I knew we’d have a constitutional crisis. I just thought it wouldn’t happen until January
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) November 9, 2016
‘Course, I have the advantage of being old, childless, and living in blue Massachusetts. Although the Spousal Unit may have to physically dissuade me from going to throw rocks at Jill Stein’s house.
Positives, to keep in mind: Tammy Duckworth will be in the Senate, and Joe Arpaio will no longer be ‘Sheriff’.
Fuck you Chief Justice Roberts
— Zeddonymous (@ZeddRebel) November 9, 2016
This is going to be terrible. OTOH there are car leases that will last longer than Trump's term. Fortitude is essential.
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) November 9, 2016
When the newscasters talk about America being more "conservative" then Democrats thought, substitute "tragically gullible."
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) November 9, 2016
ETA:
BREAKING: @RoyCooperNC spokesperson says they are hearing votes missing in Durham. There should be 135K, but they only have 55K @wcnc
— Tanya Mendis (@tanyamendis) November 9, 2016
Trentrunner
Also, Senator Kamala Harris in California.
Though I don’t imagine either party will give a woman another chance.
Alain the site fixer
ugh
Jeffro
Seconded! I would rather fight for progress but I’m up for a good fight to hold the line against evil any day.
It’s funny here I was trying to figure out what to do with my free time …
ant
trump takes the lead in pa?
unreal.
dmsilev
All right, I’m turning off the TV now. I can’t take watching the two speeches.
redshirt
Supreme Court is lost for 10-15 years minimum. And it won’t be old school SC justices, but crazy fucks.
We’ve officially entered “End of the Empire” days.
Facebones
@Trentrunner: Not for a while. Millions of Americans just picked a lying racist over a woman who spent her life helping others.
Redleg
The newscasters, for the most part, should keep their pie-holes shut after the way they disgraced their profession in covering this election. Hillary’s e-mail b.s. was their main focus, even as Trump became more unhinged as the election proceeded.
guachi
I’ve given up. We have a broken system that can’t be repaired and voters that don’t care.
Gerrymandering, the existence of the Senate, the electoral college. It’s a broken system.
Our media is broken.
Our citizenry is broken.
Our election system is broken.
seaboogie
After the awesome rallies of the last two days, I cannot begin to imagine what it going on with the Obamas at the WH, or with Hillary and her team at their hotel in NYC right now. It must be staggering.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
This morning I was feeling especially sad that my sister, a foreign service officer and longtime Hillary supporter who loved working for her, would not get to see this day. She died at age 50 late last year. Now I’m even sadder she’s not here so we could comfort each other – but it’s a tiny fragment of joy that she’ll never have to call Trump the boss.
Suzanne
@guachi: The country is broken. Done.
Keith P.
@redshirt: Yup, filibuster is a goner for sure. The only saving grace is a potential – potential – Senate takeover in 2018 before any more justices die/retire.
TaMara (HFG)
I’m broken.
patroclus
Clinton takes the lead in New Hampshire! And down to 24,000 in Michigan.
Kryptik
I’m not sure how much ‘fight’ is left. The country just screamed that ‘This is White America, and only White America’ in a far more unified voice than ever imagined. This is apparently not changing for a generation, because Trump and the GOP will have total absolute control, almost to the point where they could probably shove through constitutional amdendments all by their goddamn selves.
This is a fucking disaster for everyone, and for those of us constantly ‘otherized’ it’s a preview of what America will treat us like for at least 4 years. We are the outcasts, we are the infestation to be eradicated, and the knives are coming soon.
mkro
On the bright side, uber-progressive Dems will get a chance to run against Trump for 2nd time in 4 years, YAY!
And now Bernie Bros can try to help nominate someone who passes their progressive purity tests.
Baud
@seaboogie: Yes. I feel for them most of all.
Aside from Balloon Juice, I’m probably going to check out of civic society for a while.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
I’m out.
Adam L Silverman
@guachi: Our client, by oath, is the Constitution and through it the American people. Square it away Sailor.
Hal
guachi
I don’t mean to be Debbie Downer here. But the problems are structural deficiencies of America and Americans.
Obama was so awesome he could paper over it. But it’s like the amazing QB who hides the fact your team sucks.
Patricia Kayden
@seaboogie: Devastating. And so sad. Trump is an insult to decent people like the Obamas and the Clintons.
luc
A candidate without a message is loosing to a candidate with a message (despite it being dishonest, stupid, racist, repulsing, etc,…)
Alain the site fixer
Let’s keep in contact. Don’t lose hope, organize! We’ll still be here!
Irony Abounds
There is no sugar coating this. America is now the most powerful banana republic in the world. It is full of sexist, racist assholes who don’t have any appreciation of what truly makes America great. We may have also seen are last truly free election. Just think about the total tools that Trump will appoint to power. Just think about the voter suppression legislation that Republicans will now pass. Obamacare is dead. Roe v. Wade is dead. The budget deficit will explode as we employ Kansas policies on a nationwide basis. Think of America as one of Trump’s casinos driven to bankruptcy. This is awful. I do blame the Dems in general and the Clintons in particular, but mostly I blame the hoards of angry white people who can’t accept an America that doesn’t put them on a pedestal. Just a fucking mess and I don’t know how I’m going to function for quite some time.
redshirt
It’s times like these I remember I’m a nihilist, and I gain some small comfort.
Patricia Kayden
@mkro: Susan Sarandon must be pleased.
Mai.naem.mobile
Maybe you don’t give up. I give up. Fuck this country.
oldster
I’m gutted.
But we’ll simply have to fight harder to preserve what we can.
The arc of history just took a sharp jag away from justice.
But it is long, and in the long run it will bend toward justice once again.
gogol's wife
Is it really over?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Can’t take pleasure in this, in no small part because I think Trump will make a showy, crass gesture of forgiveness toward Ryan, who will say on, humiliated, at the behest of Wall St and the Chamber of Commerce (et al) in the belief that he/they can can tame the Beast. In the meantime, stock markets are plummeting all around the world.
AnotherBruce
@mkro: Please stop that cynical crap. Instead, let’s get organized.
guachi
@Adam L Silverman:
My EAOS is up next September. 16 years in by then and I vowed not to serve under a president Trump.
I won’t reenlist. I’ll serve because I have to.
goblue72
@mkro: Yeah because the “Berniebros” are at fault. Because the ones who pointed out the weaknesses with Clinton were wrong. The ones pointing out that the Obama Coalition doesn’t work when Obama is not running and instead a mainstream Establishment old white Boomer with far too close ties to Wall Street is running were wrong.
The ones who tooted they knew and were so sure of themselves, but are losing, are the ones who are right.
Clinton could still squeak this though, but even if she does, it will be way too close.
But, yeah please proceed.
PeakVT
@Redleg: What “profession”? The only thing that matters to the bobbleheads on tv is ratings. They’ve been pro-Trump since the beginning since he brings the ratings.
They’re going to love him for the next eight years.
seaboogie
@Baud: In my imagination, the Obamas, Clintons, Kaines and Bidens are all flipping a two-fisted bird, and saying “FINE! We tried, and you own this!”
khead
This is, at best, headed to the House. Which doesn’t help.
patroclus
Hillary needs to draw to an inside straight by mounting comebacks in New Hampshire (down by 15), Pennsylvania (down by 2000), Michigan (down by 31,000) and Wisconsin (down by 88,000). Not likely, but it’s not over.
AnotherBruce
@mkro: Please stop that cynical crap. Instead, let’s get organized.
@Mai.naem.mobile: Please stop overreaction. There is still a lot that’s great about this country. I recommend a hike from the north rim down to the Grand Canyon.
dmsilev
@gogol’s wife: Tonight? Yes, I think so. For all time, no. But the next several years (or longer, depending on how much damage gets done) Will Not Be Fun.
maryQ
I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be unemployed in about a year. Which means I’m going to his health insurance. Which means that my daughters currently easily manageable heart condition is going to quickly become unmanageable.
Suzanne
@Mai.naem.mobile: I think about the five generations of military service in my family. This is what they fought for. I’m sick.
TheBuhJaysus
DumbFuckAmerica. That’s where we are living.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
I’ve just been in a meeting with a group of charming young, female Australian lawyers, all of whom seem personally devastated that this has happened. What the fucking fuck?
Baud
@seaboogie: That’s kind of where I am. Protect our own.
Renie
I give up too. Now the next generation will have to fight the battles. I am so ashamed of this country.
Alain the site fixer
@oldster: wait till February, you’ll see GUTTED, live on TV…blood and guts and “just punishment” are next
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@goblue72: You never offered up a viable alternative– you don’t ever offer solutions, you just bitch and piss and road and lie about your “grass roots activism”. You’re an angry, self-righteous typist with delusions of being a revolutionary. You are utterly and completely useless, and a fraud.
Now fuck off, Dwight.
Cermet
Some good news about NH but without Michigan or PA, and don’t forget WI so, really doesn’t matter.
Kay
@guachi:
I sort of think so too. I think what I’m going to do now is hunker down and try to protect my immediate family from what will be near-immediate financial uncertainty and a completely non-functioning national government.
They normalized Trump’s campaign. Now they’ll normalize his government. I can’t stand the gas-lighting. I’ll lose my mind without some truth or reliable information.
Alain the site fixer
@patroclus: in final counts it might be better than you say. But it’s bad!
Jonathan Holland Becnel
Those darn Jill Stein voters gave the Presidency to Trump!
Steeplejack (phone)
@redshirt:
Trump will nominate Nazi Judge “Pepe” Dredd to the Supreme Court.
dmsilev
The Onion: “Nation’s Optimists Need To Shut The Fuck Up Right Now”
demz taters
The late, great Octavia Butler called it. President Jarett is poised to “make America great again.”
I’m literally weeping into my tumbler of Sauvignon Blanc.
patroclus
Nevada called for Clinton. 215-244 now.
BlueDWarrior
This election could be going to recounts in 3 different states. Christ almighty.
In any case we have to figure out how to solve the conundrum of the white voter or this country is going to keep whipsawing back and forth.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: Tyler is on cloud 9.
Hungry Joe
We have to come to grips with the fact that we’re going to be living in a semi-fascist state. People of color are going to take the brunt of this. I can’t even imagine the battles we’re going to have to fight to retain some semblance of freedom and equality.
goblue72
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Whatever douche. Much like Richard Mayhew, but part of my professional job that I get paid for is the public policy arena (which in a Trump Administration will basically be worthless). And my professional and personal life also involves electoral politics. So yeah, I spend a lot more daylight hours in the meatspace working on these issues than 90% of the BJ commentariat.
But console yourself in your fury if it helps you sleep at night.
Emma
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: In Florida they sure did. those votes would have changed the outcome.
Corner Stone
Fuck You Kasie Hunt.
Waldo
Abc panel in a mud fight!
Elizabelle
We must look for beauty in our lives, and look away from politics for a while.
I’m stunned. But we still have sunsets, and dogs to walk, and people to love.
I think Donald Trump just killed Thanksgiving, though. Can you imagine sitting at a table and having to swallow while in the presence of people gloating over their “victory?”
Corner Stone
YEAH BERNIE SANDERS!!
goblue72
@Hungry Joe: Pretty much. My wife is basically going to have to restrict her travel in this country to deep Blue states, and even just the blue areas of those deep blue states. Its looking like its gonna be a long 4 years.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
English major?
SenyorDave
Two questions:
1. Will our press ask about the immigration status of Melania Trump? Because it is my understanding that she is here illegally. She had 10 modeling gigs before she got her work visa, and I have read that she was allowed to be in the country but not work. If they have deportation squads they should save the time of looking for undocumented workers, and start with ones they immediately know of.
2. Will they ask about the income taxes? He promised to release them when the audit is over?
WarMunchkin
@Alain the site fixer: Organize? We’ve had one of the best fucking field, data, organizing and volunteering teams in political history and it lost through a to liar with free media.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Something to consider – Trump won by screaming “The others robbed you, BURN IT ALL DOWN” except now he is the president. He can’t burn it down.
So all the screaming mob isn’t getting their fires, and every Republican is noting scream “Burn it all down” and you win. Trump took it to 11, the next one is going to take it to 12 and so on.
raven
@Elizabelle: I’m going to the beach for 2 weeks. Unless he can fuck up the fishing it won’t ruin mine.
Scottinnj
Here’s a suggestion to the Dem party in 2020: don’t nominate a candidate with well above 55% unfavorable ratings after 20 years n the public eye. We’re the high unfavorables based upon n bull****? Of course they were but you can’t wish it away.. life isn’t fair and all that and politics ain’t beanbags
Elizabelle
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Would you go the fuck away? No one wants to hear from you tonight.
Don’t be so shabby. But just go.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@Emma:
it looks like Pennsylvania is even closer than FL.
Corner Stone
There’s no way Trump wins PA. This is pushing me into Alex Jones territory.
Waldo
Abc talking about “true immigration reform” — Jesus, dude, careful what you wish for.
Fair Economist
@Elizabelle:
That’s gonna be me, at a special Thanksgiving trip arranged by my mother. Whee!
Cermet
Hey, anyone know where I could find some russian hackers for cheap?
BillinGlendaleCA
@goblue72: You sir, are a moron.
Elizabelle
@raven: That’s good to hear. Post pics, please, when you do.
The surf, and dogs on the beach, and fish, and delicious dinners.
raven
@WarMunchkin: She was an awful candidate, you know it an I know it.
PeakVT
@Emma: No, this time they wouldn’t have. The gap is 132k, Stein total was about 63K.
There may still be blame to apportion in other states, though.
