Too busy for a long-form rant about the coming theft and oppression, but here are a couple of funnies from the Twitters:
Yeah, I feel ya, bro. Also, etiquette in the present age:
Yep. Also seen on the Twitters, a Long Island RNC / Trump campaign volunteer organization is holding a press conference to complain about anti-Trump “cyberbullying,” which includes mass unfriending — including from one of the complainer’s best man:
I just received a press release about alleged "cyber bullying" and mass unfriending of Donald Trump supporters on Long Island. pic.twitter.com/Fb6iew1hb6
— Hunter Walker (@hunterw) November 17, 2016
Boo-fucking-hoo. If you voted for a racist, misogynist, xenophobic demagogue, you’re no friend of mine either.
Now, you can’t choose family. I’m still steeling myself for my first post-election conversation with my father, who I am certain will be unable to resist breaking our “no politics” rule to gloat, just a little. Thought maybe I’d note the irony of his father fighting fascists in Europe only so his son could vote one in as president in America. That would soon get ugly. Any advice?
Open thread!
tomwhoathere
I found out that one of my best friends voted for Trump. He’s a vet, politically ignorant, and probably didn’t understand what he was doing.
I’ll let him call and apologize before I ever talk to him again.
edit: stuck in moderation? :(
Rachael French
Erm. Who says you can’t choose family? I’m not seeing at least four members of my family over the holidays over their voting for Trump.
schrodinger's cat
Non cooperation movement. Do not lift a finger to make the new administration successful.
germy
I posted this downstairs, but I’ll say it again because I’m still pissed. I don’t like being harassed on the street.
This morning I walked to the grocery store. A big pickup truck drove past me. “Honk honk honkedty honk honk!” The driver waved at me out his window as he sped by. I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me. Just more celebratory acting out from the proletards. (I call him a prole, but his truck cost more than both my wife’s and my cars together, and I’m sure his subcontracting work earns him twice as much as what I pull in as an editor).
My wife has been bugging me to get our bathroom re-done. She wants the tub removed and a walk-in shower installed. New tiles, etc. I’m about to tell her I’m really not in the mood to have these fucking subcontractors walking all through my house. Last year I had a fence repaired, and the guy was a duck dynasty/bundy fan. He started out polite, but got more assholish as the job progressed, because the contractor I negotiated with (his boss) didn’t bother giving him all the details of the job.
I’m sorry; I don’t want these assholes in my house.
Maybe next year.
Some of you have talked about boycotting black friday, and donating the money instead. I’m thinking of taking the money I’d pay to some prick of a subcontractor and instead donating it somewhere.
SenyorDave
Either no politics are it will be all politics, and if there is disagreement it won’t be pretty. I’m lucky, I have a small family that is 100% Dem, and even my extended family seems to be generally liberal.
Neldob
Do it with a smile. Maybe he can do to the US what he did to Atlantic City!
Trentrunner
Not to get into a tussle about “Who Trump Oppresses More,” but I think Trump’s sexual assaulting misogyny is more damaging to more people than even his racism, which is pretty fucking damaging.
Corner Stone
No advice for you. I had canceled Thanksgiving due to an unfortunate family member losing her god damned mind. But I have since been told that a family friend, who almost always attends, is interested in going forward this year. I am having a really hard time with this. My son, who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Tgiving but does enjoy the togetherness and the spectacle of events, wants to have it also too. But although he’s mature for 12 and we talk about this stuff all the time, he doesn’t really get how wounded I am and the way this was handled all through the election season. I just can’t believe I spent all those months discussing with her the dangers Trump and his followers posed, and she’s now, with an almost animal like instinct, defending him and blatantly refudiating reality.
It’s fucking mind blowing.
WereBear
I’m going with blunt truth in the person’s face. I have a little notebook where I am writing down all the things they claim “Trump would never do” and put them on notice that when that thing happens, they will get a giant #Toldyaso from me. Incessantly.
I figure at that point, it will be the only pleasure I can afford.
NotMax
Of course you can choose family. What you cannot choose are blood relations.
mkro
BTW, Republicans suddenly are OK with teleprompters again now that a Repub is in the WH … SURPRISE http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/17/1600841/-Good-News!-Republicans-Like-Teleprompters-Again!
Emma
I am going to repeat what I said in a thread down below. We need to make our voices heard outside the usual channels. We need to aim messages PAST the usual channels. These things do not need to be high-tech. If I had money right now, I would buy space on billboards all over red states. Find out where the message would do the most good. Hire people that can write good copy. TELL these people how they’re being cheated. Call it the Political Lies Campaign or something. Repeat month after month, year after year.
schrodinger's cat
Confront lies with truth wherever you find it. Don’t condone it or avoid the subject.
Satyamevajayate.
Corner Stone
I’m not on FB so I can’t neoliberally mass unfriend anyone on social media. But IRL I have been doing some massive shunning of long time friends and some very in your face calling out of racists to some “friends” of mine here in my Republican stronghold area.
Me: The Republican Party is the party of racists
R: Are you calling me a racist??
Me: If the Party fits…
germy
@NotMax: Well said. There are members of my family (for example, the asshole my sister married) who I wouldn’t be in the same room with. A racist, abusive asshole. My sister supports him now; she’s almost 70 now, but “not ready to retire” because of a second mortgage (he has a gambling problem).
I’ve made my own family of loving, decent people. Not the dysfunctional nightmare inlaws and cousins.
I’m not a young person anymore and I understand my days are limited. I have no time to waste with assholes.
Larime
You can very much choose family. I cut almost all of mine off over a year ago. If they act like assholes, they have no ‘right’ to be in my life.
SenyorDave
@germy: Maybe next year.
We take two vacations a year, and we plan them out many months in advance, for us the planning is one of the things we enjoy. I 2017 our May trip was going to be a road trip, St. Louis, Kansas City, Memphis and Branson. Its a part of the country neither me or my wife has ever been to. We decided together that hard red states are not getting our travel money in 2017, maybe out in the future, but right now I’m still angry. The back up was Utah, but that’s out too. So the second backup is Arizona (Phoenix, Tucson, Southeastern AZ including Tombstone). I know it was red but it was 4 points and if not for Comey’s letter it might have flipped.
Cacti
My standing rule on discussing politics with family and friends is:
“If you’re afraid of the answer, don’t ask.”
Works well for me.
Tom Levenson
I’m in a bubble. No Trumpians on either side. 15 for T-day this year, and my problem will be to get the conversation off despair for at least fifteen minutes.
But a dear friend of mine faces the fact that his husband’s family has essentially made him an unperson because he reminded them that their hero, Trump, would destroy their son’s marriage. Wounds are deep, and they aren’t going away soon. My friend’s friends are trying to remind him that the he and his spouse have our love and support, and while that does help, it doesn’t alter the fact of loss.
I hate these days.
ArchTeryx
Yeah. I had someone who was an old friend of mine give me a hug on Facebook when I posted about what the stakes are for me now that the Republicans have the trifecta.
I’ve long known he was a right-wing supporter, but then I took a good long look at his Facebook feed at the depth of depravity coming from it. Not to mention he was an active troll against any liberals he could find.
I told him that he basically voted for my death and crowed about it, and then had the nerve to turn around and offer me support. I told him he was a two-faced cockweasel and to get the fuck out of my space. Then I unfriended him and deleted his comment.
Best thing I ever did in my life. I don’t need his toxic bullshit.
BTW, the guy’s also a Moonie, raised his daughter in that tradition, then the moment the daughter hit college and had her rumspringa, she promptly became an alcoholic. Family values!
germy
@mkro:
Also, deficits are no problem.
The Moar You Know
@schrodinger’s cat: Since Dems have fucked themselves into a position where this is all they can realistically do to combat the far-right agenda, I expect them to do it. Just like the GOP did to Obama. Worse if possible. Sit there, show up, draw their pay and leave. Filibuster everything. Hold all nominations. All of them. And no votes on budget bills, even if they threaten to shitcan Ryan and get someone worse, because there’s really nobody worse, they’ve hit bottom. Let the government shut down. Hell, let it default. They’d blame us anyway so why the fuck not?
Make it hurt. Maybe next time the six million plus Dems who didn’t show will show if they’re hurting enough.
Botsplainer
For years, I’ve wanted to quit hosting thanksgiving and go to Churchill Downs for their celebration (the horses race that day). Sadly, youngest daughter always goes spastic about it, so I’m stuck spending even MORE money to put on a feed. I wish to shit I could do that this year – sparks will fly between youngest and my RWNJ mom – the distraction of horses would be great.
WereBear
@Emma: Yes. At the very least we can be those smug and superior people who are always right :)
They hate that.
Botsplainer
@SenyorDave:
Santa Fe is supposed to be nice.
Neldob
@Emma: Yep. Like the cat said – confront lies with truth.
JMG
@Botsplainer: What a wonderful Thanksgiving idea! For myself, it’ll just be me and my wife Alice. Both kids are currently out of the country, one works in France, the other is in SE Asia with his girlfriend following a wedding in Bangkok they attended.
Kay
Yes, Bernie because Donald Trump actually plans on doing those things. That’s why he’s appointing bankers. So they can regulate their own banks.
They’re popping champagne corks on Wall Street and Bernie Sanders is submitting a white paper to Donald Trump, which he will use for toilet paper.
This is the opposition. We are well and truly on our own. Once the grownup leaves the White House we’re all screwed. People will be crying when the helicopter leaves the White House lawn because they’re sentimental towards the Obama’s. I’ll be crying because they’re leaving us alone with these lunatics and dopes.
WereBear
Gosh, yes, that’s the worst. The hug feels like a stab in the back!
The Amish do shunning and it is incredibly effective. That’s what I’m going with. If you can’t stand the heat get out of my kitchen. And my life.
schrodinger's cat
@The Moar You Know: That’s what the Indian Freedom movement did against the British, they left after it was no longer lucrative. Not because they were shamed as is the popular narrative when the Brits pat themselves on the back for being better than Nazis.
Keith G
Honesty.
Timurid
@The Moar You Know:
Actually, no. They’re rolling over for a belly rub.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Trump and Ryan can send thank you notes to Bernie and his supporters.
Iowa Old Lady
I think that trying to one-up Trump gloaters will only lead to escalation. Sometimes an earnest answer confounds them. “I believe Donald Trump will do incalculable damage to the country, and I grieve for that.” Then let them make the choice whether to continue being an asshole and turn away to talk to someone else.
ETA: Or what Keith G. said about honesty.
Raven
And here we are at the Emerald Coast urgent care. The girl fell a I think her wrist is broken! She brought brought a million sewing and art projects and, of course, it’s her dominant hand!
ArchTeryx
@WereBear: Yeah. Telling him to own his own indecency and immorality for once in his life just warmed the cockles of my heart. He’s always been a Peter Panner, never wanting to grow up. Well, he got treated like an adult for once in his life. He’s probably all wounded about how horrible the intolerant liberals are, but fuck him with a rabid polka-dotted wolverine.
