I started the day hopeful for my daughter and the next generation. I end it with what my wife called a “punch in the gut”.
This is a retrograde Supreme Court for another generation – it’s very unlikely that RBG will make it to 2020.
This is the reversal of the small amount of progress that we’ve made on healthcare for all – repeal and replace, baby.
This is the start of a worldwide turn to the right, and a nationwide turn to hatred and division.
And we’re going to have a very tall wall, I will tell you that.
craigie
I don’t think we’ll be having elections in 2020. I wish I were kidding.
cain
PBS tells me that Trump is declared President Elect. :( Some asshole is lighting up fireworks.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
This is what I posted on Facebook just now.
I’m too upset, and, to be honest, too scared to sleep. Maybe this isn’t the ideal medium for this, but I’m going to put down a few thoughts.
To begin with, as scary as this is, we can get through it, but there’s a big if. After all, we’ve made it through a civil war, the worst depression in history and two world wars. We can make it through this–if we can make it until January of 2021 without the U.S. using nuclear weapons somewhere in the world.
Right now, that’s my biggest fear. As somebody once said, a guy you can bait with a tweet is less than ideal to be controlling when, where and how we use nuclear weapons. But if we can stay our hand on that score, I think we’ll be all right.
We have a little more than four years to get through. That’s 50 months. 210-odd weeks. 1500 days or so. We can do this. Yes, there will be suffering along the way. Real people are likely to go through real hardship, and I weep for them. But the society can make it.
Next, people need to stop talking about moving to Canada. Or anywhere else. This is our country, and this is now our problem, and we’re going to need everybody to be willing to step in and help us get through this.
Lastly, we, all of us who voted for Clinton, are going to need to try to work in good faith with the people who are now going to be running the country. We didn’t get that kind of help eight years ago, and haven’t gotten it all through these last eight years, I know that. But we have the guy and the party coming in who won, and we can’t afford to try to undercut him because we want an advantage in the next election.
That isn’t to say that we should go along with him, or the Republicans, on everything. They’re going to be pushing some awful shit, and we need to fight it. But we need to fight it on the merits, and not just because we want to win in 2018 or 2020. Where we can, we need to try to keep this guy steady and rational.
To wrap up, I’m scared. I have two small children, and I want to see them get the chance to grow up. I want to see them grow up in a country and a society with a future. I’ve been sad before after elections; I’ve been angry. I’ve never been scared. I wasn’t scared in 2000. I am now. George Bush’s administration turned out to be worse than anything I could have foreseen, and I think Trump is going to be worse than Bush was. That’s what scares me, that Trump could end up being more dangerous than anything I can foresee.
But this is how it is, and this is what we have to deal with. I’m asking everybody who reads this to hope and pray, if you pray, for the best. For wisdom, for some guts, for empathy and a little bit of stubbornness when we need it. Hope and pray that everything we’ve seen about Trump so far is somehow misleading, or that we’ve misunderstood him, and that he has something more within him than we can see now. Hope and pray that, if he doesn’t, we can stand up to him, and the movement he leads, when it threatens the weak and the overlooked and the easily mistreated. Hope and pray that we can all find it within ourselves to help the country make it through the next four years. It’s likely to be hard, and, I fear, at times ugly and scary. But we can make it.
Now I’m going to try again to go to sleep.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@craigie: We’re going to have elections in 2020. Trump can’t change that. But it isn’t till then that we can make any headway in Congress, I’m sad to say. If there’s any bright side, I think this makes it a lot less likely that we’ll lose much in 2018, which otherwise could have been a bloodbath. But 2020 is going to be the big year for making up some lost ground. We can make it through this. The Constitution is bigger than Donald Trump.
SiubhanDuinne
Dear god.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence is speaking.
That means President-elect Trump cannot be far behind.
I am sick to my stomach and sick at heart.
Citizen Alan
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
WHY THE FUCK NOT!!!!!!
BlueDWarrior
The only thing I would quibble with you, mistermix, is that I don’t think this is the start of a lurch to the right, but more of a confirmation of that lurch. The Center-Left Parties in most of the major democracies have been stumbling backwards in legislatures for a long time (except Canada, to some extent), and there is nothing I’m reading from France or Germany to say it’s going to stop any time soon (although you can argue that Merkel is a true centrist or center-right anyway, so yeah).
maryQ
Hmm. When the public university where I work goes belly up, maybe I can get s job on that infrastructure project known as The Wall.
mkro
Bloody Mitch McConnell is a genius. Stonewalled a SC open seat for an entire calendar year and now they’ll get the Supreme Court, Congress and WH.
AnotherBruce
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Exactly fucking right. This our country and our nation. We’re not giving it up to the fascists.
goblue72
That is quite possibly the dumbest shit I have ever seen posted here.
PJ
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I hope the Constitution can survive it – certainly Trump will do what he can to control the Supreme Court if they don’t do what he wants.
I just can’t f*cking believe that Americans just decided to shit the bed.
craigie
@BlueDWarrior:
I guess 80 years of peace is too much for people to bear.
RaflW
And my FB missive, lightly edited to reflect the latest news (cut the part about ‘if he wins’):
Someone just asked “How do we stop him?”
Well we don’t. We have to become, very quickly, much more networked, connected, aware, and ready to learn and help each other. In person. Face to face. In community.
Trump is the signifier of the decrepit, dangerous end-state of our decades-long (or maybe 240 year long?) experiment in rampant individualism. The test for the nation going forward is, can we turn the cheek from this slap, can we answer his devolution with love and connection and resistance and resilience.
You don’t stop him, you move around him and past him to what is called for next in humanity.
My friend Melissa R. wrote this earlier this evening, and it’s a great start:
“Trying to breath and remind myself of some of the things we ALREADY KNOW HOW TO DO and will need to do a lot more of regardless of the outcome tonight:
Love each other
Organize and fight like heaven
Have faith, hope, and humility
Keep telling the truth and believing each other
Call on our traditions of resistance, healing, and resilience
Honor differing experiences of pain, fear, and real impacts
Hold each other up
See intersectionality
Hold contradictions
Be smart, powerful, bold, courageous
Be scared, and real, and fierce
<3"
—
This does not mean we should all abandon all social media, BJ blog, etc. But be judicious. Vibrant, resisting, preparing communities do it in person. Its the only real way. Places like BJ can be supporting, helpful, encouraging, and a relief. But we much rapidly build much more connected in-person community.
I don't know exactly how, but I start in the morning. I know that.
CaseyL
I have no intention of working in good faith with any of those fuckers. I’m done with national politics, and the way I feel right now I’m done with the concept of America. It’s all local from now on, as my blue corner of the world tries to stay that way.
Taylor
Tonight I encouraged my daughter to transfer to college in Canada. She has the option of taking Canadian citizenship, but we don’t have friends or relatives there. She needs to build up her circle of Canadian friends.