SiubhanDuinne
Well, one teeny moment of cheer for me: one of my all-time favourite historical novelists apparently follows me on FB and just “liked” one of my comments.
So perhaps life is worth living after all.
Scottinnj
@Hungry Joe: yup. Stop and frisk is now the law of the land.
Steeplejack (phone)
Michael Beschloss just pointed out on MSNBC that Trump is the first president-elect with no military experience, no elected-office experience and a historically huge lack of connections or relationships with the existing political power structure. We have elected a cipher, basically. A cipher who has shown himself to be an incompetent and a raging narcissist.
Fair Economist
@Scottinnj:
The problem is the same techniques can be used on anybody. Talk about something that isn’t a problem endlessly as a major ethical issue, call for investigations, etc. etc. You know it’s happening next time too.
jk
@guachi:
Sadly, all true. In addition, Fuck Julian Assange, James Comey, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein.
Skepticat
@guachi: And so is my heart.
SenyorDave
@Fair Economist: Repeat one thousand times, family first
Corner Stone
@SenyorDave: WTF is wrong with you?
No one is going to get close enough to ask Trump about these issues because Halperin will be on his knees in front of him.
Fair Economist
@PeakVT:
Stein’s votes wouldn’t have saved us AFAICT. The far lefties catapulting the right-wing propaganda probably hurt though.
Baud
@Fair Economist: Yeah, they tried it with Obama. They failed, but I think that’s because Obama came in with such good feelings that he was able to retain, and because he is an unique talented person.
Corner Stone
Oh, fuck. Morning Joe tomorrow. Does Mika orgasm on Joe, otherwise, or simultaneous?
gogol's wife
He cannot do the job. He simply cannot do it.
And maybe that’s the silver lining. He has the attention span of a flea.
But then I was one of the people who thought he was just running for PR purposes and would drop out during the primaries.
goblue72
@BillinGlendaleCA: yeah, because I pointed out her flaws during the primary and was called a Berniebro, rather than have the criticism of her weakness addressed. But that makes me the moron and you the genius.
Gin & Tonic
@AnotherBruce:
The only trouble with that is then you have to come back up.
(I know, I’ve done it.)
mkro
@goblue72: Well, that’s an incredible amount of historical whitewashing. Bernie bros were just “pointing out” her weaknesses, LOL! More like Bernie and his followers were storming state Democratic committee offices in NV, and claiming that Clinton was stealing the election.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
The silver lining of tonight is the clear FUCK YOU to the establishment of both parties.
Elie
@raven:
She was not. But she was a target and had a husband who was a target for 30 years. No one can take that. She is a good woman, a hard working leader who would bring us along. No way Bernie or anyone else could do better I am heart broken for my country…. heart broken
SenyorDave
@jk: Well Jill Stein got her wish. She said a Trump win would be better because a Republican congress would control his bad instincts better than a Clinton’s bad instincts. Now if only she had won, we could have had quantitative easing on student debt.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Fuck right off.
I’ll even be polite.
Please fuck the hell right off.
Juju
I guess if she doesn’t pull this off, we have to hope he’s not as batsh*t crazy as he appears to be.
goblue72
@gogol’s wife: So did Bush. He was incompetent too. Didn’t stop the GOP from running the country out of Dick Cheney’s office. And running it into the ground.
This is worse than even that. Its going to be a disaster for anyone not rich.
raven
@Elie: I disagree.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
And again I say, fuck the fuck off.
jk
@Steeplejack (phone):
Also, a man who told Chuck Todd “All I know is what I read on the Internet”.
This country is completely fucked.
Peej
The Trump Mafia is gonna have some scores to settle and Paul Ryan is prone on the massage table.
Fair Economist
@SenyorDave:
Oh, I’m pretty good at that. I’m not the only Hillary supporter in the family and the Trumplings are decent people personally.
There also might be a global market crash before then and I won’t be able to go, preventing all possible issues.
Arclite
How did the polls get it so wrong? Just people embarrassed to say they were voting for Trump?
dww44
@Elie:Thank you.
Waldo
Abc guy just compared trump to George Washington. Jeebus.
seaboogie
@Elizabelle: Boy howdy – you just nailed it!
SenyorDave
@Corner Stone: WTF is wrong with you?
I still believe in unicorns and the Easter Bunny.
But I want to see those tax returns!
Suzanne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Oh, go fuck yourself. I voted for Bernie in the primary while also stating that Clinton was a solid choice, and everyone here, even the douchebags, treated me fine. Seriously, stop whining.
FlipYrWhig
All the lefty Berniecrats need to explain why Feingold is doing worse than Clinton. untapped left enthusiasm doesn’t explain that at all.
Alain the site fixer
@WarMunchkin: that was yesterday. Tomorrow we have to work 10x harder to instill and foster tolerance, understanding, and patience with those other than our tribe. So yes, we need to start a whole new discourse and master it or our values wither. That’s where we are now.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Steeplejack (phone):
That was my dad’s point to me. And he’s going to run one of the biggest bureaucracies in the world . Even Trump’s people admit that Trump holds the only good ideas are ideas that come from Trump himself. Likely Trump won’t get much done beside attacking people on his enemies list.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@SiubhanDuinne:
That’s the same as I get every time i come here.
Amazing outcome tonight. Absolutely astounding. I thought for sure Clinton was gonna bury Trump based on all the polling!
What happened?
SiubhanDuinne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
How many times do I have to say Fuck Off?
Just — if you can’t, or won’t, fuck off, could you at least have the decency not to gloat? That is unseemly.
Baud
@Arclite: From what I can tell, the other side turns out on their own initiative. It’ll be interesting to see the analysis in the next few days, especially of those who did or did not show up on our side.
Elizabelle
@raven: Hillary is not a natural candidate. But she would have made a good president, with knowledge, preparation, and — actually — good judgment. Which is why the emails were harped upon, month after month after year.
Americans need to choose their president using their adult brain. Tonight, it is possible, they did not.
I am not going to slam Hillary. She deserved to win.
jk
@Corner Stone:
Tomorrow is a special edition of Morning Joe that will air before a live studio audience.
hovercraft
I can’t believe this is happening.
I don’t know, what to say or do.
I really feel like I want to die, how can this be America, I knew it was full of morons, but this is too much.
Gin & Tonic
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: What’s interesting is that in hyper-local races (I live in a dipshit town of about 10k people) pretty much anyone, regardless of party affiliation, who could lay a claim to being not an incumbent, won. Established, experienced people, on both the D and R side, got turfed. It was shocking.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@FlipYrWhig:
No, only the Wisconsin Berniecrats have to answer that.
Maybe we should blame who was at the top of the ticket for the lower than expected turnout.
goblue72
@FlipYrWhig: Feingold? He’s a goo-goo retread, that’s why he’s winning. The general public does give a flying fart about campaign finance reform.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Arclite: a whole lot of Hispanic voters who were classed as “unlikely voters” showed up to vote early, then an equal or slightly larger number of white people who had been classed the same way showed up on election day.
Elie
@raven:
Which part?
I am done. Ok — Bernie would have won this… sure.
I am outa here for now. I remain — heartbroken
Corner Stone
@SenyorDave: Without the Tooth Fairy…you’re done.
The Dangerman
I’ve turned off the TV; is it true that if HRC loses WI but wins the rest we are at 269-269? Now, THAT would be fun.
The House can vote for anyone they want, right? It doesn’t have to be Trump. Sure, it will be someone from their side, but at least it might be someone, ya know, not out of his fucking mind.
raven
@Elizabelle: I didn’t say she wouldn’t have made a good president I said she was a bad candidate.
Original Lee
My kids are scared. My nieces and nephews are scared. It’s a cold comfort to be able to tell them I didn’t vote for Hitler 2.0. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll have a job, as I specialize in environmental issues. Original Spouse’s job might stop existing due to his agency not being very popular. Just depressing as hell that so many people think reality TV is the way things should be.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Arclite:
That, which isn’t exactly a good sign for Trump, and likely voter models. It was also pointed out the assumptions about Latinos and Asians voting habits are overly simplistic.
Dadadadadadada
@jk: Johnson took more votes from Trump than from Clinton, I am quite sure. Stein didn’t get enough votes to make any kind of difference. Assange and Comey are the culpable ones, Comey much more so, since Assange was never under any kind of obligation to not fuck everything up.
But really, even Assange and Comey wouldn’t have mattered if our dipshit media had done its fucking job.
Juice Box
@Scottinnj: Unfortunately that means that you can’t nominate anybody with any experience. A relative unknown with Obama’s skill isn’t going to come along very often.
Emma
You know, this is a very good example why Democrats never win permanently. Republicans have factions and special interests but at the end they pull together. The Berniebros and third partyers just show up to gloat and defecate on the rest of us. Pull together? Ha! They would rather bask in their special pure light.
All I wish for you is the same I wish for those rabid racists: may you get what you have coming. Good and hard.
Mnemosyne
Folks, we can’t lie to ourselves anymore. The majority of white people in this country are still deeply, deeply racist, and they flocked to vote for the guy who ran as a white supremacist.
This isn’t “foolishness” or “gullibility.” It’s racism. We need to say what it is.
sphys
What are the things that we can do as private citizens to ameliorate the situation? Try to take positions, if possible, in whatever governmental level is available and hold the line as best we can?
SiubhanDuinne
@SenyorDave:
Will the rape trial and Trump University trial go forward as scheduled?
Corner Stone
@jk: Are you saying no money shot? Or multiple live money shots?
Adam
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: fuck you you peace of shit. Good your focused in the important issues you peace of shit. I hope you loose your heath insurance and die the most fuxking painfull death you can image fucking die
Suzanne
@FlipYrWhig: There are more stupid people than smart people.
bmoak
@Baud:
Obama also came in with a relatively low national profile and short career in national politics, so there was less to slime him with.
patroclus
Well, because the news is so bad, I’ll go from following the election to my analysis. America just had its BREXIT, only we just elected Nigel Farage and there’s no People’s Challenge lawsuit to slow it down. With a Republican Congress and a Republican USSC, we have just ceded the entire country to that party and all of their presumed policy proposals now have a good chance of being enacted. Thankfully, we’ll have the filibuster in the Senate to stop the really bad stuff, but they might even wipe that away. It’ll be their show now, and we’re mostly just observers. And the likelihood is that we won’t bounce back, what with gerrymandering and the stacked Senatorial elections in two years. I predict that there will be massive policy changes – most of them inimical to the interests of the country. For at least 4 years and maybe more. This is potentially a catastrophe for the country and the world and all we can do is watch and attempt to oppose or amend some of the most egregious stuff. And we can’t count on the media, or institutions like the FBI or the DOJ – they will probably not even listen to us.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You’re dumber than usual tonight, Dwight. Your wife leave a six pack of Schlitz in the fridge when she went out with “the girls” ?
Redleg
It’s interesting that so few of us here at Balloon Juice are suggesting the election was rigged. I am sure that if Trump was losing bigly, his supporters would be foaming at the mouths by now. Perhaps it’s that Democrats believe in the institutions of our nation while Republicants are taught to hate and distrust them.
I still find it very hard to believe the polling could be that much in error and mostly all in the same direction. That doesn’t seem like random error to me.
Adam
Damn this country to hell.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@Gin & Tonic:
The same thing happened here in LA. Boustany, the incumbent representative, didn’t even make the runoff. John Kennedy aka ASSHOLE TEA PARTY FUCKER kicked his ass.
Hopefully, Foster Campbell – the democrat/Bernie esque – can get some help from national democrats so we can flip the senate seat!
FlipYrWhig
@goblue72: Now RUSS FEINGOLD isn’t liberal enough for you motherfuckers? Holy fuck that’s absurd.
SenyorDave
@SiubhanDuinne: The rape case is dead, the complaintant dropped it. The Trum U case I assume will still go on.
JordanRules
@Mnemosyne: Yes! Say it.
We know. We already know.
TheMightyTrowel
(Am applying for Australian citizenship right now… not much better in current leadership, but feel like I need another country to have my back)
Adam L Silverman
@raven: That does not surprise me.
Corner Stone
Man, President Obama. How much rage must that human being be feeling tonight?
Dadadadadadada
@jk: I hope every single audience member brings a 10-gallon bucket of pig shit to throw.
Mnemosyne
@guachi:
As we saw today, a majority of American voters care about white supremacy. They turned out in record numbers to vote for it. They don’t give a shit about anything or anyone else.
Mai.naem.mobile
I feel like i am having an out of body nightmare experience.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@efgoldman: they certainly didn’t in LA. I was just one of 12K votes for her in LA, which went all in for Trump.
Alain the site fixer
@Redleg: it does make me wonder about hacking of voting tabulation machines. Like, what can we trust?
Juju
It feels like the end of the world. I think it’s probably the end of my health insurance.
Corner Stone
We are waiting for PA, MI and WI to call. How fucking fucked is this bullshit?
Anne Laurie
@PeakVT:
Right now, the Stein vote is just about equal to the Trump/Clinton gap in Michigan.
I take that personally.
NoraLenderbee
Among other things, this is a disaster for public lands, national parks, and public resources. Everything is going to get privatized, sold off to assholes, and torn up.
Juju
I think I’ll support Tim Kaine in four years if Hillary doesn’t pull this off.
mkro
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: On the bright side, you’ll get your chance again against Trump in 2020. Better luck next time.
PJ
@Elie: Actually, Joe Biden would have done much better than Hillary. He’s not a woman, so the misogyny wouldn’t affect him, and he doesn’t have the Clinton baggage/negatives/”scandals”. People like him much more than they do Hillary, and he’s much more of a natural politician. But he didn’t run, so that’s a moot point.
