On the upside, it appears my several decade devotion to the Fallout video game series is going to come in handy.
Where we stand and what we need to do
I think people need to appreciate that third parties almost certainly did not do this. Disaffected Bernie voters simply could not explain the sweeping victory that we saw last night. For one thing the geography was all wrong. Less well off white people, especially in poor and rural communities, literally came out of the woodwork for Donald Trump. Something he said galvanized them and in so doing almost completely rewrote the electoral map. He accomplished something that George Wallace tried and utterly failed to do.
I think some of Bernie supporters’ critiques hold water here. Hillary gambled on three more years of Obama, and while a lot of people really like Obama, they were getting restless. I recognize fully that a large, probably decisive fraction of their discontent came from the successful Republican strategy to gum up Washington completely. The basic logic says that more patience will probably deliver the same returns, so elect someone who will kick the machine. Bernie Sanders was clearly ready to kick the machine. Obama ’08 was definitely the candidate for giving the machine a swift kick where both McCain and Romney were basically warmed-up Republican leftovers. Voters had seen a dozen times already.
Would Bernie have won? There are too many counterfactuals to say. The primaries are long done and I hope that everyone to the left of Paul Ryan (possibly including Paul Ryan) wants to find out what the hell just happened and do what we can, together, to reverse it. My Bernie friends are no happier about this than anyone else. Let us all air our grievances with respect and then, please, let’s move on to fight fascism.
The first thing I want us all to do is survive. Pour some cereal and cheer up your kids. America is more than the presidency. We have institutions, and even a sizable faction of the Republican party, that Trump can’t just order around. Dick Cheney he’s not.
Then, wen you shake the dust off this morning, look around for someone else who is hurting. It won’t be hard. Maybe just listen to someone’s grief or see if they need anything. It feels good to help someone else, but I have more than that in mind. We need to start thinking this way a lot more. It takes a resilient community to survive hard times. Whatever network of support you have (family, friends, activism), strengthen it. Expand it. I have not done any LGBT or religious freedom activism since forever, but you know what? LGBT Americans are my people. Minorities are my people. Religious minorities are my people. All of them. Anyone the redshirts might bully is my people. Look for a chance to build contacts and build mutual support. Rather than recriminate or argue, we need to build solidarity and start looking out for each other right now. I guarantee that someone’s survival depends on it.
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: There’s Always Kitties
From commentor The Mighty Trowel, down where Spring is in full bloom:
I work out on the verandah when I can and it’s really lovely sharing it with my kitties.
Gambit is the ginger fluff ball and Storm is the silver tabby.
I found the little sign under a flower pot in my garden (the previous owners left all sorts of stuff behind) – Gambit (who is not tough at all) was happy to pose.
Now, more than ever, learning from our companion animals to appreciate the moment seems vital.
As we steel ourselves to prepare for the upcoming national disaster, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: There’s Always KittiesPost + Comments (69)
First Things First
First, a hearty FUCK YOU to every single person who voted for Trump, all 57,518,551 or so of you. Even if you don’t consider yourselves stone-cold racist, misogynist pricks like the president-elect, you’re as bad as he is. If you were stupid enough to believe that your vote “sent a message,” you’re right: By voting for that degenerate demagogue, you’ve displayed such depraved indifference to the fate of women, immigrants, people of color, people with disabilities, etc., that you’re now an honorary member of the Klan. So, put that fucking hood on, asshole.
Second, a rousing GO FUCK YOURSELF to Stein voters. There were two candidates who had a chance of winning this election, and you chose to preen on the sidelines. The fucking hilarious thing is, you didn’t even matter. You’re not a spoiler, but you’re still an asshole. When you get over yourself, you’re cordially invited to come be useful to those of us who will be opposing the fascist.
Third, about opposing the fascist: it starts tomorrow with a focus on 2018. Only determined, implacable resistance will get us through this. Having seen the writing on the wall, I turned my TV off before they called the race, but I just read an alert that popped on my screen that says “Trump calls for ‘America to bind the wounds of division.’” Fuck that. Trump is a racist, sexist, xenophobic demagogue who has elevated the very worst people in a country chock-full of lunatics, sadists and incompetents.