I do not think we will recognize this country in four years, let alone in eight years.
I am at least looking forward to Trump lining up the political media for summary execution. Wasn’t that one of his election promises?
I feel for my wife, who was almost giddy at the thought of finally a female American president. She has considered herself a feminist since she was a teenager. Now she is heartbroken. And filled with rage.
I do not think we will see a female American president in my lifetime. It’s not just the cracker vote. There is something about Trump getting such a significant Latino vote.
BlueDWarrior
@Citizen Alan: The argument is that you fight the ideological fight instead of just saying Republicans are bad and stopping there. I partially agree because you have to find the right terminology that would not only defeat a Republican presidential candidate, but Republican governors, Republican Congresspeople/Senators, and on down the line.
Mike in dc
Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.
slag
So, this is how the terrorists win. Well, now we know.
goblue72
@BlueDWarrior: Good point. The Left has largely been on its heels throughout Europe. Look at Labour’s fortunes – they are torn by much of the same problems as the Democratic Party. Their leadership is oriented towards the university educated urban professional class (the Blairites), whose favorite target is not the Tories but the hippie Left in their own party, and their base – the working class voters – is fed up with being ignored by the Establishment and their own party doesn’t seem to want to listen to them.
Elizabelle
I am not going to watch it. I will not buy any newspapers tomorrow. Might be a great day to stay off the internets, and go for a walk in the beautiful colorful splendor of North Carolina.
May God damn the people who did this. All of them.
Arclite
I JUST HAD TO FUCKING SLAP MYSELF.
Seriously, what goddamn Bizarro dimension have I fallen into???
Emerald
@craigie: Sure we will. And The Leader will win with 97% of the vote.
It’s always 97%. They never go for 100% because that looks bad.
frosty
I need to find a blue corner of the world and move there, This corner sucks.
cmorenc
One thing that may prove much harder than the GOP and Trump thinks it will be is how to “repeal and replace” Obamacare – without throwing a huge chunk of his own voters under the bus on things like: preexisting conditions, lifetime caps on payouts, and keeping insurance premiums and health care costs from spiraling upward. I can see Trump getting away with huge cuts to medicaid for the poors (esp the poor browns and blacks), but he and his GOP henchmen will have a hard time wholesale repealing Obamacare without inflicting tangible, easily traceable harm upon much of his own base. Obama and the dems might have been an easy scapegoat for onto which Trump and the GOP were able to project people’s perceptions of cost problems with health care – but it won’t be so easy to deflect that now that Trump and the GOP are in charge.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Citizen Alan: Because we have the country to think of. As maddening as this is, as maddening as it’s been to see this guy, and the party he now represents, trash our “democratic norms” as the people on television like to call them, that isn’t going to help. We can’t go down that road. Even if they don’t respect those norms, especially if they don’t, we have to. That doesn’t mean we should roll over for him or sign on to everything he trots out.But when we fight, we have to be better than they are. Yes, that means they’ll have the advantage of being free to do any old thing they fucking well want to; but we are better than they are, and the country and the Constitution are bigger and stronger than they are, and they’ll both be here after he’s gone, and we need to be ready too step in and clean up their mess when they’re gone.
That means we have to fight fair. It means we have to help the guy, God help us, when and if we can, not to fuck things up. Maybe this is unfair. It is unfair. But being better people is hard work sometimes, and if that’s unfair, well, that’s how it is.
coin operated
I know this is wrong…it’s republican thinking…but I have to verbalize this to someone;
I can’t wait for Trump to shit the bed. He will…and it will be colossal…and it will hurt
And I’ll get to say to my Trump supporting friends “I told you so”
coin operated +6 and I ain’t stopping until the fridge is out of beer.
craigie
Really? Trump thinks he was elected king. All the people he admires are authoritarians. We’ll be relying on the rest of the GOP to “do the right thing” – the same GOP that couldn’t control him up to now, and that values party above country (see McConnell, Mitch). By then the Supreme Court will be a Trump rubber stamp.
What, exactly, stops this scenario from happening? Am I over the top? Maybe – I hope so. I’m just glad I have two passports – I think this gets much, much worse before it gets better, if it ever does.
amygdala
@SiubhanDuinne: In a way, Pence scares me more than Trump, you know?
Arclite
It’s less that Trump cares what kind of person he nominates, he’s no ideologue. It’s more that he doesn’t give a shit and will do whatever his advisors suggest.
Les Bonnes Femmes
@CaseyL: This. It is time for me to say goodbye to political blogs and national politics, and make a more concerted effort to live politically at a severe personal and local level.
Mike in dc
I wonder if liberals bought guns every time Republicans did something awful, whether they’d take notice of that.
piratedan
wondering when we’re going to hear the first trumpets from the Media indicating that Trump must reach out to Democrats, who won the popular vote, denying him his much needed mandate, to govern the country in the spirit of bipartisanship and heal the country.
The Dangerman
@slag:
Not quite yet; after Trump stumbles us into a major conflict (Syria, Iran, Baltics … too many possibilities to consider)…
…THEN the terrorists win.
inventor
2016 sucks beyond belief.
Arclite
@amygdala:
Well, sure. In the same way that Cruz scared me more than Trump. But now I realize that Trump is just interested in the narcissistic side of being prez: riding on AF1, playing golf with world leaders, so I suspect that Pence, like Cheney, will be making all of the policy decisions.
Arclite
@cain:
No fireworks here in Hawaii. Just deathly silent.
Ridnik Chrome
I’ve been angry, bitter, frustrated, and disgusted after elections in the past, but this is the first time in my life I’ve been afraid.
Brent
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
If you think the GOP has any intention of “working with us” on anything, than I am afraid you’ve lost the plot. They have refused to work with us when we had some of the levers of power and it was therefore in their interest to do so. I see no reason why they would even bother with the pretense of bipartisanship any longer now that they control every branch of government.
They will do as they wish. And what they wish to do will be horrible for anyone who isn’t either exceptionally wealthy or a religious nut job who wants to controls women’s bodies. There is really no point in sugarcoating it. Its going to suck and, however short their reign, its damage will linger for at least a generation. I think the only effective thing we can do is at least make them own the crappy policies they will institute by refusing to add our names to it out of some desire to mitigate the damage by 1%.
Arclite
@inventor:
First Bowie, then Prince, now Trump. Seriously 2016, what the ever-loving fuck?
cmorenc
@Elizabelle:
Going to be hard to do that without walking past plenty of your Tar Heel neighbors and fellow town-over half of who made Trump’s victory possible – even while apparently three to four percent of them seem to have voted FOR Trump but also FOR Dem Roy Cooper for Governor over GOP Pat McCrory, giving Cooper a narrow apparent victory. It’s good that this 3-4% sliver of NC voters at least get the governor part right, but WTF were they thinking then also voting for Trump? That’s some mushy, from-the-gut rather than the head thinking right there.