BillinGlendaleCA
@The Dangerman: Nope, it won’t go to the House. There’s a faithless elector in WA.
Mnemosyne
@goblue72:
Still waiting for you to explain how the Jewish candidate wins against the anti-Semitic white supremacist. Is it his magic peni$?
Elie
@Redleg:
I did suggest it but no one said much… the evidence — of course, would be difficult to obtain. That said, we already know that there was tampering from various sources…
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@Mnemosyne:
This.
This is the meme that will gain traction all over the country tomorrow.
Unfortunately, it’s just not true.
Trump was the protest vote against the establishment much like Brexit was a vote against TPTB/MOTU.
Tell me, why would over a million Obama voters suddenly cross over and vote for Trump?
Felonius Monk
@goblue72: Every time you type a word here you prove what a shit for brains moron you really are. Go to bed, little boy. It’s past your bedtime. No one here is interested in your horseshit.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
The term (which I just created) after Obama is blacklash.
Morzer
Democrats don’t organize effectively, they don’t fight hard enough and they think they can just coast by in local politics and it doesn’t matter that their talent pool is shriveling away. Those are the real problems, not a small group of angry Bernie bros/PUMAs etc. The brutal fact is that Clinton, well-meaning though she is, is the last fart of the corpse of the Democratic party circa 1995. That party has now died, just as the old establishment GOP has now died. It’s up to Democrats to remake their party into a going concern, if they want to compete with the horrors of Trumpism. Or they can squabble and fight among themselves and watch as a new tyranny consolidates itself in America.
MomSense
About that electoral college. If one wanted to lobby ones electors about not voting for a fraud who is a Putin puppet, how might one go about this?
Asking for a friend
Irony Abounds
I just feel awful for Obama. His legacy will be diminished greatly, his centerpiece legislation gutted, and he has to hand the keys of the White House to a complete fraud. He deserved so so much better.
mkro
@Juju: Warren for Prez in 2020
jk
@efgoldman:
Johnson and Stein may not have cost Hillary this election, but I think it’s not unreasonable for me to have less than charitable feelings towards them as this nation is on the verge of going off the cliff.
PeakVT
Really starting to think about the SCOTUS now.
Not liking the sensation.
Elie
@PJ:
Oh for Pete’s sake. Misogyny alone accounts for this? And you have no reason to be concerned about other sources/influences?
amygdala
Holy crap, this tweet from Jill Stein. That is some serious chutzpah.
gene108
How the hell did this happen. I dozed off for a bit and now Presisent Trump?
Dadadadadadada
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: If not racism, sexism. Those two together account for all the facts.
amorphous
This is what I wake up to find? Since I am stuck in Germany for the rest of my life anyway, that’s it. I give up. I’m going to work towards German citizenship and when I have it I will rescind my US citizenship. I am done with the lack of empathy and general stupidity of Americans.
goblue72
@Anne Laurie: I hate Stein, but there’s no guarantee those voters would have voted Clinton if Stein didn’t run. They could easily have just not voted. This isn’t Nader 2.0.
This is bad mojo in the U.S. sourced in racism as it meets a mediocre candidate.
BlueDWarrior
@patroclus: I would argue that you are seeing this continum in most of the big Western democracies where you have a ‘White’ nationalistic upswell that’s carrying forward nationalist conservatives and it’s causing the entire order of the last 80-90 years to become wobbly.
And it turns out America is in no way immune to that upswell, though it seems like Canada went through their’s early? Either way…
This is something that would have eventually happened, unfortunately, pendulum theory of politics and all, and we’re the ones that are getting stuck with having to muddle through it.
We will need all the good favor we can muster.
MomSense
@Redleg:
I think this is the first election since the Suoreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act and now we are seeing the consequences.
Irony Abounds
@Corner Stone: WI is clearly gone, PA is likely gone, so MI doesn’t matter.
Trentrunner
Giordano just called it for Trump.
It’s over.
The Dangerman
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Fuck. Now, THAT would be the way this shitshow should end.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Like the rantings of a silly teenager.
BlueDWarrior
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Why would an almost 70 year old Warren run for President? I’d rather see Kamala Harris run if we’re going to play that game.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
This. One billion times this.
mkro
@Irony Abounds: CFPB will be gone, Obamacare, Dodd-Frank gone, the open Supreme Court seat gone and all exec orders. Also, all agency-led efforts like EPA re:climate change and DOJ enforcing voting rights. Gone.
Anne Laurie
@Arclite:
Rove’s already been on TV bragging about voter suppression in NC. I’m guessing a combination of that, gerrymandering (NYTimes still has Clinton winning the popular vote), and the dying throes of white people born before 1950 or so.
Elizabelle
@efgoldman: Hugs, ef, to you and the marvelous Mrs. ef.
We will drink together again soon. And boy, do we have cause.
SILVER LINING PEEPS: Roy Cooper just declared victory in the North Carolina governor’s race. Please, God, let the margin hold. North Carolina needs some good news.
raven
@gene108: In Love and Death Woody asks the DI how will we know i we win? “We kill more of them, we win. They kill more of us, they win.”
JordanRules
Still super confused about this. How did this happen???
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack (phone):
But that’s okay, because he’s going to oppress all of the Others, and that’s all his voters care about.
Bobby Thomson
I fear for my special needs daughter. Hitler started with those, and Trump looks to him as a role model. That’s not hyperbole. He keeps his speeches on his bedside table for evening reading.
jk
@Corner Stone:
I thought that Mika and Joe might be a little gun shy in front of a studio audience.
@Dadadadadadada:
I second that emotion.
Gin & Tonic
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: I don’t believe you will see a woman as a major-party Presidential candidate for a generation now.
My grand-daughter is 17 months old now. Maybe when she’s eligible to vote.
Bobby Thomson
@JordanRules: White people are really fucking stupid.
BlueDWarrior
@mkro: Unfortunately in politics, sometimes the public has to stick their fork in the light socket before they will learn what electricity can do to you.
Let’s see how many volts it takes for your average voter to learn.
frosty
Childless is a good thing all of a sudden. Why did I adopt my two boys out of Chile and Bolivia and bring them to the States? (Well, yes, they’ve been much better off with us). More importantly, why don’t they have dual citizenship?????
Chile, at least, has been through and out of the fascist nightmare that we may be seeing in our future.
goblue72
@MomSense: That I would totally agree with.
caring and sensitive
I rarely comment and I live in Canada but I am sick to my stomach. Not even Reagan made me feel this bad
Waldo
@Redleg: hard to believe he’s winning but harder to believe it was rigged to this extent. The surprising results were pretty consistent demographically around the country. That would take some impressively sophisticated fixing.
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: I’m very sorry for Mrs. Efg, who I’m sure is a wonderful person, for having to deal with all this loss.
WarMunchkin
Just FYI this country is now forcing our country’s first black president to welcome the man who challenged his birthplace for years to the white house. Unsightly.
fuckwit
@redshirt: A generation. 30-40 years.
Dadadadadadada
@BlueDWarrior: The GWB disaster didn’t teach them their lesson. Therefore, they will not learn. Ever. This country is likely fucked until well after most of us have died of old age.
Bobby Thomson
@Anne Laurie:
Bullshit. White people born a lot more recently than that are every bit as racist. You don’t see that in your circle of acquaintances, I guess, but I know lots of white people, including lots of uneducated white people. I’m not surprised at all that they agree with Trump. I’m surprised that he was able to get them to vote. We are all well and truly screwed.
BillinGlendaleCA
There’s no taco truck on the corner, guess I’ll have to walk to King Taco.
Archon
It’s like Obama got the car out of the ditch, we thanked him for his hard work then we handed the keys to the same people that got us in a ditch and
chose a drunk to drive it at that.
Surreal
TriassicSands
@guachi:
If you could fix the citizenry, everything else would be manageable.
Sadly, there is no way to fix what is wrong with tens of millions of Americans. They don’t even know they have a problem. (And I’m not talking about jobs or that kind of problem.)
Now, we will have to watch as Trump and his Clown Coterie dismantle the United States. Quiet — Wrecking Crew At Work.
FlipYrWhig
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: you are fucking ridiculous.
Emma
@Morzer: And what do you bring to the table? An old-style Jewish communist with an condescending attitude and a wife hip deep in shady real estate dealings. Be still my heart.
I think whoever said it up-thread was right. Time to hunker down and protect what you have. Help your friends. Let your enemies sink in their own waste. It’s their world. Let them deal with it.
PeakVT
@JordanRules: Nobody knows yet. Crosstabs on exit polls are needed before we can say for sure. And those kinds of polls may not be all that accurate this year for all we know.
Bobby Thomson
@Dadadadadadada:
I’m really not sure I want to live with these people anymore.
PJ
@Elie: I meant that there are a lot of people who would not vote for Hillary because she is a woman and is a Clinton. There are a lot of people who can’t stand her – her unfavorables are better than Trump’s, but a 51% unfavorable rating is not good for someone running for President. Someone like Biden would not have had to deal with it. I’m sure the Republicans would have tried to tarnish him, too, but if the worst they can do is shout “plagiarism”, I don’t think it would affect anything.
demz taters
I work for a federal agency that studies the effects of climate change. I am very very afraid. As is one of my coworkers who is “republican through and through.” Not enough white wine in the world to mitigate the catastrophic sense of devastation I feel right now.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: I still say there’s a heaping helping of misogyny in there as well. When it comes down to it, plenty of people voted against The Woman.
patroclus
@BlueDWarrior: Agreed. The problem is that no one has developed an effective political counter to the conservative nationalist movement as yet. Labour is flailing in the U.K., Erdogan has oppressed the opposition in Turkey, the French Socialists seem certain to lose, Angela Merkel too. Justin Trudeau and the Canadians won’t be able to counter this all on their own. It’ll be a turbulent time. The markets will certainly tank, the economy will probably nosedive for awhile; especially if we really do start trade wars as promised. Our partnership with China seems over, our pivot to Asia is gone, NATO may not survive it. It’ll be a changed world if and when we ever regain power. And there’ll be no progressive legislation for a generation.
Elizabelle
@caring and sensitive: You got a spare bedroom?
seaboogie
@Morzer: That is absolute bullshit.
Bobby Thomson
@Archon: no, we set the car on fire and went running off into the woods with the odd looking drifter by the side of the road.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@efgoldman: And all those white retirees in FL who depend on Social Security and Medicare? Hope your fucking pleased with yourselves.
They don’t care. The GOP is always careful to start their privatization schemes to screw those under 50. I’m 49.
JordanRules
@Bobby Thomson: No doubt. But polling and all the science behind it. I’m just gobsmacked.
So many were so wrong. And the coalition, the org and the ground game were so good – 2 previous wins validate that it works. Shit. I’ll just hope we get some good post-mortems.
Dazed and confused.
GrandJury
This is the genuine decline of the American empire. This is that moment.
enplaned
Teeny-tiny silver lining department — some of the most fucked people in the country now are the “principled conservatives” — the William F. Buckley crowd. If Trump had lost there was a chance (perhaps not as big as they hoped) that such folk could help take back the GOP from the Trumpkins. The GOP is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Trump Organization and there is no room in the inn for such people. That movement is now completely destroyed – unfortunately, it served its purpose as a veneer of respectability while underneath white nationalism festered. But they may find wingnut welfare hard to come by in the next few years.
Unfortunately, I don’t think swine such as the Koch Brothers will lose much from a Trump presidency, because all you need to do is say he’s a great guy, make an under-the-table contribution somehow to the Trump family coffers, and Trump will do what they want. Though we will get some entertainment from the sight of the chieftans of the US economic class lining up to strap on their bibs and kneepads and service the great-and-powerful Trump.
NoraLenderbee
@PJ: Have you forgotten what happened the last two times Biden ran for President?
Mnemosyne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
They didn’t. The Obama voters got swamped by white Protestants who turned out in numbers they hadn’t in 2012.
You may also want to re-check the numbers from 2012. Hundreds of thousands of white voters who had voted for Obama in 2012 voted for Romney instead, which was what made that election so much closer than 2008.
White voters did this. Not Hillary, not Bernie. White voters decided that white supremacy was more important to them than anything else.
cokane
it’s over, damn
mkro
@BlueDWarrior: Yeah, I think you may be giving the average white US voter a little too much credit there …
Gin & Tonic
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Bullshit.
Bill_D
@NoraLenderbee:
Permanently. It ain’t coming back afterwards.
BlueDWarrior
@JordanRules: The polling miss is basically they could not concieve of the spike in turnout amongst White Protestants that were (if you believe them) demoralized by McCain and Romney.
That is why I said either earlier in this thread or in another thread that we’ve reset to 2000 basically.
Waldo
@Archon: Trump is going to make us nostalgic for the good old days of bush/cheney.
NotMax
@Archon
And slam the car into reverse.
PsiFighter37
We’re fucked. This is the end of America as we know it.
Miss Bianca
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: That’s even more fucking ridiculous than anything else you’ve said so far, Stultissime. “Well the silver lining is that Hitler guy sure is going to shake thing up! It’s a big rejection of both the Social Democrats *and* the Junkers!”
Putz.
Emerald
@gogol’s wife:
True, but when he steps down we get Pence, who is nearly as bad.
Although I don’t think Pence is mentally ill, so there’s that.
Dadadadadadada
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: So you voted for Stein. And you defend this decision by noting that she never had a chance. Given the opportunity to vote definitively against an orange clown who violently hates 75+% of Earth’s population, you chose not to.
