Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Consistently wrong since 2002

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

After roe, women are no longer free.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

You are here: Home / A hiatus

Reader Interactions

144Comments

  2. 2.

    BethanyAnne

    my best friend got married last year. he’s been with his boyfriend *18* years. I’m transgender. what happens to us?

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    Come on, can’t you explain to us the insurance implications of switching to a chicken-based healthcare economy?

  5. 5.

    BethanyAnne

    this feels like watching lehman brothers go under again. i lost my job and my apartment and had to move into my mother’s spare bedroom. we got within a month of being homeless. I hope to a god I don’t believe in that this is better than that.

  6. 6.

    CaseyL

    It’s a nightmare we can’t wake up from. What will be the impact on you professionally; are you really in danger of losing your livelihood?

    I work at a university, providing administrative support to legal clinics, most of which are funded by the Federal or State governments. I also live in a state which is half deep blue and half deep red. Between the wrecking ball the GOP will send against higher education, and the odds that the State legislature will defund what’s left… I don’t even know what’ll happen to the University.

  7. 7.

    BruceFromOhio

    I will be radio silent for the week.

    Yup, same here.

    Thanks for all your work on the health insurance posts. That was a lot of keystrokes, and you clearly know your stuff. May your pastures be green in spring.

  9. 9.

    dmsilev

    To quote from the late, great, Douglas Adams, “I’d like you know that I’m feeling very depressed”.

  10. 10.

    Eric

    Richard – I want to say thanks for all that you have written. I’ve enjoyed both the policy and soccer. You have helped build a community here. In times of crisis, the only thing that ever really made me feel better was being with friends. I hope that, if you are not communicating with your friends here that you at least will be with friends and family elsewhere.

    All the best.

  11. 11.

    guachi

    At least come back and analyze the Republican’s destruction of Obamacare for us.

    I’ve loved all your health care posts and have learned a lot. Thank you for your work here.

  12. 12.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    ‏@ Nate_Cohn
    We believe Clinton is very likely to win the national popular vote.

  13. 13.

    dm

    It’s looking like Hillary is going to win the popular vote by about 1% (Gore won the popular vote by over a million votes, as well). I think the Founders made a big mistake when they designed the Electoral College.

    The Democratic minority in the Senate won several million votes more than the Republican majority.

    The Democratic minority in the House represents about a million more people than the Republican majority does.

    Americans are pretty much okay. It’s just that the okay Americans are concentrated in a few parts of a few states, which gives them a disadvantage in the Electoral College, the Senate, and even in House districting.

  14. 14.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    We will be here. People like Obama, Neil deGrass Tyson, Paul Krugman, Elizabeth Warren, and many, many others won’t give up. We will fight in the courts and college classrooms, in bars and coffee shops and editorial pages and comment sections on line.

    We will laugh and cry and hug each other and continue to believe in hope and change.

  20. 20.

    lafcolleen

    Yep. Just told my husband that I expect my job to disappear. I work at a non-profit law firm that relies heavily on government funding. Our funding was targeted for elimination in the past – there won’t be anyone to have our backs. we do have private funding but there will be fierce competition for few dollars. We’re a union shop too. Expect a federal right to work law.

  21. 21.

    Emma

    I need to reassess a great many of my plans. If the Republicans push through their budget and other plans I am the bulwark between my father and destitution. I’m 60 and hoped to retire a little ahead of schedule. I don’t think I can now.

  22. 22.

    psycholinguist

    My nine year old daughter is a cancer survivor. I’m wondering how I’m going to get health insurance for her. Fucking white people.

  23. 23.

    Richard Fox

    I never comment, I like to read and listen. Your posts Richard are always so helpful. I am barely holding on paying over $500 almost $600 a month for my healthcare. I honestly don’t know what I am going to do. 56 years old freelancer paying my own care, no help, no subsidies. And I feel the whole system will be swept away with these fools in power. Anyway sorry for venting.. this is so tough

  24. 24.

    David Fud

    Agree with the above that your wonky voice was welcome and helpful. In the spirit of the above, “So long and thanks for all the fish.”

  26. 26.

    ? Martin

    @BethanyAnne: Unfortunately, move to a friendly state. I say unfortunately because that will only throw the EC even more out of whack with the popular vote, making it harder for Dems to win Congress or the presidency in the future.

    But it’s time for another great migration. CA is here. Come on in – you’re protected here. Immigrants are protected here. Not for everything, but for a lot – hopefully enough to get through.

  27. 27.

    divF

    Richard, thank you for your efforts on our behalf.

