Vox writer Sarah Kliff visited Obamacare enrollees — including one lady who estimates she’s enrolled thousands in Obamacare — to find out why they voted for Trump. An excerpt of her findings:
CORBIN, Kentucky — Kathy Oller is so committed to her job signing up fellow Kentuckians for Obamacare that last Halloween, she dressed up as a cat, set up a booth at a trick-or-treat event, and urged people to get on the rolls. She’s enrolled so many people in the past three years that she long ago lost count.
“Must be somewhere in the thousands,” she said to me one morning at a local buffet restaurant where she’d just finished an enrollment event with the staff.
The health care law has helped lots of people in Whitley County, where Oller works. The uninsured rate has fallen from 25 percent in 2013 to 10 percent today, according to data from the nonprofit Enroll America. Overall, Kentucky is now tied with West Virginia for the biggest increase in health coverage.
But Obamacare’s success in Whitley County and across Kentucky hasn’t translated into political support for the law. In fact, 82 percent of Whitley voters supported Donald Trump in the presidential election, even though he promised to repeal it.
Oller voted for Trump too.
“I found with Trump, he says a lot of stuff,” she said. “I just think all politicians promise you everything and then we’ll see. It’s like when you get married — ‘Oh, honey, I won’t do this, oh, honey, I won’t do that…’”
I kept hearing informed voters, who had watched the election closely, say they did hear the promise of repeal but simply felt Trump couldn’t repeal a law that had done so much good for them.
Translation: she thinks the straight-talker was lying about taking away her and her neighbors’ healthcare. Well, Oller’s in for a rude goddamn awakening, as are some of the Trump voters Oller enrolled, one of whose husband is on a waiting list for a liver transplant.
I recommend the article. Kliff is sympathetic to her subjects, noting that plenty of analysts didn’t believe the GOP would be able to roll back Obamacare either — until they got a gander at Trump’s plan prior to the election and saw his post-election HHS pick.
Kliff documents her subjects’ discontent with the healthcare law as it exists, including rising premiums (because that never happened before Obamacare came along). But one major complaint was that lazy moochers were benefiting from Obamacare.
So basically, Kentucky voters are saying, “Garçon, table for two under the bridge — we’ll split a roasted sparrow on a curtain rod as long as the welfare queens at the next table lack both sparrows and rods.” As the kids say, SMDH.
Major Major Major Major
Don’t sneer! Idiocy is a heartland value.
germy
I have no idea how to plan for the future at this point. No ACA, no medicare? One medical emergency can bankrupt us.
And now I see Newsweek is coming out with another conflict of interest story?
He’s a master of misdirection, and the geniuses in media look wherever he points them.
p.a.
tRump meets today with Ray Lewis. Yes, that Ray Lewis. I must force myself to laugh, as there are plenty of bridges ’round here to pick for a jump.
SarahT
It’s not wrong to conclude these folks are dumber than dirt. They deserve everything they get, and then some. Just sucks really hard that their stupidity will bring the rest of us down with them.
Steve
If it’s dumb to trust Trump while also thinking he won’t do the things he promises, isn’t it equally dumb to feel Trump is a total liar while also thinking he will do the things he promises? Now there’s something you can ponder as the rising oceans engulf your home.
LAO
I have a tough time garnering any sympathy for these Trump voters — I’ll save my concerns for those that did not vote for that piece of shit, but are equally as screwed.
Nicole
Thanks for posting this, Betty; I read it this morning and just wanted to give up. I mean, what do you do when the candidate tells you, over and over, that he’s going to do this, and the party he represents attempt, over and over in the years immediately prior, to do this, and yet, when it’s time to vote, millions of folk say, “Nah, they don’t really mean it,” and still vote for them? I mean, sh*t, if I were a GOP politician, I’d think, “Well, clearly this is what the constituents want. I mean, I said I’d do it, and they still voted for me.”
There was a piece out during the campaign about how, contrary to common wisdom, politicians, in fact, do what they say they will (or at least try to). It was pointing out that Clinton’s private speeches to bankers were less important than what she said in public speeches, since, again, politicians tend to do what they publicly say they will. But try convincing the average voter of that. I give up.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Corbin is a shithole located east of I-75, in southeast Kentucky.
To put it into perspective, imagine a town with two restaurants. One serves quality, healthy food at a good price, and is run by an erudite black man. The other serves foul tasting slop, they are always cheating you on portions and the tab, but is run by a good ol’ boy. Everybody in town knows the difference, but still go to the good ol’ boy, just because.
These people will always pick the white guy who rips them off. They’re not voting against their interest – it IS their interest.
Major Major Major Major
@p.a.: I’m jealous, we only have two.
Villago Delenda Est
These people deserve to be enserfed. Thousands fought, bled, and died, and for nothing…for these incredibly stupid people to vote to fuck themselves over.
germy
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: to continue the metaphor, they go on yelp to accuse the quality restaurant of code violations.
Even though there are no code violations.
Even though the good ol’ boy’s restaurant has been tagged ten times.
OzarkHillbilly
Am I the only person who read that as “Whitey County” the first time?
SenyorDave
I’ll take welfare queens driving cadillacs and young bucks buying T-bone steaks with food stamps for $800, Alex.
philpm
These folks haven’t figured out that the only promises the ‘pubs keep are the ones that fuck them over the hardest. McConnell has been saying for years that he’ll bring back the coal jobs, and Trump said the same thing. How long have they been waiting for that to come true?
PhoenixRising
Stop talking bad about my ignorant, lazy, cruel, small minded relatives.
They can’t help it; have you seen Kentucky’s educational system? Underfunded and staffed by people not smart enough to get out of Kentucky are just the two most glaring problems.
chopper
that’s what makes me laff about all this ‘we have to connect to the white working class yahoos’. okay, first you have to get them to understand basic shit like cause and effect, good luck with that. then you have to figure out a way to get them to pay attention to shit that matters instead of the bullshit culture war garbage they’ve been focused on for the last 40-something years. again, good fucking luck with that.
Jeffro
@Steve:
It’s dumb to trust rubber-stamp Donnie, not because of what he does or doesn’t promise, but because he’s so stupid, shallow, and soulless, that he’s going to go with the last thing whispered in his ear by a flatterer. So, a sensible person would look at who RSD’s surrounded himself with…who’s whispering in his ear…Bannon, Pence, Priebus…and realize what they’re going to get. Which is to say, what they’re going to get, good and hard.
Let ’em. I’ll be busy trying to look out for my fellow Dems.
errg
This keeps going through my head…
You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.
manyakitty
@germy: So…Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., then?
Sunny Raines
Time to lose the red
OzarkHillbilly
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: You forgot the “local” in “good ole boy”. Local counts for damn near everything in these small towns.
p.a.
Laugh all you want, our alliance with Eurasia will defeat Eastasia handily.
SenyorDave
BTW, Kathy Oller better pray that some type of subsidy for healthcare will continue, because I think its a good bet that she’ll be out of a job soon. And any employer who reads this article probably won’t be clamoring for her services, since she is now on the internet search as “woman who signs people up for Obamacare explains why she voted for Trump”.
Ever notice that voted for Trump rhymes with dumb as a stump
Major Major Major Major
@germy:
And then their local paper runs an editorial calling the quality restaurant the filthiest, most-investigated restaurant in history. And then the national media picks it up, because it would be irresponsible not to ask: filthy, investigated restaurant, or filthiest, most-investigated restaurant?
germy
@manyakitty: Godfather’s Pizza! Can’t forget Herman Cain.
trollhattan
That AR-15 will sure come in handy when their medical care disappears.
Alesis
To be against “those people on welfare” is a story embedded in voters across this country for generations. They will believe that this is a crucial priority even at the moment they are signing up for Medicaid. We know this but we are terrified because we don’t know what to do about it.
If saving people’s lives won’t make friends of them what will?
p.a.
Who needs Ingsoc when we’ve got AmFox.
Oatler.
@p.a.: Eurasia and Eastasia have already merged.
chopper
@germy:
this guy is a lawful permanent resident of the us, and trump is likely to just up and hand him over to be tortured by an autocratic regime based on no evidence of wrongdoing because it will make him some money. this is insane.
germy
@Major Major Major Major: And then a rumor spreads that babies are being sold in the quality restaurant, and a confused man who gets his news from the book of faces shows up with a gun to investigate.
Anyway, the restaurant’s closed now. And folks on the left say “It’s his fault because his fries weren’t salty enough.”
RareSanity
@Steve:
Ummm, no?
I think he will allow Congress to do the things they promised.
germy
@chopper:
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/12/23/donald-trump-foreign-business-deals-jeopardize-us-531140.html
NotMax
To answer the headline, because it’s insulting to dirt.
You can’t spell bluegrass without a-s-s.
germy
@Oatler.: They’ve always been merged.
PIGL
@Sunny Raines: Yup. I do not see how the USA can survive in it’s present form. There are conflicts of interest that can not be resolved, and they have a slightly correlated with geographic distribution. The blue states are paying for the red states to destroy them. Sooner or later, they will want to stop doing that. And then it will all be over fairly quickly, I expect. Not soon enough to do us olds any good, sadly.
Jeffro
In all seriousness, there were numerous articles before the election (and a few since) that noted how education – most specifically, the level of whites’ education – played a huge role in the election.
Which makes sense, since the dumbass who “…has the best words” appears to have won*
Next time out, we do have to remember that all the position papers and being-on-the-right-side-of-history-in-all-ways won’t matter much if we can’t find some way to break it down for The Stupids, who, this being a democracy for the moment, do have the same right to vote that the educated have.
* (come on EC, prove me wrong! ;)
dmsilev
Apparently that film was a documentary.
Iowa Old Lady
@chopper: I know nothing about immigration law. Can a president just hand the guy over with no court hearing?
OzarkHillbilly
@trollhattan: Makes a great umbrella. Also makes Julienne fries!
germy
EBT
@germy: Grifters gotta grift.
philpm
After reading the article, I’m surprised Kim Davis didn’t become governor as a write-in candidate. Their “faith” in people who tell them what they want to hear is goddamn frightening.
Major Major Major Major
@germy: And then a Noble Hacker™ releases information showing that the restaurant owner has on more than one occasion wished the Food & Ag commissioner a happy birthday, and the food reviewers get concerned about the appearance of corruption, so some of the patrons try to take over the mayor’s office despite having been unable to name the mayor until last week.
RareSanity
@germy:
To the people that sent money to this grifter…the call is from inside the house.
NotMax
@philpm
Presumes an ability to write.
tobie
@germy: Eichenwald should stop giving sneak peaks to his stories the night before release on Maddow’s show. I’m not saying this is what compelled Trump to cancel is press conference but there’s a chance that the sneak preview is giving the media license to ignore his reporting. Dunno. It all feels so hopeless right now, when people working to enroll neighbors in Obamacare still vote against the Dems. What gives?
azlib
I am coming aorund to the fact that Trump really does not care about policy. He did not think he would win the Presidency, but now that he has, the grift which is his business strategy must go on. As far as policy, let the Republicans do what they will and he will not care as long as it does not affect his business or his family.
Swellsman
Yeah . . . so I screwed up, and don’t have health insurance even though it is offered thru my employment. I’m a very healthy guy, great family history, low, low risk for any disease any more serious than the occasional flu or cold.
And I just got out of the hospital, where I was being treated for a monster blood clot that somehow formed (seriously, I’m not obese, I’m not a smoker, I am very physically active – nobody knows how it got there, we’re still trying to figure it out, but cancer remains a possibility) and that stretched from my right knee, up my entire thigh, into my pelvis and abdomen, almost to my vena cava.