Mnemosyne
@Dadadadadadada:
Both/and. But I’m not surprised that it’s the white dudes who just can’t get the concept through their heads and insist it must be something, anything else at play when white Protestant voters suddenly show up at the polls who didn’t show up in 2012.
PJ
@NoraLenderbee: Yes, in ’88 he was called a plagiarist and had a couple of brain aneurysms, and then in 2008, along with Hillary Clinton, lost in the primaries to Barack Obama, who made him his running mate.
ETA: All I’m saying is that, contrary to Elie’s statement, someone else could have been a more popular Democratic candidate.
Elizabelle
NotMax advised us that TCM was running its documentary footage of the aftermath of the JFK assassination this morning. I thought that was bizarre programming.
But, as horrible and tragic as that was, one did not wake up the next day wondering about the Supreme Court, or the massive change for the worse that might be upon us. And the media is going to tear Hillary Clinton and the Democrats to shreds. Again.
I attended that Chapel Hill staged reading of of Sinclair Lewis’s “It Can’t Happen Here” a week or two ago. Knowing chuckles in the audience at its timeliness.
PsiFighter37
@patroclus: Angela Merkel is part of a center-right party, just FYI.
The world is going to hell in a handbasket. I thought Brexit was a one-off.
fuckwit
@patroclus: I’m deeply annoyed at your attitude, but have to admit that your analysis is pretty spot-on. I don’t see any bouncing back either. The gerrymandering will continue, the SCOTUS becomes a reactionary activist Scalia-like nest for 30-40 years. Abortion gone, voting rights gone, birth control gone, same sex marriage gone, equal rights for women gone, climate change action and alternative energy gone, clean water and food gone, health care gone, DREAM gone. New wars against Iran, Syria, and who knows who else.
It’s going to be a cross between Idiocracy, the Handmaiden’s Tale, and the reign of Caligula. If we’re lucky it won’t be a repeat of the NSDAP.
Bobby Thomson
So how many hours before Trump casually throws out the N bomb? I say it’s in his victory speech. Americans obviously don’t care about overt racism anymore and he’s not getting any younger, so he can let his freak flag fly.
bmoak
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Actually, you’re completely full of shit. Podesta was talking about party internal polls, not the national public polls done by polling companies. And what Podesta was talking about was oversampling certain demographics in polling IN ADDITION TO and SEPARATE FROM the polling. If you are doing a poll of 500 people, that’s a valid poll. But if you want to use that poll to get crosstab numbers for certain demographics, such as blacks, asians, or millenials, that poll won’t have a large enough sample size to be valid, so you survey extra members of the demographic you are trying to measure.
goblue72
@JordanRules: Hillary didn’t do any better with whites – and in some white-ish counties did worse than Obama. And she needed to do as well with minority voters as Obama which was never going to happen when Obama wasn’t on the ticket. (I’m sorry but ‘ethnic’ politics applies as much to brown voters supporting one their own and Irish townies in Boston supporting one of there’s in a city council race)
She was never going to hold Obama’s nonwhite numbers (& certainly not going to do better) and she didn’t have an answer for getting back white voters.
Its sucks but its the electorate we have.
Suzanne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Now I see how Trump got elected—dumbassery is apparently infectious. FOAD, DIAF, GFY, and lots more abbreviations containing F.
Elizabelle
@PsiFighter37: You are young enough to emigrate. And skilled.
frosty
@raven:
Good for you. I’m going to work … and then to my financial advisor to figure out why I think I have to work for 3 more years.
demz taters
All the copious drinking I’m doing right now isn’t even remotely adequate as preparation for the gloating. The fucking nasty inhumane shitheels have won and there’s nothing we can do about it. Welcome to Negan’s world.
Steppan
@Emerald:
You know things are bad when you’re saying someone’s upside is “nukes come off the table.”
BethanyAnne
I’m scared, and I was wrong, and I don’t know why this happened. What I do know is that I’m seeing lots of people claiming that this is a surprise on Twitter *and* that it confirms some belief or another. That seems odd to me. About the only other thing I trust is that data I saw earlier that said that people’s preferences had really stayed steady throughout the election. That bit about when did you decide? It had like 60+% in the “by September” group, if I recall correctly.
Mnemosyne
@JordanRules:
Racist white Protestants showed up who didn’t show up in 2012.
Adam L Silverman
@Alain the site fixer: Exceedingly hard to do. They’d have to be done one at a time. Most of them aren’t networked.
Peale
@BlueDWarrior: the other side is going to be much worse, though.
Mnemosyne
I’ll give Bernie this — there really was an untapped block of white voters that no one was appealing to. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the person those voters found most appealing was an anti-Semitic white supremacist, because that’s who those voters are.
Gin & Tonic
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: A 71-year-old liberal Democratic woman from Massachusetts will be lucky to get 200 EV’s.
NR
@Mnemosyne: It’s simply clueless to blame this all on racism. For fuck’s sake, Clinton only got 80% of the black male vote, underperforming Obama substantially.
patroclus
@PsiFighter37: Yeah, but a “center-right” party that partnered with the SPD for nearly a decade in power. She’s quite vulnerable due to her refugee actions and for bailing out Greece, sort of the same things the nationalists are attacking elsewhere. They don’t view her as “center-right” – they regard her the way Trump regarded Bush.
Dadadadadadada
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Right, cuz Trump never expressed any interest in bombing ISIS.
Felonius Monk
Does anyone feel Mitt Romney’s pain tonight?
HILFY
CA polls have been closed for 2 hours. Msnbc ignores our 55 electoral votes. That is 55 +215 = 270 plus Oregon , Washington and Hawaii is at least 280 electoral votes. Hillary will surely get at least one of the 3 “too close to call” states. So more than 280 electoral votes!
WHY ARE ALL YOU PEOLE CARRYING ON AS IF HILLARY HAD LOST?
Irony Abounds
@Mnemosyne: This election is almost entirely about white privilege. You have resentful mostly uneducated white folks who don’t like “the other” and that is mainly people of color as well as women who don’t want to serve in traditional female roles. This is their revenge for Obama’s election. If they had elected a normal Republican it would be bad but not fatal. Unfortunately, they elected an utter clown, with authoritarian tendencies who will not drive the country into the ditch but over the cliff. America tonight made the decision that it is no longer a nation worthy of respect or love.
FlipYrWhig
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Trump wants to shoot Muslims with pork bullets. This antiwar thing about him is complete nonsense.
Bobby Thomson
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
The “silver lining” is that you will soon see what a crock of shit that is. You really think Mr. 3:00 Tweets is going to let a good army go to waste? Especially after he asked repeatedly in briefings why he couldn’t use nukes?
Best case scenario is we’re conquered and annexed by a relatively benign power.
oldster
I am more afraid for my country and its future right now than I was on 9/11.
That was also a punch to the gut. This is worse.
Putin has just gained a massive amount of power in the world–he may well annex the Baltic states in the next few years. His army of internet trolls have done more damage to the US than Osama Bin Laden did.
The Supreme Court is lost for the rest of my life. Obamacare is destroyed. Abortion made illegal.
Armies of anti-semites and racists have just been validated and encouraged. They’re already threatening us with the ovens. Now they will have the state’s power behind them. Breitbart is now the most powerful media company in the world.
I don’t see any silver lining.
We’ll just have to fight to hold on to some semblance of civilization in this country.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gin & Tonic: I like Warren, but I’ve always been skeptical about her potential as a GE presidential candidate. I wonder sometimes why Sherrod Brown rarely gets mentioned by the Leftier-than-thous, maybe because they haven’t been fed the name. I don’t know how well he’d do, but I think he’d be stronger, at least in a primary, than Biden ever has been, or Warren would be.
redshirt
@PsiFighter37: It is. I blame W.’s response to Al Qaeda. But like Pandora, now that she’s out of the box, good luck!
Onkel Fritze
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: You’re going to be sorely dissappointed on your siver lining #2.
cckids
@Corner Stone:
Yeah. For so many polls to be sooo wrong?? How?
Mnemosyne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Hahaha. No, Trump is going to totally reverse himself and all of his voters will talk about how trade agreements are the most awesomest agreements ever. Because they don’t actually give a shit about economics.
Hahahaha. No, there will be even more war in the Middle East, because Trump is going to cancel the agreement with Iran.
See all that stuff I posted above about those “independents” being untapped white supremacists? I know that, as a straight white man, you’re completely comfortable pushing the rest of us out of the way so you can get yours, but don’t expect any of the non-white, non-straight, non-male liberals to follow you.
Elizabelle
I am going to cancel my NY Times subscription in a few days. Once I pull down the articles I’d saved to read.
They helped elect him, with the constant harping on Hillary’s emails and unlikeability.
Who wants to read about Donald Trump? Who wants to pay to do so? Methinks Donald Trump may help mortally wound newspapers too. First he came for Thanksgiving …
Betty Cracker
@NR: Too bad you didn’t have the courage of your convictions. I could be transferring $100 to the charity of your choice tomorrow, but oh well!
Repatriated
@Redleg:
@Elie:
I have a feeling (based perhaps only on wishful thinking) that, like the warrant-less wiretappng story back in ’04, we’re going to find out a lot about Mr. Trump and the campaign that was held back by multiple sources until after the election “to avoid appearing partisan”. Again, it’s wishful thinking, but I’ll put it out here.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Redleg:
When I was driving home a while ago I thought about that. I don’t see how it could be done, especially without leaving clues, but I, too, am stunned at how bad the polling was, and almost all in the same direction.
It’s a cliché, but this really a “black swan” event.
redshirt
@oldster: Jesus Christ.
Citizen Alan
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
You’re jyst tsking so much joy in this arent you. I bet you’re typing with one hand and jacking off with the other.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: We don’t know anything about what Warren thinks about anything other than banking.
The Dangerman
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Good luck with that when ISIS does something and Trump decides to bomb the shit out of them.
fuckwit
@efgoldman: That was me. I think the Bradley was in full effect. I’ll reckon that people straight-up lied to the pollsters because they didn’t want to suffer the social judgement by admitting they were voting for a racist, incompetent, know-nothing rapist. Then they voted for him in private.
Keith G
I know this is terrible to say, but since we’ve already passed the point of absurdity, the chaos that’s going to capture the Trump regime is going to be terribly entertaining to watch even if some of the consequences are going to be purely awful.
Look at Trump’s inner circle and think of how large a collection of ego and criminal intent is resident there. I imagine the bonds of loyalty connecting them will be very short-lived. And then think of the Congress. There’s going to be a bloodletting as the Trump believers seeks to eliminate what’s left of the establishment GOP. There is going to be a lot of mess made and we’re definitely not going to like what happens to the courts during the time, but I imagine that it is likely that the rising chaos will get in the way of much of what could be called a legislative agenda.
In the end it is clear that Trump now has to deliver and it’ll be something that a president Trump will not be able to do.
Suzanne
@HILFY: The 215 number includes CA.
Bobby Thomson
@NR: as Patton Oswalt said, this election shows that Americans are even more sexist than they are racist. And they’re pretty damn racist.
jk
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
CNN has been an absolute fucking disgrace throughout this campaign and they’re an insult to journalism.
Chris
@fuckwit:
Yep.
I don’t see where the fuck we go from here. The damage they can inflict in a mere two years of total control of government is incalculable. The damage from their new supreme court justices willlast decades. I am terrified of losing my health insurance and not having an option like it for decades. God knows what other Obama accomplishments we may lose, and maybe even more, like Social Security or Medicare. And even my escape route, moving to Europe, is a false hope – the same forces are at work there.
We really are fucked, and there aren’t enough words to express how much my countrymen repel me.
Mnemosyne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
When am I going to “realize” the comforting lie that you tell yourself? The lie that let you make the lives of every non-male, non-white, non-straight person in this country harder just so you don’t have to face the racism and misogyny in your own heart?
How about never. Is “never” good for you?
Corner Stone
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Good Christ.
FlipYrWhig
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Ask Trump people whether they want to kill Muslims. The answer is not “no.”
Ben Cisco
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: I’ve officially got a target on my back and you’re talking about silver linings? FUCK. YOU.
Bobby Thomson
@Keith G:
Not a president. But what makes you think he’ll be content with that?
BlueDWarrior
@fuckwit: That and the turnout models basically trying to split the difference between 2008 and 2012 would be the things I imagined happened.
But you cannot discount the fact that Trump basically ran up the vote in so many rural and exurban counties that no one even knew there was that much vote to run up because it had been depressed for so long.
Emma
@Citizen Alan: Not possible. He’s a dickless wonder.
patroclus
@fuckwit: It’s not a very pretty picture, but it’s what we’re going to have to deal with for quite some time. If we’re lucky, Trump will be as incompetent as he is outrageous and won’t follow through on all that he’s “promised.” But his Republican allies are more into policy than he is and view him as merely the vehicle that will sign on to whatever they enact. There’ll be wars within the Republican majority and we’ll just have to ally with whatever faction will work with us – kind of like the post Civil War period when Republicans were ascendant. That lasted for almost two generations before Democrats were able to turn the tables – it’ll probably be quicker this time, but I do fear that it will last for longer than we want.
p.a.
Guess I’ll read up on Berlusconi, might be the most applicable to how this will play out. Of course, Italy isn’t Levithan. We are.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Keith G:
Yes, and in turn be under attack from the next wave for their lack of purity. Sort of like the French Revolution without the guillotines.
Corner Stone
@Keith G: The USA Is going to have Trump take the solemn oath of office by a SCOTUS judge.
That will never be wiped away. That will be us. Forever.