Peter
I am just furious at the assholes who voted for this clown. Democrats have spent my entire adult life doing nothing but working their assholes off to protect these fuckers from the consequences of their votes, and this is what it gets them? If not for all the decent people and minorities who will get hurt in the process, I’d be tempted to just say have at it, reap what you sow, you stupid motherfuckers.
piratedan
@cmorenc: well, they’ll repeal it, that’s a given. I’m sure the insurance industry will claim that going back to the days of 40%+ overhead costs will make them more efficient and if the President will simply accept this honorarium, then we’ll be back to “normal” lickety split. Why replace it when the other system worked just fine?
If the GOP was actually smart, THEY would introduce Medicare for All and take the credit for it… but I don’t give these guys that kind of credit.
jheartney
When George W. Bush left office after 8 years, his job approval rating was 27%. How long will Trump take to reach that? I think he’ll pass it in well under 4 years.
Arclite
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
LOL, dude. Where you been the last 8 years? In cryogen?
Citizen Alan
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
I don’t. I don’t plan to spend another second worrying about this dying corpse nation. I don’t have the slightest hope for America and really haven’t since 2004 (Obama notwithstanding). Now, I have virtually no hope for the human race, since I expect that Trump’s SCOTUS will revive Lochner and render all federal efforts to combat climate change unconstitutional. My mother is 81 and just had a stroke. I hope she has a few more years in her, but the day she passes away is the day I start liquidating assets in preparation for leaving the country. I only hope I have the chance to do so before the camps are up and running. In the meantime, I will console myself with the fact that I don’t have children to whom I have left a dying and doomed world.
Arclite
It’s Brexit all over again. “I voted for Trump as a protest! I never thought he’d win! WAHHHH!”
Mnemosyne
I honestly do not know how we soothe the egos of white people enough to let us get shit done anymore. I honestly don’t. It’s like dealing with a screaming toddler at the grocery store.
And for the record, I am white, and I am ashamed of that fact right now.
Arclite
Did Hillary’s internal polls show this weakness? How was the fucking polling so off?
Villago Delenda Est
The markets will tank tomorrow. The 2008 great recession will have competition for greatest economic disaster of the 21st century.
The rest of the world will rightfully shun us.
Citizen Alan
@Mike in dc:
I’ve been thinking of buying a gun and carrying it everywhere (I live in Open Carry Mississippi). Probably not, as I’m more likely to use it on myself. That’s honestly the way I’m feeling right now.
Arclite
To all you people who bought into Trump’s “promises:” You just fucked yourselves in the ass, sans lube.
CONGRATULATIONS.
Lytic
High road or low road. Not sure I care anymore. This is beyond bizzaro. Nurse hang overs tomorrow and start the good fight!
Elizabelle
@cmorenc: That’s fascinating.
I was wondering if there might be some voters who split their tickets for the T word and Cooper, because you could tell McCrory was just worlds of unpopular.
And there were.
On my news blackout. Is Cooper definitely the winner, or is it up in the air?
Arclite
@Citizen Alan:
Don’t do that dude. We need you. 2020 campaign starts tomorrow.
Mnemosyne
@Arclite:
It was turnout. Turnout is the hardest thing to predict, and white Protestants turned out in unprecedented numbers.
But I’m sure they were all just concerned about the economy. //
Mnemosyne
@Arclite:
They don’t care as long as everyone else gets it worse.
That’s how white supremacy always worked, and they want to go back to those days.
Betty Cracker
@Arclite: I think you mean the 2018 campaign, right? That has to be the focus now.
Arclite
@piratedan:
LOL dude, please. The ACA was a GOP idea, came out of a conservative think tank, and they’re going to repeal it. Medicare is communist shit, why would they expand it?
Emerald
I do have hope that California will secede. We have the fifth largest economy in the world and we are not going to take this mentally ill a$$hole for five minutes.
Brachiator
In other news…
Also, there are reports that Syria, with Russian backing, has stepped up its attacks on rebels.
What a world.
Brent
@cmorenc:
On the contrary, it will be extremely difficult for them to avoid repealing Obamacare wholesale. This is the one easily identifiable promise that they have made repeatedly for 6 years nows and going back on it, now that they can make no plausible claim to lacking the power to do it, would be certain political death for too many of their congressman and Senators.
They absolutely have to repeal it but what they replace it with will, in order to be even minimally workable, have to look quite a bit like Obamacare. That won’t go unnoticed by the punditry but most of their base will only be aware that their healthcare is no longer being provided by the near sheriff so that will be good enough.
Splitting Image
@Taylor:
If you’re planning to run, I doubt Canada will be far enough. Our politics usually lags behind the U.S. by a few years, which is one of the reasons I follow American politics so obsessively. Stephen Harper was our Bush, and Justin Trudeau was our Obama. Our Trump is coming, because Canadian evangelicals and white nationalists take their cues from what happens in the States, and what happened tonight is going to embolden them. The press here is already trying to do everything they can to Carterize Trudeau. I was counting rather heavily on a big Clinton win to change that narrative.
Arclite
@coin operated:
Hell, yeah.
cckids
@coin operated:
Amen. I’m not normally a vindictive person, but now ? I’m terrified for my kids, both of whom are graduating from college; one in Dec, one in June. I think the economy may well be in free-fall by then. Again.
These fucking people.
ETA: AND I’m too terrified and sick to get drunk. Dammit.
Peale
@Citizen Alan: yep. We aren’t going to get through this by getting along. Trump is going to do awful things and we can see how Democrats don’t rally around candidates who have helped Republicans do awful things. They end up having to spend time explaining why they voted for those things and they lose credibility and lose.
cmorenc
Since Trump and the GOP will be in charge of the Presidency and both houses of Congress, IF they do make a clusterfuck of things, at least it’s going to be difficult for them to avoid owning it in the minds of voters who supported Trump because they wanted “change’ and had been blaming the dems and Washington establishment for all the country’s ills. That will be especially true if the magic prosperity ponies Trump promised fail to materialize.
Who’s strong on the democratic presidential bench for 2020?
Mnemosyne
Also, I will pre-quote you what all of our resident “leftist” trolls will be saying for the next four years:
Sure, Trump is bad, but Hillary would have been even worse.
Viva BrisVegas
@Splitting Image:
Same applies to Australia, and we don’t even have a Trudeau.
T S
@coin operated: Yeah, and we might all shit the bed because we have radiation sickness.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
Much of the world has already been lurching to the right, or giving in to authoritarian regimes. Canada and Scotland are anomalies.
Taylor
@jheartney:
The economy was tanking in the worst way possible since 1929….but it would have been much worse without TARP to reassure the markets (Remember Hank Paulson on his knees begging Pelosi, when he couldn’t get the Republicans to support it?), and of course Obama’s stimulus brought the country back from the brink.