Right now I’m on blood thinners and bedrest, but I did just (literally, like 10 minutes ago) go see about getting some health insurance. Thank God for the “no pre-existing conditions” I said to myself. Then I discovered that my employment only allows for enrollment in September, and I’ve missed it.
Which means that now I’m going to go on the exchanges and try to pick something up. And this holiday season, literally every single one of my relatives will gather to celebrate and to congratulate themselves for voting for Donald Trump, who wants nothing more than to make sure I remain completely screwed.
My friggin’ family.
Mnemosyne
As I was saying yesterday, even a lot of Democrats don’t quite realize yet what Trump’s con was. It was the following:
Convincing people on both sides that Hillary was a horrible corporatist who was going to sell us all down the river because she was lying about everything was part of the con.
And once you convince voters that both sides are lying to them, why wouldn’t they pick the person whose lies they like better?
If you still hate Hillary Clinton because she’s a corporatist shill, or she’s too secretive, or she was going to start a war in the Middle East, congratulations: you fell for the con, too.
El Caganer
@azlib: Yep. Which means we get the worst of both worlds – corrupt, erratic foreign policy and scorched-earth domestic policy.
Buttermilk Sky
One word: inbreeding. Have you seen Mulch McConnell? He only had one set of great-grandparents.
The original name of the state was Kinfucky. Folks, I beg you, start dating outside the family.
Winnief
@Nicole: Yeah, I get that voters don’t expect politicians to do *everything* they say, but Trump and the GOP have been so consistent on the “Repeal Obamacare” drumbeat, you’d THINK folks might-just might-take it seriously. At least consider the possibility you know?
Or maybe they thought the Republicans only wanted to take health insurance away from ‘those people.’ Jesus Christ.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: Don’t forget she’s in the process of dying from Parkinson’s, cancer, and the common cold.
mkro
@p.a.: Trump continues to parade pawns like Kanye West, Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio through Trump Tower with the full intent to use them as visual props
philpm
@NotMax: True, although they could have just had someone literate write it on their hand so they could copy the letters.
ET
Here is one interview with a Ruby Atkins who also voted Trump. This is one thing she had to say in response to whether on no Trump can fix it (i.e. insurance/Obamacare): I think it’s got out of hand; there’s no way he’s gonna fix it. I think the whole thing, they’re going to have to go back to ground zero and start again. And even more laughable said later: I’m hoping he’ll have people put in place that would understand that you just can’t survive like this.
Debbie Mills for who insurance is important but didn’t seem to understand that they were serious about repealing Obamacare and how that affects people and the overall industry.
I don’t want to laugh at them but I am not sure why anyone would think that either Trump could fix Obamacare when he and his party are more interested in getting rid of it and going on with the old system. Was it desperation? Wishful thinking?
mkro
So, essentially she voted for Trump precisely BECAUSE she thought he was lying?? WTF??
rikyrah
She thought he was gonna take away the healthcare of THOSE PEOPLE – which was ok with her.
Not one inch of sympathy.
Not one.
Barbara
@germy: Well, Trump doesn’t “decide” who gets extradited. A person can waive extradition proceedings, but if the federal government decides that someone should be extradited, that person does have recourse to judicial review. However, if I were Gulan, I might consider a trip to Canada, or at least undertaking the process of getting a visa to leave post haste. Canada is unlikely to extradite anyone to anywhere where they are subject to torture or the death penalty.
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah: Yeah, I hope that liver goes to somebody else.
rikyrah
@Winnief:
they voted for REPEAL – FIFTY PHUCKING TIMES…
and, they didn’t think they were serious?
PHUCK THEM!!
OzarkHillbilly
@Swellsman: Good luck. As a fellow sufferer of blood clots, i can tell you there can be a genetic component of the disease, and that they do not yet know all of the markers. I got tested for a genetic link and came up negative. But my mother had them, I have them, my brother has them, my oldest sister was killed by one (at the time they said it was a fluke occurrence that contributed to a pre-existing condition- YMMV)
The good thing is it’s treatable. The bad thing is it can be expensive. Undoubtedly it will get more expensive very soon.
LongHairedWeirdo
Most of the people on Obamacare probably never had to look at the prices of health insurance before Obamacare. So they see a 30% premium increase (during a Presidential election year, when one party is still promising repeal), and how the heck do they know that this isn’t the fault of the law, or the people responsible for administering it?
And if some of those 30%-increase plans end up having to give back 22% because they don’t hit he 80% limit on spending for medical care, it’s far too late for people to realize it was a game. (Oh, but I’m *sure* the Republicans will investiBWAH HAH HAH HAH HAH – oh, dear lord, I’m sorry, I tried to keep a straight face. No, we know the Republicans will look the other way if it becomes clear that insurers swore they needed huge rate increases if they didn’t.)
qwerty42
I have said this elsewhere, but we need to keep it in mind: we are going to need and want allies for these next few years. We may disagree with them on some things, but agree on others. Which is fine. I understand the frustration and anger. But as the Kathy Ollers see they were deceived, we need to be there. And not (even if we so really, really want it) with a message: “SUCKERS! LOL!”
If we want to help the ones who did not bring this on themselves, we will have to work with those who did.
And yeah, I gotta wonder wtf these folks were thinking. They have been told they are “conservative” for so long and that “liberals” are horrible people, they have come to believe it.
The Moar You Know
So, you can sum these people up as such: “so long as the black guy dies before I do, we’re good”
I’m descended from these people, was raised by these people, am related to these people, but I’ll be damned if I understand them or their motivations. Never did, never could.
Barbara
@rikyrah: It’s like they keep trying to understand why the law just can’t be written in a way that limits insurance to white people, or how they could possibly be in the same boat as non-whites. However, as I keep saying to people, I am trying to save my mental energy for the real fights and not get too far ahead of the game before it is actually played. There are at least two Republicans who have now said a variant of “No one will be worse off or lose the insurance they have” as a result of whatever happens. The point here is to remind everyone of that at every opportunity.
Major Major Major Major
@qwerty42: I am happy to work with them stopping the horrible incoming administration’s ruinous agenda. I will not collaborate with them on bills that might help them, though. I’ll take their assistance stopping a repeal of Obamacare, but I will not assist them if they’re trying to carve out an exemption for themselves. Unless things change dramatically I will not give any positive assistance to Donald Trump or his voters.
Winnief
@Mnemosyne: Precisely. One reason why Trump won places like KY, WV, and my home state PA is that he promised to bring the coal jobs back. Clinton didn’t promise that, though, she had a lot of other policy ideas that would have been helpful in those regions. She didn’t promise it, because it’s impossible to bring the coal jobs back. Not only from an environmental standpoint, but also the economics are leading away from coal and towards more automation in fossil fuels industry generally.
But people wanted to believe the coal jobs could come back so they voted for the candidate who promised them a magical unicorn. That’s hard to work around, because the only way we could compete would be to also promise magical unicorns which we knew we couldn’t deliver on too.
In short-being a lying grafter *works*.
germy
@Mnemosyne:
Miss Bianca
@germy: Is she planning to give back any of the money she hasn’t spent?
SWMBO
@Major Major Major Major: Bad memory but I seem to recall an episode of All in the Family where Archie was going to have surgery and the only matching blood donor was black. He didn’t want to use the black guy’s blood (one drop and you’re black too) and the doctor told him the only difference would be he would wake up craving fried chicken and watermelon. I don’t have any idea if the liver recipient would have any qualms about this but given the rest of the story, I wouldn’t be shocked to hear it.
randy khan
@Mnemosyne:
That’s a really good point. I had innumerable, ah, discussions during the campaign with people on Facebook who said that Clinton lied all the time and that you couldn’t trust her promises because of some out-of-context quotation or another. A lot of those people, based on their professed politics, should have been screaming about how it was imperative to vote for her over Trump, and instead they were litigating the question of whether we could trust her.
Mnemosyne
@mkro:
She thought both Clinton and Trump were liars, so she picked the person whose lies she preferred.
Why was she supposed to think otherwise? She had both Democrats and Republicans telling her that Hillary was a compulsive liar. Hell, she probably got the same article about it from some evangelical preacher that my cousin in Wisconsin posted on Facebook.
Elizabelle
@Winnief: Yup. Lying works, particularly when you have a “professional” media that’s all about money and ratings, and does not tell readers/viewers “while Trump promises to bring back coal jobs, that’s not possible or feasible and HERE’S WHY.”
They’re so fucking timid.
The Moar You Know
@Villago Delenda Est: My dad’s a Viet vet. He’s beyond enraged about Trump. And I don’t even think your particular take on it here has occurred to him yet.
I’d tell anyone thinking about volunteering for the armed forces that yeah, there’s some good reasons to do it, but “defending the constitution” ain’t one of them. Because the people back home simply would far rather be slaves than free.
schrodinger's cat
As a smug elitist I have to admit that I have never been to the Midwest except for Chicago. Looks like I haven’t missed much.
Iowa Old Lady
@rikyrah: They voted for repeal and it didn’t happen. It’s hard to believe but a lot of supposedly adult people don’t understand that the Democrats saved them and the situation is now different. They see “Congress” as one thing.
manyakitty
@germy: Riiight
germy
@Miss Bianca:
grrljock
@rikyrah:
Bingo. Now that she has hers, she just KNOWS that Trump will take it away from the lazy moochers only, not away from her and other deserving white people. JFC, I can’t with these people.
SWMBO
@Miss Bianca: That’s cute. Like she would even THINK about that.
Winnief
@ET: Ruby’s interview was more interesting in that she at least understood, that Trump *would* repeal her care. I just don’t get what makes her think the replacement would be any better. Or that she would even GET a replacement plan to begin with.
Does she honestly think the Republican party is gonna pass Single Payer or even a public option?
danielx
Not wrong at all. I would have said dumber than a barrel of hair myself, though dumber than dogshit may be over the line.
rikyrah
Democrats should build on Harry Reid’s Latino outreach
Betty Cracker
@qwerty42: I think chasing Oller’s vote is a fool’s errand, honestly. She doesn’t make rational decisions. Trump and the Republicans will curb-stomp her over the next four years, and she’ll come crawling back in 2020 for more abuse.
It seems to me we’d be better off investing in voter registration to counter GOP suppression measures and work on turning out people who aren’t masochists.
Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.
Prior the election I had some business in a rural area on the PA/NJ border and remember driving by a farm, where the owner had placed a giant hand-painted sign (it looked professionally done), reading “TRUMP: NO MORE BULL**IT.”
And I remember thinking “this poor man can’t recognize a Nimitz-class BSer even when he’s been in his living room for months.”
liberal
@Iowa Old Lady:
Yes. It’s vitally important for the Democrats to try to demolish that in their messaging.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
Yep. We have them right here at Balloon-Juice: people who held their noses and voted for Hillary because Trump was worse, but who are still convinced that she’s a lying liar in the pockets of Wall Street.
They fell for the con, too. They’re the guys who congratulate themselves because they only lost $10 at three-card monte while the rest of us were trying to tell them that it was a con job from the start.
SWMBO
@germy: Any bets on how much those expenses turn out to be? How much is she charging herself to lead the team to victory?
OzarkHillbilly
@schrodinger’s cat: It’s beautiful here, as long as you avoid the people.