Emerald
@PJ: Actually I don’t think even Biden could have won, although he would have been the strongest choice.
This happened not because of anything Hillary or the Dems did. This happened because Donald Trump openly promoted racism, and the racist country went for it.
I remember during the primaries that Bernie and his supporters thought economics drove everything. Nope. Not here it doesn’t.
Here it’s all about racism, and it always has been. As we see tonight.
Suzanne
Fuck uneducated white people. Seriously. All you ever gave us was Waffle House and now Trump. Your culture sucks and I will enjoy watching you continue to suffer economically. It’ll be great. Enjoy the OxyContin and diabetes and irrelevance.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
True, misogyny hasn’t been getting enough of a discussion in this election. One of the things I was a little afraid of was that there might be a large enough group of men who were uncomfortable with a woman being in power that they would vote for Trump just so someone with a peni$ would be their president. It looks like that fear is being borne out and that it may have been enough to tilt a few crucial states towards Trump.
So let’s say racism + misogyny = President Trump.
gene108
Looking at an electoral map, we figured we’d win PA and the upper-Midwest – WI, MN, MI – which would have been a brake on Trump, even if he won FL and OH.
But it looks like PA, MI, and WI are going for Trump.
NR
@Bobby Thomson: So the Democratic party can’t fail, it can only be failed.
Keep up that attitude and this is going to repeat itself in 2020.
Miss Bianca
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: I can’t decide whether you’re actively delusional or merely playing at being delusional, but either way, your “silver lining” crap is going beyond wrong-headed into actively offensive.
Archon
I do think this debacle puts Obamas legacy in an entirely different light. I’m the biggest Obama guy in the world but even I’m asking myself, if Trump as President with radical right wingers in total control of Washington represents some white backlash to Obama that’s basically going to undo everything he has done and then some,was his Presidency worth it?
I think we have to start asking ourselves some profound questions about the meaning and unintended effects of the Obama Presidency
Corner Stone
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: I thank the good Lord I do not know where to find you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Rob Portman, Marco Rubio, Ron Johnson, Kelly Ayotte, John McCain, Richard Burr and a handful of other freshly reelected Republican Senators also think you are a very silly little person.
Huh. White voters with a college degree went back to Trump, 49-45. I guess they’re “anti-Establishment”, too.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@BlueDWarrior:
Here’s my wierd thought.
It’s a combination of vets who hate Hillary for stoping the sexism during Bill’s presidency and big time wrestling fans. Basically like Arnold when he ran for governor, Trump got elected by his fan bois.
Betty Cracker
@Citizen Alan: Yeah, all the ghouls are out tonight, secretly overjoyed that a racist, sexist, xenophobic demagogue is poised to accept the nuclear codes from Barack Obama.
John
What do you think the odds are that the orange shitbag shows up to the inauguration wearing a military uniform?
Suzanne
@BlueDWarrior: Trashy people got excited to vote for the dumpster fire! HUZZAH!
Bill_D
@efgoldman:
No, the Republicans won the Senate in the 1980 elections and held it for six more years. (Technically, the new senators didn’t take office until early January 1981 but that’s besides the point.) Plus, enough Republicans won in the House that the Republican budget plan passed the House with the support of conservative Democrats (remember the Boll Weevils?).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca: I think there’s something wrong with this one, that’s why I’m gentle.
dm
@Mnemosyne:
No, we didn’t see that, at least not if the NYT is to be believed. Hillary is winning the popular vote by a sizeable margin. Unfortunately, she’s winning 70% in New York and California, and those numbers aren’t helping her in the Electoral College.
Don’t let the myth that Trump won a majority get started.
BlueDWarrior
@Archon: So then we should have taken a chance on McCain in the throes of the financial meltdown or Romney trying to sort out the aftermath.
Sometimes the Universe doesn’t reward you for doing the thing you think is right; and something things just happen out of the clear blue.
Davis X. Machina
@efgoldman:
Not in a collapsing economy. The Great Migration had jobs at the end of the trail.
SoupCatcher
@Archon:
Just because we had a century of Jim Crow after Reconstruction, was the Civil War worth it?
If that’s not what you said, that’s what I heard.
GrandJury
Remember it’s not going to be a president Trump. Pence is going to be doing all that. Which in many ways is worse because he actually knows how to throw a fuck into gov’t. Trump is going to make G Dubya’s holiday count look like just a weekend off.
NR
@Mnemosyne: Hey, cool. The Democrats did everything perfectly and don’t need to change anything. We only lost because of racism and sexism. There was absolutely nothing we could possibly have done better in this election, or the last eight years. Good to know.
p.a.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Jesse Ventura?
Keith G
@Bobby Thomson: Pray tell, what else is there?
PsiFighter37
This is absolutely soul-crushing for me. Obama is like me – biracial, largely raised by his mother in locales that seemed foreign. To see him replaced by Trump – someone who is as unqualified as it gets, someone who is at home plate and thought he already hit a home run – that is egregious to my sensibilities. I don’t know the last time I cried this much.
I’m 30 years old, and America is probably ruined for the rest of my life by the mere fact that SCOTUS will never be controlled by liberal justices while I am alive.
Goddammit America. I thought you would get it that Obama showed that Democrats need to be in charge. Just heartbroken.
oldster
@Archon:
“if Trump as President with radical right wingers in total control of Washington represents some white backlash to Obama that’s basically going to undo everything he has done and then some,was his Presidency worth it?”
Yes, it was worth it. It kept the American idea alive for a few more years. It showed the possibilities for goodness and decency. It made a positive difference to the lives of millions of people in this country and around the world.
It’s tragic that it will all be reversed now. But goodness is always temporary. And yet good all the same.
Hill Dweller
@Archon: Obama would have won a 3rd term against any Republican that ran against him, if it was constitutionally permissible. Don’t try and pin this shit on him. The reality is he was such a good politician, it masked some of the fundamental weaknesses of the Democratic Party.
The Dangerman
@Keith G:
An HRC Presidency would have (will be? is this thing really over?) been a dull 4 years; not a single thing would have been done.
Trump will be interesting in the same way a tsunami hitting is interesting to coastal residents … but it sure as hell won’t be dull.
I’m still shocked. I thought this thing was so done when The Trumpers started knifing each other in the back several hours ago.
Mnemosyne
@BlueDWarrior:
That vote had been depressed because no one had run an openly white supremacist campaign since George Wallace.
Now we know why.
Bobby Thomson
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Now I know you’re high. He won because he promised to bomb the shit out of people. Point me to any major address in the last six months where he called for withdrawing troops from Iraq. I must have missed it in between him Monday Morning quarterbacking people about Mosul. I think we all know what Trump would do to Mosul. It’s a military strategy tested in Japan. If you think that makes him a dove, well . . . .
And I doubt the people of Europe will see Trump as a force for peace when he greenlights the invasion of Russian troops. Or that the people of Asia will when he takes Putin up on the offer that Nixon and Kissinger rejected.
WarMunchkin
And McGinty goes down too – EMILY list’s money lit on fire.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: Sexism and misogyny are just as potent and devastating as racism in this country, maybe even more so. Even lefties on this blog didn’t always agree with me on that, but I think they would now.
Women are loved in this country if they’re broodmares and fuckholes and housekeepers, preferably some combination thereof. But when we’re not, we’re the enemy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WarMunchkin: Fuck. Me.
RadioOne
Trump’s obviously going to fuck up big league as President. Maybe the midterms in 2018 might look better after two years of President Trump?
That said, I will fight the hell out for the Democrats harder than I fought for Democrats during the eight years of the Bush administration, and in the eight years of Obama. We’ve rallied in opposition before, we will do it again.
Fair Economist
@efgoldman:
No, this was a turnout election. The Trumplings were saying, more or less, who they supported, and it was reported in the polls. The misfire was that the models assumed they’d turn out like they have in past elections but they came out in huge numbers.
Ruckus
I’m just thinking of work tomorrow. I know of one fucking asshole supporter there and I suspect him to be an asshole about this. I suspect there may be others. I may not have a job tomorrow evening. I may not want that job tomorrow evening. I don’t know the questions to ask or who to ask for any answers. I have looked into living in other countries before and there actually are only a few if you don’t have citizenship or a fair bit of money up front. I don’t so I’m stuck here, like so many others. Also like so many others I am looking at healthcare as a major issue. Some on here are saying that we will be OK in CA or NY but I don’t see how we survive all that much better. Sure there will be survivors and there will be those who do very well. There always are. I don’t see how many of us can fit into that. I fear for our nation and even for the rest of the world, with a mad asshole in charge. I was hopeful this morning. I am no longer.
mkro
8 years of progress right down the drain. I’m assuming that the nuclear arms deal with Iran will get ripped up, too, right?
Mnemosyne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Wow. You really are this stupid.
Well, enjoy your tanking economy and joblessness, white boy. At least you’ll be able to tell yourself that you’re better off than the n*ggers, and that’s what’s really important to you at heart.
PsiFighter37
@mkro: Of course.
Bobby Thomson
@Keith G: Are you that unfamiliar with the disbanding of legislative bodies by a chief executive? Who’s gonna stop him? The press? His hand picked generals?
BethanyAnne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: I’m transgender. Obama was considering letting me pee in the right restroom. Mike Pence believes that “conversion therapy” can make me want to be a boy somehow. I personally feel like a target is on my back that wasn’t there yesterday.
Felonius Monk
I am willing to bet that Trump is looking at these results and thinking, even in his fevered, narcissistic mind “What the fuck did I get myself into?”.
Darkrose
@Ruckus: As far as healthcare is concerned, I think we’ll be okay in CA because with a Dem governor and legislature, they should be able to keep Covered CA going. Everything else…
Keith G
@Corner Stone: There is a whole list of awful choices made by this country that will be with us forever… and yet we keep bumbling along
Bobby Thomson
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Not war with Russia, you ninny. You still don’t get it, do you? The US is now an Axis Power.
Dadadadadadada
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: an establishment, Neoliberal, Warmongering candidate go down in flames.
In favor of a known fraud, confessed sexual assaulter, demonstrable mental defective who all but declared his desire to use nuclear weapons. Yeah, that’s a real big win for humanity.
Amanda in the South Bay
Me and my circle of friends are freaking out quite badly. Poor, LGBTQ, non white, etc. John Cole-I’m sorry a few years ago I thought you were a horrible person for making a prison rape joke.
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Ugh. I had the same thought. But at least Arnold wasn’t completely fucking batshit insane, just a fairly standard-issue corporate Republican who didn’t hate gay people, but didn’t want to let them get married. He was too moderate for California Republicans, and they hated him for it.
FlipYrWhig
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: I hope someone stabs you to death in your sleep. Tonight would be ideal.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Ghouls is the word.
I think cable TV and newspapers are the dog that just caught the car too. Do you want to watch wall to wall about Trump from here on out? Do you want to read about him?
I don’t. I will not be paying to do so, and I will avoid the mass media as much as I can. Not interested in the postmortem on this election.
I feel so badly for the Obamas, the Clintons, the Bidens, the Kaines. Everyone who tried to drag these shabby ass dinosaurs into the future.
NR
@Archon: Make no mistake–the roots of this disaster go all the way back to 2009. Obama entered office with 70%+ approval ratings, the Republican party was disgraced and in tatters, and the country was hungry for strong leadership in a new direction. Obama could have done so much more with that than he did. Instead, he went with a stimulus that even his own advisers admitted was half the size of what was needed, and then gave away a third of what was left in the form of stimulus-useless tax cuts. And he did it all to appease Republicans–who never had any intention of voting for it anyway. Combine that with killing the public option in the ACA, and you had an economy that was not recovering as fast as it should have plus depressed turnout in the Democratic base for 2010. That handed so much power to the Republicans that any hope of accomplishing anything significant for the next six years was dead, despite Obama’s re-election. It created the image of an ineffective Washington that couldn’t or wouldn’t address the concerns of everyday Americans. And Trump capitalized on that.
There are plenty of people to blame for this disaster, but you can lay a lot of it at Obama’s feet.
MomSense
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
You have some fucking nerve coming here with that bullshit. You don’t know the first thing about trade policy or economics you sniveling little shit. That has nothing to do with the fact that America voted for the man endorsed by the motherfucking kkk.
Emma
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: you have the morals of an adder and the self-control of a rabid racoon. Pro tip: try not to bite your own tongue.
mkro
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: The war w/Iran will come first, soon as the nuclear weapons deal w/Iran is ripped up
Chris
@RadioOne:
Maybe 2018 will be better, but remember- vote suppression.
reality-based (the original, not the troll)
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
DIAF
GrandJury
@mkro: It depends what one of his most trusted advisors (Manafort) tells him Putin wants to do. I really do believe he will be a puppet to Putin. He really will have no idea what he is doing. At least there is the Senate and Congress for checks and balances. They are are crazy Republican fucks too but many are also hawks. Can’t see John McCain going along with any of it.
Dadadadadadada
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: At least Clinton wanted to stand up to Russia, rather than openly preferring Putin to Obama as a certain other candidate recently did.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@efgoldman: He pulled mostly from Trump. Without him, Trump’s lead would be larger.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
What’s your explanation for white Protestants showing up in unprecedented numbers for the openly white supremacist candidate? Just a weird co-inkydink?
Bobby Thomson
@mkro:
It will become inoperative after Trump destroys Teheran with “special weapons.” And, hey, when an East Coast city is destroyed by a retaliatory suitcase, that’s guaranteed vote suppression, right? Win-win!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: @Mnemosyne: I hadn’t thought of it, but there are a lot of similarities in their appeal– simplistic “get tough, shake things up, get things done”. Same can be said of Perot, who was fortunately third party and nuts, Reagan, too. Sanders offered a similar simplistic plan from the left.
reality-based (the original, not the troll)
oh, and hey – A suggestion for PBO – if this shitshow holds up – why not fire James Comey tomorrow? Just for fun. Lord know, he has it coming!