Chris
I’ve been unfriending people since the teabaggers got started.
No, unfortunately, you can’t. I try to make the best of it. My uncle’s Facebook and Twitter feed remains one of my couple remaining wingnut barometers, which is always a bit useful. He also unintentionally serves as a reference for what not to take seriously; for example, I’d never heard of Glenn Reynolds and only vaguely of Niall Ferguson, but when he recommended the first as an example of a centrist and unbiased news source that listens equally to both sides, and the second as a first rate historian, I could take it for granted (and subsequent exposure richly demonstrated this) that they were both right wing hacks.
Starfish
@germy: 20,000 donations have been made to Planned Parenthood in Mike Pence’s name since the election. The ACLU has raised $7.2 million in that time.
SenyorDave
@Botsplainer: Santa Fe is supposed to be nice.
Loved it, but we did it two years ago, at same time we also did Mesa Verde, which was amazing.
martian
Family is why I’m having trouble rousing myself to defend Medicare. Family cheerfully threw cancer survivor me and my high medical needs daughter to the wolves, why shouldn’t they fucking sweat? How long do Democrats have to protect Republican voters from the consequences of their votes? We make it painless for them to vote their racism and their fantasy ohmigawd! Death Tax! economic status instead of coming to grips with the cold, hard reality that they are not actually temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
And I am weighing what to say to the third party voters in my family, too. Fucking American Leftists treat voting like a self-esteem building exercise.
FDRLincoln
The only vocal Trumpist I’m still connected to is my brother-in-law. My wife (who is even more liberal than I am) is about ready to cut him off, but it has to be her decision. She’ll make it soon. I’m looking forward to it.
JPL
Thanksgiving will be spent with like minded folks. Personally it is to soon for me to associate with Trump voters.
@Raven: I’m sorry.
Cacti
@martian:
I often wonder how my own family can keep voting Republican when they’re basically volunteering to slit their own throats.
My GOPer brother has an 11 year old daughter who is type 1 diabetic (the lethal kind w/o constant monitoring).
My Mom is just shy of Medicare age, and has cardiomyopathy and a pacemaker.
Good luck finding anyone to insure you with your Ryancare vouchers, guys and gals, or having it cover the cost.
Raven
@JPL: yea, 3 days into a 2 week vacay!
jenn
Some good news from Illinois!
https://thinkprogress.org/breaking-illinois-will-automatically-register-two-million-voters-e9c73cc7ae0f#.241vvc54b
Cacti
@Raven:
Your daughter has my sympathies. I fractured my scaphoid right at the start of summer/fall salmon season and spent the next 12 weeks with my left hand in a cast.
Tom Levenson
@JPL: How about never. Is never good for you?
http://images.gawker.com/18m8c8nauij5lpng/original.png
GMVictory
“Well dad, are you ready to have a family get-together or a fight? I’m ready for either one. My preference is to have a nice meal and talk, reminisce, and have fun with the family. However I am damn-well good and ready to have a verbal, no-holds barred throwdown and ruin everything today. Pick which one you’d like to have and I’ll join you.”
kindness
I confess. I unfriended one person I once knew. I hadn’t seen her since the mid 70’s in Oklahoma. She had become somewhat crazy and I unfollowed her a year ago. She’s not well educated, on disability and MediCaid and I saw she was promoting Trump’s victory on a mutual friends page. I have no time for dumb shits like that. I don’t want to know them. I unfollowed one person too. An old High School friend and a wonderful person. Except she was a hard core BernieBro who blamed the Clintons for everything bad that has happened to black people since Bill was in office (yea, she’s black but that makes no matter to me) and campaigned not so much for anyone but against Hillary since she was nominated and proudly proclaimed she didn’t vote for Hillary and those of us who did were evil. I don’t need to read that level of shit either so she got unfollowed.
Yea, it happens.
WereBear
@ArchTeryx: With a herringbone rhino who has mother issues!
Pogonip
There are people who talk about something besides football at Thanksgiving? Wow.
Gindy51
Sad to say it but I am so glad all my family (GOPpers) are dead as door nails. The ones that aren’t I disowned decades ago for their stupidity and have not looked back. Life is way too short to have people who make you sick in it. I am not pals with anyone I wouldn’t die with. Cuts down the dross so effectively.
frosty
@germy: Find another contractor. My FIL owned a furniture store and never did anything political one we or another. His philosophy was “Why should I alienate half of my potential customers?” Good advice, I wish more businesses would follow it.
SenyorDave
@martian: I’m starting to think this way too, but I’m not too far from medicare myself. I kind of believe that we have reached the point in this country that the only way the Democrats win nationally is when the Republicans have finished fucking things up badly. Then we get an Obama to rescue the country and its back to an incompetent Republican. Wash, lather, repeat. I’m not huge on FB myself, did argue in a very nasty way with two “friends” until I unfriended one and the other unfriended me. My wife has a movement disorder, so I usually start with what sort of person mocks a man’s disability. She also taught kindergarten and I point out if a kindergartner did what Trump did the student’s parents would be called in for a meeting with the guidance counselor. Trump’s parents never did this so he was never held accountable. Of course, kindergartners are almost good people, so there is another difference.
Another Scott
Vox on Trump’s “$1T infrastructure plan”:
Yup. He just wants to sell everything off…
Watching the details is vital.
Cheers,
Scott.
The Moar You Know
My wife and I decided we’d had enough of our fucked-up families and went to Kona in 2013 for Thanksgiving.
We’ve never been in the states for one since. Why the hell didn’t I think of this 20 years ago?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Refuse the racist angle and talk about the other many delights of the Donald.
Trump’s underage brothel/Model angency “So an’t it great, we have the first pimp president Dad?”
Trump’s Moscow pal “I hear Trump’s first state dinner is with Putin to thank him Dad”
Trump’s morality “Thank god Dad we got a man Trump’s moral fiber to push back against all those child preditors out there. Golly gee I would hate to think what happened with a Clinton back in the White House, no one’s daughter would be safe. ”
Trump an’t going to last “So we really have to wait until after the ignoration before they make Pence president Dad?”
NotMax
@martian
Suggestion: Practice your best Eve Ardenesque dripping with honeyed sarcasm delivery on the one sentence which follows.
“You must be very proud.”
germy
@frosty: Where I live, good luck finding a contractor who isn’t a fucking wingnut.
Maybe if I lived in SF.
Here, I’m lucky if they don’t have KKK bumperstickers on their trucks.
Eric U.
I’m thinking about how I can skip out on Thanksgiving. Wingnut in-laws are going to be here
Gin & Tonic
Luckily, Thanksgiving at our house will not have any Trump supporters, as there are none in my immediate family. Even my (very) elderly in-laws think he is a fucking moron. The only possible Trumpite I can think of is one son-in-law’s father, but he lives in Florida and I see him at most once a year. So we will eat and drink and be mostly merry (my son’s girlfriend is a Mexican citizen, so she is naturally concerned.)
Elmo
I’ve been the youngest of four my entire life – the only girl with three older brothers. After I married my wife three years ago, I had one brother left – the only one to acknowledge and congratulate me, to send warm happy wishes, and so forth.
He voted for Trump (along with the other two).
So now I’m an only child.
You’re damn right I can choose my family.
charluckles
Give it to them good and hard. The man is on record saying many things that would cause them to shun anyone else, but this is the man they want for President? Make them eat it. I do think that a lot of people voted against Clinton without thinking about who and what they were voting for. Lets delegitimize Trump and drive a stake in his support.
Albert Z.
One of the benefits of divorce – not having to deal with my ex-wife’s right-wing relatives. Unfortunately my kids will have to deal with them but I’m raising fine young heathens and they know better than to bring up religion and politics.
WereBear
@NotMax: Love Eve Arden. She could bring it with an eyebrow.
Barbara
@SenyorDave: New Mexico and Colorado are good alternatives to Arizona. And if in Arizona, make Tucson the focus.
Gin & Tonic
@Raven: So sorry to hear that. Hope it’s not broken.
WereBear
Yes, me too, only I’m the oldest. And two of them voted for Trump and the one I’m closest to won’t vote at all.
Fortunately, I am not having Thanksgiving with them this year :) And I only talk to one of them on any kind of regular basis.
jacy
I’ve done a lot unfollowing, unfriending, and blocking on Facebook. I’ve also connected with a lot of new people. I’m not going to normalize. The Trump voters or supporters I’m still in contact with are on probation, because I think some of them are good-intentioned, but ill-informed, and I don’t mind being in a dialogue with them if I think it will help. But I think this election result is going to be a divide. There are people in my life whom I can never look at the same, and I’m letting them know it. There are consequences. For my peace of mind, I need to take a stand, every day. And for them, they need to know that what they’ve done, and continue to do, is not acceptable.
A woman whom I was very friendly with, and who was supportive of me when I went through my difficulties, has turned out to have some very hateful thoughts and ideas. She’s bright and funny and her kids are in Scouts with my kids — I would have never thought ill of her prior to this last week, but I can’t ignore it. You can’t support a bigot and sexual predator and just think life is going to go along as it had before. There are things that are beyond the pale — and I’m not going to give anyone the cover of my friendship and support. I just won’t. So I’m minimizing my contact with people like that, and I will be unceasingly cold to them. Where I can cut them out of my life completely, I will. There are consequences, and I’ll do what I can to make them feel them.
Ruviana
@Raven: I’m so sorry! I did that earlier this year and it’s a pain. Hopefully, it’ll not be too extensive or complex.
Ian
@Trentrunner:
I agree we shouldn’t play the who gets hurt more game, but the call to register people of Islamic faith was the first thing they came out with.
Barbara
Offered without comment:
JPMorgan Pays $264M FCPA Fine For Hiring Officials’ Friends And Relatives
JPMorgan Chase & Co. will pay $264 million in sanctions to the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve to settle claims it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by handing jobs to friends and relatives of government officials in Asia, the SEC said Thursday.
Aleta
A soul song of hope, There will be No Love Dying Here, sung by Gregory Porter.
NotMax
@Raven
Aw, damn.
germy
@WereBear: If you love Eve Arden, watch her in the Marx Brothers movie “At The Circus”. She plays “Peerless Pauline” and her scenes against Groucho are priceless. She actually kicks his ass.
Pogonip
@frosty: You got that right. We ordered a couple of times from a pizza place half a block from the main gate of the local base. The 2nd time I remembered to ask “Do you give [base] discount?” and the guy went on a long rant about Federal employees, which I was at the time. Told him what he could do with his pizza and left permanently. He was out of business within 6 months. (why, yes, I did mention the incident to a colleague or ten.)