    I am a scientist, and I’ve been temporarily doing some work on science policy. I truly don’t know what tomorrow is going to hold. This is probably the only site at which I will be willing to engage with political events for a while. I will see you all around.

  28. 28.

    MomSense

    I almost died from a stupid routine colonoscopy this year so I’m pretty much fucked if we lose Obamacare.

  29. 29.

    Fair Economist

    We will miss you, but I understand. You’re more than a policy writer though; you’re quite perceptive and I appreciate that. Will be glad to see you back.

  30. 30.

    robert thompson

    It must have been said before though I have not read the previous comments on the threads. I have a 19 year old healthy young man. He doesn’t understand completely the ramifications of what will or could happen under a Trump regime. I fear for his life. I do not fear for my own as my health has been pretty bad over the last years and I have resigned myself to the probabilities, But to see my beautiful son die in another war for oil or in defense of some religious nutcase’s fevered apocalyptic dream would surely break my wife’s heart as well as mine.

  31. 31.

    scottinnj

    I’m tired but let’s face it as Dems – the playbook is there it is what the GOP did starting in 2008 when Obama was elected. We just need to replicate that playbook. It’s state by state one at a time.

  33. 33.

    CaseyL

    No one is going to restrain any of his impulses, and the GOP will feel free to wreck whatever they want. Goodbye ACA, treaty with Iran, any effort to hold off GCC, Social Security, maybe SSM… goodbye NASA, for fuck’s sake.

  39. 39.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Adam L Silverman: Yeah this is the great problem that I perceive, and it feels like we’ve just reset to 2000, basically. And there is no telling what kind of craziness will unfold in the next 2-4 years.

  40. 40.

    dmsilev

    Bill Kristol: “There will a certain amount of goodwill even among those who didn’t support him, because you have to hope your President succeeds”

    Yeah, fuck you Bill, because the Republicans did exactly that in 2008. Not.

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    @BethanyAnne: We will have your back. As I’ve written here before ideas cannot be killed. And it is very hard, even with unified government, to take rights away once they’ve been recognized/bestowed. There are a lot of us, uniformed and civilian, that have sworn to protect and defend the Constitution and through it the American people. This is what we all must do now: protect and defend the Constitution and through it the American people.

  45. 45.

    lafcolleen

    @West of the Rockies (been a while): We’ll be here – but fighting takes time and energy. Many of us are going to be focused on trying to salvage some basic security from the wreckage. I’m highly educated but I am also almost 50. My legal expertise is in a low prestige area – I work in child welfare. I’m not going to be able to find another job easily. I could easily become an underemployed lawyer, trying to scrape together a living wage. How much time & energy will I have to engage in the type of fighting that you are talking about?

  46. 46.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    I’m checking out too. Don’t know how to bear this – I don’t think I can.

  49. 49.

    PsiFighter37

    We’re fucked. So. Royally. Fucked.

    And fuck you Corner Stone, for telling me to fuck off because I was worrying. You fucking asshole.

  51. 51.

    Corner Stone

    I am not needed for the next four years

    Can’t you still chime in once in a while on soccer/football and/or sex toys thrown onto the field of play?

  55. 55.

    Tazj

    I won’t watch the tv news and I will only listen to Stephanie Miller and sports on the radio. I will still come here of course.
    I guess those people that live down the road from me can keep their Hillary for prison sign up.
    We will never stop hearing about emails.
    I’m white and I really seriously can’t stand a lot of white people right now.
    I doubt I’ll sleep tonight.

  56. 56.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    Somebody, anybody, please tell me that we’re going to make it. Please, somebody, tell me we’re all going to be here in four years.

    As my dad said when I asked him if I could move back home

    The government is big and huge and Trump isn’t a detail man, he tries to tear up long established policy they think will really hurt the country they will fight him, second the rich are clearly horrified over this going by the what the markets are doing They aren’t going to let Trump just trash thier golden egg with out a fight. Corporations need all their Other’s just to stay in buisness and wouldn’t just let Trump trash their companies without a fight. So as always ambition faces ambition in America.

  58. 58.

    Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA

    Okay. So what are the odds Trump oversteps immediately, gets impeached and convicted, and we end up with Pence? I mean, Pence is a Margaret Atwood nightmare, only dumber — but he’s a little less likely to nuke anyone.

    (Bargaining stage of grief? Bargaining stage of grief.)

  59. 59.

