West Virginia. The specter of Trump looms large over the film.
Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire)
Latinos for Trump = Jews for Hitler.
True facts.
Tazj
My fear is that Trump and Congress do get together and pass a massive infrastructure bill. While this is great in many ways, we need this, it will be done in such a way that it will further undercut unions, and government and used as a cudgel against Democratic governance. Why didn’t Obama and the Democrats do this? They didn’t really want to put people back to work. This also will allow them cover to cut taxes and the safety net.
I’ve also had enough of the WWC narrative, and I grew up white and poor.
I won’t listen to any lectures about “coming together”. I never planned on starting a coup or a revolution. I will be respectful and pleasant like I always have been.
bemused
@Suzanne:
I like Jeffro’s suggestion. However, I think that could easily go right over the heads of a lot of Trumpettes and they’d not catch on it was a dig. I imagine a strong emphasis on “YOUR” values might do it but many just don’t comprehend sarcasm.
Felonius Monk
@Kay:
I’m not a Bernista, but I’ll try. Teachout was a carpetbagger in the district. She was running for a seat that was already in Republican hands, but Gibson is retiring. Faso, her opponent and the winner, is a long time Repub who lives in the district, was previously a state assemblyman, and has been pretty prominent in political circles for some time. This was no surprise. It’s a predominantly a Republican district.
FlipYrWhig
@Tazj:
They did. Republicans spat in their eye, repeatedly. See for instance American Jobs Act, 2011.
bemused
@Kay:
Do you think the local Republicans learned anything from that debacle?
Weaselone
@bemused:
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Albert Z.
I got turned away from my Red Cross blood donation yesterday due to high blood pressure.
bemused
@Weaselone:
I know, I know. They conveniently forget after awhile and do it all over again. Maybe the better question is how long before they hitched their wagons to a another bunch just as bad.
Tazj
@FlipYrWhig: Yes, that’s right, and I would hope a majority of Democrats know that. I’m talking about how it’s portrayed in the media. “The Democrats didn’t know how to put people back to work.”
I don’t know if it matters though. Maybe it’s just something that bothers me because some in the media seem to be thrilled with Trump’s announcement about this. The media gave little coverage to Republican obstruction on economics or in regards to Republicans blocking Obama’s court nominees.
Patricia Kayden
@Albert Z.: My blood pressure has been uncharacteristically high for a couple of weeks now. Trying to bring it down by drinking ginger and cucumber tea with a couple drops of apple cider vinegar and agave syrup. It’s hard to stay calm now that a dangerous Bigot has been elected but I’m trying. Hope your blood pressure goes down as well.
Patricia Kayden
@hovercraft: I’m not letting White voters off the hook. I’m just surprised that Latinos would vote so heavily for a man who openly dissed Mexicans on several occasions. I thought the Latino vote would skew more like the Black vote which went 88% for Secretary Clinton. Oh well.
fuckwit
@Kay: I’m sorry, but my bullshit detector is going off. So they respect Troll, who grabs women who are not his wife by the pussy, “as a man”? Who makes sexual comments about pre-teen girls and his own daughter? Who has been divorced how many times? Who attacks those weaker than him? That’s their definition of manhood?
BobT
Please continue the Happy Talk. I can use all I can get.
Barry
@cosima: “The ‘free’ at the end of your post? No way! Save your ‘free’ efforts for worthier causes. Sounds like something that you should be charging the going rate for, possibly adding a +20% as$hole surcharge. Not your problem if he was so busy sending pro-Trump emails to his friends that he found himself up against a wall in terms of timelines.”
I agree with the previous reply – double your normal rate, cash in advance.
Barry
@Kropadope: “So, both sides should do it (actively sabotaging any hope of political comity).”
We can not do that, because there is no hope of political comity.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Anne Laurie:
On the fairly wretched Mediaite website this morning, there was an article about Kanye West running in 2020. Yes, there are FAR worse candidates than Hillary.
Barry
@Kropadope: “@OzarkHillbilly: @Betty Cracker: So should the Senate Democrats be secretly meeting right now to oppose Trump at every turn regardless of the merits and put “making sure he’s a one-term president” above the needs of the country?”
How about posting something without a contradiction?
Opposing Trump is serving the needs of the country.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Mustang Bobby:
What’s your blog name? I’d like to check it out.
Barry
@Anne Laurie: “I fully intend to demand I be re-assigned. I like the network and this branch is conveniently located for me, but they’ve got a turnover issue — I’ve ‘lost’ two nurse practitioners I really liked & three doctors [two of whom I never met, because they officially ‘supervise’ the NPs] in the last couple of years.”
That’s likely not a coincidence. I’d bet that they left because of doctors like the one you dealt with.