And why would someone whom you are hiring to cook your pizza or install your windows or whatever think you even care about his political opinions? Even if they agree with mine, I want him to shut up and concentrate on what I’m paying him to do.
WereBear
@jacy: It is a truly bizarre circumstance; I have had mutual friends say stuff like, “I never knew X was racist/bigoted/sexist.”
And most of the time it is because the person who is surprised never got treated that way; they are in one of the “privileged classes” and did not know it until now.
Barbara
@Ian: With the Japanese internment cited as a precedent of what could lawfully be done. Someone needs to ask Republican reps in mostly blue states like New Jersey whether they agree that the Japanese Internment is a good model for Trump to follow for Muslims.
martian
@Cacti: They’ve been so insulated from the consequences of their ideologies that they have no sense of cause and effect. When my grandmother died after a long illness, she left a surprising nest egg to her kids. We were always working class (more like working poor), but that woman knew how to make a penny run for it’s life. Still, extended hospitalizations were covered by Medicare, her last stay in a rehab center was totally covered, my grandfather’s long, expensive illnesses before her had been completely covered. When we all found out about Grandma’s tidy stash of CDs, I watched my wing nut uncle turn it all into some bullshit parable about hard work and living right. “Unlike some people” goes without saying. But none of it would have been possible without Democratic entitlement programs and union pensions. None of it. She’d have been destitute. A hard working and mired in poverty woman of great character. People are just blind to the foundations they’ve built their lives on. They prefer the myths of rugged individualism and self reliance to the truth.
Cynthianne
@SenyorDave: Have you ever visited New Mexico? Blue state, weather is lots better than Ariz, tons of historic sites, lots of museums and cultural attractions, friendly people… We’d love to have you!
JPL
@Another Scott: A few years ago, the governor of GA wanted to help fund a private highway. The contractor also wanted a guarantee that he would receive a set amount of income from the tolls. It did not pass. When republicans talk about risk in the private sector, they only need to look at Trump, and his tax deductions.
Barbara
If anybody in my immediate family crows at Thanksgiving about Trump (which is not likely and only one or two people) I don’t know how I am going to resist asking whether they think it’s okay to grab women by the pussy. I am still testing out alternatives.
Starfish
@Trentrunner: This type of thinking is damaging. When people need to come and work together, you are further individualizing them in order to determine who gets to be the most aggrieved.
If people need to grieve more, that is okay; but we need to come together and fix some really broken things like an election system that can let some person who lost by a million or more votes become president.
WereBear
@germy: I’ve seen that and she is awesome.
Durin Dal
I think that almost all of my relatives voted for Trump. Normally Thanksgiving dinner doesn’t get into politics but this time, In bracin for a storm that I have no idea how to ride out…
JPL
@Tom Levenson: Bookmarked as a reminder!
Gator90
I’ll be spending Thanksgiving with my Trump-loving father-in-law, who has been openly gloating since The Disaster. But he is tolerant of differing views and doesn’t take personal offense, even when I call him a racist. Because he is in some ways a very sweet man. And a racist.
The Moar You Know
@germy: Worse there. They’re all pissed (justifiably so) because they can no longer afford to live there.
SF ain’t no liberal paradise. Just the opposite. But it’s a great place to live if you’re rich. Wasn’t that way until 1997. The first wave of dot coms moved in then and destroyed most of the long-time local businesses. I stayed as long as I could but was out by 2000. Out of a group of 40 or so of my friends that moved there in the late 1980s, only one is left in the city.
Keith G
There seems to be a lot of hurt and conflict in this thread. I’m having a bit of a time getting my head around it.
SenyorDave
@Barbara: Been to Tucson and loved it. we’ll probably spend three days there. But I also want to visit the SE corner, Tombstone and Bisbee. Do you happen to know anything about crossing into Mexico from that area, both Nogales and Douglas have border crossings. Thirty years ago I went into Agua Prieta, it was easy, just walked right over (didn’t need a passport in those days, do have one now). I’m just wondering if it is a major production these days.
NickM
My wife cut off communications with her father after the election. It was a long time coming and not just about the election but her feeling was that her father knew she had been sexually abused as a child, voted for a proud abuser, and didn’t even have the decency to address it. It felt to her like her father had sided with rapists and was the final straw. It’s not my place to argue with her about it – she’s entitled to her feelings.
Gindy51
@Barbara: One of my husband’s golfing buddies was in an internment camp in Cali, his family lost every thing they owned… he voted for Trump. All he cares about is lower taxes. Nothing else matters.
My husband is going to ask him about this spewage from Trump’s supporter and see what he has to say about it. My guess… he won’t give a flying rat’s ass as long as TAXES!
Corner Stone
@Albert Z.:
Ditto. But I get to spend a lot of time countering some really vile things they say and do in front of him. And my ex is a complete coward who will not stand up for herself because of some warped view of “family”. So I get to work time and a half beating back their ignorance, vitriol and casual hatred.
MomSense
@Kay:
But clinton gave speeches, speeches!
Emailz emailz emailz emailz
MomSense
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’m sending a thank you note to Sanders.
Red Apple Smokes
Can’t help but delurk to share on this post. I’m originally from Ypsilanti and the letter to Miss Manners is perfectly consistent with the attitude and behavior of at least 1/3 of the population.
On a related note, I’m currently trying to make up my mind about how to deal with my own ridiculous social media family drama. My Aunt decided to comment on a election related post I had made to tell me to stop being divisive, and to say she feels very sorry for me having to pay back all of my student loans. I told her she didn’t even possess a 6th graders understanding of our nation’s history and that I didn’t plan on paying back my loans because our new leader has instructed us that only suckers pay what they owe. So now her son has spent the last week posting that he is going to punch me in the face. After telling him that those posts have been screen shot, his response was that he had no problem going to jail. This guy is in his mid 40’s for FFS. I do imagine that he’s in for a bit of a surprise since the last time he saw me was 2 years and 25 lbs of muscle from the gym ago.
WereBear
@Gindy51: I know someone who has bi-racial children and they said to me, “It is a really sick thing to realize they are perfectly okay with my children being mistreated because it means more money in their pocket.”
jacy
@WereBear:
I feel like this is a time when our true selves are uncovered. Some people are just basically not good people, even if they had a veneer of goodness. Some people have never been challenged, and those people can grow and learn and change. I’m trying right now to sort out who is who. But I’m going to be an example, every single damn day. I refuse to normalize this. I will not “get along.” Every day, I’m going to make the people who voted for or supported Trump feel small and ridiculous, not by being cruel, but by stating facts, dispelling disinformation, and holding people accountable. I’m going to pound that motherfucking nail every single day in every way I can. Progressives and liberals are too nice — because we value qualities of inclusion and compromise. Well, no more for me. They get no quarter, nor benefit of the doubt. There is too much at stake.
Durin Dal
@Chris: LOL… I read thru several of the more conservative sites to keep “balance”. Instapundit (Reynolds and others) is one of the ones that cause me almost physical pain to read thru. And it’s not even the worst…
Jumbo76
Screw family. I unfriended my mom and told my parents that I couldn’t talk to them any more.
Aardvark Annie
@Botsplainer: it’s your life. Let your daughter host T’giving for everyone…and YOU go to Churchill Downs
WereBear
That’s an idea I really really like. We can quite honestly claim hardship if any of Trump’s fever dreams start coming true.
tybee
@Corner Stone:
have the t-day dinner. don’t invite her.
Gelfling 545
@NickM: She IS entitled to her feelings and it sounds like they’re pretty reasonable in the circumstances. At best, her father didn’t think this was that big a deal.
WereBear
@jacy: Agreed. Polite, even icy polite, but I’m not going to pretend this is anything but the disaster it is.
SiubhanDuinne
@Raven:
Oh, no! Hope she can at least be pain-stabilized soon, and very much hope it isn’t broken. Give her best wishes and keep us posted.
tybee
@Betty
you can say that when you want to leave.
early so you don’t have to stay for the meal, later if you want him to stew about it all night.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
Wasn’t some joint Soviet-American pressure applied as well?
manyakitty
@Red Apple Smokes: That’s the same answer I’m giving for my student loans. Eff those jerks.
Red Apple Smokes
@WereBear: That was what really set him off, apparently I was mocking the “fact” that I was “stealing” from her and him.
Durin Dal
@jacy: I was surprised at a dinner when a couple of relatives started discussing the election. Remarks on Hillary’s clothing figured prominently, as did the comment that Melania would look better in the White House. My wife was physically restraining me to not join in. Fortunately, one of my more assertive sisters shut that down. But I was surprised that a couple of them felt that way. :-(
Larkspur
Yay. I am spending Thanksgiving dog-sitting for an apolitical, elderly Tibetan terrier, with a few outside visits for kitty care. There’s a television machine there and I can catch up on Netflix stuff! I am all about enabling other people to visit their relatives while I take of my innocent furry friends.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
(ETA: Rant directed to everybody, not just Betty.)
I say let ’er rip. For too long we have gone to holiday dinners, neighborhood parties, cookouts with friends, whatever, and stood silent as some asshole friend or family member spouted right-wing and anti-Democratic bullshit. “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to ruin the party.” “Everybody knows Uncle Fred is a dick; it’s no good talking to him.”
Well, silence is consent, in a way. They spout their bullshit and pay no price at all. Everybody expects us to be the better person and not “cause a scene.” Why isn’t anybody telling Uncle Fred to shut his yap and not spoil the party? Maybe Aunt Jane will do that after Fred gets called on his bullshit a time or two and people stop showing up for Thanksgiving dinner. “Sorry, Jane, we’ve made other plans this year.” (Which don’t include you and your dumb-fuck husband.) Let the “peacemakers” in the family start working on his behavior, not ours.
I’m not saying that anyone should get into a bare-knuckle brawl over the turkey, or even a lengthy political harangue. But for starters it’s enough to say something and not just sit there like a lump when Uncle Fred goes off. It could be as simple as: “We agreed not to discuss politics. If you can’t abide by that, and you want to ruin the party for everybody, we’re leaving.” Put the pressure on him to shut up. Or, if that’s too much for your delicate sensibilities, seriously think about not going in the first place. Which is worse? Feeling uncomfortable about “ruining everybody’s plans” or sitting mute (and hating yourself, I hope) while Uncle Fred yuks it up about “Killary” and how Trump is “gonna shake things up”?
Silence is consent.
To Betty speciifically: You can control that call from your dad. He gloats, you get off your zinger about him voting for a fascist, then you say: “Anyhoo, lots going on. Gotta run. Bye!” Leave him hanging with his unexpressed rage. See how he likes it, for a change.
germy
@The Moar You Know: Thanks, I always assume the grass is greener. All I know is I can’t take two steps outside my house without being harassed by a wingtard in a pickup truck. We need work done, but I don’t feel like hiring them.