If we have another financial collapse in the next four years, and that looks more likely than not, there’s going to be nothing to put the brakes on. The Republicans will respond to falling tax revenues by cutting spending. The economy will be in freefall.
Long before this happens, we are going to have mass unemployment from automation. Not just manufacturing, where it is already happening, but also industries like trucking, where the ground is being laid today. Suddenly I no longer give a shit about the millions of jobs that are going to be lost in midwest states. Fuck them.
cckids
@Arclite:
Well, if there WAS a God, and the “rule of threes” is truly a thing, 2016 may yet redeem itself.
Elie
I am definitely considering buying guns. Not just one but several
I do not trust white people I had better be able to take care of myself. Plan to move elsewhere and figure that out. I am enraged and heart broken at the same time.
Villago Delenda Est
This is all my fault…I stepped off the silver path and squished a butterfly…
mai naem mobile
I seriously can’t even get myself to say the words Pres. Tr… Seriously cannot say it. I cannot believe this loser moron with his nude pic illegal worker wife is going to be Flotus and don’t even get me started on his butt ugly animal killer sons. Seriously cannot watch new shows for the next four years. I find the whole lot literally revolting. Gagworthy. Fuck CNN and Mornin’ Homes for bringing us this horrible person.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@goblue72: Glad I could impress you.
@Brent: I didn’t say they were going to work in good faith with us. I said we have to work in good faith with them. That doesn’t mean not fighting them. It means being better than they are. The country won’t make it if we hold ourselves to the same standard they hold themselves to.
sphys
@Mike in dc: They’d be totally fine with it–the NRA would be happy for the increased sales, I’m pretty sure the base of the Republican party is itching for an excuse for a pitched battle with libs…
Peale
@Arclite: the plan is to replace Medicare with vouchers. That’s your better deal white folk.
Matt McIrvin
@Brent:
Why would it be even minimally workable? These are complete policy dumbasses we’re talking about.
Duke of Clay
I have fought for a better America for the last 48 years. I lived through Vietnam, Watergate, Reagan.. and I always said, “America is better than this.” Now, I don’t know. For the first time in my life I am ashamed of America and ashamed to be an American.
cckids
@Brent:
FFS, they aren’t going to replace it with anything, except possibly some requirement that all plans have to pay a 10% finder’s fee to Trump, Inc. Grow up.
Goblue72
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): you are so fucking naive
Anya
I don’t care anymore. I honestly don’t care.
I am a biracial daughter of a white Anglo Saxon Protestant mother and a Somali Muslim immigrant dad. This coutry has rejected me. My lovely, sweet Muslim grandparents are deemed an enemy that can be discriminated against. Trump didn’t win on any ideas. His only coherent policy was that he’ll discriminate against brown people, deport them and treat them like criminals. With Trump we are one terror attack away from internment camps. I feel angry on behalf of President Obama and his family. We elected the man who led a racist movement against him and sought to delegitimize his presidency. It pains me to think about the day when he’ll meet with Trump for transfer of power. Thinking about it makes me feel rage and sadness.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Emerald: For the love of God, don’t. We need you on our side. Without you, we in blueland (and I’m proud beyond measure that Virginia went Democratic for the third straight presidential election) are truly fucked.
mai naem mobile
@cmorenc: Bullshit. They were blaming Carter for the housing crisis. They will blame everything on Obama. Everything. AND whoever thinks they’re done with Hillary and her emails and Benghazi get real. They’re just going to keep on tearing her to pieces.
Brachiator
@cmorenc:
It is too soon to say. And the Democrats are going to have to rethink their strategy and their message. Not that we are wrong, but clearly a chunk of voters have lost faith in what Democrats have offered.
Elizabelle
@mai naem mobile: The T word.
cckids
@cmorenc: Fuck 2020; if you have the heart for politics, concentrate on 18; congress, state legislatures & governors. Then the Dems will get the ability to get rid of some of the bullshit vote suppression crap that’s been passed over the last 4 years.
coin operated
I don’t know if it’s off topic or not because I’m now at +8 and going
The end of the email drama? I bet one of my trump loving FB asshole buddies that this would be the last we heard of it…because it’s had the desired effect of keeping Clinton out of the white house.
Ruckus
@cmorenc:
Think Kentucky.
They loved the law, hated the name. That’s all he has to do is just keep repeating Obamacare. People I know who have been buying individual healthcare insurance and got a better deal with the ACA didn’t like it. Because they had to really look at health insurance and see what they really get. And they didn’t like what they saw. So they blame the latest thing, the thing that they have heard is bad, Obamacare. They don’t know that costs have been rising for decades, that it would be far worse without the ACA. All they know is the black man’s name is on it so it must be bad. We look at policy, how it works and how does it actually affect us. Conservatives look at how does it affect anyone they don’t like, not what it does for them. They think that once they get rid of all the minorities and moochers they will be fine.
They came out in force to show the world that they are going to get rid of liberals and moochers and make the world great again. I hope they all fucking choke on their great world.
Tazj
@mai naem mobile: I hear you. I wasn’t watching many news shows to begin with. Now, I won’t watch at all.
Emerald
@mai naem mobile:
Agree. I won’t watch.
I’ll be getting my information from Balloon Juice, as long as it lasts. Gonna say goodbye to DKos. And I’ll read the folks I’m following on Twitter, but my tweeting, liking, and retweeting days are over as of right now. As Al Giordano says, the first rule is don’t get caught.
RobertDSC-Mac Mini
@jheartney:
4 months. Hell, 4 weeks would not surprise me.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: Well, no, they’re saying Trump is Hillary’s fault. They may even be right; you can never prove a counterfactual. Bernie Sanders might have retained Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania; it was close there. It’s conceivable. He may have had just fractionally enough of the right kind of appeal.
Lorinda Pike
@Citizen Alan: I live in Mississippi also. My most immediate problem is that biopsy I got last Thursday. I haven’t gotten the results yet. I can’t pay for cancer treatment, and then when everything gets repealed, I have other pre-existing conditions. I couldn’t afford insurance without the ACA, and that was such a weight lifted from my shoulders.
I have though about what I should do if the biopsy is bad. Euthanize the cats, then myself so my husband will have a little to live on when they cut his Social Security?
I am terrified, and on a very personal level. Maybe the Yam will nuke everything, then all our problems will be solved.
Mister Papercut
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Not just “no” but “FUCK NO.“
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Goblue72: Naive? Maybe. But we can be better than they are, and I think we have to be. I don’y want to see a civil war, but if one comes, I sure as hell don’t want my side to start it.
Peale
@cmorenc: well let’s see.
Nobody right now. How bout this. I’ll go with whomever the millenials want this time, if he’s an actual democrat, and Obama’s age. And has strong personal relations within at least one other key group othervthan online progressives.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator: They’ve opted for the twisted cross.