I Have to Agree with Jim Newell
[…] We can’t comprehend even 1 percent of what’s just happened. But one aspect of it, minor in the overall sweep, that I’m pretty sure we can comprehend well enough right now: The Democratic Party establishment has beclowned itself and is finished.I think of the lawmakers, the consultants, the operatives, and—yes—the center-left media, and how everything said over the past few years leading up to this night was bullshit.
The midterm losses? That was just a bad cycle, structurally speaking; presidential demographics would make up for it. The party establishment made a grievous mistake rallying around Hillary Clinton. It wasn’t just a lack of recent political seasoning. She was a bad candidate, with no message beyond heckling the opposite sideline. She was a total misfit for both the politics of 2016 and the energy of the Democratic Party as currently constituted. She could not escape her baggage, and she must own that failure herself.
Theoretically smart people in the Democratic Party should have known that. And yet they worked giddily to clear the field for her. Every power-hungry young Democrat fresh out of law school, every rising lawmaker, every old friend of the Clintons wanted a piece of the action. This was their ride up the power chain. The whole edifice was hollow, built atop the same unearned sense of inevitability that surrounded Clinton in 2008, and it collapsed, just as it collapsed in 2008, only a little later in the calendar. The voters of the party got taken for a ride by the people who controlled it, the ones who promised they had everything figured out and sneeringly dismissed anyone who suggested otherwise. They promised that Hillary Clinton had a lock on the Electoral College. These people didn’t know what they were talking about, and too many of us in the media thought they did.
And this:
What was the line? Hillary Clinton would do well in a general election, because she’d been “vetted” for 20-some years and there was nothing new Republicans could try? Just writing that, I recognize that it’s the funniest line I’ve ever seen, and yet it was the exact argument Clinton used in two separate campaigns for the Democratic nomination.
And I’ll add three words: Debbie. Wasserman. Schultz. (Who won tonight, by the way.)
The Democratic Party that will re-take the Senate, House and Presidency will not look like the party that DWS or the Clintons fostered and maintained. The house organ of that Party will not be the New York Times or any other part of the false equivalency establishment press, no matter how “liberal” their columnists are. The advisors and consultants who bring that Party to victory will not include John Podesta or anyone who ever worked for him in a senior capacity. The reason is simple: this combination killed us in 2016.
Obama was a breakout candidate in large part because he went around the Democratic establishment. The message, style and operations of a winning Democratic Party will be part Obama and, as much as many of you hate hearing this, part Bernie Sanders. The simple fact was that there was a hell of a lot more excitement about Bernie’s candidacy among the Democrats who need to be energized for us to win, than there was among Hillary supporters. Bernie wasn’t the guy, but we need to look hard at what he said, how he said it, and how his campaign operated. We need to find someone who isn’t Bernie to carry that message into 2018 and 2020.
The Unimaginable
I started the day hopeful for my daughter and the next generation. I end it with what my wife called a “punch in the gut”.
This is a retrograde Supreme Court for another generation – it’s very unlikely that RBG will make it to 2020.
This is the reversal of the small amount of progress that we’ve made on healthcare for all – repeal and replace, baby.
This is the start of a worldwide turn to the right, and a nationwide turn to hatred and division.
And we’re going to have a very tall wall, I will tell you that.
Late Night Open Thread
I wouldn't mind if somebody on TV mentioned voter suppression and the gutting of the VRA any time now.
— Charles P. Pierce (@ESQPolitics) November 9, 2016
I don’t think I underestimated the level of bigotry & hatred in America. I may have overestimated the concern w defeating it
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) November 9, 2016
The grimly fascinating thing will be watching Trump voters slowly realize he was utterly full of shit on every promise he made.
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) November 9, 2016
EVERY PUNDIT ON EVERY NETWORK IS TERRIFIED RIGHT NOW. AND EVERY ONE OF THEM CAUSED THIS TO HAPPEN. #Election2016
— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) November 9, 2016
Here's a word we're going to be hearing a lot over the next four years: "kakocracy." https://t.co/BTGH7TC0vl
— Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) November 9, 2016
As everyone holds their breath over… again… Florida, remember: we can abolish the EC without an amendment: https://t.co/4g2Od0WPTX
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) November 9, 2016