GrandJury
I pointed out that politico article to some wingnuts, about how Pres Elect Shithead and Repubs are set to explode the deficit again, after 8 years of blaming Obama for doing the same.
The response, “that’s just liberal media bullshit”.
You cannot reason with those people.
tobie
@Kay: Doesn’t this say everything about the man? Are you surprised?
Hungry Joe
For the last ten years we’ve spent Thanksgiving with a small group of friends in Borrego Springs (the desert east of San Diego). We rent small cottages surrounded by sand, sage, and yucca, go for a hike Thanksgiving morning, laze around for a while after lunch, then each cook part of the feast in our tiny kitchens and get together for a long evening of happiness. The next day we drive home and have a regular dinner with family, some of whom we can only, just barely, tolerate. They don’t like it much that we bail on Thanksgiving, but it’s what we do and we don’t apologize for it.
Dog Dawg Damn
LISTEN UP:
This is your friendly reminder to PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATOR and Ask (politely) that they support Lindsey Graham in asking Congress to investigate Russian influence in our elections.
Key Senators:
John McCain
Jeff Flake
Rand Paul
Dianne Feinstein
It takes two minutes of your time!
NotMax
@jacy
Yup yup. Being repetitious with the credo, but I think deservedly so.
Do good today, do better tomorrow.
Red Apple Smokes
@manyakitty: One of the only upsides of the gig economy is that you end up too poor for the repayment folks to come after you. I just send in my letter every year saying, “Yep, still destitute”.
WereBear
@germy: Put an ad on Craigslist. Say you want to give the job to a liberal!
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Brother in law and his wife are Trumpists, and both my daughters have black husbands, and one of my daughters – the teacher – has been going at hammer and tong with them and everyone on FB who agrees with them, making sure that they understand that the behavior they accept from this guy that was elected is completely totally unacceptable, and that there’s something deeply morally wrong with them if they accept it. She’s been unfriended. The other daughter and her husband is planning to visit them over the holidays. I won’t be visiting them, ever.
Elizabelle
@Hungry Joe: Sounds like a brilliant strategy. And the desert night skies that you see.
A win, all around.
Dog Dawg Damn
I recommend keeping this handy:
Gelfling 545
I’ve done a bit of unfriending myself. If people keep treating what Trump supporters have done as normal if unfortunate, why would they have any reason to behave differently? I’m finished with the “but s/he’s really a nice person” garbage. Nice people don’t vote for bigots. Thanksgiving has already been whittled down a bit here. Two nephews, a niece and her husband will not be joining us as we have the nerve to not welcome the election of their choice for president. No one asked who they voted for. They could have just shut up, but, noooo. So their little feelings are hurt. They’re so oppressed. $40-50k income range in their early 30’s. Life’s tough.
Ian
@Barbara:
It isn’t a precedent!!! The Scotus ruled it highly illegal!!!
Elizabelle
@Botsplainer: Are you sure your daughter has an appetite this Turkey Day? Maybe not.
Shall look for some “orphaned by Trump” T-day gatherings.
Although turkey does not look so tasty, when you’ve just put one in the White House.
Chris
@Red Apple Smokes:
His ideology has spent the last fifty years stuffing the jails with people who aren’t white. He’s gonna have a lot of fun spouting his ideology in prison. Hopefully, he’ll have one of them for a cellmate.
MomSense
@Raven:
Oh no! So sorry to hear this.
Chris
@jacy:
Yes. The Internet, with the fact that you’re not saying things face-to-face anymore, and the fact that it supplies large echo chambers full of things for you to retweet, has done a lot to strip away the veneer of reasonable respectable personality for a lot of friends and family.
Scout211
This may have already been mentioned here, but the headlines my morning paper here in California: “Analyst projects $2.8B surplus.”
But that can’t be true. Democrats are “tax and spend” and ruin the economy by giving all the tax money to entitlements and immigrants. Right?
You just can’t trust that liberal media.
/snark
MomSense
@Scout211:
Wish the media would do a comparison of Cali and Kansas just so people can see the outcomes.
MisterForkbeard
Honestly, I’m going to remind any Trump relatives (and there’s a few) that the Republican President and Congress they so gleefully supported has already committed to removing Medicare from their parents. So the next time Aunt Janice gets sick and it causes her to lose her house, that’s on them.
If they want to continue to argue, they’re free to escalate from there.
WereBear
Great point.
jenn
@jacy: Exactly.
@Steeplejack: And yes to this, too. Again, I don’t mean getting into a fight. I don’t even mean getting rude. But I do think that every time we hear crap, we need to push back on it, firmly. People need to actually hear that people they are close to think very differently on the subject of human rights, the environment, and so on. And for the most part, polite but firm is better than losing your isht, since the former may penetrate a little farther. But yes, long story short, silence is consent.
Red Apple Smokes
@Chris: One can only hope. What’s even more messed up than that, is his sister has been diagnosed with MS and they have spent the last week cheering the destruction of Obamacare. They honestly don’t believe that it will harm her at all.
Steeplejack
@Raven:
Damn! Hope it’s not too bad. Healing thoughts to her.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@germy: Contact your local Pantsuit Nation and ask them.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: Yes, but the Empire was on its last legs by then.
NotMax
@Scoiut211
“Liberals Pick Public’s Pockets For $3 Billion” headline on FOX in 3… 2… 1….
WereBear
@MomSense: Oh, that would be telling. Which is why they never ever do it.
SenyorDave
@Cynthianne: Two years ago we went for 11 days, I’ve been there five different times, my favorite state in the US, even went to Chaco Canyon, my absolute favorite single place in this country.
martian
@SenyorDave: You and your wife, I can feel for, and that’s where I’m really conflicted. That’s where we always get roped in, though, right? Democrats care about collateral damage and are opposed to collective punishment.
Isn’t it awful being on the cusp where you might get grandfathered in and avoid the worst of the damage personally? I’m right on the edge where some of the ideas I’ve heard include me in the lifeboat, and I have kind of a growing horror about it. It feels like a huge wedge driven into the opposition coalition, like I’m being bribed, and they’re going to place the blade with surgical precision right where it will most damage the resistance.
@NotMax: Eve Ardenesque is really something to aspire to! I can do honeyed sarcasm, and I can do icy reserve, but this might take rehearsal. If certain relatives start trying to commiserate with me over my terror about finding healthcare for my child, I’m pretty certain I’ll be coming down from the heights to rave like a lunatic in a flash. I know I’m not the worst off here by far, or in the most precarious position, but this is my child’s whole future hanging in the balance. I can’t be entirely rational or removed right now.
Ksmiami
At Amherst college, there is a memorial to all the male students who served in our nations wars. There are brothers and cousins who fought on opposite sides during the civil war. The national mood feels like a jagged schism beyond repair. Additionally I feel that if we always have to fight for people to be basically decent, maybe the battle is already lost.
Scout211
@WereBear:
And that would be biased, which they claim they are not.
The facts, they have a liberal bias.
Roger Moore
@SenyorDave:
Have you considered the Olympic Peninsula? And there’s always California; we have more National Parks than any other state. Utah brags about their “Mighty 5”, but we have 9 that cover far more varied terrain (e.g. highest and lowest points in the lower 48) than theirs. Plus there are a bunch of new National Monuments that Obama has declared in the past few years.
kindness
@Red Apple Smokes: – Where is that GoPro when you will need it?
The Moar You Know
@jacy: My goal is to make at least one Trump supporter cry every day. I’m gonna cruel as hell. Was Trump not elected on a platform of cruelty, when it boils down to basics? Yes. Yes he was. So be it. Never let it be said I didn’t work with the president.
I’m going to be cruel. And mean. And petty. And vicious. I’m pretty good at all that shit anyway. Might as well put it to good use instead of repressing it. Hey, I’m just getting with the program. Trump voters voted as they did to be cruel to you, the good reader of my post. Not you as in an abstract. Specifically you. They know you and did this to you on purpose.
Return the favor. Don’t just lie down and take it.
Ksmiami
@The Moar You Know: ME TOO. THEY WANT A FIGHT, FINE.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Roger Moore: +1 California.
I’ve lived damn near everywhere, and it’s the best. Pricey, sure, but you get what you pay for. Keep in mind that the Central Valley and rural west is Trump Country (and a Mad Max hellscape in summer).
Also Norcal is not SoCal, so chose wisely.
Roger Moore
@martian:
As long as we’re also protecting ourselves. I, for one, think Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare are valuable programs worth fighting for; I sure as hell won’t to the Republicans’ work for them by helping to destroy them.
Doug!
To quote Mr. Blonde, I say fuck ’em, if they hadn’t done what I told ’em not to do, they’d still be my Facebook friends.
SenyorDave
@Durin Dal: Remarks on Hillary’s clothing figured prominently, as did the comment that Melania would look better in the White House.
But we’re talking the president here. Hillary looks like a pretty typical 70 y.o. professional woman. I’ve seen a ton of 70 year old guys at the gym who look a helluva lot better than Trump (and I’ve seen them naked!). Trump is a flabby, pasty guy, has man boobs written all over him.
WereBear
@Red Apple Smokes: Yes, I know many Trump voters who believe that rain will only fall on the unjust. Not them.
However, I do wonder what they “honestly” believe and what is a mega-rationalization that will allow them to indulge their spite to the fullest. It reminds me of the classic situation of the person who uses denial in all situations:
“You are going to get into trouble driving without brakes.”
“Shut up, don’t tell me how to drive.”
“You told me over and over that you paid the electric bill even though I kept getting notices.”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“If you keep letting the baby play with the hand grenade, he’s going to figure out how to pull the pin.”
“No, he won’t.”
NotMax
@SenyorFave
Nevada? Minnesota?
And there are some islands out in the Pacific which have heard are kind of nice. :)
Ian
@The Moar You Know:
I feel as if my arguments with Lil Douche’s supporters only made them more enthusiastic. See how much it pisses of this Liberal?
germy
Poopyman
Well, the Exodus is under way…
Trump was going to install his own anyway, I guess. Ah well.
Red Apple Smokes
@kindness: I know, right? Although I can think of a few other items available for purchase at a sporting goods store that would be even more useful in this situation.
charluckles
@Steeplejack:
Yes!
And don’t unfriend and block, confront and argue. We are right, they are wrong. It’s OK to be righteous every now and then. Trumps on the record, over and over and over again.
Betty
Here’s some fuel for the fire. i somehow got on the DJT e-mail list. Today’s e-mail asks me to shop at the Donald J. Trump store. Hurry, merchandise is limited. Unbelievable – times a thousand!
Villago Delenda Est
Throw it in his face. He’s undoing what his father did.
NotMax
@NotMax
Ack!
SenyorDave.
Mea culpa.
Red Apple Smokes
@WereBear: The wall of unreality is impenetrable. My aunt has repeatedly argued that companies provide health insurance to their employees “out of the kindness of their hearts”.