Fuck them.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Here’s the way I’ll put it: a large chunk of white voters decided that if things aren’t going to get better for them economically, they want the old racial caste system back so they can at least be unequivocally on top of that.
Note that the “blue” states Hillary lost all have Republican governors who have shit the bed and made their states worse, and the white people in them don’t see how a Democratic president will improve that, so they may as well get to be socially dominant again.
Well, they sure showed us, didn’t they? Again, just like a toddler who punches himself in the face during a tantrum.
Death Panel Truck
@amygdala: That’s why i wouldn’t be surprised to see Congress impeach Trump in favor of Pence. Trump is an idiot man-child; Pence can at least fake looking like a political leader.
cckids
@Matt McIrvin:
Bernie might, might have pulled some of these batshit whitey mcmorons from Pres-elect Deadbeat, but he’d have completely tanked with minority voters.
CaseyL
@Emerald: I’d love that – I’m in Washington, and making Cascadia real sounds mighty fine to me. But I don’t see how it happens without bloodshed, and I don’t see how we win, since we don’t have our own armed forces.
coin operated
@Mister Papercut:
Quoted for truth. Fuck ’em…I’m not ready to make nice.
cmorenc
@Brent:
Actually, I was thinking the same thing – except will the hard-right factions in control of the GOP house majority be willing to go along with anything that has even the faintest scent of or resemblance to warmed-over Obamacare? Selling “health insurance across state lines” will quickly be exposed for the phantom solution it is, because the underlying working assumption is that the main cause driving insurance and health-care costs is state regulation of health insurers and hospitals – and sick people living in e.g. California will be able to easily take advantage of lower insurance rates and health-care costs in the least-regulated state.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
The rest of the world will be there right along with us. We are too big in the world economy to not have that effect. And btw I suspect it will be worse than a recession. Just a hunch but I think it’s really that bad.
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m still waiting for those people to explain to me how the Jewish guy wins against the anti-Semitic white supremacist.
GrandJury
@Death Panel Truck: I can easily see Trump being impeached for any number of reasons. He has lots of enemies on both sides so it won’t be a partisan problem. I think that is our best hope unfortunately. But then it’s president Pense which is horrible but the world would probably survive.
Forget about SCOTUS. That’s fucked and Ginsberg is next. They are gonna put someone in there just like Scalia or worse.
Seth Owen
You can’t tell me not to leave. I have a family to think of and they are now vulnerable in a way almost unimaginable to me.
Brent
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): The point is that it takes two Smedley. “Good faith” is only useful concept when ithere is at least some possibility that it will be returned. Their base doesn’t care about good faith and I doubt many of our voters sees the point of pretending anymore.
Obama tried that from the other end for a few years. It may have had some small positive effect politically to be seen as the reasonable one but it definitely got him nothing policy wise. It sure doesn’t feel like all those olive branches were worth much today.
Balconesfault
@Matt McIrvin: Runs Feingold got creamed in Wisconsin. Bernie would have won how???
Joel
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): that sums up my feelings as well.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
I am very glad right now that we have no kids and no mortgage. I could easily pay my car off if needed — I really only had the car loan to improve my credit.
Time to hunker down.
Adam
@Matt McIrvin:
They won’t have voted for Bernie because Bernie doesn’t hate minorities. That is the beginning , middle and end of there politics.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
From the Guardian:
Oddly enough, the Chinese government loves Trump.
Funny that there was practically no coverage given to Chinese reaction to Trump during the campaign. The press must have got distracted by all those emails.
Irony Abounds
@Brachiator: It’s not that it’s too soon to say, it’s that there is no one on the Democratic bench for 2020. Try and name anyone of national stature among the Democrats. Warren would be great except she’ll be 71. Otherwise, you have zippo. 2012 was the year to bring on some quality Senate or Gubernatorial candidates who would have been ready to step in for 2016, but it didn’t happen and Clinton big-footed the race. I’m pretty much with those thinking this country is no longer worth fighting for. It’s values and mine are no longer compatible.
Emerald
@CaseyL: We buy Trump off. We’ve got the cash and all he cares about is money anyway. He’ll let us go.
But Smedley Darlington Prunebanks may be right. Virginia voted blue. They need us.
Central Planning
@Mnemosyne:
You and me both :(
cckids
One of my daughter’s friends is studying in New Zealand this semester; she just posted this on FB.
American Idiot indeed.
cokane
Only thing I can take solace is, is the fact that so many amazing things emerged despite the dogshit that was the last Bush administration. That stuff basically made the Daily Show and all the comedians who came out of there, it gave us a sublime politicians in Barack Obama, and hell, this blog community was forged in that fire.
Brent
@cmorenc: This GOP proposal has always been the most puzzling to me. I believe Mayhew is taking some time off and he may have discussed this at some other time already; But an out of state insurer doesn’t have a health care network in the state in question. The only way they can get one is to essentially rent one. How can they possibly offer a comparable health care plan at a rate more affordable than a local insurer. EVEN if they ignore regulations, the doctors still cost them more money.
Matt McIrvin
@cckids:
Maybe not–younger minority voters actually liked him more, and the older ones are rational. (Unfortunately this is basically saying “take them for granted–where else are they gonna go?”)
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Villago Delenda Est:
Made me laugh, which I didn’t think was possible right now
James E Powell
I originally came to this blog because here people talk about so much more than politics. But now politics is dead to me. For a while, for sure. How long I don’t know. I am too angry, disappointed, saddened, and disgusted to talk about American politics like it’s a legitimate way to operate a democratic republic. Or that we should trust the wisdom of the electorate. Or that this is the best way to do this. Or that the rulers of this country have any thought at all for those of us who are not rulers or toadies.
I know I sound like crazy people on DKos with a GBCW post, but I don’t mean that. I mean I’m done with politics. I have nothing to say about politics that anyone would want to read.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Come on, you’re not really surprised that China is thrilled at the prospect of a weak US president. Now they get to negotiate their own version of TPP and lock us out of Asia, without any of those pesky worker or environmental protections.
Bailey
@cokane:
I guess. Although I’d sure rather have my savings account and investments intact rather than this blog. And given that Trump being president pretty much kills satire, I don’t know that the late night hosts have much to look forward to, either.
AnneW
I keep coming back to the H. L. Mencken quote, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
SiubhanDuinne
Question: does the Trump University fraud trial proceed as scheduled?
wasabi gasp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkjBEcyMKvc
Matt McIrvin
@cokane:
Bush allowed all that to happen, without jailing or killing the comedians or destroying the bloggers and snarkers. We honestly do not know if the Trump administration will. We may have to go radio silence and find other ways to communicate.