And with that attitude, I’d be honestly surprised if the doctor ever did listen to you on medical matters.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Kropadope:
What needs of the country do you see Trump as supporting? Please, I’d genuinely like to know.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Patricia Kayden:
It kind of reveals that in a group of 100 anything, say plain sneetches and star-bellied sneetches, there will be a percentage of deplorables.
GrandJury
@Rob: Bernie would have done worse and there wasn’t anyone else. So what is your point?
cosima
@Sab: Not certain why you’re asking me, specifically, but I suppose that since you have, my answer would be yes, learn another language, and yes, emigrate if you feel it’s necessary.
I’m from Alaska & my husband is from Montana — very red states that we do not identify with, and would never voluntarily move back to. Our oldest lives in VT, and blue as that state is, she was inconsolable on Wednesday. She could NOT stop crying. I’d love for her to be able to move here to the UK to be with us, and she would as well, but it is not possible unless she gets a different degree that would allow her to find a job here in an industry/position that they are unable to find a citizen to do (nearly impossible, yes). She’d have a much better chance at it if she were bi-lingual, by the way.
We are here in the UK on a work visa attached to my husband’s job. Jobs are not guaranteed things, so we take it day by day as to whether or not we will be allowed to stay. We’ve not yet been here long enough to apply for leave to remain. Our youngest was born here — she is not a UK citizen, and would have to leave her birthplace & home. We pay a HUGE amount of taxes here and in the US for the privilege of living & working here and for being US citizens, respectively.
The last time that we lived in the US for a few years we lived in Denver, and I loved it. I also volunteered hundreds — yes hundreds — of hours for the Obama campaign. Canvassing, phoning, registering voters, you name it. The thing is this: it is no longer enough just to vote, progressives must also bust their arses to get out the vote of the disenfranchised, and those disenfranchised numbers are growing, through the intentions & actions of the GOP.
I do not live in fear here in the UK — that is a huge part of why we live here on less than half of what we lived on in the US. But I have a lot of fear for my daughter still in the US, and for many of the people that I love and care about who are people of colour, LGBT, or just deemed ‘other’ by some truly awful people. I am scared for the US, and I am sorry that you are scared for yourself, your children, your grandchildren. I hope that all of our worrying will come to nothing, I really do, but I’ve not actually reached ‘cautiously optimistic’ yet.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
sorry that you have to do this, but take preparation steps.
dogwood
I don’t freak out over politics. I never once believed we wouldn’t survive Reagan or W. I hate hyperbole. I stayed out of discussions of how McCain was the worst ever to be followed up four years later with Romney as the scariest ever. I don’t need to be pumped up in panic mode to prove my liberal democratic cred. I’m not panicked now , but I am devistated and horrified. So are my close friends and family, mostly white middle class good dems. Separately most of us red staters have come to the same conclusion. We’re done. We’re not done with the party and we’re not done fighting for what we care about. But we’re done pretending that up is down. We’re done with the news media that normalized this . We aren’t going anywhere, but we’re not going to participate in this charade any longer.
dogwood
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
Bernie is down with Trump so Krope is down with it too.
BRyan
href=”#comment-6106044″>Patricia Kayden: I wish I was adult enough to do that without it coming across (probably accurately) as snark. I am really having trouble reconciling my view of people I consider friends with the qualities that their support for/approval of Trump and Republican policies tell me about who they actually are. I don’t lightly write off people and longstanding friendships, but how (and why) would/could I justify maintaining a friendship with someone who enthusiastically applauds a guy who is everything I find cruel, rapacious, loathsome and repugnant? People are being ground down, disenfranchised, and people will die if trump delivers on his promises. So far, I can’t find a way to be okay with people who are okay with that. i’m not at all sure I should, or should want to.
WereBear
@WaterGirl: That’s lovely, WaterGirl. May I use that story for my cat blog?
Ksmiami
@WaterGirl: I say let the free market solve his problems. Gotta practice personal responsibility. Let them choke on Trumpism and the GOP transformation of our country into a fascist state. I’m done.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
You can click his name in his comment byline to get to it: Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Ksmiami
@Sab: Yes. I actually predict a pretty big outflow of American “elite” science and technology assets, talent and careers once the full wrecking crew starts. I’ve told my kids to apply to international colleges and grad programs as they are in STEM and the GOP lives on junk science. Maybe the US survives Trump, maybe not, but I know for sure that a bunch of selfish a-holes just effed up the futures of our young people Bigly.
Tazj
@MomSense: For all it’s worth, I’m just someone you don’t know on the internet, but I’m so sorry about what you’re going through.
Captain C
@Chris: Regarding the blackmail: maybe, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if Putin has vid of Trump diddling an underage girl from one of his Moscow trips.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Betty Cracker: 14th Amendment, Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Seems like this might be fruitful for a lawsuit challenging the current weighting of the EC, given the amount of vote suppression that’s been happening.