SiubhanDuinne
@Barbara:
Anybody who lives near a movie theatre that shows Fathom Events may want to attend George Takei’s ALLEGIANCE on December 13. (Do double-check theatre listings; I’ve been burned once or twice when a specific cinema was listed but in fact weren’t showing whatever it was.)
charluckles
@Ian:
I think the trick is to not let yourself get angry and never let them control the argument. Is the debate going in a direction you find unfavorable? Up goes another Trump quote with a reminder that they just elected a man who regularly said and did things that would have made their mother cry.
Villago Delenda Est
@germy: Bernie needs to STFU. Just like Michael Moore. They think this is about “economic anxiety” but it’s actually about racism, carefully hidden behind it. I’m not sure Moore will ever get this.
Mnemosyne
@Raven:
I heard the sad story of a knitter who was really excited when she sprained her ankle, because she finally had an excuse to sit around and knit all day. Then she stumbled with her crutches and broke her wrist, too ?
Villago Delenda Est
@Red Apple Smokes: You can’t fix stupid that profound.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Speaking of ankles, heel healed, Betty?
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack:
Yep. I’ve said that I’m in a running battle with my Trumper cousin. I asked her to wear a safety pin, and she snottily said she would wear her cross and then everyone would know where she stood. And that was my Bugs Bunny moment.
Betty Cracker
@Raven: Poor thing!
@NotMax: Yep! Right as rain now! :)
WereBear
@Red Apple Smokes: Oh, I know! Right up there in the Hall of Shame with:
By saying these things, they soothe their fears. Then they must act like their defenses are real, or they will stop working. Then they act on these defenses just like they were real and are angry when their lies don’t work in the real world.
In the meantime, the person I spoke to at a state labor board tells me how she spends all day dealing with people who got sick and then fired and then lose their health insurance. It is her unhappy task to tell them it’s not against the law and there’s nothing they can do.
If a Tree Falls
I have some conservative friends and family that I’ve seriously thought about cutting out of my life, but doing so would mean losing about $350 dollars of income each month. I could have the moral satisfaction that comes with being a purity pony, or I could take that money and donate it to liberal causes. I’m going to help build a wall against the fascists that want to wreck our country, and I’m going to make them pay for it. The ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the NAACP donations are in the works. I’d like to make some donations to groups that focus on safeguarding the rights of Muslims, immigrants, and gays. Any suggestions?
The gray adder
Some butthole started blathering about confirmation bias at Deadspin (where most of Gawker’s political bloggers went) in a similar thread. My reply was that filtering out bullshit from Breitbart was not the same thing, and lies should not be part of the national conversation.
p.a.
Thanks to my goddaughter’s invite, this is who I can gladly, honestly deny a turkey day visit:
to quote Dave Barry, “I’m not making this up.”. Quotes are 100% accurate: one doesn’t forget stupidity on that level.
elder cousin straight line R voter who thinks Saddam Hussein hid his masses of WMD in 30 minute windows when US spy satellites were out of range
also claims MLK a communist
also claims limes are unripe lemons
his 50 yr old (openly gay for 2 yrs) son, staunch R, who was diagnosed w stage ? melanoma (it got into lymph nodes), then signed up for O-care and is now cancer free (still voting R)
he’s spent 10 yrs refusing state-paid back operation trying to qualify for 100% SSI disability, finally got it last year. lives with parents.
the 47 yr old son, R voter (it’s all about the fetuses). failed teacher cert test twice. after 1st fail said “I know what’s on it now, I won’t have to study next time.”
lives home w parents, can’t afford car (or as he calls it; veericle). Uses local (taxpayer supported) health clinics and once-a-year mass dentist freebie at local community college. Once finished second in a 2 person competition and was overjoyed; “I can’t believe I came in second. I’m so happy.”
WaterGirl
Please give if you haven’t. This is a concrete thing we could do. One more Democratic senator could make a real difference. You have one senator who gets sick or resigns in shame because of some sex scandal or one who resigns in shame because life’s just too short to participate in burning down our democracy, and we could have a 50-50 split or end up with 51 Democratic senators.
GrandJury
@Villago Delenda Est: I don’t know what Bernie is spouting about these days and don’t care. He should just go away because he isn’t helping. He was correct during the primary when he called Trump a Demogog. I think that perfectly describes Trump.
Moore never explained the Dr. Orange campaign as economic anxiety. He did say that Dr. Orange claiming he will put import dutes on cars and steel from Mexico and China played well in the rust belt. So indirect economic anxiety coupled with xenophobia. I think Moore is spot on with that.
Of course, Dr. Orange cannot begin to relate to the rust belt working class and will do absolutely NOTHING to help them, but they are too dumb to realize that.
jeffreyw
I didn’t go out for the super moon but my robot captured a shot that I think epitomizes the hype.
Red Apple Smokes
@Villago Delenda Est: You really cannot, and I had stopped trying. I managed to ignore all of their ridiculous posts and memes throughout the election, but what I’m not going to allow is someone to show up on my page, spew nonsense, and then threaten me for rebutting it. If I had tossed some obscenities her way I could probably accept my cousin’s anger, but all I can come up with at this point is, “who the &^(^& n do you think you are?” I’ve ignored it for about a week, mostly because it seems to be driving him crazy, but his rhetoric has started escalating. If he’s actually willing to drive three hours to try and find me, I suppose we’ll just have to roll around in the dirt.
Corner Stone
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s not carefully hidden. The media is deliberately cloaking it. It’s like the SNL skit where Trump kissed Putin and the moderator says, “That could mean anything. Now back to your emails.”
Swastikas spray painted on places across the country? People of color attacked and told they are going to be killed? Young kids chanting “Build that wall’ while no adult does a damned thing to stop them?
“Those could mean anything. Now back to the obvious economic anxiety.”
piratedan
@SenyorDave: SD, since I am one of the few resident Tucson juicers, I can tell you that while the border crossing can still be done easily, it is a bit more constrained than it used to be. If you’re going on foot, less so to cross over at Douglas or Nogales. If traveling by car, it will be inspected, both crossing into and back from Mexico. Generally, if you’re an anglo, its not a big deal (white privilege rules), they just want to ensure that you’re not smuggling cash and guns to the cartels or people or drugs inbound.
Depending upon if/when you’re coming to the area, just drop me a note and I can fill you in on the latest and greatest, although any swing by yelp or trip advisor would also be informative too.
WaterGirl
@Emma: I agree. I was thinking billboards might be the way to go a day or two ago, but then it fell out of my head.
Tripod
Sending out Me-Maw and Pop-pop to talk about the good ol’ FDR days…. that’s for sure to get those lazy millennials to the polls.
Democratic Party leadership reflect its voters. Earnest and kinda clueless.
Renie
I live on Long Island and have unfriended stupid idiots who voted for trump. BTW there have been KKK fliers showing up in towns near this republican headquarters; maybe he should talk about that instead
Keith G
I feel that it is important not to take on the baggage of victimhood. I get anxious when I hear folks changing what they are doing or what they would want to do because of political discussions and consequences. I guess it’s just antithetical to how I was raised and to what I conceive it means to be involved in the poltical process.
Red Apple Smokes
@WereBear: Yep, The Big 3 has employed three generations of my family. Watching these people crap all over the gains my grandfather fought for forces me to bite a hole right through my lip.
WereBear
@p.a.: That’s full Ionesco Meets Tennessee Williams you got going there.
catclub
@Elizabelle: I love the Grand Canyon for winter holidays – but it has been a while.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Mnemosyne:
Hey Mnem, replying to your SF questions from last night: depending on what part of town you’re in, you may find it convenient to check your backpack at the concierge desk at Nordstrom in the Westfield Center (at Powell BART station) for part or most of the day. They are very accommodating and ask no questions, as long as you plausibly look like a shopper. Nice restrooms, too.
I missed it earlier – what part of town are you staying in? Hope you enjoy your visit here despite the promised rain.
ruckus
@NotMax:
You can’t choose them in the first place, but you aren’t actually obligated to maintain the relationship, other than societal norms. But then societal norms shouldn’t have allowed them to vote for this big of asshole either.
Timurid
@Barbara:
So one of the worst mistakes in American history is a precedent for them?
That’s like the new CEO of cruise line saying “Remember the Titanic? We want lots more of that!”
WereBear
@Keith G: It is only sane to change our behavior when the results are crappy.
We saw what politeness got us.
MomSense
@martian:
Be strong. Take care of your kid. To hell with the deatheaters.
schrodinger's cat
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Waving from the east coast, how have you been comrade?
Kay
Lewandowski gave a speech in the UK where he said Comey’s letter helped them win the election.
Maybe it was a transcript error or something but the piece about the speech originally said Comey “called” Lewandowski. Then it was changed to where the letter was “reported”.
So I’d like to know if Comey called the CNN pundit/Trump campaign manager and told him he was sending a letter about Hillary Clinton. That seems to me to be “news”.
trollhattan
We laugh to keep from crying and this story is pretty fvcking funny. Mass unfriending. “First they came for my quips and dog pictures and I had plenty. Then they didn’t come. Holocaust!”
Kay
We really need an investigation into Mr. Comey and the NY field office. These people still have these jobs.
bemused
@Durin Dal:
Eat something at home, don’t go there on an empty stomach. You may need to leave early before dinner due to sudden migraine and an overwhelming urge to shed blood or stay and go verbally ballistic on them. Either way, you won’t have much of an appetite later.
Corner Stone
@Kay: I saw on someone’s twit feed that late breaker deciders went decisively for Trump. The race was stable from Jan 2016 to end of Oct 2016. Then it was not stable any longer.
NotMax
@piratedan
Told the story before, but still might elicit a grin.
Mom (U.S.) and aunt (Brazil) had a set-up utilizing pilots on the Brazilian airline, Varig, to carry medications not available there to a uncle (since deceased). One day, Mom mentioned how she was astonished they had never had any problems doing this.
Responded, “There’s no one looking for drugs going to South America.”
Peale
@Timurid: They also think that Chinese Exclusion Law was the bees knees as well. I expect to see more of that as well. Let’s make it illegal for china-men to wear top knots and forbid them to have wives.
Kay
SUCH a bad strategy. They aren’t going to get shit and voters will then tie them to Trump.
They are literally doing Republicans work for them. They can’t even do “political minority” right. I would say they deserve to stay in the minority but they’re not even good as an opposition Party.
Peale
@Another Scott: So if Bernie works with him on this, can we mock him as a Neo-liberal? Personally, if we go this route, I wouldn’t mind California signing its own bi-lateral trade agreement with China and Dubai to build them some stuff. At least the Chinese and Arabs usually are good for it.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@WaterGirl:
This would be something useful Bernie could rally his bros around, but he’s too busy being a preening dick.
Kay
Trump isn’t even popular! He has the worst approval of any incoming President in decades.