    ? Martin

    States like CA are going to step up big. I think there’s a solid chance now that we will pass single-payer healthcare. I think CA will continue it’s long tradition of throwing its weight around – we have a large and diverse enough economy to weather this. We can do things that most states can’t and I expect there will be a big policy firewall going up around the state. Gov Brown indicated we would do that and I think there will be action.

    Immigration will be challenging to protect, but most other things we can get pretty close on. Gay marriage is safe here. Trans rights are safe here. Abortion is safe here. In one respect, we’re cutting the rest of the nation loose, in another respect, we’re keeping Democratic principles alive. We’ll keep being the laboratory for national policy. We’ll fight, but mostly we’ll maintain a safe space.

  62. 62.

    raven

    We couldn’t lose because he was such and awful candidate, well sports fans, we couldn’t win because . . . .

  63. 63.

    Botsplainer

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    Well, my mom will be happy about the repeal of Obamacare – her youngest granddaughter won’t be insurable due to the precancerous tissue we had removed from her leg when she was 15, but on the other hand, some n****rs in the lower tranche of the working class won’t get subsidized care. In her mind, it’s a win.

  65. 65.

    BethanyAnne

    I got to find a way to make the current contract last. Got one bite of interest in a new one today. And I have about 3 months of living saved up. Fuckfuckfuck

  67. 67.

    RealityBites

    I am not a believer in conspiracy theories, but this is so incredible that I’m wondering about Russian hackers in key States. Am I totally over the top nuts? I know am frightened. This is so wrong.

  68. 68.

    Couldn't Stand the Weather

    My head hurts. Got some whiskey here, and I may need all of it tonight.
    As so many others have said here in the past… my gob is fucking smacked. At no point did I think this ignorant, racist, misogynist asshole could come anywhere near winning. I thought he had no chance after the first debate, let alone that “grab ’em” conversation with Billy Bush.

    And the Reagan Democrats and the worthless corporate press (and James fucking Comey) had to show me the error of my assumptions. By the by, sodomize Comey with a rusty farm implement until Halley’s Comet returns.

    And the g00pers keep the Senate and the House!
    Gonna need every drop of that damn whiskey.

    I don’t have the money to go ROTC (run over to Canada) at this point in time, or I’d be packing up a U-Haul right this second.

  69. 69.

    Another Scott

    As others have said, thank you very much for your posts here. Best of luck going forward. I hope we see you again soon, and under better circumstances!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  70. 70.

    robert thompson

    @MomSense: YEEEEEEEEEEEEhaw may not have been a foreign policy, though it might make a viable domestic policy. It ain’t ever over until you are on the wrong side of the grass.

    To all potential emigrants to CA, welcome!

  71. 71.

    Ben Cisco

    Tonight, for the first time since her death 9 months ago, I’m glad Mrs. Cisco isn’t here to see this. For now I’ve had it confirmed that half of the country hates me so much that they’re willing to burn the country down in response to PBO. They wanted me as an enemy, they demonized me and anyone who looks like me. They wanted a Neo-Confederacy. SO. BE. IT.

    They may find the having less pleasing than the wanting. May the Prophets make it so.

  73. 73.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    Whenever I get gloomy about the state of the world, I think of the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport….

    Be strong for your kids, grandkids, lovers, and friends.

    Keep creating, reading, cooking, eating, laughing, and loving.

    No, this is not the best of all possible worlds, but we’ve been through worse.

  74. 74.

    Botsplainer

    @dmsilev:

    I’m thinking I’ve paid my last federal income tax.

    Ever.

    Voluntary, cheerful compliance with a fascist regime isn’t going to happen.

  75. 75.

    Suzanne

    I don’t expect to have a job next year. This is the most unbelievably horrible thing. My children’s futures are going to suffer.

    I would vote to split the country in half right now if that was an option. I am so tired of trying to make a country with these cretins.

  76. 76.

    SenyorDave

    Richard, as a former actuary (P&C side), I’ve always appreciated your posts. I understood the ACA, and health care in general, a thousand percent better than I would have otherwise. I am one of those lucky few who not only have employee coverage, but have a fall back were I to lose my job. My wife is a retire teacher and I could go back on her benefits since she was in the system long enough to qualify. Plus she taught in Montgomery County, MD where they pay their teachers well and actually care about the quality of the public schools. I feel bad for the people who didn’t vote for Trump who will lose or have greatly reduced access to health care. Less bad for Trump voters in that situation, but don’t wish health care problems on anyone.

  77. 77.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mophene:

    Damn, I didn’t see the Bradley Effect coming.

    So far, people are saying that white Protestant turnout was at unprecedented levels, and you can’t poll for turnout.