Splitting Image
Pennsylvania has been called for Trump. That’s the ball game, unfortunately.
Brexit 2: Electric Bugaloo. That may have been the only thing Trump said during the campaign that turned out to be right.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@mkro:
Now an’t the million dollar question – Trump’s bud Putin doesn’t want us dumping on Iran, Trump’s racists base wants the Jews killed, but then there are those Jewish voters…
Aussie Sheila
@patroclus:
Word. There is a democratic crisis in all the so called ‘advanced democracies’. So far, the left and centre left has shown themselves to be singularly unable to deal with it.
I’m not gloating here- far from it. This is serious and terrible stuff.
I am so sorry for everybody in the US whose lives will be made even worse by this terrible result, and for the rest of the world as well.
Take care all.
Calming Influence
Fuck Yeats. Every fucking Trump-voting dickhead with a smirk on his face tomorrow is going to get this from me: “You like Saturday’s and Sunday’s off, the legal 40 hour work week? Fuck you, I hope you lose it. Social Security, Medicare? Fuck you. Make a replacement with Republicans if you think you can. if you think can. You can’t run a country with a policy of hate for very long without going to war. So go yourself this time, or send your kids. And fuck you.”
Darkrose
@Chris: And with a Trump-appointed justice to replace Scalia, there’s no change the voter suppression will be slowed.
Bobby Thomson
@mkro: no, sequencing. Remember, Trump is all about surprise. First the very one-sided war, then the ripping up. We’ve elected a war criminal.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
Right this very minute, I wish I were getting shitfaced with Margaret Atwood.
Corner Stone
@Keith G: Sure, sure. We have not yet moved past this country;s original sin of slavery. Granted!
But now, in the year 2016. We stick a hot fucking branding iron on our foreheads with the word TRUMP.
No sir. Fuck you if you think it’s equivalent.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NR: Oh, you dumb little fuck. As confused about Constitutional procedure as ever.
Fair Economist
@patroclus:
This is how we need to act, but it’s going to be hard with the purity ponies. We’ll have to make big, painful sacrifices on important issues – income inequality, climate change, abortion rights – where we’ll have to support our potential allies’ goals to get them to support ours. Honestly, when people freak out about a milquetoast speech to Goldman Sachs, I don’t know how we’ll get them to sign on to privatizing Social Security or some similar monstrosity we’ll have to do to forge the alliance.
Betty Cracker
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Contradictions heightened, asshole. May you experience the consequences vividly and repeatedly.
NR
@Mnemosyne: What’s your explanation for millions of voters in the Rust Belt who voted for Obama twice switching their votes to Trump? They just forgot they were racists for the last eight years?
caring and sensitive
@Elizabelle:
As I said to my daughter tonight, our housing prices are going to go through the roof with the influx of you guys coming up here. (She tells me the Canadian immigration website crashed tonight)
CindyH
@Mnemosyne: exactly – this is the whole truth, nothing but the truth
NR
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The Dems had a 60 vote Senate, but they didn’t even need that. They could have done away with the filibuster at any time. If you don’t believe me, see how long it lasts in 2017.
crawdad
I know this is an unpopular opinion around here but Hillary was a really bad candidate. This was also a GOP year.
Dadadadadadada
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Who called an African-American “my African-American”? Who ordered his goons to beat up a black man who had shown up to SUPPORT Trump? Who made birtherism a thing? Who called Mexicans rapists? Who wants to bar all Muslims from entering the country? I could go on and on. It is FUCKING ridiculous to claim that HRC’s race record is worse than Trump’s.
GrandJury
The guy loves Putin, no major newspaper endorsements, no clue what he is doing, people from all levels of gov’t on the right and left saying don’t vote for him. It happened. Maybe we need a miliary coup now. Not even out of the question when you have people in all levels of the gov’t and military against him.
This really is banana republic type shit. Unbelievable.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yes, and it both cases they were ineffectual, irritating but survivable. And Arnold was followed by the Brown and the collapse of the Cal GOP.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yes. that’s how all those Rust Belt whites and southerners would’ve reacted to “I’m going to raise your taxes, for your own good!” “Hear that, Vern, that funny little feller from Seinfeld wants to give us more power!”
Juju
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: it turns out you were more right than I ever thought you’d be, but rather than gloating can you think about how this is going to hurt people? I know three people in my circle of friends in addition to myself who will lose their health insurance. This is not funny to me. I get a specific type of migraine that has a %95 chance of leading to a stroke. I felt a bit safer about that just yesterday. I was making more money and coming closer to a better income and I had saved enough money to think about some things. Have a little empathy for your fellow human beings. I can’t fathom taking pleasure in this situation.
gene108
@RadioOne:
Trump’s screw ups will not manifest, until a second term. It takes a few years for major legislation to wind go into effect, even repealing laws.
I do not see 2018 being a good year for Democrats.
Assuming Republicans gut Obamacare, healthcare reform is dead for another generation, while millions more Americans die for lack of coverage.
Fair Economist
@efgoldman:
I don’t think Johnson made much of a difference. The polling indicated his supporters were about 50/50 in which major candidate they’d support. It’s not like Stein who was mostly drawing Hillary supporters.
goblue72
@mkro: Give me a break. We aren’t going to escape from this hole by running another old Boomer. The Boomers voted and they voted for their candidate – the Republican one.
Reloading the Democratic Party to relevance is going to mean running Gen X and Millenial candidates.
Lizzy L
@Chris: At least for now, Trump is not going to touch Social Security or Medicare; many of his most fervent supporters depend on those programs. He doesn’t need to. But I think this is right:
And more wars.
NR
@crawdad:
You don’t say!
CindyH
@Baud: Obama was encouraged to run especially because he had little experience, so that he wouldn’t have “baggage” – anyone who has served for a while is going to have more to feed their opponent.
Mnemosyne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
You were wrong about three out of four. But I guess George W Bush has vanished so far down the memory hole that you now think that Obama was the one who invaded Iraq.
ETA: Pop quiz — who signed TARP?
Dadadadadadada
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: The neocons endorsed HRC because Trump was TOO FUCKING CRAZY EVEN FOR THEM! And now we’re stuck with him, and I hope you are fucking happy.
Actually, no, I hope you are miserable. I hope every single disaster that the Trump Imperium incurs falls specifically on you personally. You own this. It is yours. You got what you wanted, many congratulations to you. Now FUCK OFF!
Juju
@gene108: I will be one of them.
Corner Stone
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: You are about 6 hours away by car. I love LA. Let’s get together soon, amigo!
frosty
@Redleg:
As others have said, the polling was probably OK, but the turnout model was wrong. More white maybe 1st time voters than predicted, and voila, you have a result that wasn’t predicted.
A day or two ago we were thinking the same thing re: the Latino vote.
goblue72
@Lizzy L: He will attempt to privatize it and will exclude those 55 and older or something like that. Just watch. Its already in the GOP playbook.
Ruckus
@Darkrose:
I’m in the VA system. It’s that or Medicare.
You see either of those existing in 2 yrs?
If I can’t work my income is all SS. And it isn’t enough to live in CA.
You see that existing in 2 yrs?
Now do the multiplication. That’s a lot of people fucked and don’t care what state they live in.
Boussinesque
I had a technical phone interview scheduled for tomorrow morning. Kind of struggling to see the point now, thinking of all my friends and fellow Americans who will no longer feel safe, all the damage this is going to do. I don’t want to cede the country to the bigots, but I don’t know what I can do, personally, to help change things.
Hill Dweller
@NR: They had to have Republican votes in the Senate, because there wasn’t 60 votes in the Dem caucus to break the Republican filibuster. Consequently, Obama to craft a stimulus that could get Collins, Snow, Nelson, etc. vote. When they went to conference with the House, the Republicans and Blue Dogs demanded reducing the size so they could look fiscally responsible. How do you not know this? The same thing goes for healthcare. Pelosi couldn’t get a public option through the House, but we’re supposed to believe Obama had 60 votes in the Senate.
Mnemosyne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
And she was friends with Robert Byrd, too!
Try not to tip your hand so much, sweetie-lumpkins. Your white hood is showing again.
Death Panel Truck
@AnotherBruce:
Better do it soon before Trump privatizes “Trump Canyon.”™
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Well, yes, Tiger, But they didn’t want to. Just like they didn’t want to pass a trillion dollar Stimulus, a public option, or any kind of truth and reconciliation commission on Iraq. You still can’t get through your little peanut head that Mary Landrieu, Joe Lieberman and Mark Pryor weren’t horrified by Barack Obama’s centrism.
for about six weeks, and see the above names, And I could add ten more. You cement-headed little fuckwit.
Dadadadadadada
@SiubhanDuinne: A whole lot of people owe Margaret Atwood some very nice apologies right now. She said it would happen here, and she was right, and they/we didn’t believe her.
redshirt
In order to not collapse into despair, I’m going to pretend Trump
is actually a drug fueled party animal, who just wants to snort coke and touch broads.
As so, he’ll just party, and his Administration simply consists of a clean up crew.
Chris
@Darkrose:
Nope.
There really is no understating the magnitude of this disaster.
Cain
@gene108: That’s okay it will likely be all all baby boomers and people like me, GenXers. Once we get rid of those assholes, we will be a lot better off. But clearly, the Millennials didn’t bring anything to the mix. Cowards.
CindyH
@Baud: Obama was encouraged to run especially because he had little experience, so that he wouldn’t have “baggage” – anyone who has served for a while is going to have more to feed their [email protected]goblue72: like who? Genx and millenials aren’t offering candidates
SiubhanDuinne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Obnoxious and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
NR
@Hill Dweller: Oh, believe me, I give the feckless Dems in Congress their fair share of the blame, too. But Obama bent over backwards to appease Republicans for his first two years, and the Democratic party paid a heavy price for it. And it culminated in what happened tonight.
goblue72
@frosty: By exit polls, Trump got 29% of Latino vote. That is compared to Romney who got 27%. Chew on that bit of complete suckitude.
I need a drink.
Peale
Well heading over to Kos, I see that the meltdown is quite positive this cycle. Yeah, it’s a replay of the primary, but it isn’t a wholeale desicusdion of breaking up like it was in 2004. No one is talking about throwing out the gays like they did then. And no one is wishing we were less diverse. No kicking out the Mexicans to score a few votes.
That’s not bad. I do think the national Dems will need to be refreshed. Someone has to become the faces of the party to give us some hope. I don’t think that should be too much too add. People are confused because of polls, and this is just a shocking loss. But I don’t see a civil war building here. But the Democrats need something new.
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: I did vow not to do any firing squad told ya sos if we lost. I don’t really want to. But I do look forward to mocking you pseudo peaceniks and your ridiculous hope that Trump is somehow the peaceful alternative and Clinton was just going to invite all these neocons in. I won’t blame you for costing us the election, but man, you are gonna be very disappointed.
Steve in the ATL
Good god. The planet, not just the US, is fucked, and our safe place here is overrun with purity trolls with a trump-esque understanding of the real world. LGM is even worse with smug purity pony blog hosts and their fanbois.
Campus security at my daughter’s college told the students to stay in the dorms for their own safety.
So fuck you, republican voters. And fuck you allegedly left wing purity ponies. This shit is going to have real consequences for a lot of people.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@dm:
Not to mention when you think about it, it’s clear even the people who voted for him get he sucks bottom big time if they were to embarrassed to admit they were voting for him.
Look, the Trump supporter at work (one of the few apparently in Cal) said he wanted Trump simply because we had a Democrat, now time for a Republican.
danielx
Coming right up: Rudy Guiliani for Attorney General.
Betty Cracker
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
And the possibility of that scenario playing out on a national stage is the only real silver lining in this nuclear mushroom cloud.
frosty
@Keith G:
Sigh. I was hoping I’d quit reading political blogs 3 hours a day and get back to Real Life.
cokane
@goblue72: I’m one of the oldest millenials and 34… millenials arent old enough to be president — LITERALLY
jonas
Some lessons: A massive GOTV ground game doesn’t always swing and election.
Polls massively underestimated groups that would turn out for Trump.
Racism, sexism, and xenophobia are huge electoral winners.
The electorate is apparently willing to go ahead and just chop its balls off to prove how angry it is with “the establishment”.
I’m aghast that this country was capable of this. But here we are. God help us all.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@goblue72:
Cubans still butt hurt over that kid Bill Clinton sent back to his father?
NR
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And now here we are.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
They had already started switching in 2012 — look it up. Trump was the white guy who told them what they wanted to hear: Your continuing problems aren’t because of Republicans, it’s because Those People keep holding you back. And they bought it.
The Republican governor of Michigan allowed children to be poisoned by lead thanks to his administration’s mismanagement, and the people of that state still voted for Trump.
Cain
@mkro: Likely it is not possible for Hillary to run again… I think she has fucked her chances. We are going to have to find someone else.
Micheline
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: You really don’t know what you are talking about. Minorities turned but so did a lot white people. In Fla. Hillary beat Trump in early voting but on election day she got killed in the panhandle.
Keith G
@Bobby Thomson: That will happen just a few days after the flying saucers from Mars land.
Darkrose
@Ruckus: I don’t know. I’m trying to keep myself from downing the rest of my anti-anxiety meds.