Democrats HAD a popular President. Obama. They refused to help him but they’re now courting Trump?
Steeplejack
@Poopyman:
Oh, bullshit. If you read the whole story you see that, like all appointed officials, Clapper had to submit a pro forma letter of resignation, and at age 75 he’s ready to retire anyway. And he’s staying on until January 20, when he would be replaced by a Trump appointee anyway. So this is not some big principled statement.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Corner Stone: Sahil Kapur?
Jeffro
Busy today, but real quick:
1) Love the guy with the ‘but geez’ sign – my hero!
2) Have been listening to DBTs’ “American Band” all week btw – good for the soul.
3) I think the first part of fighting Donald Arsonist & Co is showing them we’re ready – and that means getting going now. No waiting around, it’s time for action. I’ve seen posts about contacting your Senators and Congressfolks – DO that – it takes just a couple minutes a day, and you should call every day. Also please write op-eds and letters to the editor, Tweet to your fave reporters in support of their work, email businesses who carry Trump crap (sorry Macys – I thought your hands were clean but you still carry Ivanka’s garbage) and let them know they’re not going to get any of your holiday shopping dollars, and whatever else you can think of.
I’m not completely convinced that the Arsonist is going to even make it to his own inauguration, but if he does, let’s hit the ground running in 2017 and fight him on every fucking thing under the sun. Otherwise we’ll lose our state (VA), we’ll lose in 2018, and we’ll be well and truly screwed in 2020 – THAT damage would take a generation to undo.
D58826
Hard to tell if this is good news or bad news. Newt won’t be in the cabinet per newt himself. Gioven some of the names mentioned he was somewhat on the sane side
SatanicPanic
@The Moar You Know: This. Short of a hurricane hitting, I don’t want one inch of cooperation.
Shalimar
@Kay: I don’t see the downside of Sanders and Warren offering to work with Trump on the promises we all know he isn’t going to make any effort to keep. If/when they actually do work with him on anything that hurts people, then I will be pissed.
gogol's wife
@Steeplejack:
Right on.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@schrodinger’s cat:
Hi! Depressed like most everyone else. Grateful for a secure civil service job that won’t go away until the Apocalypse. Grateful also for you and all the other Juicers who make the world a better place right now. Realizing that if I continue to eat my feelings and drown my sorrows at this rate, I’m going to gain 100 pounds in the next 4 years. Ruminating about whether we can turn our spare room into a hideout for my son’s classmate and his undocumented family if needed. Talking to my Jewish family and friends about how we’ll know when we need to give up fighting and start talking about leaving, and where on earth we’d go.
So, OK, I guess?
Roger Moore
@Chris:
Actually, there are plenty of white supremacists in prison; many, many white people in high security prisons are members of Aryan gangs. And plenty of prisons are de facto segregated because it’s considered the best way of avoiding race riots.
Peale
@Kay: I’;m sure he’ll appreciate their support when they start passing those voter ID laws and shit targeting Democratic constituencies. Did they not learn anything from Wisconsin? Or Texas?
NotMax
Idly wondering if sales of Pillsbury crescent rolls will be down this Thanksgiving.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Because as much as we rail against the idea of bipartisanship, it’s very popular with the the people who decide elections. This is what Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor understood in January of 2009.
D58826
@Steeplejack: Wasn’t sure when I saw the headline. Sometimes they stay on for a period of time to smooth the transition and prevent a situation where everyone is new and no one knows where the bath room is.
piratedan
@Kay: but hey, Donna Brazielle might have told Hillary Clinton that there might be a question about drinking water in Flint, so both sides….
The fact that CNN hired CL straight off of the Trump campaign, the allusions that he was still under contract to the Trump campaign and now apparently operated as a conduit for leaked or any other information obtained by nefarious means all in the name of “even-handedness” makes me wonder, how in the hell does this not violate some law somewhere, such as libel, perhaps… and I understand the reluctance here of actually attempting to prosecute this… but I really am tired of all of this fucking projection from the GOP when it’s readily apparent that seemingly everything that they accuse the Dems of, they’re actively doing.
WereBear
Sigh. My last ten and a half hours in a nutshell.
JMG
@Kay: I’m not sure the strategy is what’s being reported (could be wrong). They could be taking a page from Obama’s book and just taking a stance that’ll get them face time with Trump, who has that habit of being swayed just by people by nice to him. Since he’s untrustworthy, he doesn’t trust anyone. Getting a chance to poison the well against Trump’s erstwhile Republican allies is worth a few meetings that’ll never go anywhere anyway on substantive grounds. He’s never going to fund any policy or project that doesn’t involve loading pallets of shrinkwrapped $100 bills onto semis in the dead of night.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@MomSense:
They have, but
a) The Republicans have only had 10 years to turn Kansas arround after a century of Republican rule. Give them a chance.
b) california is filled with liberal hotspots like Standford and Orange county and a mere 20% of the population. Therefore no True American.
Basically we live in the age of derp.
schrodinger's cat
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: That’s what I was wondering too. When do we know that it is time to leave?
Shalimar
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It isn’t bipartisanship if Republicans aren’t going to do anything on those issues. It is pointing out their hypocrisy.
WereBear
@NotMax: Nope. In my extended family back in deep red Indiana, that’s a “pry them from my cold dead hands” issue.
And if I mentioned it, they would not get the joke, because of course they know nothing about Islam.
Roger Moore
@GrandJury:
I think that’s Agent Orange, since he appears to be bought and paid for by the Russians.
joel hanes
> father will gloat.
Silently, politely, deliberately get up and leave the room.
Come back when he can behave himself.
tobie
@Kay: I’m not a lawyer…so just asking: what would it take to subpoena Lewandowski’s cell phone records for the days he was in England?
Poopyman
@Steeplejack: I am aware of all of that. I was just noting that the old guard is on the way out, and I’m SO looking forward to his replacement.
Hitless
I can’t believe this. In the NY Times:
We have just had an 8 year object lesson in what obstruction gets you: full control of the government.
Someone mail the Democrats and explain:
1) Helping Trump succeed will not turn Trump voters into Democrats
2) Clinton barely lost the election…the solution to winning the next is to make sure more Democrats vote…not to try to cater to Trump voters and alienate a base that is ready to be for the Democrats what the Tea Party was for the Republicans.
The Moar You Know
@piratedan: “Libel” is not the violation you’re looking for. Hell, it’s probably not illegal, just deeply immoral and SHOULD be illegal, in the same way that all the behavior that Citizen’s United made legal absolutely should not be.
Personal belief: CNN paid Trump. Directly. And that may well be a crime if not reported.
NotMax
@WereBear
Gift them a few jars of Musselman applesauce. Just for sh*ts and grins.
:)
Roger Moore
@Red Apple Smokes:
You need to say those exact words. You can’t get much more succinct than that.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@SenyorDave:
.
Come on, you’re missing the obvious lines
“Yes, his wife is just so lovely. Really typical small town American girl, isn’t she? Were is she from? And she just looks so young next to Trump!”
dexwood
We’ve decided, fuck it, skipping the family dinner this year. My elderly father-in-law voted for Johnson, but was Trump Curious. My mother-in-law voted for Johnson, too, because her husband did. Native Americans. My sister-in-law, and her husband, both retired high school teachers, solid Bush supporters and later Tea Party assholes, voted for Trump. Both have texted smug, gloating pro-Trump messages to us since the election. I blocked them. Their son and his wife, both elementary school teachers, love Trump. A small turkey and some sides for us to nosh on, movies, books, and Scrabble. Our son and daughter-in-law will bring dessert later that evening once dinner with her liberal parents is over.
Kay
@JMG:
They’ll get face time with Trump and tell him Republicans are bad and Democrats are good? So, in other words, they’re hoping Trump will work with them against Republicans, but Trump won’t know that’s what he’s doing?
That’s even crazier than the fake infrastructure bill, which doesn’t exist, by the way, they’re relying on something Trump’s horrible PR team said in MARCH.
He’s hiring bankers. He has no intention of regulating banks and there is no “infrastructure plan”. There is nothing to work on. It’s all bullshit.
Red Apple Smokes
@Roger Moore: You might think that would be enough, but that was the lead paragraph in my response where I informed him that his threats were screen shot. The response has been a week of escalating threats. It’s an honor culture thing. I embarrassed his mother by pointing out that she didn’t know what she was talking about. He wants an apology, and the only way he’s getting one is to beat it out of me. I don’t think he can, but at the moment it’s even money that we’re going to find out.
Hoodie
Dreading T-day at in-laws this year. I was think of handing out notes:
“I assume you are ecstatic about Hillary Clinton being denied the White House because, in your mind, she was the greatest threat to the United States since the Soviet Union. Needless to say, I feel the same way about Donald Trump, and view Hillary’s flaws as minor and amplified by charlatans, hysterics and a media complex intent on creating a circus instead of an election. You voted for a racist, a misogynist and, to use terms with which you may be more familiar, a completely disgusting human being with nothing meritorious in his background other than sleazy ripoffs and reality TV shows, perhaps because you were more concerned with email protocols. I hope you rest comfortably as he lavishes tax breaks on his family and friends, fosters division, snuggles up to authoritarians like Vladimir Putin and generally shreds the civil society that contributed to the security you’ve enjoyed and provided aid to address the myriad problems that you, your children and your grandchildren have experienced. I do give thanks this season for the fact that there are more people who understood the threats to democracy and decency this man represents than those of you who actually voted for him. In the interest of good digestion and avoiding open hostilities, this note constitutes the entirety of my thoughts I will express about this issue on this blessed holiday.”
trollhattan
@dexwood:
Have a peaceful day. You don’t deserve that particular family hell. (Very glad we’re out of T-day hosting rotation this year–hard to stay away from a dinner you’re giving.)
Kay
I saw Elizabeth Warren on CSPAN last night. She’s still talking about how the stimulus was too small. 2009.
But they’re ready to work with Trump on “infrastructure”?
Jeffro
ACTION: just drafted a letter to Kaine, Warner, and McAuliffe asking for their help in rallying VA Democrats like, yesterday, so that we can hold the Governorship in 2017. And sent $100 to Ralph Northam to boot (and just for starters – he’ll get a lot more from me before this is done)
Mark out 15-20 minutes in your day, folks, and DO THINGS. 2 hours a week. Call. Write. ACT.
WereBear
I know all about that. Maybe you can just duel with swords?
currants
@Rachael French: Ditto. Probably longer than just one holiday, too.
Kay
But crack journalist Megyn withheld that news from the public until after the election so she could sell a book.
They’re just venal, horrible people on cable. No ethics, no standards, no professionalism. It’s all about the bucks.