Barbara
@Winnief: The window is closing on coal. It’s been closing for 30 years. Between automation, alternative carbon and non-carbon fuels, and even more easily extracted coal from other locations, there is no way coal jobs will come back. West Virginia as a whole state is the most affected, even Kentucky has been trying for years to bring in non-coal related industries, but they really don’t want to be in coal country because of its remote location. I try to understand as I grew up around it, and the thing is, they just had it so good for even a generation or two that it’s really hard to admit that it’s gone. It’s like when someone inherits a fortune or wins the lottery and spends it all and just keep spending. These people or their parents had highly paid union protected jobs that paid better than what college educated professionals living in their midst earned.
schrodinger's cat
@Iowa Old Lady: Its not an accident, that’s how the Vichy Press frames it. Congress is broken, DC is broken not a peep about who broke it.
rikyrah
They voted for repeal 50 TIMES.
NO VOTE on the President’s Jobs Bill. But 50 TIMES on Obamacare.
They are about to bring the HUNGER GAMES TO AMERICA.
They already voted for Medicare destruction. It’s on record.
They want to destroy Social Security.
People like me have been telling this for awhile.
But, people like these stupid muthaphuckas just don’t believe it.
A Dem Pollster proved that in the past few years. …they don’t believe that any party would REALLY attempt to get rid of Social Security and Medicare. ……
I just can’t with these idiots.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Our best hope for Oller’s vote is that it just stays at home come the next election and all to follow.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
In the q and a Kiliff published with Ruby Atkins, Atkins claims to have had a pre-Obamacare policy that I can’t quite believe existed
IT’s not clear from the info given if she or her husband had some kind of insurance with a job that has been lost, which is the only way I can make sense of that.
She also thinks Trump will fix everything by bringing back the coal jobs
randy khan
@germy:
I’ll believe it when I see it, and even if it happens (rather than just putting money into some Green Party fund that supposedly addresses these issues) I expect that it won’t amount to much in the way of actual dollars. And I’m curious what percentage of that $7.3 million will end having been spent on things that principally benefit the Green Party, rather than aiding in the recount.
schrodinger's cat
@rikyrah: The best we can say is that they are ignorant, Vichy Press doesn’t even have that excuse.
Jeffro
Btw Luke Russert of all people has a very insightful…Tweet-storm? Multi-Tweet-thingy?…going on right now, explaining why our current media will never be able to turn away from Kanye appearances and what not.
He also recommended getting off of Twitter…on Twitter…which is ironic in the extreme.
Jaker
He wants Kanye West (what type of a name is that?) to perform at his inauguration as nobody else in show business will. Only flies are attracted to Donald Trump…if yous have any sense you’ll migrate from USA to anywhere else in the world…and when you all decide, will the last one leaving please turn out all the lights.
philpm
@Elizabelle:
Not timid, well paid to lie and obfuscate.
Jaker
New name for US is…the “United States of Russia”!
qwerty42
@Major Major Major Major: I am happy to work with them stopping the horrible incoming administration’s ruinous agenda. I will not collaborate with them on bills that might help them, though. I’ll take their assistance stopping a repeal of Obamacare, but I will not assist them if they’re trying to carve out an exemption for themselves. Unless things change dramatically I will not give any positive assistance to Donald Trump or his voters.
Yeah!
On that bs Order No 227
OzarkHillbilly
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That policy is a figment of her imagination. As a union carpenter I had a Cadillac policy that was the gold standard and it wasn’t as good as she is bragging.
Winnief
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think you’re right about Ruby’s old plan being some kind of employment based one. It’s the only kind of plan available that would offer any of that. I wish Kliff had pressed her on where her old insurance came from.
So in other words she’s mad that Obamacare didn’t offer as good a deal as the old job did. Again, anger over the coal jobs leaving but that ain’t on Obama.
glory b
@dmsilev: Okay, I laughed out loud at that one.
C’mon, I’m at work.
SWMBO
@Barbara: I keep asking people on book of faces and tweater, do you still use gas lamps? Whale oil lamps? Steam engines on trains? When it’s time for the world to move on, the world moves on. They don’t have everyone stalled and waiting for the next thing. Progress happens whether you will it or not. The only good thing about the Tangerine Taint is that if enough people get hurt and the Democrats make the Republicans own it, we may yet see progress in a few years. Maybe even in our lifetimes.
My mother is registered Independent. She says she looks at each candidate, reads their positions, watches Fox news and votes the straight Republican ticket. My disabled son asked who she was voting for and when she said Trump, he asked “Why do you want to vote for that Asshole? He doesn’t like disabled people like me?!”
My mother is getting more paranoid and fearful all the time. If nothing else, I want Rupert Murdoch and his entire organization to burn in hell. After a suitable period of suffering here on earth. They have willfully, maliciously ruined peoples lives for profit.
Woodrowfan
I have family down there. With the restaurant metaphor the local black folk eat in the black-owned restaurant, and the white folk eat in the white-owned one, regardless of quality of food. The whites complain that the black restaurant is “dirty” (even if it always gets A rating from the Health Inspector) and the black folk won’t eat in the white restaurant because they’ll get crappy service and the food sucks. The only black employee in the white restaurant is the dishwasher.
Guess which one has the little confederate flag taped to the cash register??
EBT
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Did it actually *cover* anything? I can totally see a company offering that with such restrictive carve outs basically nothing is covered.
Elizabelle
@philpm: Could be.
For one thing, the “Congress” being the problem, rather than “Republicans in Congress.”
Ella in New Mexico
@SarahT:
Isn’t it ironic how a guy who has been quoted over the years as believing in theories of eugenics in general, and in his own genetically superior brain in particular, managed to get all the people that provide evidence for his idea (that some people are just inferior and therefore basically deserve to suffer or off) to not only vote for him but set up their own demise from a lack of health care coverage–thus proving they were too stupid to even take care of their own interests?
And manage, at the same time to get those of us who would normally be outraged at anyone asserting these kinds of “race horse theory” ideas about our fellow human beings now kind of agreeing with them and even hoping they suffer for it?
What is this man doing to our country?
Trump isn’t just a scumbag politician. He truly is the Anti-Christ, isn’t he?
Elizabelle
@SWMBO: I don’t see how we win future elections with Fox News and other fake news in our midst. (ETA: and the Vichy press, afraid to call them out on it.)
It is too pervasive.
PS: I am sorry about your mom and the Fox addiction. Sad.
philpm
@EBT: I was wondering that myself. Probably catastrophic coverage only that maybe covered a few generic prescription drugs and nothing else unless you were already 99.9% dead.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@OzarkHillbilly: @Winnief: Yeah… “no deductible”? When and where?
@EBT: I know O’Care outlawed a lot of scammish “catastrophic” policies where people paid a relatively low premium for insurance that had a really low maximum pay out, but that doesn’t seem like what she’s describing
Major Major Major Major
There’s a story going ’round about how Bernie crushed it at a town hall by convincing Trump voters that Trump is a con man and republicans are awful. It’s a fair assessment I suppose, though I’m only reading the author’s take on the quotes he provides. What kills me is that not only is it nothing new, it’s exactly what Hillary was saying, but it’s being presented as something new. http://m.dailykos.com/stories/1610445
gene108
If only Democrats had done more to assuage Oller’s economic anxiety…
qwerty42
@Betty Cracker: I think chasing Oller’s vote is a fool’s errand, honestly. She doesn’t make rational decisions. Trump and the Republicans will curb-stomp her over the next four years, and she’ll come crawling back in 2020 for more abuse.
It seems to me we’d be better off investing in voter registration to counter GOP suppression measures and work on turning out people who aren’t masochists.
I think we will need to do both. If we do not make that effort, we might be looking at another term. I think the GOP is crazy enough to alienate its own voters with this cr@p. But, as mentioned, we make alliances where we can. We are not throwing OUR MAJORITY overboard. We do what we can to rebuild in the states (big job for the DNC) and we do not forget that we are the f*ing majority.
SWMBO
@Elizabelle: I don’t hold out any hope that even if it gets pointed out to her that SHE VOTED FOR THIS! that she will ever connect the dots. She will blame whoever Fox tells her to (Obama, Clinton) when she loses her Medicare and Social Security. It is sad. But there it is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: Ezra Klein watched that so I didn’t have to, and even with this he was more impressed than I was
she thinks the problem with college costs is… tenure
West of the Rockies (been a while)
Is there anything resembling an up-side for Kanye meeting Trump? Does Trump think “the Blacks” will suddenly dig him? Does Kanye think… actually, I don’t know what the hell he’s thinking, if thinking is, indeed, what he is doing.
The news is just absurd these days.
The Truffle
@chopper: I confess that I am all out of sympathy for Goober and Goobette. Instead, this is a perfect solution. Blue states can create the safety nets their residents want and need. Health plans? Higher minimum wages? Common-sense progress? As a New York resident whose tax revenue goes to keep red states afloat, I’d be pleased as punch if we could keep our federal tax money ourselves and use it to make our state even better. As the writer points, this should be a conservative’s dream system: welfare reform AND state’s rights in one package. Goober and Goobette and their fellow red staters can have the nasty, brutish, short lives they’ve always wanted.
This final quote is a thing of beauty:
Immanentize
@Major Major Major Major: I intend to sneer often and loudly.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’ve heard of those policies — they generally has a very small annual cap, after which you were on the hook for all your own medical care. People who just had colds and flu and maybe a broken bone never ran into that cap, but if you got into a serious accident or were diagnosed with cancer, you were totally screwed because the policy would only pay (for example) $10,000 and then you had to pay the rest out of pocket.
Those policies were banned by Obamacare, because they were scams.
The Moar You Know
@Barbara: This has got to be a hard decision for Gulen. On the one hand, Trump might (will) hand him over to Turkey, where he will be killed the minute he steps off the plane, on the other hand, he has a massive charter school scam going here and the money is so good! Canada won’t put up with that shit.
Don’t give a fuck what happens to the guy. He’s no hero. He came here to make a buck, and he made it big time. If he’s smart he’ll leave. I don’t think he’s smart.
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: thanks for the link, I’ll check out Ezra’s take.
Monala
@Jaker: I keep thinking of the LBJ quote:
I think Putin, whose Russia had been defeated in many ways by the U.S., took a look at that quote and decided that’s how he’d finally overcome us.
SenyorDave
@SWMBO: If nothing else, I want Rupert Murdoch and his entire organization to burn in hell. After a suitable period of suffering here on earth. They have willfully, maliciously ruined peoples lives for profit.
There aren’t many people I would wish misfortune on, but Murdoch is one. Here’s a guy worth tens of billions, and he continues to poison people’s minds in multiple countries just to make more money. If there truly is a hell he belongs in it.
Monala
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Since when did it become “stay on your insurance plan if you like it”? I’ve been seeing that lately. I know Obama said, “You can keep your doctor,” and was trashed when that wasn’t always the case. But from the very beginning, the ACA mandated that insurance plans meet some minimum standards, otherwise they could no longer be considered qualified insurance plans. From the very beginning people were told to check out the Healthcare Marketplace and shop around for plans. At no point do I ever remember, “You can keep your insurance plan” being something that was said by Obama or anyone in his administration.
tobie
We’ve seen so many reversals where up becomes down in the past four week that it’s hard to know what even counts as a reversal any longer. But it just makes my blood boil when I read Bill Gates comparing Trump to JFK. Oh Lord save us. I’m not even into the whole Kennedy mythology and still it strikes me as beyond the pale to compare to compare this vile, stupid narcissist to a President who inspired millions to reach for goals through hard work, kindness and learning. The mind boggles.
maryQ
@SenyorDave: Yes. If you read on in the article, it goes on to talk about how these voters are sure, absolutely sure that “other people” are getting something better, for free. And maybe they are-government run health care is generally better than some of the bronze plans on the exchanges. But, while the pigmentation of the “other people” wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the article, I think we all know…what….it…is
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
It not just about WHAT Hillary said, it’s about HOW she said it. Everybody wants to keep coming back to their core beliefs that the Democrats are fine, and that everything that Hillary did was perfect. That it was only stupid people who failed her and America. But that won’t cut it.