Cain
The one thing is that Trump cannot be controlled. But it scares the shit out of me of what our foreign policy is going to look like. He’s not beholden to anyone. That might be a good thing because at least I know that people like Chaney are not going to be part of the administration.
frosty
@Emerald:
All well and good, but how much of the US military do you have?
Cain
The other thing is that Trump is going to declare war on the press.
Peter
I man honestly at the point where if you proposed to me taking the vote away from white people, I’d have to give it some thought, even though it would mean disenfranchising myself.
sigaba
When people are quoting Menken unironically you know things are at a unique pass.
sukabi
Ok, place your bets… this is going to be the most corrupt administration ever…going to make the Nixon / Agnew team look like pikers.
Don’t think drumpf makes it thru 2 years…
brendancalling
I had already planned this but now it’s settled. I really AM moving to Guatemala in 2017. No later than March.
If you’re gonna live in a banana republic, might as well be a real one.
danielx
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Git The Fuck Outta Here! Figuratively speaking, of course.
Are you fucking with me, or do you have some really good meds you’re not sharing?
If you need a reason to oppose Trump and all his works, contemplate this: the orange shitgibbon* now has a list of scores to pay off that encompasses gigabytes of storage space. He will shortly have the full might available to him as president to even those scores, and has stated his full intent to do so with every means at his disposal. That would include the Justice Department, seventeen different intelligence agencies, etc etc. Scores to pay off would likely include people who have referred to him as the orange shitgibbon, among others, if he can make it stick**.
*the orange shitgibbon, toupeèd fucktrumpet, mangled apricot hellbeast, weaselheaded fucknugget, and other descriptive terms. I must say, we cannot let the Brits get ahead of us in this area – I want more inventive descriptions in the vernacular.
**Uday and Qusay in charge of the Bureau of Revenge***.
***Our motto: make it hurt!
Tazj
Kevin Drum thinks that Kathy Cramer will be highly sought out for interviews by the press after this election. Has anybody read her writings about rural America?just skimmed something she wrote. She talks about how they think they haven’t gotten their fair share from the government, decisions about their lives that are made by the government are beyond their control, and they’re not respected by urbanites and elites. People have probably brought up her writing before but I don’t remember.
brendancalling
@Matt McIrvin: oh yeah. Think Argentina and Chile.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
I think that Trump supporters are full of Deplorables, but I think you are wrong here. The racist elite behind Trump want something worse. But the average Trump supporter mainly wants Trump to kick Muslims and Mexicans out of the country, and never let them back in again. Then, once you eliminate welfare and all other social programs that only are for black people, then jobs and prosperity will trickle down like manna from heaven.
danielx
@sigaba:
That bit about the people getting it, good and hard?
FlipYrWhig
They are not going to create some new approach to health care that doesn’t work and that they get blamed for. They are going to make things worse, say Obama made the problem and try their damnedest to make him into Black Jimmy Carter for 40 years.
Bess
My take is that the Rust Belt elected Trump. Hillary won what she was expected to win on the East Coast (FL and NC were iffy). She won what she was expected to win on the West Coast (plus NV which was sort of iffy). The loss was the upper Midwest.
That’s the area most damaged by industry leaving the country. And I expect it has suffered a brain drain as well due to the smarter kids heading to the coasts where better jobs could be found.
Trump promised to turn the clock back to 1970 and the stupids there believed he would. They are now on their way to get massively screwed.
Expect federal assistance programs to be cut. Expect emboldened Republican state governments to further cut taxes and then have to cut social programs and education because of budget shortfalls. Expect federal fund to be given to states as block grants and the money somehow ending up in rich people’s bank accounts.
Here’s my advice. If you live in any of the new ‘red’ states, get out. Flee to the coasts, or at least Colorado. There’s likely a world of hurt about to be visited on the center of the country. (Trump doesn’t give a damn what happens to you.) It’s a good time to be a refugee. We might have to put up walls later on to keep out the undesirables.
Fair Economist
@cmorenc:
Dunno. In 2012 they were happy to propose replacing Medicare with something pretty close to Obamacare. They might have been counting on the right-wing wurlitzer to cover it up for them.
cckids
@Matt McIrvin: Well, given Bernie’s seeming lack of interest in their actual issues, (instead of the economic ones he was sure were their “real” problem), my thought was they might just stay home, or do the third-party thing like so many Berniebros seem to have done. There’s no way of knowing at this point.
I just feel the “shoulda ran Bernie” people are completely underestimating what the Repubs and the media would have done to Bernie over the course of the campaign. At least some of the Repubs respected Hillary’s abilities as opposed to Trump. Bernie would not have had that same respect.
cokane
@Matt McIrvin: i dunno, alot of liberal insitutions and thought got better during the Bush years wilderness. There’s clearly something liberal thinking whiffed on this year. Democratic and progressives also had a bit of staleness and decadence in the late 90’s, as they do now, though for somewhat different reasons. We will regroup, recover and be better.
SenyorDave
@Cain: That might be a good thing because at least I know that people like Chaney are not going to be part of the administration.
I’ll raise you a Gingrich and Guiliani, and an Ailes as a senior advisor (guess they’ll have to put in rules to ensure he’s never alone with a female staffer.)
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I dunno — that’s the exact same fantasy the Republicans have been selling them since 1980 and it hasn’t come true yet. I think that, underneath, they’re thinking what I said.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think the Chinese care about TPP, nor are they worried about locking us out of Asia.
charluckles
I hope we are all laser focused on what a colossal, destructive fucking mess our media is. They created this monster, and allowed it to thrive. Both in their treatment of Hillary Clinton and their complete failure on Trump. Did we really just go through a Presidential election with almost no discussion of policy? Did we really just go through a Presidential election in which Donald Trump was allowed to be defined as the more honest and trustworthy in voters minds, let alone qualified in anyway to be President? I’ve walked away from this election completely questioning my views about media and Democracy, and hell I was skeptical before.
opiejeanne
@Arclite: I’ve been asking all evening, HOW COULD THE POLLS ALL BE SO WRONG???
rikyrah
A lot of people are going to die because of this.From Obamacare repeal, to the destruction of the American social safety net, to whatever war starts starts, to the women harmed by the attack on reproductive rights….people are going to die.?????
SenyorDave
@FlipYrWhig: They are going to make things worse, say Obama made the problem and try their damnedest to make him into Black Jimmy Carter for 40 years.
Don’t see how that works, when Carter was president some pretty bad things happened. Mostly circumstance, but they did happen on his watch. You really can’t say that with Obama.
rikyrah
@charluckles:you are on point
Mnemosyne
@cckids:
Not to mention that I still can’t get anyone to explain how Jewish Bernie Sanders beats anti-Semitic, white supremacist Trump.
Now I’m starting to think of this as the Fredo Corleone election: We’re not dumb, we’re smart! But there’s no one to take that portion of the electorate out fishing.