Barbara
@Timurid: Hey, I am just referring to an item I saw over at TPM. Sorry the context was completely lost. A guy being interviewed by Megyn Kelly told her that a registry of Muslims was totally legit in light of Japanese internment.
dexwood
@trollhattan:
Thanks. It will be a peaceful day. We’re comfortable with our decision and feeling no guilt. Good wine will make us feel even more comfortable.
NorthLeft12
Yes, even up here in friendly Canada we unfriend, block, or hide people with odious views and the chutzpah/effrontery to share them with us. I have a step – brother in law [or something like that] who was constantly bashing refugees. I tried to engage him a bit, but soon realized it was hopeless/a waste of time, so out of my cyber life he goes. Still see the dope at Christmas and Easter though.
Citizen Scientist
@Hungry Joe: Wow, that sounds really nice. Maybe I’ll suggest the desert to the spousal unit for next year.
Hoodie
@Kay: I don’t get this approach by her or Bernie. Don’t they realize that Trump screws everyone he deals with? If they do, what’s their goal?
Barbara
@Jeffro: Absolutely need Dems to hold the governorship in 2017 for any hope in reversing gerrymandering of house districts. I estimate that Virginia should have at least two and possibly three more reliably blue districts, and that’s without any “reverse” gerrymandering. Basically, Charlottesville and Albemarle County are carved up into three or even four districts to keep them from getting Democratic representation. Comstock’s district has been repeatedly enlarged geographically to include more and more people in the Shenandoah Valley and to carve out pieces of Fairfax County to keep it red. This was Frank Wolf’s district.
artem1s
@Rachael French:
I already informed my family I’m not driving 150 miles so I have to witness them, patting themselves on the back for being such great Christians who saved the world from the hellscape of having to have a qualified woman as President. I had to tell my 84 year old mother that I firmly believe her eldest is a racist who worships his stock portfolio and Trumplings tax free inheritance more than my hard earned social Security retirement. I spent the last 16 years trying to gently tell them that someday I was going to believe who they were by the actions they took. It made no impression on them. Now if they are offended when I tell them I don’t approve of their choice of Pussy-grabber-in-Chief, maybe this time they will hear me.
Fuck them if they are offended by my language. This is the normal they voted for.
ellie
I didn’t have anyone gloating on my FB page but slowly people are showing their true colors. I dumped a childhood friend of my sister’s the other day (she was a like another sister to me growing up). I dumped a former co-worker too.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Villago Delenda Est:
Actually going by my Rust Belt relatives, it is economic anxiety. The racism is their stupid rationalization and how they want to fix it.
Shalimar
@Barbara: The guy talking to Megyn Kelly is correct that Korematsu has never been explicitly overturned and would be the foundation of any Supreme Court ruling allowing a Muslim registry. It is considered one of the worst Supreme Court decisions ever by pretty much all decent human beings, though. Whether there are 5 decent human beings on next year’s Supreme Court is an interesting question.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
Yeah, ditto her forgetting to mention that Trump was wooing journalists with perks and bribes.
Shell
We take bets on how soon after Thanksgiving they’ll be showing the first broadcast of “Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kay:
Might be just trolling the Republicans since many of them think Trump is a Democrat plant.
Jeffro
@Barbara: Join us – action works! I just sent an additional letter to the WaPo about how this must be stopped at the Electoral College vote. Given the stakes involved, I’d rather try and draw to an inside straight than just up and fold.
Elie
I don’t have bad family but my best friends husband is an ork. They live out of town so no immediate stress. I never want to lay eyes on him again.
Not only are the wounds in our country deep but the wounding continues with each new appointment, policy announcement and emboldened comments from the racist bigots. I don’t see how this is healed in my lifetime. Also at least for me, the votes cast for Jill Stein and Gary Johnson – votes that could have spared us this and whose voters echoed the slogans of the right. I just don’t know what to say as we take a long last look at normal in these next 90 days before sliding into a dark night.
Quinerly
@SenyorDave:
I usually spend the month of February in the Santa Fe area and use it as a base for driving all over NM for the past 6 years. This year, I carefully researched and made all my plans/reservations in August. Essentially 4 weeks driving around AZ and Utah in February and March. I travel alone with a large dog in an 4 wheel drive vehicle with Liberal bumper stickers. As bad as I hate to do it, I think I should peel off my beloved stickers, one of which blatantly says, “NOT A REPUBLICAN.” Anybody know anything about Kanab and Bluff Utah? Staying in those two towns more days than any place…using both as a base for driving out. Bluff looks fascinating, but a town of less than 300. Honestly, I’m rattled…I also camp in the national parks.
D58826
@Kay: Prey tell And she had the votes to make it bigger? Even the moon rocks in Mission Control know it was too small. W/o flipping a couple of Republicans the votes were not there to break the filibuster.
It’s bad enough when the GOP re-writes history but when the supposed good guys/gals do it as well (sigh)
Elie
I have to say that I was disappointed in Hillarys speech yesterday before the children’s defense fund. She said that all she had wanted to do was curl up with a book and never leave her home again. Really? No anger or fear for the people now at risk? Is she now just gonna go home and write a book? Where is the fierce warrior for justice? Is all she can give us is “to never give up” ? Show some spine, please!
WaterGirl
@jenn: It’s only good news if the IL house also votes to override the veto. Keeping my fingers crossed. The only un-depressing thing about the election last week is that we are getting rid of the awful Mark Kirk as senator.
Red Apple Smokes
@WereBear: He would probably just get confused about what end to hold it from. I guess I should just count myself lucky that he hasn’t brought firearms into it yet.
Greg
Maternal uncle found Jesus in his late forties. Became a Lutheran pastor. Missouri synod, went to seminary at Fort Wayne, the really conservative one. The day after the election I put up my screed which boiled down to: Fuck you, the adults are still going to do the hard work of self-government and save you from yourselves. He posted a reply about there being no authority but god’s. I’m glad I don’t see him except at weddings and I’m irritated the next time I see him will be my sister’s wedding.
Barbara
@Jeffro: I am already getting Northam updates and sent him a little bit of coin. However, I do get tired of being asked relentlessly for money and given no information on other ways to help.
Barbara
@Greg: If there is no authority but God’s why do they keep trying so hard to get authority for themselves to be the boss of everyone else here on earth? You should put that question to him, with the proviso that people who make statements like that but who nonetheless try so hard to gain and keep authority are basically acknowledging that they don’t really believe what they are saying. He either lives his principles or he doesn’t have any.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Good point. Ugh. Another recruit for the AB, then.
Patricia Kayden
Good for Miss Manners. That is a perfect response.
As to mass unfriendly of Trump voters, I say yes. Why would you be comfortable with someone who voted for a White Supremacist who as we speak is considering appointing out-and-out racist Jeff Sessions into the position of Attorney General? Can you imagine what life is going to be like for Black people with someone who is on record for hating us in such a powerful position?
Unfriend them! That’s the least you can do.
Chris
@Hitless:
I agree with the sentiment, but let’s not kid ourselves that we’d get the same treatment if we did the same thing the GOP spent the last eight years doing.
Emma
@Elie: So she spends 40 years of her goddamn life serving people who would as lief spit at her, and she’s literally robbed of the presidency, she’s not entitled to grieve or give up? Who the hell are you to demand more of her?
Barbara
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It’s not as if the two are mutually exclusive. Civil rights legislation was passed at almost the exact moment in time that the U.S. reached its absolute postwar peak in manufacturing relative to the rest of the world. It’s been downhill ever since and there are more than a few people who somehow see civil rights and tolerance as the cause of their loss of status. I have less sympathy for people under the age of 40 because these trends have been in place for going on my entire adult life, which is to say, their entire life. Nonetheless, whatever age they are, there is zero chance that sticking it to the “blacks and the spics” will do one GD thing for any currently anxious white person. Not. A. Thing.
Quinerly
As for “unfriending”…an out of state acquaintance…MI (she moved back there a few years ago) has now unfriended me twice over Bernie. The first time was in the spring because she didn’t like my use of the term “Bern Feelers.” After the DNC convention, she wanted to be friends again…”all in this together.” Has now unfriended me again because the party didn’t listen to BS, she doesn’t think I show enough respect for Michael Moore’s views(she posts a lot about him), and thinks we should give Pres Trump a chance. Good riddance.
Barbara
@Emma: This is what I think. I mean, I can barely stand to open the paper at this point and I didn’t get my hat handed to me and my dreams shattered in a public and humiliating way.
Betty Cracker
@Elie: Did you watch the whole thing? Because the part about wanting to curl up with a book and never leave the house was a preface to saying we can’t do that, we can’t give up, we’ve got to keep fighting. Her meaning was literally the exact opposite of your takeaway.
Chip Daniels
After hearing calls on my FB feed about “civility” I posted that there is no nice or civil way to strip people of their healthcare, or round them up for deportation.
If you want to do that, be prepared for rage and inciviity.
WereBear
@Barbara: While that is true, I was born in the Midwest and can state definitely that when times were good they had a tendency to be the same xenophobic, frightened, conformist, racist jerks we see today.
Jeffro
@Barbara:
They will certainly do that down the road, but if you want to get started earlier, there’s a Northam event in McLean on Dec 3rd. The money helps set up the volunteering down the road – organizing registration drives, buying shirts and signs, and so on.
Chris
@ellie:
I don’t have any gloating either. I have whining. About incivility, about unamericanism, about how nobody’s talking about how anti-Trump protesters are the only violent ones, and how it’s our duty to give him a chance.
The one thing that’ll always impress me about fascists is their capacity to whine. That’s one thing the new Star Wars movies are getting completely right. The prototypical fascist isn’t Darth Vader impassively smacking down an Imperial admiral for mouthing off in a committee meeting. The prototypical fascist is Kylo Ren, trashing his room in a fit of rage every time something doesn’t go his way.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Barbara: Well according to my dad the steel mills were dying in the 50s because the Germans came up with a cheaper way to make steel and the no one wanted to modernize the Americans mills because, shut up, that’s why. Basically the whole period from the mid 50s to the 80s was work harder, not smarter in US manufacturing. Meanwhile there was this rule among the unions that no one browner than a paper bag would be allowed to work in the mills to protect the jobs for the right people. Even among the white the jobs were divvied up by nationality.
So that’s the good old days they want.
Mr. Mack
@SenyorDave: We scrimp and save every year and splurge on vacation with our kids, who are now older but still like to travel with us. So, we have decided to only spend our money in blue states, and I thought I’d suggest Colorado and New Mexico, both of which are more beautiful and offer more than Arizona. Also, too, Nevada.
Raven Onthill
If you really want a fight, call them on their misogyny. Make them defend the rapey fascist.
If you don’t, well, might discuss it with the women only. Just might change some minds.