    Trump ran as a white supremacist, and his people heard the call. Trump uber alles.

  78. 78.

    BethanyAnne

    And if anyone wants to enjoy me being wrong, then go on for it. I was wrong. I really thought she was going to pull it out. Yep, missed that one completely. Even if she manages to squeak by somehow, I was absolutely wrong.

  83. 83.

    Waldo

    @CaseyL: pretty much all that plus anything else he feels like doing at any given moment. A man with no self-restraint and no one to restrain him. We are fucked.

  84. 84.

    BlueDWarrior

    @Mnemosyne: Yeah, that appears to be exactly what happened. No one saw white turnout being as high as it was, and it was. Now the question is how do you deal with it going forward?

  85. 85.

    smintheus

    On the bright side, the back-yard bomb shelter business will be booming. Maybe the Trump economy can be built on that foundation.

  86. 86.

    Cermet

    I am a physicist and have been, of late, working on a new theory that explains gravity, connects it with quantum mechanics, and explains both inertia and entropy. I think I will devote myself to that work and put this whole election thing to bed. Wake me in four years. Maybe I will have worked through the general relativity tensors and get the parameters worked out by then so I will realize that, through I wasted my time, I didn’t have to noticed what happened to this country under the thugs. Gotta at least laugh. The nation has spoken.

  93. 93.

    Adam

    I’m not sure if ai’m going to far, but at what point to we talk violent resistentent. Democrtictic methonds have failed, and what choice to we have. We need more Nat Turners and John Browns when Trump wins. White america needs to die

  94. 94.

    robert thompson

    @Baud: Exactly. My parents still alive, God-fearing good people, give ya the shirt off their back if you needed it, voted for a resumption of JIM Crow now to include so many more “Others”. I am glad and I know it is a moral failing to say it, but I wish they would just pass on and stop doing anymore damage. We are back to Nixonland folks, if we had ever left.

  95. 95.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @smintheus:

    On the bright side, the back-yard bomb shelter business will be booming. Maybe the Trump economy can be built on that foundation.

    If there is an all out nuclear war, you do not want a shelter. That means instead of dying quickly you slowly starve to death.

  98. 98.

    dm

    I guess we’re spared the shitstorm that would have followed Obama (or Hillary) firing James Comey.

    And we don’t have to sit through four years of nasty faux-investigations of Hillary.

    So there’s that.

    Maybe it’s time for us blue states to start exercising states’ rights. Hell, I expect nullification is going to look pretty good in the next few years.

  100. 100.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @SenyorDave:

    If Trump got elected with his background, what could he realistically do in the future to get impeached?

    Not deliver the magic unicorn that re-slaves the blacks and drives the Hispanics back to south america.

  104. 104.

    Gin & Tonic

    Another comment, from someone who left Ukraine 5-6 years ago to live in Canada: “Once again I find myself living next door to a country that has lost its political mind.”

  106. 106.

    robert thompson

    @SenyorDave: We all know the answer. Crony capitalism in favor of his spawns enrichment. Selling the National Parks off to GOP donors, bounties on illegal Jew……pardon that Messicans and uppity Negros, continued choking reliance on fossil fuels and the list will go on. Not to mention the now very real possibity of many wars over slights and insults. The soul melts at the prospect.

  108. 108.

    smintheus

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Thus half the country will be spending like mad building themselves McBombShelters so large they’ll be able to sit inside their caves eating cheetos and watching reruns until the end days. It’ll be a HUGE boost to the economy.

  111. 111.

    MomSense

    @robert thompson:

    We are going to have to channel the Tiananmen martyrs. This is going to be ugly. He fully intends to create a deportation force and the Republicans in Congress will go along with it. I’m not kidding about becoming a ninja. I have been told many stories about being in the resistance. This is coming.

  112. 112.

    robert thompson

    I am gonna trail off here. Love to all of you. Stay strong, especially you Momsense. Going to go listen to as much Oingo Boingo as I can until the ears bleed.

  113. 113.

    Ruckus

    @? Martin:
    I live in CA and how am I protected? Half my income, SS. All my healthcare, VA. Probability of working at what I do now maybe only 3 more yrs due to health issues. Do you really think that CA will sail along just hunky dory if the federal government and those of us who depend on it, is far worse off than it is now?

  116. 116.

    robert thompson

    @MomSense: I have scenarioed much of what you are talking. I am not a survivalist. I have no illusions of surviving long and I hope that if the fall comes I can straighten my tie and go with honor. Trump has no honor. I am channeling Che.