The linked piece does not present what Sanders said as something new. And as an aside, it does not talk about some bullshit that some liberals love, having a compelling “narrative.”
The piece is about communicating effectively. And in the example given, Sanders does exactly that, and has an impact on the listener, and pulls her over to his side. Which is what you want.
Even the most devoted Clintonites would admit that she was no Bill Clinton or Barack Obama in terns of rhetorical flair, but then go on to say that she did not need to be. And obviously, Clinton was persuasive enough for a majority of voters. But she could not pull that electoral sliver needed.
You need sharper, better rhetoric to deal with a con man like Trump.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Bernie damaged the Democratic Party “brand” in a more impactful way than Trump with non-Republican voters, all while conveniently not being a Democrat. A pox on him.
Major Major Major Major
@Monala: “if you like your plan you can keep it” was Politifact’s 2013 lie of the year.
ETA: @Brachiator: I am none of the straw men you’re arguing against. However I have seen it said in numerous venues that what Sanders said here is new and exciting and not something Hillary said.
Immanentize
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Oh boy, another drop of dumb in the idiot pool. And I am not tenure’s biggest proponent….
CarolDuhart2
Comet Ping Pong is only closed for today, not forever. It will also be closed on the 17th. But it will reopen after that. BTW, the case has been moved to Federal Court.
Everyone is talking about reaching out to the Oilers. How about reaching out to each other instead? We could use a little unity and mutual support. Maybe it’s because I live in a blue city in a red state, but I/we could use some support.
randy khan
@Major Major Major Major:
And the diary writer concludes, more or less, that Bernie could have reached Midwest voters better than Hillary.
Stuff like this makes me want to throw things. First, stop fighting about the primaries; it’s worse than fighting about the general election because Sanders got crushed. Second, Bernie got to sit with the four voters for, oh, an hour to get the chance to turn them around; that’s not exactly campaign conditions. Moreover, there are myriad stories about how good Clinton was with voters in more or less equivalent situations, so it proves pretty much nothing about which candidate would have been better.
Elizabelle
@Brachiator:
I don’t know how feasible that is when the con man is sucking all the press attention and oxygen out of the room. The coverage was bizarrely lopsided, and you could be forgiven if you wondered if Hillary EMAILS! Clinton even had her lazy ass out campaigning on any given day.
glory b
@Jaker: Well, Kanye just got released from a psych hospital, so maybe he has an excuse.
I think the Kardashians will stage a intervention of some sort before the inauguration, they have a brand to protect.
Brachiator
@Monala:
From Politifact: Lie of the Year: ‘If you like your health care plan, you can keep it’
You can google the term and come up with tons of references, and even come up with YouTube clips of Obama saying this. Multiple times.
It was an oversimplification, but it undermined faith in the health insurance plan.
schrodinger's cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: In places where college tuition is low, admission is extremely competitive and selective. As any Russian, Chinese, German or Indian person. It is not a panacea.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It had to be through someone’s employer with the employer picking up the lion’s share, or maybe it was one of those shitty low-benefit plans that are now illegal because they are basically a scam, and she never had to use it for anything other than office visits. Or maybe she’s just making shit up.
Emerald
@liberal:
Indeed. Most of the public doesn’t even know which party controls Congress.
Even our Dem politicians, including Obama, are always saying “congress” did thus and so.
Dammit, say “Republicans.” Get the word out there in a negative light always.
Propaganda is the only thing Republicans do competently. Learn, Dems, learn!
catclub
@Nicole:
Yep, it is evergreen and not many people seem to take it to heart.
I also remember the story that Yasir Arafat would lie to Bill Clinton to his face, but would NOT lie to the Palestinian people.
The Moar You Know
@glory b: If there is a God that answers prayers, Kanye will perform at Trump’s inauguration, ruining both their “careers” forever.
I have had to deal with Kanye in a professional situation once and I’d never consider doing it again, for any amount of money. To say he is a horrible human being is a gross understatement. He and Trump truly deserve each other.
sherparick
How did most of these counties in Kentucky vote in 2008? They voted Republican despite the economic crisis because a Black man was running on the Democratic ticket. They voted for Trump because their family and friends, almost everyone in their tribe, except for a few crazies and nonconformists, voted for Trump. http://www.vox.com/identities/2016/12/12/13894546/obama-race-black-white-house-cornell-belcher-racism
They just elected a sociopath for President and he is filling his cabinet with sociopaths. They are screwed because they wanted just to screw the Black and Brown people, but the folks in charge feel no more affinity for them then they do for the Blacks and Browns. http://www.vox.com/identities/2016/12/12/13894546/obama-race-black-white-house-cornell-belcher-racism
randy khan
@Brachiator:
See my response to Major^4 above. I won’t take any credit away from Bernie for persuading 4 voters given lots of time with them (among other factors). But that’s totally different from how a campaign works in the real world.
I’m not a “they did nothing wrong” apologist – they certainly made mistakes, including not realizing that the only way the positive message was going to get out was through advertising, since the media liked the cat fight aspects of the campaign way too much. I’m also not, however, going to buy the narrative that she was a lousy candidate.
SenyorDave
OT, but I saw where Lebron James on his Sportsman of the Year SI cover had a safety pin on his sport jacket. Good to see! IIRC he spoke out after the sexual predator tape and said the idea that Trump’s comments were just locker room talk was BS.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodinger’s cat: a good point. Looking at any state with a strong state system (California, formerly quite affordable) will show this too.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: Oddly enough, when Hillary Clinton appeared in front of skeptical audiences, like during the debates, the audience liked her too. Then they went back to the status quo ante, and got annoyed with the idea that, despite all the sensible things she would say, she was unforgivably corrupt.
Also, Bernie Sanders is a fucking putz, always has been a fucking putz, and always will be a fucking putz.
Betty Cracker
@The Moar You Know: I never could figure out if West is truly a narcissistic asshole or just plays one in public for profit. Sounds like you’re saying it’s the former.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker: Where’d your strawman alert go?
Brachiator
@Elizabelle: RE: You need sharper, better rhetoric to deal with a con man like Trump.
I don’t agree and I am tired of all the lame excuses. Politics ain’t fair, ain’t supposed to be fair, ain’t gonna be fair. It was up to team Clinton to get their message to their voters, which is not the same thing as getting media attention.
Also, as I keep noting, Clinton won a majority of voters, so she must have been doing something right. But she needed to do more to win over the small share that kept her from the White House.
Also, I am not one of those who would say, “if she just did this or that she would have won.” It wasn’t just emails. Trump’s supporters wanted him big time, and they were willfully blind to all his flaws and problems. That is tough for anyone to overcome.
But we know who Trump is now. That has got to help going forward.
Megan
I am so tired of caring more about the hostages than the hostages care about themselves. If they want to run back to their abductors, let ’em.
Yarrow
@glory b:
Or Kim will leave him and they’ll use that drama in their show.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Did she say how long before the ACA she was referring to? “Before” can mean anything from the day before it passed to years and years before. I don’t know what I’m paying for insurance now because it comes out of my paycheck. If I had to pay it like a bill every month I’d know exactly what I was paying. I haven’t done that for 20 years. Memory plays tricks.
catclub
@Iowa Old Lady:
I would guess yes.
The immigration law gives the executive branch a LOT of leeway in defining groups or people who can be excluded, beginning with lying on the applications, felonies in home country, etc.
Mnemosyne
@glory b:
As any resident of LA can tell you, you do not get admitted to UCLA Neuropsychiatric if you’re suffering from “dehydration and exhaustion,” or whatever BS publicists like to put out. Kanye is very seriously ill and needs to be under care, not flying around having meetings with Trump.
(Right now, it sounds most likely from reports that he has bipolar disorder, but AFAIK, there hasn’t been an official announcement.)
The Moar You Know
@Betty Cracker: Yep. That is what I’m saying.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
It’s been closing for a lot longer than that. The number of jobs mining coal is less than 1/10 what it was a century ago. There was a temporary improvement between about 1965 and 1985, but it was basically a blip in a massive long-term decline.
Barbara
@The Moar You Know: Well, I don’t care about Gulen personally, but let me restate that the president is not a dictator and does not “decide” who gets to be extradited. I do care quite a bit about that.
Tee
@Jeffro: It has been a concentrated effort by the republican party to dumb down the electorate. They started by getting on school boards in the late 70’s and putting austerity budgets, cutting music and art. Then corporations started buying newspapers. Stories are slanted or not covered, editorials decry waste and fraud when there is none.
Yarrow
@The Moar You Know:
Didn’t Kanye tell his fans at a concert that he would have voted for Trump had he voted, or something like that? Right before he went into the psych hospital. I remember hearing they booed him. I don’t think performing at the inauguration is going to help his career.
I don’t understand how anyone who isn’t a Trump fan or supporter can agree to meet with him. Do they not understand they are being used. Hold the line, people!
Barbara
@catclub: The answer is no. Now, don’t get me wrong, they could probably dream up something that effectively operates like kidnapping but there is a reason why Bush was so determined to keep the people he wanted to torture out of U.S. territory.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: I saw someone else had posted pretty much the same thing, so I deleted it so as not to be repetitive.
glory b
@The Moar You Know: I’ve liked a few of his songs, but not a fan overall.
I can easily see where he would be an asshole.
sigaba
I still maintain she lost because a lot of people didn’t show; I’m not sure you can win over Trump voters. The challenge is keeping people who believe in good government engaged in the process, while the current administration is outright crooked, tells people every day it is, and has a vision of government based on corruption in the service of culture war.
Why should a liberal vote if their candidate is a milquetoast who pretends the other side is sane and acts in good faith? Why does it matter if liberals win if conservatives just hold a gun to everyone’s head until they get power again? These are the challenges Hillary’s successors need to address. Conservatives have proven that in our system the “winner” doesn’t have to win votes, he just has to drive down participation.
To the credit of Trump voters, a lot of them don’t really seem to like him either, they just either voted for him for The Feels, or out of some kind of weakness, and they seem to have a big bundle of motivated reasoning for why he won’t be exactly what he says he is. I’m sure there are people out there who DO like Trump for what he is, but have you ever read an editorial, or a blog post, or even a comment, from someone saying they think Trump is a good man? Or would make a good president? Again it feels like people just went to him as a default.
germy
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: hmm. 5150?
Barbara
@Yarrow: @Roger Moore: But it’s been closing hard since that time exactly when other opportunities for non-college educated people have also been declining.
Betty Cracker
@Yarrow: Also wondering how many Trump voters are big West fans.
Amir Khalid
@Jaker:
Trump’s people reckon that they might also be able to get Andrea Bocelli, who is apparently one of Trump’s few friends. Kid Rock is apparently willing to play too or so I’ve heard; but his oeuvre seems to be unpopular in Trump’s inner circle.
glory b
@Yarrow: Hey, silver lining!
germy
Rick Perry – Profiles In Courage
germy
@Betty Cracker:
Yarrow
@Barbara:
The current president isn’t. The incoming president will be.