Brachiator
@charluckles:
Sorry, but no.
cain
@SenyorDave:
Guillani gaining a major post really pisses me off, but he’ll fuck it up soon enough. None of these people are particularly competent. I’m hoping it will be places where there is ahigh concentration of trump voters.
Elizabelle
@AnneW: Thank you for retrieving the Mencken quote.
It’s the only thing I want to put up on Book of Faces. Which I will also not be checking (although very few of my FB pals are Trump curious. Suspect it’s a thread of Trump appalled about now.)
SenyorDave
@opiejeanne: I’ve been asking all evening, HOW COULD THE POLLS ALL BE SO WRONG???
I’ve been asking myself all evening. HOW COULD ANY WOMAN VOTE FOR A MAN WHO BRAGGED ABOUT BEING A SEXUAL PREDATOR???
Peter
@charluckles: I dare to dream that this might spark some crisis of conscience in mainstream media outlets, and they might start to actually do journalism.
But then I remember that news outlets are corporations, and corporations are amoral entities with no consciences to wake.
GrandJury
@SiubhanDuinne: They can use that to impeach him. Or any one of a number of other things. The list is just too long to go through right now. There will probably be more women coming forward now. I don’t think he can sue them as prez.
It’s gonna be President Pence by this time next year. That’s my prediction. Obamacare will be symbolically gone day 1. Roe v Wade bye bye. Gay marriage gone. Not sure what will happen with marijuana laws but that’s the least of Americas problems now.
sukabi
@SenyorDave: uuummmmm, you do know that drumpf is just as bad as ailes in that regard, don’t you? The White House will be püşş¥ grab central…
Dave
My facebook post on my response: Cannot say this with any more sincerity: if Donald Trump is the solution to your problems, God help you. Personally, I’m done, both with the country and my citizenship. Good luck with your new President.
I love this country, and I fought for what I believe in. I’m willing to live, and serve, under those this whom I disagree, knowing they too believe in this country. But I will not, can not, live under Donald Trump. Godspeed to those of you who stay.
Elizabelle
@SenyorDave: I’m curious about the anecdotes about grade school kids and their mock presidential elections. Which are considered pretty much polls of what their parents say at home.
And the kids were not going for Trump. People were saying “the kids are alright.”
So: “Bradley effect”? Do as I say, kid, not do as a I do?
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I’m at a loss right now as to what to do. As I’ve commented several times tonight on various posts, conservatives have been trying to either eliminate my source of income, SS, my source of healthcare, VA, and what about my second line of healthcare, Medicare, and I have no doubt that they will tank the economy, so there goes my job in all likelihood. My car loan, hell what about my rent? My rent, who cares about that, what about my health care?
And that’s just me personally. I know of several people who are far worse off than me, there are millions of people I expect to see suffer greatly at the great racist experiment that used to be known as the US democracy.
What do you think all those white racist conservatives are going to do when they find out what their dreams of no government really mean? When their SS deposits stop coming? When their health care is cold water and epsom salts? Sing C&W songs? At least there will be a congress for them to hate, no way are those fuckers going to vote themselves out of an easy job and lifetime pension.
Arclite
@cmorenc:
BWAHAHAHAHAHA. As if Trump cares about that shit.
Tazj
@SenyorDave: Well, I don’t understand it at all but my son’s 20 something year old white teacher said she would.
Death Panel Truck
This takes me to my happy place.
I named my rescue cocker spaniel after this man. With the correct pronunciation: “Chick-O.”
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Not really. The Chamber of Commerce Republicans wanted to exploit and control Mexican labor, for example. Many other differences as well. But more later. The events of the day have worn me down.
Emerald
@frosty: Quite a lot actually. I live three miles from Camp Pendleton, the largest Marine base in the world. We’ve also got Cape Vandenberg, where we can fire off rockets. And JPL, which designs the rockets.
And the major agricultural area of the nation, even with our drought, so we can feed ourselves too.
But I think we could buy Trump off and avoid any fight. He likes to make deals, or so I hear. He makes the BEST deals—especially if we actually make him a real billionaire just like he’s always wanted. Anyway, he’ll be bogged down in his war with Iran, which will start in a few months. He won’t want to fight us. He’ll take the cash.
Yeppers: The United States of the Pacific, with CA, OR, WA and HI. I absolutely want Hawaii.
(Not really. We do need to fight this disaster together. But if things really got to be impossible, then we could secede, doncha think?)
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Fortune magazine disagrees with you. The Chinese are going to be thrilled to have Asia all to themselves.
mdblanche
It wasn’t until I read this post that it really sunk in for me that this is truly happening.
But this isn’t the start of a worldwide turn to the right, this is the continuation. All the nagging fears I had in the back of my mind have come true. Like so many other elections around the world in the past few years the forces of hatred and division have beaten their polling and won a victory even they didn’t seem to be expecting. This really is a worldwide trend, this really is Brexit. A few polls showed Brexit winning, but it was expected to lose even if it would come close. That’s certainly what everybody involved thought at first on election night, until the vote counting started. I really thought it was a mistake when the GOP trashed their autopsy report to listen to the Breitbart crowd to chase after the missing white voters. But God help us, they were right. It was a campaign promising to restore their loss of status that drew them out, not their loss of economic standing which is only going to get worse now. So that doesn’t leave me very hopeful that a Sanders style campaign would do any better. It looks like the missing white voters went missing because nobody was pandering to their worse angels, not their better ones. It’s not like bread and butter campaigns have been faring well abroad. I really thought our country’s demographics were more favorable and would make the difference. I really thought the Democratic Party was stronger because it embraced its role as the party of diversity rather than apologized for it like so many social democratic parties. But part of me always feared I was wrong. It really feels like around the world liberalism is sinking below the waves; liberalism in the broadest sense of tolerance, acceptance of disagreement, and openness to others and to the world. And now it just got so much worse. Everywhere. We were the developed economy leading the recovery and now we’re crashing our markets. We were the lynchpin of a system that for its many flaws has kept the world largely at peace during the nuclear age. What happens to it now? None of this is good news for the democracies of Europe and Asia that are already dealing with homegrown crises. Based on what’s happened elsewhere I can guess what might happen next and I hope to God I’m wrong. A spike in hate crimes. A constitutional façade that looks like a liberal democracy but is neither. Even more malign forces waiting for their moment to emerge. We’re in a world crisis the likes of which we haven’t seen since the 1930’s and 1940’s. I was hoping we would be spared the worst like last time. Maybe could have even been the cavalry again. But it’s not to be. And I see no cavalry coming to rescue us. I’m demoralized. I fear what comes next. If there is a solution, whoever finds it will have to be smarter than me. But I know retreat isn’t an option. There’s nowhere to retreat to. Maybe Canada, but that’s still a little close for comfort.