Irony Abounds
@Hill Dweller: In one sense Obama was so good he obscured the fact that the Dems really had a very weak bench for a successor. I know the HiIlBots hate to admit it but HRC was simply a terrible candidate, no matter how qualified she might be, and when her chief opposition is some old socialist who wasn’t even a Democrat and he did so well it becomes clear just how weak she was and the Dems are. Warren would have destroyed Trump because she does have enough populist appeal to strip off the portion of dumb white fucks who aren’t simply bigots. But, it matter not, she was the candidate and now we have President Trump. Anyone who thinks the country can survive unscathed is delusional.
Elizabelle
If Trump is elected, he is theirs. He is not my president. He won’t have my interests in mind, nor will any of the corrupt and inept appointees.
He is theirs. They get what they elected, good and hard. Regrettably, so do many of us. But they did this.
Juju
@Betty Cracker: it’s a thought that might get me through the night.
Steppan
@Steve in the ATL:
LGM’s frontpagers are fine, but holy crap are the purity trolls out in FORCE. Maybe it’ll clear up tomorrow.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NR: so you finally understand that your eight years of tantruming about Obama was divorced from reality? Hallelujah! Hillary didn’t crack the glass ceiling, but I made a dent in NR’s marble skull
CarolDuhart2
I’m pulling the trigger for my retirement. It will be way less than I thought it could be, but I can’t afford to wait and see what Congress does with my SS and Federal pension. I’ve been googling Costa Rica tonight and wonder how I can afford to make the transition to a new world. I so want to get away from an America with Donald Trump as President.
Chris
@Lizzy L:
Trump has no one to work with but highly ideologically polarized Republicans, and what he doesn’t think of touching, they will.
cokane
Also Sanders supporters coming in to neener neener should shut the fuck up
1. then your candidate should have won more votes in the primary
2. so easy to write the election fanfiction where your boy wins, so much harder when his whole life becomes an open book for the whole country
there’s no guarantees sanders woulda won, matchup polling had both creaming trump back in the day.
frosty
@BlueDWarrior:
The South PA polling station I watched today hit their all time record: 78% turnout. It is not, sad to day, a majority D area.
Emerald
@Elizabelle:
Oh those will be the first things to go. He has to control the media, all of it.
I’d feel a bit of schadenfreude about the Jeff Zuckers of the world except that I know Zucker and his ilk will happily adjust their “news” to whatever The Leader wants.
Probably starting tomorrow.
fuckwit
@p.a.: Yes! Troll is more like Berlusconi, that ciuco.
A rich, egotistical, sexist, racist, spoiled, enitled, incompetent ass-clown.
NR
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Um, you were the one agreeing with me, not the other way around.
Keith G
@Cain: hell yeah we have to find somebody else.
goblue72
@cokane: I’m talking more generally in terms of the party as whole – House, Senate, and state level. Obama was a young Boomer but he presented as being more in tune culturally with the younger generations. We need that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Compared to whom? Her husband and Obama? Sure. Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale, O’Malley, Sanders, Chris Dodd, Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt….?
I think she was a mediocre candidate in exceptionally bad circumstances.
Mnemosyne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Funny, that’s what the KPD thought, too. I guess now we get to watch history repeat itself, complete with the same clueless assholes who wouldn’t know what a strategy was if it bit them in the ass.
enplaned
@NR: More directly than that, Obama was clearly part of the Democratic establishment that greased the skids for Hillary this year.
2016 is about the failure of the elites coming home to roost, in both Europe and the US, over both short and long terms. The long-term is things like NAFTA that increased our national wealth, but tipped it way over to the rich and screwed a lot of poor/lower middle class. Free trade agreements (and other forms of deregulation) are good because they increase national wealth, but the elites never bothered (or wanted to) put in measures to ensure the lower 40-60% got part of the increase — and indeed, many of them got a big decrease instead. In Europe the long term includes things like EU economic mismanagement after 2008 — a big contribution to Brexit.
The short-term includes the Democratic establishment feeding us a warmed-over leftover from the 1990s in a year when the US population was aching for something new, given all the long-term failures of the elites (example above). Trump nailed it with things like NAFTA — and Hillary had inadequate answers and even if she’d had good ones, she was about the least credible person (other than B. Clinton himself) to deliver them.
Well, in the tiny silver lining dept, it may be that Obama will be a lot more open about what happened in his memoirs, now that he won’t have to protect the presidency of Hillary Clinton.
NoraLenderbee
@Felonius Monk: Yes indeed.
FlipYrWhig
MSNBC pollster says that 23% of voters who said Obama wasn’t liberal ENOUGH voted for Trump.
frosty
@Suzanne:
This. Sadly, this.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NR: No, Dummy, you blamed the size of the Stimulus and the lack of Public Option on Obama in spite of “our” “sixty votes”. And you’re still too stupid and/or too lazy to do a google search on that whole super majority thing.
NR
@Mnemosyne: So Trump just waved a magic wand and turned millions of people into racists. Or they were always racists, but just got amnesia when they walked into the voting booth and voted for Obama.
Yeah, it must be one of those things. It can’t possibly be that economics has been destroying whole communities in the Rust Belt for years now or anything.
Hill Dweller
@NR: Bullshit. It was Dems in the Senate that slow walked healthcare. Baucus gave Grassley and the other Republicans on the finance committee equal say in the legislation, which resulted in them voting against it anyway. The state aid in the stimulus,which was supposed to stop teachers being laid off, was used by Republican governors to balance the budget. Austerity on the state level was by far the biggest drag on economic growth in Obama’s first term. And the austerity was intentionally done to cripple Obama. It astonishes me that after 8 years of Republican pursuing a blatant nullification strategy against Obama you want to blame him for tonight.
danielx
Trying to find a silver lining in this, and I can’t. Trump running the country into a ditch in six months – hell, six weeks – doesn’t strike me as a Good Thing, considering the number of people who are going to get hurt in the process. On the other hand, at this point I do not care.
They’ve got their victory, now let them choke on it.
cmorenc
This feels like I headed out with my pals at 7:30pm EST joyfully headed to a party to celebrate something big but a horrible life-changing fatal car crash along the way turned the evening into a nightmare wake for all our progressive dreams killed in the crash.
Of course the biggest nightmare is that at least for the moment, fools, knaves, xenophobic racists and misogynists (together with just-enough female enablers) are a majority in this country.
NR
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ve consistently said that Congressional Dems bear a large share of the blame for that, too.
The Dangerman
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I’m guessing that a lot of Hispanic Citizens think getting rid of the illegals (i.e., Trump’s Wet Dream) will be good for them (other than having to dodge Trump’s Deportation Force). Eliminates competition for jobs.
Juju
@FlipYrWhig: Holy cow!! That can’t be right? Perhaps these people didn’t know how to read or think or tie their shoes.
Steppan
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Dude, I’m a powerlurker both places.
But fuck off.
patroclus
@Fair Economist: Therein lies the problem. The purity ponies, if their behavior tonight is any indication, are far more interested in picking fights with fellow Democrats than in doing anything else. That’s what has happened in the U.K. and in other countries where the nationalists have taken over. That will, in effect, split the opposition and hinder our ability to bounce back for awhile. Eventually they will realize that we aren’t the enemy, but that will take years and multiple defeats to take effect. We are in for a long dark period of splintered opposition and, presently, I don’t see a way out of it.
Lytic
Long time lurker here. Feeling very naive about my optimism of our values in this country. I voted but am left with the feeling I could have done more. Never again will I take the sidelines.
fuckwit
@Keith G: That’s a very privileged position to take.
Maybe since I’m a white, college-educated, middle-aged straight man I could just consider this all a big comedy show, but I can’t, because I care about people who aren’t in such a privileged position.
If you’re black, Latino, female, LBGTQ, young, or an immigrant, you’re fucked. This is no joke for them, so it’s no joke for me either.
Dadadadadadada
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: The Establishment is well on the record in support of racial equity and so on. (See the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Fair Housing Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, etc.) Being hateful on ID politics is entirely consistent with flipping off the Establishment.
NR
@enplaned: Yep. Just like Brexit was a no-confidence vote in the political establishment and system from British voters, so too is Trump a no-confidence vote in the American political establishment and system.
Of course, people just voted to make their lives worse, not better–but they won’t figure that out until it’s too late.
Juju
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Sweetie, if Obama had tried for single payer, we wouldn’t have even had the ACA, and I say that as someone who desperately wanted single payer or the public option if not single payer.
Lizzy L
@goblue72: He won’t, but the Republicans who now OWN the government of this country will send him a bill doing just that, and he’ll sign it, because boring.
Mnemosyne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
You had a choice between Brussels sprouts and broken glass. You are now chewing on the broken glass making “yummy” sounds and completely convinced that it’s just as nutritious.
Everyone told me that Millennials were clueless idiots who didn’t understand how the world works. I didn’t believe that until today. But you will learn, just like I Iearned in 2000, that a protest vote just means that you got the even worse guy elected when you could have tried to stop it and now you have to live with it.
FlipYrWhig
@Juju: That’s the “Bernie or Trump” crowd.
Juju
I guess we are all Kentucky now.
Fair Economist
@Micheline:
She actually did relatively well in most cities, beating Obama even in places like Jacksonville. The problem was the rural and exurban vote, which turned out far more than it has in the past.
Divf
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: give the name of one senator that would have brought over to make up for Lieberman walking.
NR
@Hill Dweller: Senate Dems shit the bed on health care to be sure. But Obama went out of his way to embrace and include insurance companies and Republicans, and exclude progressive voices, from the reform process every step of the way.
For fuck’s sake, Chuck Grassley said “This health insurance reform bill is going to pull the plug on Grandma,” and just a couple of days later Obama praised him and said he was negotiating in good faith. If he’d been willing to take it to the Republicans from the get-go, things might have gone very differently. But we’ll never know for sure.
Juju
@FlipYrWhig: I know. I just find it hard that people can be that stupid and still figure out how to use a door knob.
Hill Dweller
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Pelosi, who sure as hell knew how to get her caucus to vote, couldn’t get a public option through the House. How in the hell does Obama get single-payer through congress?
Mnemosyne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Yes, the Democratic Party should be punching black people, Mexicans, Muslims, gay people, and women instead!
Again, you need to tuck that corner of your white hood back in. It popped back out.
Ruckus
@Darkrose:
I can’t eat. I should be going to bed so I can get up in the morn and go to work. Sleep? What the hell is that?
Don’t take the meds. If there is one thing I’ve learned in the almost 7 decades I’ve been doing this, the sun will come up tomorrow. The snow will fall, the rain will be wet. None of that may be where we need it, how much we need or where we want it but it will still happen. Many of us will get through this, many won’t. I’m going to do my damndest to try and be one of them, if for no other reason, I don’t want the bastards to win. Someone mentioned Thanksgiving. I’m going to see my friends up north, 2 lesbians and I’m sure several of their gay friends as usual. Been going for a few years now and I’m almost always the only straight person in the room. I’m not expecting a great time this year. I was.
Suzanne
@frosty: I have tried hard to save them from themselves, but they want to die in wars and pollute where they live and have a crappy economy. I will enjoy watching uneducated white people continue to slide into misery. I will also let them know that they deserve it, should they mention that they voted for the fucker.
sukabi
@danielx: would it be wrong to hope his victory dance includes copious amount of blow…enough to stroke him out…not that pence would be any better….ugh
Micheline
@Fair Economist: Agreed, but those votes occurred on election day.
FlipYrWhig
@Juju: Some of the people that dim and obnoxious decided to come here tonight!
SiubhanDuinne
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Here’s a cookie.
Now fuck right the fuck off.
danielx
November 9, 2016 – 78th anniversary of Kristallnacht.
Lizzy L
@fuckwit: If you’re old, sick, and poor, or any combination of those, you’re fucked, too. I assume you know what the stock markets are doing tonight.
Repatriated
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And worth noting on the Stimulus: it wouldn’t be known for another two years that the 2008 crash was half again as severe as it actually was. Economic models were using assumptions from the boom years, and thus were significantly optimistic; only when the actual data came in and replaced the mistaken assumptions was it clear how optimistic the projections were at the time it was passed.
It was sized to buffer — not reverse, because there wasn’t the political will to spend enough to do that — a collapse that was half again the size it was pitted against. It was forecast to keep the unemployment rate below 8% (a half-percent increase over what they thought it was), but as it was passed in 2009 the unemployment rate was actually 8.5% and climbing to a 10.1% peak.
Botsplainer
@FlipYrWhig:
Seconded.
Peale
@The Dangerman: we’ll have to see how it breaks down. But we may have reached the limit of what can be expected from Latino voters. 70/30 may be the maximum. I was hoping for 80/20. But there you have it. Latino voters might not care about the immigration issue for a lot of reasons, including that they are citizens already and may not be in the same class as maids, gardeners and casino workers. They may not be motivated to vote against a wall because they didn’t really come here that way and are put off by being treated like they all are all different varieties of Mexicans.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Heh. I got the TBogg Unit.
Wish it hadn’t been wasted on a fucking deluded stupid sniveling wanker.
Sab
I hate men after tonight.
Hill Dweller
@NR: Obama had to work with the insurance companies. How else was he getting legislation through congress? Again, a public option wasn’t happening. They couldn’t’ even get the Medicare age lowered to 55. Explain to me how he gets anything passed without insurance companies at let holding their fire? At the end of the day, Dems got the ACA(and the student loan reform) through the Senate using reconciliation. The Republicans went absolutely batshit crazy over that move. The revisionist history about Obama coddling Republicans is horse shit. As Obama said, he knew early on, when they filibustered the stimulus, that they weren’t going to work with him. But Obama still had to publicly go through the motions, because he knew the press would blame him for not reaching across the aisle.