StringOnAStick
@FlipYrWhig: My idiot SIL (widowed as of October) saw a documentary on Hillary and was impressed with all the work she’d done on behalf of children, Her comment was “that could almost make me vote for her”; of course she didn’t.
As far as Sanders goes, the WaPo calculator showed that Trump and Cruz would drop our household’s federal taxes a few hundred bucks, Hillary’s would raise it about $600, and Bernie’s would raise it by $16,000. THAT is what would have doomed Bernie in the general, and the effort to make Bernie the Democratic nominee had a lot to do with just how easy he would be to beat; all that oppo file stuff coming out today is small potatoes compared to how well the rethugs would have done with the OMG INCREASED TAXES!@!211!@1 thing.
Major Major Major Major
@StringOnAStick: I did that calculator too, and it turns out numbers have a centrist bias.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
I left this out of my first reply, and I hope you know I love you. But:
Goddamm, you people are thick. Yes, the audience liked Hillary, but they were not always persuaded by her. And the issue with some people was not based on the bullshit that she was unforgivably corrupt. Enough voters bought into Trump’s bullshit that he is going to pull out his golden dick and piss jobs over everybody to give him the win.
Bernie is not your problem. There was a nice piece in one of the local papers by a guy who had been a three time delegate to the Democratic National Convention who has never been in love with aspects of the party. In past years he had voted in the primaries for Jesse Jackson, Jerry Brown and Bernie Sanders. But in the general, he pulled for Hillary.
I don’t even agree with all of the guy’s positions, but I understand that if you don’t satisfy people like him, it will be tougher to find your way to victory again.
ETA: no link to the opinion piece because active links are dead. But it is from the Pasadena Weekly
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker: I doubt very many of them. But they’ll loooooove him if he performs at the inauguration.
tobie
@Brachiator:
I wanted her big time, too, as did millions of other women like me. Just ‘cuz you felt lackluster didn’t mean everyone else did. Her volunteers knocked on more doors and logged more calls than even the Obama campaign did.
Give the election post-mortems a rest. We’ve got other things to fight for now. I believe the European intelligence services when they say Putin’s aim was to divide the American left. Judging from the continued Hillary-hate exhibited on this blog by a select group of commentators, I’d have to say his plan was a smashing success.
Jaker
I was going to send two strait jackets for Trump; but both begged me for “Mercy”.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker: When he decides to do this sort of thing his whole schtick is sweepingly wide over-generalizations and hippie punching strawmen. I thought it needed saying again, but.
FlipYrWhig
@sigaba:
I think avoiding cataclysm is a pretty good reason to vote.
In most districts, milquetoast is what’s on the menu. The Democratic Party isn’t a mass of ASSKICKING LIBERALS with a handful of squishy moderates mucking things up, it’s evenly divided, and on most of the map there are significantly more moderates than liberals. Don’t like it, run against it, or find someone else to do it. If you want more liberal candidates, make more liberals.
glory b
@Mnemosyne: I remember a loooong time ago reading about gossip that Kanye was on the Aspergers/Autistic spectrum or that he had some other form of mental illness. That’s supposedly why his mother quit her job (as head of the English Department at some university, yeah, Kanye’s not “from the hood”) to be his manager.
This is also seemingly why, after her death, he went out of control. Kim was getting into her thirties, wasn’t as big as she is now, and probably saw some level of financial security in him.
Family member said no way would his Mom let him marry into the Kardashian clan, and she held a lot of sway over him.
randy khan
@Brachiator:
Yarrow
@germy: I’d think some country music singers would be willing to perform at the inauguration. Their fan bases overlap much more with Trump voters than other types of music fan bases do.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: what did that fellow think of Obama?
StringOnAStick
@Brachiator: Look, we and our party blew it, starting in 2010. We’ve known about all the voter suppression efforts they’ve engaged in since then, all with the “protect our sacred vote” cover. We should have been doing what Kay has been suggesting: getting local paid full time organizers in those states to help people with the barriers to registration, get them registered and then keep forming that relationship to get them to vote, and help them get there. We knew they were working to suppress the vote, but the money went to expensive and impressive TV ads that no one saw but those of us who clicked on them to get a dose of endorphins on how good our side was doing.
I set myself the task of putting together a story with a script and addresses once a week to my friends, and they are passing it on to who they know that are looking for how to resist. My first one? Taking Kay’s ideas about getting paid local organizers on the ground in the places where we know voter suppression screwed us, and sending it to the DNCC, DNC, DSCC, OFA, (with the addresses provided in my email) and whoever else anyone wants to. I feel better doing that than complaining on a blog and refighting old issues that are done and over with. Try it. I told the idea to my Democratic Congressman when I met him at a county Democratic Party holiday affair last week, but I think letters and phone calls are more effective, especially the more of them they receive. It has helped me manage my existential dread. I get my ideas from here and other blogs, but rather than reading comments all day, please do something!
Scout211
A dear friend of 33 years died suddenly two weeks ago. She was so distraught after Trump won that she started sending money to non-profits that would help the people who would be hurt by the policies of the next four years.
After she died, the four that she preferred were in her obituary for donations in her honor.
I was getting ready to send money to the Southern Poverty Law Center when I saw on their donation page that there is someone willing to match donations up to $800,000 by year’s end.
Just saying, folks.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator:
We don’t know that Chris and Bernie’s Rust Belt Jamboree audience is going to stay persuaded either.
I wonder if the Pasadena Weekly letter-writer listens to Pacifica Radio. All signs point to “yes.”
glory b
@Yarrow: There’s also a rumor that he is pushing the crazy so the insurance company will pay up for the losses associated with the now-cancelled tour he was in the middle of.
I guess meeting with Trump is evidence of that, given the makeup of his audience.
germy
@glory b: He wrote a very moving song (with Paul McCartney) about his mother, talking to him from heaven. I don’t think he ever recovered from losing her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCvtIcb8bxs
Yarrow
@glory b:
I don’t know about that. The Kardashians have made a ton of money. Kim has (or had) the highest grossing phone game out there. They have stores in countries all over the world. Their mother manages it so they make money on every thing they do, every tabloid cover, every appearance. Kim had a televised wedding to some NBA guy followed by a divorce a few weeks later. The tabloids and entertainment shows covered it on a daily basis. Money, money, money. I don’t know how that compares to Kanye’s money money Kim has plenty of her own and did before they met.
tobie
@Brachiator: If this quote
doesn’t tip you off to the media influence in this election, I don’t know what will.
Her comment in context was completely anodyne. Even out of context it was no worse–and probably a lot better–than Obama’s “clinging to guns and God” or “You didn’t built this” statements (also taken out of context). That the statement got cemented in so many voters’ minds show just how active the press was scouring every one of her speeches and amplifying anything they could find fault with. Why you consistently ignore the unbelieved dereliction of duty exhibited by the media is beyond me. This is not about finding excuses. It’s about figuring out how to get a foot in edgewise in a hostile media environment–you know, the kinds of things necessary if progressives are ever going to win elections.
hovercraft
@p.a.:
Yesterday I saw somewhere that the Shitgibbon wants to turn Voice of America into a worldwide platform for spreading the wwords and ‘philosophy’ of Hair Furor.
http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/president-trump-could-have-his-own-propaganda-network-and-well-be-paying-for-it/
Trump Could Have His Own Propaganda Network, POLITICO
Yay!!
PJ
@tobie: There is a weird belief system prevalent among a significant number of posters here that if a person think the Democrats did not do as good a job of running campaigns in the most recent election (and should fix things so that doesn’t happen again), that person hates Hillary. Or if someone approves of something Bernie Sanders said or did, that person hates Hillary, and is a BernieBro or DudeBro (whatever that means – I guess a “Bernie-lover” instead of a “Hillary-hater”, as if everyone falls into one of two bizarre Manichean camps). It’s like you are all in high school. Judging that someone had flaws as a candidate (and, whatever you think of Hillary, you have to acknowledge that she did not excite Democratic turnout like Obama) does not mean that one hates her. People can have nuanced opinions about candidates and policies. Sheesh.
hovercraft
@mkro:
To her mind all politicians lie, so why not vote in someone who lies more entertainingly? At least he has the same beliefs as us, America First and Americans before those other people. After all just because they benefited hugely from Obamacare, doesn’t mean they liked it or ever voted for him.
sigaba
@Brachiator: Why is it I never hear “good Republicans” apologizing for being a good Republican?
Sanders offered “political revolution,” which is to say his platform was a campaign of massive protest and civil disobedience to strongarm congress into doing the bidding of progressive Democrats. He took for granted that the US government was a corrupt and decadent institution that could not be reformed, and could only be bullied into submission by radicalized activism; screw the law, screw the process, screw the voters if necessary. This is not Trumpism but it differs only in tactics, it’s simply an call for a Tea Party of the Left.
This will not win Democrats elections, it will only further exacerbate popular cynicism and drive people away from the polls.
Brachiator
@sigaba:
Got anything to back up your feelings here?
In any event, certainly you can win over Trump voters, especially if he fails to deliver or fucks them over. Which he is certain to do. And you will also have to deliver on good government instead of talking a a good game.
This is just nonsense. I hear and read people who are excited to have Trump as their president, who just can’t wait to see what he will do. And a recent Bloomberg poll indicates that his supporters are, for now, unbelievably forgiving. They don’t seem to care much that Trump has gone back on some of his promises.
They don’t care whether or not he is a “good man,” but for now, they absolutely believe that he will be a good president.
StringOnAStick
@Roger Moore: The door is closing on coal, just like it closes on any extractive resource once it gets too expensive to extract, pay labor costs, mitigate the downsides, etc. I grew up as the kid of a mining engineer, though not for coal. We moved as the town dried up and started dying after every mine became unprofitable; coal mines are just bigger and have a longer history than most other mined commodities but it isn’t somehow special and thus immune to the economy moving on without them.
The only way to make coal competitive again is to get a time machine to go back to when demand was higher. The shit gibbon is trying the other side of the equation: make the environmental rules so weak that mitigation goes back to being a tiny expense, and gut labor rules so we can go back to a “16 tons and whatta ya get” company store labor market; I’m sure all the coal country nostalgics didn’t consider that the jobs might come back, but at a seriously reduced pay rate with automation doing most of it.
Given how cheap fracking has made natural gas and how much there is of it, coal, even much cheaper coal, still won’t be an attractive fuel for power plants. Cheeto Mussolini lied, period. From what I know by being around the sort of reactionaries miners tend to be, they’ll never believe their own lying eyes about it though. The only way I can see him losing any luster in their eyes is if the Russian connection becomes way, way too big to ignore, even in FOX land.
Betty Cracker
@StringOnAStick: Taking action is definitely a tonic. I’ve become involved in a local effort (an ad hoc group of people with specific skills, more accurately) to protect people who will be extremely vulnerable once Trump is sworn in. Keeps me (somewhat) sane.
Mnemosyne
@glory b:
Again, UCLA Neuropsych is not the place to go if you’re going to pretend to be crazy. They’ll have a syringe full of tranquilizer in your arm long before you can explain that you’re just faking it. They. Do. Not. Play. There.
Let me put it this way: I have a friend who is a nurse. He worked at Neuropsych for a long time and then got injured wrestling a patient and switched to the less depressing department of Cardiac ICU. At least there, patients either get better or they don’t, and they usually follow doctor’s orders
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: Whoa. I hope Bocelli finds a previous engagement, fast.