Jay
Don’t fight with your father…life is too short…and, you can gently remind him, his will be shorter once President Cheeto stands by and watches Speaker Ryan dismantle Medicare…
Elie
@Emma:
You have a point I have no right to expect it of her. We need her though. No one else had the role she had. I care about her but I am also feeling the loss and saw her very much as a symbol and warrior. If she can’t do it it’s understandable. I had hope. I realize it’s unfair and also not likely to happen.
Elie
@Betty Cracker:
Look. I get it She was humiliated and hurt. I totally get that. I selfishly want her to get over it and help us. Her humiliation can be flipped to be pride in what she did and fierce belief in the values threatened now. I truly can’t see her “retiring” from the field of battle. She has nothing to be ashamed of. Indeed her wound is a badge of honor that we should remember in the battles yet ahead
Ghayduke
@SenyorDave:
Colorado is nice.
SFAW
@WereBear:
Wow. Excellent point.
It leads to the question “What is it worth to you to have my children treated like second-class citizens? $5 a week? $10 a week? How much is it worth to you to have old people go bankrupt because Medicare has been killed? $10 a week? $20? How much is it worth to you to have the latest disfavored group placed in internment camps? ”
And when they protest that characterization, saying that’s not what it means, or what they meant: “It is EXACTLY what you meant, you just chose different words, to make it seem like you actually had a speck of humanity in you.”
Then, kick him in the nuts, HARD, to drive the point home.
Carol R
Trump voters might not think of themselves as racist but they are…
Patricia Kayden
@Chris: You should ask them how much of a chance President Obama was given by Congressional Republicans. How much of a chance was he given by Republicans in general? If their answer is anything but “none”, they’re lying.
Glennis
Fuck me now. So “unfriending” is bullying? What fucking babies.
Это курам на смех
@Mr. Mack: Oregon is also a great vacation destination. Just don’t spend any money east of Bend.
Это курам на смех
Arguing with shitgibbon voters just makes them double down. Not getting the respect they think they deserve is what made them turn out to vote.
Shunning is the answer. Don’t berate, don’t debate, don’t restate your views. Turn your back and walk away.
Roger Moore
@SFAW:
It had better be worth a lot more than that, because it’s going to be killed for you, too, and health care is fucking expensive. That’s the thing that’s most frustrating about the whole thing; people are so happy with the crumb they’re getting that they don’t notice they’ve lost the rest of the cake.
cmorenc
I have some very religious, otherwise solidly good collateral relatives coming to visit starting in a couple of hours and lasting a couple of nights – and I strongly suspect they voted for Trump. My way of handling this, when the election comes up – is along these lines:
“I understand some very good people believed that, even though there’s much about Trump the person they strongly disapprove of, nevertheless his election would empower some needed cultural, religious, and economic changes, and overturn the Washington establishment. However, they’ve made a bargain with the devil to get those things, which has never turned out well or anything like they thought it would for anyone. Let’s take a look at Trump completely aside from policy. He has a long history of egregiously abusing and cheating other people – whether it be blue-collar contractors or women. He has appointed as his chief political advisor, with office next to his in the White House, a man (Steve Bannon) who is unquestionably racist – the gig he had before this was head of a website catering to white nationalists, relying on the Ku Klux Klan as a significant part of its readership base.
Elie
Think of all the docs and hospitals that are going to lose billions as Medicare and ACA disappear. People forget that Medicare made docs and hospitals rich and built consulting for health. All these folks gonna have to cut their standard of living. HA. The only bitter satisfaction I get other than watching all those d white sons of bitches in the rust belt rot with untreated diabetes and hypertension. No more joint replacements either.
Aunt Kathy
My whole family supported Hil, but I’m in a red part of a blue state, and so I’m pretty sure that the majority of my blue-collar co-workers were Trumpsters. My chosen response is “Well, I hope it all works out for you the way you think…shrug.”
ellie
@Mr. Mack: Come to Colorado! We are blue, as is New Mexico. It is beautiful here! And Colorado just passed Prop 300 allowing marijuana in restaurants and bars.
Barbara
@WereBear: Right. Me too. Which means that they are primed to blame minorities for their economic problems, not that they don’t have economic problems. Some of them do. It’s still really unfair, but I think instead of seizing on “You’re a racist” as a response, the better response for those that are potentially persuadable is, “You didn’t lose your job because of African Americans, but because of automation [or other things].”
But the core of the problem is, it’s hard to see low added value manufacturing returning in volume to the U.S., and if it does, it is unlikely that workers doing it will make more than they would doing other kinds of unskilled labor. I used to work in a factory in college and I made less than I did waiting tables. There is nothing magic about manufacturing. The issue is what value a worker adds to the final product being sold, and the value that product commands in the marketplace.
WereBear
@Barbara: What I hear is that they want jobs with benefits and a pension, right out of high school, the way their daddies and granddaddies had. If we talk to them about job training and continuing education they are not happy. That is not what they want.
I have retooled my career a number of times, and even went back to get another degree, but my timing was wrong and I ran head on into the situation where they were ditching people my age, not hiring them. So I never made my money back on that one. Still, I have pivoted from coding to building web pages to online marketing and I continually have to update my skills.
If I had their attitude, I’d be miserable too. But it would be my fault.
PlaneCrazy
Like many, we cancelled Thanksgiving this year. We just couldn’t take spending all of that time with my normally wonderful, but politically insane parents. My Dad has absorbed the AM radio and Fox News poison for years and years now, turning educated, well-traveled and normally intelligent people into raving lunatics. My parents were hippies, and I remember the strong support of McGovern. My Dad now claims to have voted for Nixon when I know that’s complete self-delusion.
Instead we’re having a Friendsgiving/extended talk therapy session with like-minded folks. When I wrote to tell my parents, I didn’t bother going into details because there’s not even a common ground of reality left from which to argue. My Dad’s response denied that they would ever just dismiss our thoughts and feelings, but then a paragraph later said that if we thought this was anything besides a normal election we lost and should just stop crying in our beer and get over, then that would be delusional.
I’m leaving options for Christmas flexible. We’ll be in Michigan. Maybe instead of swinging by my parent’s place we’ll tour some spots in Canada, just in case.
I have un-followed a bunch of people but not fully un-friended them.
It’s a real shame, and a great sadness that this is tearing families apart, but toxic behavior and toxic language is good to avoid whatever their sources.
ruckus
@schrodinger’s cat:
Time to leave is one issue. Where to leave to is actually a bigger issue.
Steve in the ATL
@Mnemosyne:
One of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes
Steve in the ATL
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Way back in the 1990’s, i used to represent the Georgia Ports Authority. The longshoremen had separate unions for blacks and whites.
ruckus
Guess I’m lucky. Family gone. Only have to share with friends who I like and agree with. Already unfriended all the known GB assholes.
ruckus
@Steve in the ATL:
The racist rot runs deep in this country. Actually in many/most countries. Human beings have a long way to go to actually be civilized.
Corner Stone
@Elie: We watched two very different speeches by HRC.
Tehanu
@Chip Daniels:
Good for you! I’ll post this on my own feed first chance I get, so thanks for articulating it.
Elie
@Corner Stone:
I’m pretty crazed these days. I am wishing she could still lead us and that may be stupid. I still see her as a warrior for justice and don’t want her to step back
Elie
@Corner Stone:
Seriously, do you see her uninvolved in what is to come? Sure if this was a more typical election it wouldn’t be surprising to just go home and write a book. But there are people and ideals to protect with our heads up and fire in our hearts. Of course she needs to rest for a little bit. But not too long. She needs it as much as we do though it would be risky for her. I acknowledge that for sure but they would turn our opposition into a firestorm if they make that mistake
Denali
May have heard this right here but the best statement to gloaters to me is”Good for you, you clearly voted with your values.”
Jim Bales
Betty,
One approach, should your father raise the topic of Mr Trump, is to shift the conversation to your father’s behavior.
For example:
Parent: “blah blah Trump blah blah Make America Great blah blah”
Adult Offspring: “You know, we had agreed that we weren’t going to talk politics. Why did you choose to break that agreement, and what did you hope to accomplish by raising this topic?”
Then, don’t talk about Trump or Hilary or politics, but bring the topic back to your father and his behavior.
Parent: “blah blah Politics blah blah”
Adult Offspring: “I’m sticking with our agreement not to talk about politics. So, what *did* you hope to accomplish?”
However, it plays, good luck!
Jim
stinger
@Elie: Wow. Show some compassion, please!
Corner Stone
@Elie: Most people who lose an election take their lumps and go away. I remember that McCain, as a sitting Senator, was a grumpy and bitter old POS who never sidestepped a chance to slag Obama. I don’t want anyone to have a chance to label HRC in that way.
She gave a hell of a graceful concession speech and her first public speech after that was at the Children’s Defense Fund, FFS!
I somehow think if she stays out of jail she will continue to encourage people to fight for the things she has believed and fought for her entire life. I personally am willing to give her some slack on this.
stinger
@Tehanu: There’s no nice or civil way to grab strangers by the crotch, either. (Avoiding the “p” word, which by itself is insulting and demeaning.)
Jonathan Holland Becnel
So all those Obama voters in PA and WI and MI who voted for Trump are racist?
Got it!
Let’s vote for the PROVEN NEOLIBERAL, WARMONGERING, ELITIST GRIFTER!!!!
GOT IT!!!
You’re doing a terrible job of informing the readers of this blog.
Elie
@Corner Stone:
I will also. For some reason I just have this vision of her. But you are right-it’s just my vision. I saw such a strong leader and I am not seeing that replacement. I will not hold it against her if she does not. I just don’t see her just rooting us on from the sidelines
Corner Stone
Ahhhh, neoliberal. I love that word.
Elie
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Well uh yes. Are they cross burning KKK ? Maybe not but they wish to enforce a standard of white supremacy on our cultural and legal environment. They no longer care about fairness or justice and they now feel entitled to carry out and impose solutions that will oppress brown black and others to achieve this with no apologies
Elie
@stinger: @stinger:
Read along further. I am compassionate. I see her as a strong leader who sustained a blow but has the capability to lead again. It’s a selfish dream and I will not hold her to it but I just have a hard time seeing her step away from this battle ahead. Please read my following comments.
SFAW
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Had there been one running on a major ticket this year, your comment might almost make sense.
Or is Hillary’s AUMF vote considered “warmongering” and I missed it? And the only grifter running, outside of Stein, was your love-object, Trump
Glidwrith
@Dog Dawg Damn: I called Feinstein. She has not yet made a public decision but has made several statements about Russian interference. Also strongly confirmed no privatization of SS or Medicare.
Betty Cracker
Jabbering Humphound Barfnow is probably best ignored, y’all. On the other hand, every time he visits Balloon Juice, more dollars flow into our Neoliberal War Chest, the better to smother future people-powered candidacies in the cradle. So rock on!
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
I thought the snarling jackals here would do it for free. Is Cole on the grift, claiming that y’all need money for that?
Citizen Alan
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Oh, Christ it’s that asshole again.