Juju
@FlipYrWhig: I need a hug and a dog. Can you give me a hug?
frosty
@PsiFighter37:
Me too, not bi-racial, family can trace its immigration to 1655, raised in NY PA and MD, way over 30 years old, read “It Can’t Happen Here” in high school, and I’m gobsmacked that it’s happening here.
Yeah, the America I thought I lived in is probably ruined for the rest of my life too.
ETA: frosty +6 and counting
danielx
https://twitter.com/rudepundit/status/796223220558995456
Mnemosyne
@NR:
He blew a racist whistle and people showed up who hadn’t shown up in the last election.
Or they got angry that Obama was not the Magic Negro they had elected, and he kept talking about police shootings like those fucking thugs didn’t deserve to be shot in the street. Or they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a woman, because they’re more misogynist than racist.
I realize you don’t understand how many white Americans are knee-jerk racists because you don’t want to look into yourself and see it there, but it’s there. It was implanted in all of us, and none of us are immune.
Juju
@Sab: I hate some men, also some women. Men didn’t do it all by themselves. I guess Bill Maher was right. Also, as I said before, we are all Kentucky now.
Botsplainer
@Repatriated:
I’m now thinking he shouldn’t have bothered with the stimulus, given how the rust belt rewarded it.
dogwood
Can we stop re-litigating the ACA. The NR’s and the JHB’s aren’t ever going to be swayed by facts.
Tazj
@Ruckus: I can’t sleep either and like most people I have to get up early in the morning. I’ll have to put on my happy face for my kids. I’ll try to take Al Giordano’s advice and keep quiet, don’t say or do anything stupid. This will be difficult. I’m sure my 2 evangelical sisters are thrilled with having a Pence presidency.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne: You are 100% right about the preening moron you were addressing, of course. But I’ve got to stick up for other millennials, like the three college students who watched the returns with me this evening, who left just a short while ago, depressed as hell about what’s happening to their country. It’s not millennials who are the problem, the fool who is infesting this comments thread notwithstanding. It’s Gen Xers like us and older, too many of whom vote like assholes all the time.
Anya
@FlipYrWhig: Fucking morons. I just can’t with these dipshits. They deserve President Trump.
Emerald
@NR:
Yeah, there will be an election in 2020. If Trump is still alive he will win it by 97% (they never go for the full 100% because it looks bad). If Pence is in office he will win it by 97%.
This nation committed suicide tonight. And frankly, we’d all better start being more careful on social media. I’m assuming John can wipe out our real names and addresses, so I feel fairly comfortable on this site. For awhile.
Al Giordano has a tweetstorm about how to survive and eventually win this, starting here: https://twitter.com/AlGiordano/status/796230843576569856
Note that his Number 12 says, “The first duty of a revolutionary is not to get caught.”
Fair Economist
@FlipYrWhig:
Great, we got a rerun of “Nach Hitler, Uns” (After Hitler, it’s us).
This is where Stein hurt us, not in the votes she got.
Repatriated
@Botsplainer:
The problem with that is that he took his job seriously.
NR
@Mnemosyne: I’m not saying racism doesn’t exist. I’m saying that thinking that racism (and sexism) was 100% of the reason we lost tonight is every bit as stupid as thinking that racism (and sexism) was 0% of the reason we lost tonight.
goblue72
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: That’s not how it worked. First off, the California GOP in the Assembly and Senate (and most statewide offices) was already dead. When Arnold was elected via the recall to serve out Gray Davis’ term (and then re-elected TWICE), Dems controlled both the Assembly and Senate the entire time – both before and after. And held all the statewide offices – AG, Treasurer, Comptroller, SoS (from what I can recall – maybe there was an odd duck GOP in one of those offices for some brief period, but regardless). And recall was primarily driven by Davis being a mediocre machine Dem hack who stupidly raised fees significantly on auto registrations in a state that prays to automobile.
And Arnie governed as a moderate Republican. Heck, he even passed a sweeping, major greenhouse gas bill while governor. And he wasn’t chased from office. After finishing Davis term, he was elected TWICE. He left office due to term limits.
This is nothing like that.
Mnemosyne
@goblue72:
Racists showed up to vote for an unrepentant white supremacist and it’s my fault?
Uh-huh. Look in the mirror, white boy. I’ll be doing that myself tonight. The fault is in people who look just like us, who voted for white supremacy. No amount of “economic” appeals were going to stop them from voting for the guy who hates black/brown/GLBT/Muslim people just as much as they do.
Mnemosyne
@Fair Economist:
We have three of them in this very thread. Not surprisingly, they’re all white men.
Daulnay
@Mnemosyne:
Not exactly. In 2008. Obama won a group of voters that Pew called Hard-Pressed Skeptics, about 13% of the vote. They were poor, on the financial edge, and thought government didn’t do enough to help people like them. Also, they thought immigrants were a problem, that the U.S. paid too much attention to problems abroad and not enough at home, that the country’s best years are behind us, and that hard work no longer paid off.
In 2012, they didn’t break hard for either candidate. They were the electoral group ‘up for grabs’ in an increasingly polarized landscape, and very unlikely to vote. The other groups were divided about 50/50 Democratic/Republican.
Trump’s campaign hit all their hot buttons, especially the feeling of being forgotten and abandoned. The writing’s been on the wall, if anyone wanted to read it. But no, people would rather rail about the inherent racism of white people (which was obvious in the South, but not so evident outside it – Obama carried the majority of whites on the coasts, and in some Midwestern states). Racism was a factor, sure – the immigrants were seen as part of the problem. But Obama carried this group, because they voted their economic interests. But the Obama administration lost them in 2012, and Trump picked them up this time.
NR
@Hill Dweller: Or he could have tried a different approach. Let the Republicans filibuster the stimulus. Then get out there every day and blame them for the rising unemployment rate. Do the same on health care. Point to the filibustering Republicans as being in bed with the insurance industry and colluding with them to let people die.
Or just get rid of the filibuster. That one’s mostly on Senate Dems though.
Things could have gone very differently. But like I said, we’ll never know.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
I do think it was the biggest factor — all of those white Protestant voters didn’t suddenly show up out of nowhere because they’re just that worried about TPP. I think the rest of it was on the margins, but the margins can be decisive.
And, yes, I’m pretty pissed at the “leftists” who decided that President Clinton and President Trump would be the exact same thing — or even that Trump will be better than Clinton — apparently because they suffered severe brain damage at some point.
Fair Economist
@Daulnay:
I find it hard to believe they’re all in the outer suburbs and beyond, which is where Trump’s margin came from.
goblue72
@NR: You’re wasting your time. He/she is completely immune to realizing he/she has been completely wrong. Clinton losing won’t change that.
median
There truly is no peak wingnut.
Are we still doing that here?
goblue72
@Daulnay: Nail on the head, but good luck getting 75% of the folks here to understand that. Even with this loss starring them in the face. A loss that should NOT have happened. This is major Democratic party fuckup territory.
Mnemosyne
@Daulnay:
Trump picked up that group, but he also seems to have voters come out for him who didn’t vote in 2012. Those are your Breitbart Stormfronters.
And I’ll bet that if you polled those “Hard-Pressed Skeptics” today, they’d all say that they’re pissed about Collin Kaepernick and think that Black Lives Matter should sit down and shut up.
Fair Economist
@NR:
That wouldn’t have worked. The press refused to talk about the filibustering, and they’ve always been resolute about ignoring Democratic politicians when they want to talk about something the press wants to ignore. Obama tried that with Garland; how did that work out?
frosty
@Suzanne:
Fuck them, sure. But it’s my son who dies in their wars and my family who deals with the pollution and my wife and I who will struggle to retire. Not Them,
Same for all of us. Stronger Together, Weaker Ripped Apart.
Emerald
@Betty Cracker: When we elected Brown and got rid of the Republicans, California still had a functioning democracy.
In another two months, the nation won’t.
I personally want CA, OR, WA and HI to secede and become the United States of the Pacific. We would be perhaps one of the few liberal nations left on earth, ’cause this shit is goin’ down in Europe too.
Mnemosyne
@Daulnay:
Also, too, you had one candidate who offered specific plans to help with health care, child care, and education, and another candidate who promised to Make America
WhiteGreat Again.They voted for a fantasy world over reality. How do you win those people over?
opiejeanne
@SiubhanDuinne: I came here in the hopes of finding solace and instead we get Johnathan fucking Hollandaise Béchamel? Fuck me, fuck everything.
I need to go check on the stock market and determine how much I will have left when it opens tomorrow. I swear, I feel like selling everything and moving away because I don’t feel safe in the US, for myself or my kids. My son is gay and Pence would like to use ectroshock therapy on him. My girls, well, they’re girls. And I’m 66, a woman likely to live well into my late 90s or beyond so, if Trump doesn’t destroy the value of everything we have saved, built, or own. I’m worrying about Social Security & Medicare, and my husband’s retirement fund.
And that asshole comes here to gloat? FUCK HIM.
Sab
@Juju: I can give you a dog who barks a lot but she is very sweet
Juju
@Sab: where are you? I’ll be there soon.
opiejeanne
@CarolDuhart2: My adult children are looking at Costa Rica tonight, too.
I wonder if it’s a stable country because the US has helped it stay that way, or if it would be stable anyway. I also wonder if Trump’s disruption of the entire world will destabilize it and other countries that have been stable for a long time.
dogwood
@Mnemosyne:
This wasn’t an election about policy, contrary to what the assholes who showed up tonight to gloat might want to assert.
Caravelle
@Botsplainer: The point of policy isn’t to be rewarded with power, the point of power is to implement policy that will make people’s lives better. It would be logical and reasonable for said people to then vote for those who implemented policies that made their lives better, but that should be about their self-interest not about “rewarding” others with power.
And if the people in question don’t do that logical and reasonable thing, maybe because it actually isn’t that logical or reasonable or because they aren’t logical or reasonable, then that sucks but it doesn’t mean the policy was a bad idea. If it made their lives better, then it was a good idea. Because that is what it was for.
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
That’s what I’m worried about at work tomorrow. If anyone gloats I may just tell my boss it’s me or them and let whatever happens happen. And I’m good at what I do but I’m pretty sure I’m not that good.
I don’t have any kids so at least there’s that. But of course I know lots of people who do have kids and the world we just handed them is going to suck for a long, long time. Sorry about yours, it’s the only thing I’ve got.
opiejeanne
@Suzanne: My sister’s ex voted for Trump. Their daughter lives near me in WA and I just told her I’d never speak to him again. I don’t know who my sister voted for and I’m afraid to find out. I’m not feeling happy about any of my cousins who may have voted for Trump, and am considering not speaking to them again. Ever.
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
Because we are the last superpower and we have been one for a long time we have out sized influence in the world. But it is not absolute, other countries have a lot more power than they used to have not all that long ago. It may not be military but they have financial power and if they exercise it properly it will hurt a lot of people. Costa Rica has had a pretty decent immigration policy but I’ve heard they are thinking of changing it. Also they require a positive form of income, not a sum that’s outrageous but it has to be stable. If the fuckers mess with SS that could cut a sizeable bit for a lot of people thinking of Costa Rica because they could very easily say that SS income is not accepted as being stable. That leaves having a substantial nest egg or a private/commercial annuity.
opiejeanne
@Ruckus: I know, and I know enough about your life that I feel even more worried about you than I do for myself.
This sucks. It sucks. And it hurts.
dogwood
@opiejeanne:
I’m lucky that I don’t have any immediate or extended family members who are Trump voters. No close friends either. If I did’I don’t know that I would never speak to them again, but the relationship would forever change. My emotional and intellectual response to Trump is not deranged. I cannot look at him or listen to him. He is repulsive. I expect that for the next 4 years I will do my best to ignore him and probably stay away from the internet most of the time. I don’t control what the voters decide, I control my reaction to it, and I’m not going to make myself sick and depressed exposing myself to him.
opiejeanne
@Ruckus: I’m afraid our nest egg will be halved by tomorrow morning and may never recover, not to mention the value of our house. Dave’s retirement should be safe because it’s CALPERS and I don’t think the Feds can touch it, but I’m not entirely sure they can’t if they decide to try.
I can’t even cry, I’m so shocked tonight.
It looks like we got to keep our Democratic Governor Inslee and Senator Patty Murray, but we lost the Secretary of State to the Republicans. I haven’t heard about our congresspersons, or the state government yet. Fingers crossed.
opiejeanne
@dogwood: That sounds like a plan. Right now Lawrence O’Donnell is the only personality on MSNBC that I can stomach so my political news will be limited to him, until they force him off the air. I am not sanguine about how long he will last.
opiejeanne
@dogwood: I may remove myself from social media, at least the political side. I’ll still come here, but right now I’m starting to worry about whether I should scrub my presence from Twitter & Facebook completely.
Death Panel Truck
@Bill_D: And it will all be named after Trump.
Caravelle
@Archon: It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, and similarly it’s better to have fought for our survival than to never have survived… or never have fought rather…
What I mean is that even if all the Obama reforms get rolled back, their existence as things that were implemented in the nation’s history will form a precedent making it more likely that they will be re-implemented in the future. And it’s not just about reforms – the fact that the first black president was a cool, likeable guy, generally agreed to be a good president while in office, and will probably go the Carter/Clinton route for making a difference in his post-presidency meaning he’ll stay on the public stage as a good and respected figure, will have a huge impact on the country’s self-image. It is an unerasable fact, a black man *can* be President of the United States.