I think it would be idiocy to perform at the Trump events, for anyone who wants an audience of other than rightwing whackjobs.
They’re not going to look good in years to come. Just say no. Make that “hell no.”
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
Like, other than it being true and well documented in polls?
philadelphialawyer
“But Obamacare’s success in Whitley County and across Kentucky hasn’t translated into political support for the law. In fact, 82 percent of Whitley voters supported Donald Trump in the presidential election, even though he promised to repeal it.
“Oller voted for Trump too.
“’I found with Trump, he says a lot of stuff,’ she said. ‘I just think all politicians promise you everything and then we’ll see. It’s like when you get married — “Oh, honey, I won’t do this, oh, honey, I won’t do that…”‘
“I kept hearing informed voters, who had watched the election closely, say they did hear the promise of repeal but simply felt Trump couldn’t repeal a law that had done so much good for them.”
That analogy doesn’t even make sense on its own terms. The man who says, “Oh honey I won’t do this, oh honey I won’t do that,” is making promises that the prospective wife WANTS him to keep, not ones she doesn’t want him to keep. As in, “Oh honey, I won’t cheat on you, oh honey, I won’t go out drinking every night…” Sure, the prospective wife would be smart to be skeptical, in this case. BUT, if the man is saying, “Oh honey, I won’t be faithful to you, oh honey, I won’t stay out of bars…” why in the world would the prospective wife be skeptical in that case?
Trump, and the GOP in general, were telling you, were “promising” you, that they were going to screw you over and take away your health care. But you didn’t believe them? Why? How in the world is it like a politician or political party telling you, “promising” you, that they are going to do good things for you? It isn’t.
Yarrow
@StringOnAStick:
Yes, this. I hope whoever takes over the DNC understands this is where the money should go.
One of the things that disappointed me about Obama was that he didn’t keep the energy from OFA going after the 2008 election. He was a community organizer and I thought he might have planned for that. Keep people meeting. Working on specific tasks. Sending info down for people to work on. Whatever. People were excited and wanted to help and then it just kind of drifted away.
vhh
@tobie: It is all very very simple. Trump and the GOP have promised to eliminate the estate tax, which is worth tens of billions of dollars to the Gates family, who can then use that money to save the world or whatever.
hovercraft
@qwerty42:
They were NOT deceived, she says they told her loud and clear that they would take Obamacare away, but she chose to tell herself that they wouldn’t. Self made a conscience decision to do this to herself. The bring back jobs and coal shit was her being lied to, this is something it was up front and clear about, plus the people she has been voting to represent her for who knows how long keep voting to repeal it, so fuck her.
FlipYrWhig
@PJ:
Clinton vote, 2016: 65,759,248 (and counting)
Obama vote, 2012: 65,915,795
sigaba
@Brachiator: Also…
I have seen no evidence of this. This was one of the lowest turnout elections in recent history and Trump has “won” with fewer votes than other Republicans in recent elections have lost with.
Again, I’ve seen a lot of people screeching about how Hillary was a bigger liar than Donald. But this is not support for Trump.
I have also read people say stuff like “once Trump is in power” the all of the speaker’s fairy dreams will come true, but Trump himself plays no role, he’s basically redundant, once he wins the election he can disappear. I’ve never seen anybody express the opinion that they want the guy to be the responsible person making day-to-day decisions for the country. They want him to rubber-stamp legislation, they want him to wave a magic wand, but they don’t want HIM.
Again, like, I ask you: have you ever seen anyone make a positive case for Donald Trump, the man himself? And not just someone talking about all the free shit they’re going to get if he wins, or about how Hillary sucks worse?
StringOnAStick
@Major Major Major Major: Do you think that would have mattered to our sainted media, once they got a chance to run with a “OMG huge tax increases by electing Bernie!” narrative? I don’t. FOX would have gone insane with that, true or not. If you are explaining complex economic policy, you are losing voters, and likely more than enough to actually lose the popular vote.
danielx
@Yarrow:
I’ll have to go with door #2.
EBT
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah but who is going to?
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
And the states where turnout was suddenly low compared to 2012 just happened to be the states that enacted massive voter suppression. But I guess that was just one more of the strange but totally unrelated coincidences in this election that we’re not supposed to talk about.
California had something like 70 percent of our registered voters turn out.
ETA: And since I’m sure someone will try to argue with the above, here’s an article with some statistics. The states with lower turnout had voter suppression laws in place. Funny how that happened, eh?
FlipYrWhig
@philadelphialawyer: What they mean, but feel like they can’t say, is that they don’t like Hillary Clinton or the people who like Hillary Clinton, so they voted for her opponent, because at least it might lead to something different. The under-told story of the election is that it was far, far less a matter of people deciding they liked what Trump was saying than of the same people deciding they weren’t going to stand for Hillary Clinton. People have been acting like the election was pro-Trump and anti-Trump, but it was to a much greater degree pro-Hillary and anti-Hillary, and anti-Hillary prevailed.
cmorenc
@qwerty42:
It’s also crucial to realize that the proportion of the electorate dumb or misguided enough to have voted for Trump and the Rs whom we need to successfully reach and get to Wake the Fuck Up is surprisingly small, in order to have profound effects in shifting the dynamic (and future election results) clearly in our favor, even when we consider some states Trump won by much more comfortable margins than Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. In other words, I’m making a point far beyond the already-familiar observation that just another 100k votes properly distributed across those three states would have won Clinton the electoral vote.
FOR EXAMPLE, take North Carolina, where Trump got 2.355,784 votes (49.9%) vs Clinton 2,180,230 votes (46.2%), or a difference of 175, 554 votes – which represents about 7.5% of total Trump voters in North Carolina. Recognize that for Clinton to have instead won NC by a whisker, it is NOT necessary to flip anywhere close to 7.5% of NC Trump voters, but instead only half of that 7.5% = 3.75%, or 87,777 votes + 1 additional voter.
Of course, the other part of the problem is turning out a few more democratic-inclined voters, either who weren’t quite motivated enough to turn out, or who would have been but for voter suppression barriers – but recognize that you need TWICE as many of them (175,555 to be exact) as Trump voters flipped to our side (87,778) to turn a loss in NC into at least a razor-thin one vote Clinton win. Of course, you could theorize that flipping a voter who turns out is 2x as difficult as turning out a favorably inclined voter who didn’t turn out – but we aren’t going to get anywhere by resigning ourselves to taking stand-up comic Ron White’s “you can’t fix stupid” routine overly literally, even if it is true as a broad-brush observation. If only as many of them as 5% are fixable, that will have profound results in our favor.
Wandering Logic
@sherparick: I agree with you whole-heartedly. The key quote from the link you posted, which I wish we would all really take to heart, is this:
“… progressives need to … stop telling [the white working class] that they’re voting against their economic interest. That is a complete lack of understanding by progressives of the connections between economics and identity. … Who are we to say that they’re voting against their economic interests? If in fact you think you’re losing your country, that’s your higher interest, and how in the hell am I gonna prosper if [I believe] other people are taking my country?”
FlipYrWhig
@sigaba:
According to David Wasserman’s 2016 National Popular Vote Tracker spreadsheet, turnout was up 5.7% from 2012.
Betty Cracker
@Yarrow: Well, in Obama’s defense, he did have a country to run. There is still an OFA organization — they send me emails! I wish the DNC could have done more to keep it going. But I’m not sure it’s possible to keep a campaign spirit alive when you’re governing. I think Comrade Trump is in for a rude awakening on that score.
Ben Cisco
@qwerty42:
And so long as they are willing to sentence themselves to death because that’s what they’re sentencing US to, exactly how are we supposed to ally with them?
They hate black people.
They hate liberals.
Gays.
Disabled (WTF?)
How are we supposed to make nice with people who WANT. US. DEAD?
You can’t “explain” that to them.
There’s not going to be a “scales falling from their eyes” moment
Why is this so difficult for some on the left to grok?
Jaker
Gates, Rice, Baker & Cheney…recommended Tillerson for Secretary of State…because they are all involved with him through business & are seeing dollar signs in front of their eyes. Putin of Russia is tripping over himself from the excitement of his friend getting the job that he’s thinking of putting his name forward for the TV series, “Strictly Come Dancing”!
Shalimar
@tobie: You can’t responsibly report a story like the one Eisenwald was working on without asking the principals for comment. Trump didn’t need Maddow’s sneak peak to be able to figure out what was coming and when.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne:
According to Wasserman, who I linked above, the states that were down in turnout from 2012 were Iowa (down 1%), Ohio (down 1.5%), Hawaii (down 1.3%), Wisconsin (down 3%), and, the biggest drop-off, Mississippi (down 6.7%).
StringOnAStick
@Betty Cracker: That’s good work Betty. I’ve got a group of fellow middle aged women, but the things I’ve written are already being sent out to a wider audience by them, so it is multiplying. I live in a liberal town on the edge of fairly liberal Denver with strong local activist groups, so I decided to take my targets national but with Kay’s idea that we need to win locally, and start organizing now.
Two years ago we had the nationally covered recall elections of 3 TP crazy school board members, and the next school board election is 2017; money from the Kochtopus is already flowing to reinstate the crazies. The one thing we have on our side is mail-in ballots. No wonder the rethugs fight that idea so aggressively!
glory b
@Yarrow: By big I ment popular.
I think the problem might be, when you are just famous for being famous, when does it all go away? And when it/if it does, will you know why?
I agree she had done well before him, and that she cares for him (well, I don’t know, but it seems plausible), but at the time, he was bigger than she was.
It’s changed since then, I agree she’s the bigger star now.
Shalimar
@Ben Cisco: The key to talk radio is that they hate. Different targets every day, but it is all about wallowing in hatred for someone. You can’t stop them from hating, it is the most essential part of their being at this point.
philadelphialawyer
@FlipYrWhig: Meh, that may be true in general, but it is not responsive to my point. As hovercraft said, these people were NOT deceived. They were told, by Trump, and by the Republicans for the last 8 years, that repeal of Obamacare was number one on their to do list. And now they are acting as if they are surprised when, whoda thunk it, repealing Obamacare is number one on their to do list. Whether they “like” Hillary, or not, or hate the people who like her, or not, has nothing to do with THAT.
Yarrow
@Elizabelle: Trump destroys everything he touches. Any entertainer is stupid if they perform for him. Outside of, maybe, country music people. Like I said above, the Trump voter group and the country music fan group has a fair amount of overlap.
sigaba
@FlipYrWhig: Maybe there’s something to this after all :(
Mnemosyne
@Ben Cisco:
There can be a “scales falling from their eyes” moment, but it will have to start with what Molly Ivins famously said:
Once you figure out they’re lying to you about race, you start to wonder what else they’re lying to you about.
Brachiator
@tobie: RE: Trump’s supporters wanted him big time
I didn’t say anything about how I felt about Clinton. You make odd and wrong assumptions.
Actually, what it tells me is that the writer totally misunderstood what Clinton meant. It makes me curious to know more about how other people heard it. It doesn’t tell me anything significant about the media.
Funny, I thought she was being too indirect in talking about the neo-Nazis and racists who were flitting around the Trump campaign the way that flies buzz around a pile of shit. The problem, of course, is that white people hate being labeled as racist, especially when they are, in fact, racist.
tobie
@Shalimar: Good point.