  120. 120.

    robert thompson

    @MomSense: Indeed this. A network to get as many kids out if needed, God forbid, and recognize the signs. Complacency will not save us.

  124. 124.

    jame

    As long as there’s still futbol, and Marvel movies, I guess life is still worth living.
    This morning I was so happy, thinking tomorrow we’d have our first Madam President.
    Whatever happened there? Are that many Americans that stupid/racist/greedy?

  125. 125.

    Soylent Green

    I work in federal environmental science research, much of it on climate change. I’d say our future funding is in doubt. Hope I can make it to retirement, which is at least two years away. I will be seriously looking at whether I can move to Canada then as I don’t think my country can be saved.

  127. 127.

    Tazj

    @jame: I think many people just want a change and evangelicals and conservatives really want the Supreme Court, plus racism, xenophobia, you name it.
    I’m glad I took my kids to D.C. this summer while Obama was president.

  128. 128.

    Botsplainer

    @Ben Cisco:

    Happily, I’m far away at the moment and she can’t crow at me.

    I’m in Bonaire ?? on a dive trip. My wife went to sleep crying; every one of her European, Middle Eastern, Asian, South American and Aus/NZ suppliers have been candidly concerned for many months, and her business depends on a really decently performing stock market, as her clientele consists of people who are buying top level travel products.

    I frankly have no idea what happens to us as a couple when the Trump economy tanks and we become Putinland, ruled by decree. She has relatives in Europe and potential opportunity in Australia. I may encourage her to emigrate for the purpose of carving a safe haven for our children, but to do it soon. I suspect it will all turn bad quickly.

    I’m not having that convo this week. I’ll dive and put on a brave face, and tell her that everything will be all right and not to worry.

    It isn’t all right – it’s gonna be a total shitshow. At minimum, we both really need to leave Louisville. Kentucky now has incoming single party control – and it is an incompetent lot that makes Topeka governance look like a Mensa brain trust.

  129. 129.

    Botsplainer

    @Gin & Tonic:

    What’s the limit? I refuse to look at any news site at the moment.

    Also, Barack needs to break out that pardon pen right damned now. Bill, Hillary, Chelsea.

    He owe it to them. Fuck the hangers on.

  132. 132.

    Aunt Kathy

    Well, I was going to lose my ACA insurance anyway because I can’t afford the premium increase (even with the subsidy), so for me it’s zero sum. I knew our country was like this, but I always thought there was more of us than them. Huh.

  136. 136.

    Matt McIrvin

    @? Martin:

    Unfortunately, move to a friendly state. I say unfortunately because that will only throw the EC even more out of whack with the popular vote, making it harder for Dems to win Congress or the presidency in the future.

    That’s a good point–to what extent is this a consequence of the Big Sort, working on the electoral college?

    IIRC, during the Obama years the general opinion was that the Democrats actually got a small advantage from the EC. But that didn’t last.

  137. 137.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Aunt Kathy: There actually are more of us than them. Hillary is probably going to win the popular vote when all of California comes in. We got screwed over by the Electoral College again.

    That said, clearly something happened in the upper Midwest/Great Lakes region that was just not adequately captured by the polls, though I was talking about it as a long-term phenomenon just a little while ago. And to some extent that something probably is economic–or to the extent that it’s just raw racism, economic help might mitigate it.

    Don’t know what we do about it, though, even if we somehow get a chance to come back.

  138. 138.

    Lit3Bolt

    This wasn’t just a ballgame, we just lost it all.

    Good bye Civil Rights, SCOTUS. MI and PA stay republican until boomers die, and maybe beyond. Republicans will have complete control 2020 and beyond, and remain entrenched for all time.

    We will see race riots. There will be deaths. There is no going back to the good old days. This was it, and no more SS or Medicare or Medicaid for anyone. Roe too. Nuclear proliferation as Amercian hegemony dies. NATO dissolves when America backs out. Russia invades Eastern Europe, and President Trump tweets his approval.

    We lost, forever. America will never be liberal.

  139. 139.

    Gavin

    Democrats could have had it all – if they paid attention to their base. Bernie beats Trump every time.

  141. 141.

    Juju

    A question before you go on radio silence. Could the one thing that drives people crazy about the ACA perhaps be the one thing that saves it? Will the insurance companies and hospitals who benefit from all the new insurance customers protest having that revenue taken away and therefore help save the ACA in some way?

  142. 142.

    Bruce Baugh

    Richard: thank you very, very much for your many posts. They’ve been a real help to me. I hope the time will come when commentary like that will matter again.

Comments are closed.