Possibly relevant historical trivia: Today is the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch, Kristallnacht, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Arclite
@Betty Cracker:
Dems always tank the midterms, why would this time be any different?
Eljai
@Lorinda Pike: I know this is not much, but I wish you well and I will keep you in my thoughts that all goes well for you and your family.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
They’re going to do what they’ve always done — they’re going to blame the Other.
Arclite
@cckids:
I started the night that way, but once I got to drinkin’ I didn’t stop. FEELS GOOOOOD.
Odds are 50/50 Cole started again tonight. And I only give him such good odds cuz he’s a stubborn bastard.
Emerald
@Cain:
The press is done here. This is going to be real fascism, and the first thing Trump has to do is get rid of any free press. I give it six months.
Lawrence O’Donnell and Keith Olbermann, among others, are going to have to flee the country. As will Eichenwald and Farenthold. No pulitzers for them now.
After that it’s Breitbart and Trump Television from then on.
SenyorDave
Any thoughts as to what Trump does in terms of “reaching out to the other side”? That’s a tradition for the victor, but he has demonized anyone who did not support him in a way like no other presidential candidate in modern history. I mean Obama must hate his guts, and I have trouble believing he would lift a finger to help Trump with anything. In general, Trump has talked about people like me, a basic traditional liberal, as if we were traitors, not really Americans. How does he even pretend to reach out?
Peter
@Arclite: Not always. The big midterm victory in 2006 paved the way for Obama’s victory.
SiubhanDuinne
Finally, after eight years, I understand how the PUMAs felt.
charluckles
@Brachiator:
I can only speak to my personal experience, but my personal media environment over the last two months was a constant drumbeat of negative articles, editorials and lecturing about emails and the Clinton Foundation and what they say about Clinton’s character. I really felt it was overwhelming, and for me both of those non-scandals were naked political ploys that the press loved and ran with because Hillary Clinton. An absolute shame that she will be defined by that bullshit. Coverage of Trump meanwhile almost delighted in his insults and admonished him for faults here and there, but rarely was there real pressure on anything.
waysel
@Matt McIrvin: Could you please cram “Bernie woulda won” up your ass? Thank you.
Rommie
I worked the election in a classic Michigan suburban R district. Record turnout of the common clay of the Upper Midwest.
8 years ago, I remember the joking comments that Obama would bring out the crazy. Indeed. The Wingularity looms large in the window now, fueled by the Blacklash. Duck and cover!
GD them all
Ruckus
@cain:
So what if they fuck up? Their boss is a fuck up. The controlling segments, USSC and congress are in on the play and could give a shit about them being fuck ups. This is a fucking colossal mess and it’s just getting started. People are talking about all kinds of horrible things happening, and I think it’s quite possible that they are just scratching the surface.
The biggest question I have is, Who is going to be able to do any thing to stop the conservative congress from doing whatever the hell they want? The executive branch? Surly you jest. The USSC? Once again, you are joking, right? That’s always been a key point, one of the branches could check the others (and it’s hard to think of any branch that has been as fucked up as we all suspect these will be.)
Guys I’ve got to at least try to get some sleep, even if I suspect I won’t be able to.
opiejeanne
@rikyrah: I’m afraid you are right. OH hell, I know you are right.
SenyorDave
@charluckles: Well said. The emails dwarfed the alt-right story (that was hardly covered and should have been huge), the Putin connection, Trump’s business connections to foreign governments. The emails were a legitinate story for a while but should have petered out, in the meantime they didn’t bother investigating Trump (x Fahrenhold and Eigenwald)
opiejeanne
@SenyorDave: I am destroyed by the results of the election, in more ways than one.
We may have to come out of retirement, sell everything we own, get that greeter job at Walmart.
mdblanche
@Arclite: The party in the White House almost always tanks in the midterms.
Assuming a free and fair election.
NotMax
The World Turned Upside Down
Soylent Green
Welcome to Kansas.
OGLiberal
Here’s my commentary. Fuck everybody. White voters. Any segment of the electorate who usually vote Dem but turned out in lower numbers. White dudes. Pennsylvania. Women who voted for Trump. Anybody who voted for Jill Stein. Anybody who broke my 10-year old son’s heart yesterday. The mid-West. Fuck all off you. Go fuck yourselves. Go fuck your privileged white ass, or your principled I’m with Stein ass, or black voters who stayed home. Fuck all of you. Fuck you. Fuck you. There is no silver lining here, no would have, could have. You all fucked up. And black voters who went for Trump. Fuck you. You all want to hate me? Go ahead. This fucking buffoon doesn’t win if Dems vote as they should and in the numbers they should.
My kids both have pre-existing incurable conditions that cost a ton and I’m a layoff away from being fucked even with the ACA.
So thank you, everybody. And fuck you. You can’t put lipstick on this pig. We’re fucked. And there is blame to be laid all around. Guess we really are a nation of deplorables… was hoping not.
My fucking lord, how did this happen?
Citizen Alan
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Right. Vichy Democrats. Wondergul.
Matt McIrvin
@waysel: Sorry. I was not a Bernie supporter and Bernie supporters spent the entire past year telling me this was going to happen if we didn’t nominate Bernie, so I was musing over the possibility that there was something to that.
But I think the people here are right–the forces acting here were bigger than that.
Richard Mayhew
@Taylor: E-mail me at bjdickmayhew AT YHOO
Pogonip
@Arclite: I think the problem of the ” socially acceptable answer” was bigger here than ever before. It was uncool for SWPLs to admit they preferred Trump, so they didn’t. Also, Deplorables tend to be underrepresented in polls.
Gvg
@goblue72: you and your idiot obsession with the democrats ignoring their “base” the working class etc…no. First they aren’t our base and haven’t been for decades by the choices they made. Those guys are racists who have been voting against their own interests for decades. They are the republican base. They vote race, not economics. The ones who vote economics are democrats and we haven’t ever ignored them and have consistently legislated in their interests and said so, so they are fine.
Our economic policies would do better for them. As much as we have passed has helped but the dumb ass economic populism of trickle down and no taxes no spending reaganomics has cut success to limited things like at least better than Europe. Second, a lot of it is out of human control and there would be problem s even if all dem policies got done the last 40 years.
We have tried to help them. They believed propaganda and hate us. Reaching out will have to wait till we solve the propaganda problem. I don’t know how.
Also I won’t betray to death other American’s who happen to be someone who is being scapegoated or othered. Deaths can’t be undone. The reaching out to the WWC that they seem to want is allowing murder of minorities. Fuck that. Sympathy and good policy have always been on offer and still are. Why hasn’t that been enough? Bigotry. Don’t like that answer? What am I supposed to do about it? That’s what I see.
Lorinda Pike
@Eljai: Thank you. Your thoughts are definitely appreciated. I am a little off this morning, what with no sleep at all. I just hope we – and the planet survive.