FlipYrWhig
@philadelphialawyer: I realize that. But it’s a story about why Republicans are Republicans. They’re Republicans because they think someone undeserving is getting a free ride at their expense. That’s the entire reason why anyone who isn’t very wealthy is a Republican in the first place. That’s also why it’s pointless to hatch plans to help them and to think that helping them means winning their votes. They’re not going to vote for a Democratic president, because their mindset is based on resentment and spite at the welfare state. If Democrats and/or liberals do pass policies to help them, great, from an ethical standpoint. But it means bupkes from a pragmatic standpoint, because they hate us and the people we want to have govern them.
gogol's wife
@Scout211:
I’ve sent money to them, ACLU, and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. Of course also Planned Parenthood and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker: I know what you’re saying, but given his community organizing background I really thought he would have appointed someone in the campaign to use the energy and momentum and build on it. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been as big as the campaign, but instead of just sending money request emails there could have been lots of local groups, ways to get involved, etc. I remember at the time people were disappointed because it just kind of vanished.
As for Trump, he’s not going to govern. He won’t be surprised by how much time it takes because he’s not going to do it. Pence will do any “governing” that needs to be done and Donald will go around and hold rallies and promise jobs and promote his businesses and anything that makes him money. Oh, and point fingers at whichever groups are “those people” of the moment. Governing? It is to laugh.
sigaba
@germy:
Fun read if anyone else hasn’t seen it… What I Saw at the Michigan Recount.
CarolDuhart2
@StringOnAStick: Not only that, but coal is no longer competitive price-wise. It’s cheaper for utilities to put up solar panels and extract extra power from them, or put up windmills. Lower construction costs, and eliminates fluctuating commodity costs. I mean coal is a commodity like oranges and paper and bananas, ruled by the costs of supply and demand. The sun and the wind are constantly in supply and is available anywhere. It doesn’t need the roads and the tracks, the coal ash depositories, the months of siting and construction, and the constant financial outlay needed to secure coal supplies.
FlipYrWhig
@sigaba: But I agree with your larger point: there is definitely a cohort of people who affirmatively like Donald Trump. That’s how he won the Republican primaries. There is a much bigger cohort of people who hate Hillary Clinton and wanted to say FUCK YOU CAN”T MAKE ME to everything Democrats stand for, beginning with “welfare” and recently updated to include “political correctness.” That’s how he won the general election. They know he’s an unqualified buffoon and a horrendous human being. It’s kind of self-evident! They’d just rather not let Hillary Clinton and gay people and brown people and Pajama Boy be the boss of them. And Trump was the beneficiary of their spite.
tobie
@Brachiator: Sorry but you’re rewriting your post. Regarding the Democratic voter who was offended by the “deplorables” comment you said:
My point still stands: how can you satisfy a voter who’s been spoon-fed a lie by the media? It’s an important question to ask given that we’re depending on the media to report on Trump and skeptical that they will do more than repeat whatever the Trump administration, the RNC, or their corporate masters tell them to.
Kay
Part of the conflict between the programs white working class people rely on and their resentment of the people who make those programs possible is they believe they shouldn’t have to turn to “the government” for help. They think the fact that they have to turn to these programs is just more proof that they’re pushed aside and irrelevant to the modern workplace/economy. If things were “fair” they would be able to earn this stuff themselves, without help. Part of the culture is an idea (right or wrong) that they can take care of themselves. If they need government programs then they can’t take care of themselves, and they resent that.
Genuinely poor rural people take it even further. They attack each other for being reliant on government “help”. It’s an insult they fling at each other.
It’s complicated but it’s true of all people, right? Partly your sense of yourself is based on your ability to take care of yourself, or not. They’re not “making it” and they’re angry and looking to blame other people for that.
philadelphialawyer
@FlipYrWhig: Again, you seem to be missing my point. This woman wants Obamacare. She doesn’t want it to be repealed. And yet she voted for the guy and the party that “promised” to do just that. That is stupid. And is stupid in a different and other way than voting for them because you don’t “like” Hillary or her supporters is stupid. And in another way than being a racist, or utterly unselfaware when it comes to your own “free rides,” is stupid. It is stupid in a much more non political, hard to understand, seemingly completely without street smarts or even basic understanding of human nature smarts, way. When someone “promises” to fuck you over, chances are they are not lying. Unlike when someone promises you the moon. Duh.
Ksmiami
@The Moar You Know: I decided I just want the stupid to die off And quickly- the policies of the GOP will do the trick. I’ll help the people who didn’t vote for this and are the most vulnerable. Fat ass meth heads in the middle of Kentucky deserve scorn not sympathy.
PIGL
@Betty Cracker: That might work, provided the Republicans can’t end run your efforts, as they seem so able and willing to do. It does seem more reasonable than chasing after the demonstrably irrational…or possibly the all-too-deliberate. Either way, they seem beyond reach.
FlipYrWhig
@CarolDuhart2: I think I said once before that the missing element of all of Donald Trump’s promises about jobs was… who’s going to be doing the hiring? He certainly doesn’t mean having the federal government form agencies to pay people to do needed projects. What benevolent industrialist is going to say, “What I really want to do is pump tens of millions of dollars into some old plant in some moribund area and hire as many able-bodied people as feel like showing up?” How was it supposed to come to pass? It seemed expressly monarchical, like King Donald would personally charter and endow bold new enterprises across the land. And no one ever made him explain it.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig: RE: Yes, the audience liked Hillary, but they were not always persuaded by her.
I don’t know that the sun will come out tomorrow, but the odds are good.
And so? You don’t want him in your party? You think he represents an insignificant number of California Democrats? He was a three time delegate to the Democratic Convention. Why should your opinions count more than his?
SatanicPanic
@The Moar You Know: Fair enough but the man makes great music. Trump can’t claim any positive contribution to the world at all.
FlipYrWhig
@philadelphialawyer: I don’t think I’m missing your point, because I’m not arguing with you, I’m using your point as a foundation for my own.
philadelphialawyer
@FlipYrWhig: OK. Cool.
Another Scott
Meh.
Whitley County’s population is 35,766 according to Google. 11,312 people in the county voted for Donnie according to the KY Secretary of State’s tally. 9,245 more than voted for Hillary. According to bestplaces . net, 20.5% of voters are registered as Democrats, 78.3% as Republicans, so Democrats didn’t turn out (since Donnie got 82% of the vote).
There are 3104 counties (or county equivalents) in the US, and one would expect huge tails in the distribution among counties even if the distribution is perfectly normal (and it isn’t). IOW, one can always find interesting outliers in large collections if one wants to look for them.
Are we really going to take this Vox report (a well written one with lots of interesting details) as being indicative of what’s going on with all the poor people and poor voters in Appalachia now?
Whitley ranks #734 in income inequality ratio according to the EPI:
Rank 734 Whitley, KY Average income of top 1% = $441,779 Average income of bottom 99% = $26,321, top to bottom ratio = 16.8
Taking an average of 3 people per household (should be a decent guess), there are roughly 10,000 households in the county. 1% of 10,000 is 100 households in the 1% there. The other 9,900 households make a tiny, tiny fraction…
We need to remember that the Democratic Party isn’t uniform. Too many people in the suburbs look at their nearby Big City and see (rightly or not) entrenched Democratic politicians who don’t get things done, who preside over crumbling schools and infrastructure, etc., etc., and want nothing to do with all that.
People can look at lots of things besides the national memes to decide who to vote for.
Punching down isn’t going to help Democrats win.
There are lots and lots of reasons why Donnie won. The important thing to realize is that we ultimately have to win over more voters (and more electors) than the other guys. There are lots of ways to do that, but punching down is not one of them.
Let’s yell and scream and pull our hair out and ask people “how could you do that!!1”, but let’s not punch down. Let’s figure out how we can do better, not how we can drive voters away. (No, that doesn’t mean throwing everyone that isn’t WWC under the bus.)
I hope we get all of this out of our system before January 1, and figure out what to do to win (and win reliably!) going forward.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: If Hillary Clinton’s skeptical audience liked her, but then the feeling slowly ebbed, why would Bernie Sanders’s skeptical audience like him permanently? That makes no sense.
I think California Democrats benefit from a median Democrat CONSIDERABLY TO THE LEFT of median Democrats everywhere else. Just look at the lopsidedness of the Hillary Clinton victory in that state. I really don’t think “Wall Street” shibboleths matter anywhere else the way they matter within circles of avowed liberals. And there aren’t many circles of avowed liberals. He’s being a narrow-minded, self-important, self-dramatizing pinhead, which is characteristic of liberals who hang out with liberals and are surrounded by other liberals, rather than liberals who know how few of us there are.
FlipYrWhig
@Another Scott:
Donald Trump just ran the most explicit, boisterous punching-down campaign in history and won.
Brachiator
@Kay:
Some great points here, and very well said.
SatanicPanic
@Betty Cracker: I too am doing this. from my FB a lot of people are here in San Diego.
Monala
@sigaba: I feel like i know several people (mostly on FB) who told themselves that Trump was a good man. They posted articles about him helping Jennifer Hudson stay at one of his hotels for free after her family was killed, and using one of his planes to rescue some stranded Marines. (I didn’t click on the links, so I have no idea what evidence there was for either of these things). They repeatedly said stuff like, “Trump has said bad things, but Hillary has done bad things.”* They told themselves again and again that Trump’s flaw was just having a bit of a potty mouth, maybe some anti-political correctness, but he himself was really a good guy at heart. I suspect that a lot of such people are the “committed Christians” who wanted to tell themselves they weren’t doing something wrong by voting for him.
*And this meme was repeated on the left, too. “At least Trump has never ordered a drone strike, or engaged us in warfare!” Yeah, well, he never had the power, too, but he’s conducted plenty of warfare against business and personal enemies.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I haven’t seen much of the first, haven’t seen any of the second. To call that a straw man is to be charitable.
and if you’re going to be such an asshole, you don’t deserve charity.
JustRuss
@sigaba:
Yeah. “He’s a straight-shooter, who says what he really thinks!”. Meaning he’s not PC, and they hate PC. As Shalimar says above, it’s the hate. Trump hates the right people and things and isn’t afraid to say so. That’s what his base loves about him. It’s what they’ve always loved about the GOP, but Trump does it better. No dog whistles, no code. These people are perpetually pissed off at their demons, and Trump gets that. Hell, he feeds off it.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
I saw some people talking about Bill Gates. He thinks Trump can have a positive message that the country can get behind. OK
/rant on
Goddamn fuck motherfucking Bill goddamn Gates. His fucking shitty operating system is the very reason we are in the fix we are in this country regarding computer security. Fuck him and his goddamn motherfucking Windows bullshit.
/rant off
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
Dr Lecter, perhaps.
Barbara
@Kay: I think you are principally correct, but that it’s a bit more nuanced. A lot of white people who rely on government programs don’t vote at all, and those who do are probably more likely to vote for Democrats. It’s hard to read articles and react because within every stratum there are people who can be found voting against the majority of their demographic group. That’s why these kinds of articles are ultimately not illuminating. They express one person’s truth, not an entire group’s. The average Trump voter was wealthier than the average Clinton voter. However, buried in that are probably people like the ones you describe, and perhaps even more so, people who are afraid of becoming like those people. Most of the Trump voters I have seen surveyed are actually employed, they are just aggrieved that a lot of people they know aren’t, or they have had to take a pay cut or a new job or don’t have union protection anymore, or are resentful that their kids moved away to find better opportunities, and so on. But I do think they were receptive to Trump’s message for exactly the reasons you gave.
Another Scott
@FlipYrWhig: Do we want to be Republicans now?
Donnie lost the popular vote.
Donnie is the most unpopular PE in (recent?) history.
Do you think Donnie’s approach is the way to win in the future? We should just get behind the know-nothing plutocrat to who feeds our Id to win?
:-(
I don’t.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ohio Mom
@glory b: Autism and Aspergers are not types of mental illnesses.
Too tired today to give the whole schpeil.
Sign me,
Autism Mom
FlipYrWhig
@Barbara: Your take is similar to mine: the “white working class economic anxiety” that had an impact on the election wasn’t the immediately perceptible economic situation of voters themselves, it was a sort of displaced or projected concern on the part of people who _weren’t_ economically depressed themselves but perceived, by a feat of imaginative identification, PEOPLE LIKE THEM to be ever more economically depressed. Thus if you think people _like_ you are having trouble, you start to get angry that no one is helping that grander, more collective “you.” A friend of mine called it sentimentalism gone awry.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JustRuss: “He knows business, so he’ll be able to bring back jobs”
I think we make the mistake of overthinking how a whole lot of voters– people who vote in every fucking election– think about politics. They’re not waiting to be inspired, or to feel good about their vote.
@Barbara: I haven’t read through the whole conversation, so apologies if I’m pointing out something that you or someone has already pointed out, but one of the women featured in this article, I think the one doing enrollment for the ACA, criticizes people who use gov’t programs, but has no qualms about going on Medicaid because she and her husband have always been employed, up to now, and contributed. She could well be taking the words out of the mouths half a dozen or more of my Silent and Greatest Generation relatives (many gone to their rewards), who (mostly and probably) voted straight D till ’68 (They might have gone for Eisenhower over Stevenson), and then voted straight R (again, possible exception for Carter in ’76) and would watch the world burn before they had gone along with Bush’s Soc Sec plans or let Ryan touch their Medicare.
FlipYrWhig
@Another Scott: I’d prefer not to, but the fact that Trump just won an election by railing against and mocking people at the bottom of various intersecting hierarchies (women, migrants, people with disabilities, etc.) kinda refutes the idea that “punching down” is a losing proposition. Depends on who you’re punching. (I think he and his more avid and thoughtful defenders would probably say his campaign was punching up at “elites,” like politically correct college professors and department stores who want clerks to say “Happy Holidays,” but let’s get real, it was all about ostracism and scapegoating of lesser beings.)
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major: RE: I still maintain she lost because a lot of people didn’t show
Got anything to back up your feelings here?
Really? Documented as the major reason Clinton lost?
But then again, couldn’t you say this about every losing candidate where the voter turnout is moderate?
SFAW
@Swellsman:
So, part of me is feeling bad for your predicament, glad that I’m not in your situation, and hoping it ends up being OK for you.
Another part of me is wondering if you’re 11 years old. (Which is about the nicest way I can put it.) I don’t know if you have come here regularly, but if you have, then all the myriad discussions about how anyone, no matter how healthy they think they are, can develop something which could bankrupt or kill them, did they just go right over your head? And a lot of those people were/are not fortunate enough to have anything close to an employer-offered medical insurance program. In other words, they don’t/didn’t have the advantage(s) that you blithely threw away.
If I were ArchTeryx (I think it is), and a few others here — people who are extremely scared about what is likely to happen to Obamacare, and because of their medical situation, to themselves — I’d be screaming at the top of my lungs at you. But that’s just me, because I’m an asshole.
I’m really trying to feel more compassion for you, but it ain’t a-comin’ just yet. But perhaps Richard Mayhew can give some helpful advice, and you may luck out. You can probably contact him through the FPers list.
In any event, good luck, I hope you can dodge the figurative bullet.
Erick
I think all the think pieces and Monday morning quarterbacking about what decided the election are way overthought. The people quoted in this article voted Republican just like they always do because “liberals are pussies who give stuff to lazy, undeserving people”. They didn’t decide the election and they won’t next time either.
There are two things that determine presidential elections:
1) the small percentage of swing voters, less than 10% maybe less than 5%. These are the poeple who are completely uninformed and out of touch, no messaging or discussion of issues will sway them. It has been pointed out that in the modern era with only a couple exceptions no one has been elected president more than something like 8-12 after first coming on the national political scene. These voters go for shiny and new. (I know trump has been famous since the 80s, but he wasn’t a politician)
2) turnout. In ’04 the anti gay ballot measures in places like Ohio were turn out machines, the religious right used them to bring tons of people who had never voted out of the woodwork. I suspect there were trivial numbers of Obama voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin who voted for Trump. I suspect in those small towns the religious right turned out voters using the Supreme Court and abortion and the NRA did the same with “Hillary wants to take your guns”
Gemina13
@Buttermilk Sky:
As I just told my SO, I have to grimly laugh and shake my head over that. On my mother’s side (born and bred in Harlan County, KY), my great-grandparents were first cousins. Thank God Mom had brains; she ran away from home when she was 16.
Even so, Mom was a lifelong Democrat (Grandpa was an organizer for the UMW), and an Obama supporter. She would have rooted for Hillary all the way. And she would have had harsh words for the likes of Oller: “What in the hell did you think he was gonna do, dumbass? When have you ever met a Republican that didn’t want to fuck over us poor people?”
Another Scott
@FlipYrWhig: You think we can out punch-down Donnie on beating on people below “us”?
We really don’t want to go there, do we?
Donnie was a fluke. The GOP was too scared of him to attack him effectively during the primaries. The press was too taken in by the wonders of clicks to present the people with facts about him and what he would mean as President. Ideologues in the FBI decided that party comes before country. Etc., etc.
Learning the lesson of the 2016 election as being we have to be more like him, or we have to lie to voters and tell them that “King Coal is coming back!”, or we have to hitch our horses exclusively to a dying demographic (the male WWC), or we have to hitch our horses exclusively to a cult driven by a 75 year old guy from one of the whitest states in the Union who is too pure to join a political party (Bernie), or …. Those are the wrong lessons.
Punching down worked (for some values of “worked” – we’ll see if he’s actually able to govern) for Donnie. It won’t work for Democrats.
Harry explained all this 64 years ago:
As was the case back then, an awful lot of people who are singing the wonders of the WWC (in te press and elsewhere, not so much here) aren’t doing so because they want Democrats to win. We need to remember what Harry said and learn the right lessons.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Barbara
@Swellsman: I won’t ask why you turned down your employer’s plan, but definitely, get yourself onto an exchange plan ASAP. Whatever changes are made to the ACA, they will likely be worse if you have not maintained continuous coverage. Every one of us is healthy until we are not. Every. One.
Frank Wilhoit
The most important thing to understand about Trump’s people is that they do not want anything for themselves. They only want to harm others.
PhoenixRising
@Kay:
Read the interview, if you get a minute, and come back with your thoughts. That has been my position on the scraping-by white relatives who aren’t ‘working class’, they’re temporarily embarrassed middle class people with individual problems preventing them from making their way. But the idiot who voted for leopards tearing off faces admits that she herself has used Medicaid as a stopgap, and rationalizes it with ‘which I earned by paying into the system, because I’ve always worked’.
So they’re angry, yeah. But they ARE making it, on the backs of my taxes, but think because they are hardworking white people in a jam that doesn’t count.
We have to be honest about what we’re dealing with here: Racist beliefs that are baked into the cake. They KNOW that when they use Medicaid it’s because they had no option, and they KNOW that Those People don’t want to work.
This interview just blew my wheels because they all said out loud, to the nice white lady from New York, exactly what I’ve always suspected about my relatives down home: there is no economic interest they hold that can pry their racial bias out of their hands. It’s that simple and that intransigent.
Kristin D
I’m not sure how people who make $22,000 or less are automatically “lazy.” Does she know what minimum wage is? At 7.25/hour, you could work 60 hours per week (at two jobs – 30 hours each or 40 & 20) and make just a little over that.
Another Scott
@sigaba: Well said.
Cheers,
Scott.
Trentrunner
@Immanentize: Really? I am, especially in the Age of Trump.
qwerty42
@Ben Cisco: … And so long as they are willing to sentence themselves to death because that’s what they’re sentencing US to, exactly how are we supposed to ally with them?…
I don’t know. It may not be possible to bring any back. They have deluded themselves into thinking that nice Mr Trump wouldn’t take away my healthcare, my social security and so on. He’s going to drain the swamp. Or something.
However.
To fight this, we will need allies. They may not always agree with us, and we need to recognize that. It will be hard and we won’t win all the battles that lie ahead. But there are some on the other side who may join for one campaign or another. Maybe a number of them.
I know this: I am sick of the despair. We cannot really afford it; it weakens us. There will be big battles in the coming year, and not just in Congress. No answers, Ben, I wish there were.
Aren’t you supposed to be on the bridge of the Defiant?
J R in WV
@Winnief:
You want to know why the coal jobs went away here, in KY, in PA, in OH? Because they have mined all the good fuqing coal, and burned it already.
I worked with WV coal mining engineers and geologists, experts with decades of experience. Before I retired (2008, years before I retired) I was told 15 more years of mining, tops. But guess what, after about 12 years, and the arrival of tons of new natural gas on the energy market (which burns cleaner and handles cheaper) the steam coal market is as dead as last week’s newspaper/fish-wrapper.
Out west, a tourist gets to see dozens of ghost towns, little vibrant communities that evaporated when the only source of money coming into the town disappears – when the ore was gone. There are just as many in West Virginia, but the climate makes those towns disappear in just 5 or 10 years.
Out west they last for decades, and some of them become quaint tourist attractions, from the Mexican border country where Bisbee and Tombstone are huge tourist attractions, clear up into Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas.
But there isn’t any gold mining, or copper mining, or silver mining in those towns. Lordsburg NM was a bustling mining town, and now there are 3 motels and 2 truckstops on I-10. And lots of old trailers with people living on Social Security. Just like most of West Virginia.
The sweet coal is gone, and there is no political magic going to make those sweet high-paying jobs come back. Anyone who says the steam coal business will recover is lying, because gas is cheaper, and the coal that’s left is really expensive to mine.
J R in WV
@Miss Bianca:
Give back!?!?!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHa, heh. That’s pretty good Miss B.
Keep up that sense of humor, we’ll need it before long!
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@qwerty42: When I’m mobile, yes.
Jaker
@Amir Khalid: Andrea Bochelli wouldn’t smear his name to appear singing for this “Chump”.
Jaker
@Yarrow: You’re right about that, they’ll all be singing songs about lost freedom, depression, death & the dark.
Jaker
@Monala: He hasn’t sent US to war yet; but with his intelligence quota he will. Like he’s nearly started one with China already 3 weeks before he has the keys to the “White-house”. So I repeat, “He will”.
Jaker
When is he going to show you all his Tax Returns? When is he going to face trial for his dirty evil assaults on women right through his lifetime? When is he going to pay his debts to all those he owes money to? By heck, America, is a great place for rewarding evil, isn’t it?! No wonder the world is…as it is.
PIGL
@sigaba: You ask: “Why does it matter if liberals win if conservatives just hold a gun to everyone’s head until they get power again? These are the challenges Hillary’s successors need to address”
These are fair questions. My conclusion, and I know I am probably being both repetitive and naive is: these challenges can not be resolved in the USA as presently constituted. Maybe they could be, if you had another 150 years to finish the civil war, but I do not think that you do. Events are unfolding, and they aren’t all waiting on all y’all.