Warren at AFL-CIO drawing line on what can and cannot be done w/Trump: "We will stand up to bigotry. No compromises ever on this one."
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) November 10, 2016
By request of other commentors, here’s our own Jacy:
Of course it’s not too late to turn the tide.
For fuck’s sake, people. I never thought I’d see a black president in my lifetime. I thought marriage equality was 20 years off. The ACA was the first healthcare reform we’d had in forever. DID YOU THINK IT WAS GOING TO BE EASY? HAVE YOU EVER MET PEOPLE?
It’s a catastrophe, yes. It’s heartbreaking and stupid and senseless, and people will go through immeasurable hardships. But, good grief, none of us saw this particular thing coming. And there are tons of events coming that none of us will have seen. Those can be terrible events, but they can also be surprisingly helpful events. Serendipity still exists. Who the fuck knows exactly what will happen? So what you do is organize and prepare and to take whatever break comes your way. I’ve had it with doom and gloom and naysaying. You can grieve, but take it from someone who’s gone through this world destruction on a personal level — if all you do is concentrate on how bad you feel and how hopeless everything looks, it’s going to destroy you and you won’t have a chance to fight back.
Every single person needs to find what they need to make them okay. Reach out to someone else if you can’t find it yourself. Then pick yourself up. The world hasn’t ended yet.
Apart from helping ourselves to help each other, what’s on the agenda as we start another week?
.
Cermet
I’ll start off the “Good Morning Everyone!”
rachel
Or, as Edna Mode one put it, “Pull. Yourself. Together!”
Zinsky
Good advice from Jacy. I feel invigorated now – I have a purpose in life! Making Donald Trump a one-term president! I hope all Balloon Juicers feel the same way!
Another Holocene Human
I agree–breaks will come. This is the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. We need to take them.
Another Holocene Human
About voter registration, let me tell you a bit about voter suppression. I live in Florida so I’ve seen it first hand. The #1 most important tactic that the GOP has used has been to make it impossible for felons to get their rights restored. Something like 1/6 of all African American men are felons in the state of Florida. I’ve talked to many who are motivated to get their rights back (there are of course whites, too, who are caught in this system, but Florida has serious differential justice).
Any effort we put together to help people with REAL ID problems, which is a great cause and one I 100% support, will not address this felon problem. We are working on this problem in Florida but the best thing we could possibly do is get a new governor in there. Of course, our feckless state party needs to put up a decent candidate for once, one who will actually campaign in the entire state, like Chiles did, sorry Nan Rich, and one who Dems will actually trust–Crist was just hated by too many of the boots on the ground who didn’t knock doors for him. But if we have a shot at getting that governor’s mansion we need to take it. That would be the biggest ‘win’ we could possibly get in our column.
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Holocene Human: Getting people to pay attention might be a problem.
Darkrose
Thanks Jacy! I needed to hear that today.
rikyrah
Morning,Everyone????
Baud
@Zinsky:
When all hope seems lost, think of Baud! 2020!
Mustang Bobby
Here’s my thoughts, or some of them:
So let’s do this thing.
Baud
Some theme music for this thread.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby: That’s a very nice piece. Jacy too, which I read yesterday.
Betty Cracker
@Another Holocene Human: Tant is stepping down as chair of FL Dems, and it looks like the battle to become her successor is already heating up. Any favorites in that scrum?
Inmourning
Amen to all this. All politics is local. Start local and work outward.
And I am writing and calling my elected representatives and asking where they stand on privatizing SS and Medicare, then when they respond, I will publicize that response in every available forum.
JPL
@Mustang Bobby: I became involved in helping to elect council members, who were against high density building. What was shocking to me, is the amount of people wanting to regulate use of personal property, but are against government regulation.
This is not okay.
Mustang Bobby
@Betty Cracker: You mean there’s actually a Florida Democratic Party? Since when?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: More appropriate for tonight would be “Bad Moon Risin’*”.
*Super Moon!.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: Nice shot.
George
We all need to keep in mind that, despite how loudly the Trump crowd crows about it, most Americans voted for Clinton, and if there had been a one-percent shift in the vote in three states, she would be the president-elect. You can bet that if the situation were reversed, the rightwing would be roaring about how it showed how popular they were.
This isn’t 1980 or 1984 or 1988, when the GOP smacked the Democrats in the presidential race. We recovered then, and we will do so again.
We also need to use the racists to our advantage. Most politically savvy people on the left were aware of the alt-right movement for years, but the racists largely flew under the general radar. They are exposed now. We need to keep working that fact into our writing in subtle ways that remind folks who we are dealing with.
Another Holocene Human
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s why we need patient, charismatic pols. We keep complaining about the long campaign season but a Lawton Chiles or a Barack Obama uses that to their advantage. You have to find a way past the media wall, and that means traveling and meeting people and using the buzzfeed-esque nature of social media to let people get to know you.
I paid very close attention to the presidential race and I feel like I know Trump all too well but barely know Hilary. Every once in a while I got a glimpse but there was no steady drumbeat from the campaign ‘this is who Hilary is. She cares’. It’s as if the campaign wanted me to know she was a mother and a grandma and that was enough. Well, my mother has narcissistic personality disorder and beat me bloody. We have an epidemic of child abuse in this country, as Hilary Clinton knows, and many of us cannot draw on ‘the image of a mother’ as something positive. I need to know who SHE is, personally. Obama understood that. He’s always been seen kissing babies, doling out pics from his early life, was comfortable with a degree of exposure … I read his book and I felt like I knew him. We can call this unfair, but this is where we are. The corporate media will never ever help us. Trump isn’t good for them but they still helped him win. We got Carter’d, Mondale’d, Gore’d, Kerry’d. You can’t just pick someone who is GOOD through and through, you need someone with charisma, someone willing to sell themselves and the Dem platform. Hilary spent way too much time talking about Trump’s negatives.
Mnemosyne is going to call me a dudebro now and start ranting, but IIRC, there were more ballots cast in MI with the top of the ticket blank than our loss differential. Voter suppression wasn’t a ‘surprise’. Campaigns have to work with that. Never selling your candidate to the voter is an unforced error. We cannot afford to make that mistake again.
GregB
To quote Rush Limbaugh:
I hope he fails.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Thanks.
JPL
@BillinGlendaleCA: Thank you for the picture. Smoke from wildfires in north GA, has covered the area, so no moon for me.
Schlemazel
@JPL:
It is OK if WE regulate you but they should not be allowed to regulate me!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Holocene Human:
Did you watch her video of when she announced her run? The intro video of her convention speech? Bill’s speech at the convention?*
Hillary’s had several books out as well about her life, read them?*
This is what it came down to, the media hated Hillary; they liked Obama when he ran the first time. The GOP pissed and moaned about how pro-Obama the press was in 2008.
*I’m being a bit snarky here, but if you relied on the media for a picture of Hillary Clinton; you knew she used a email sever in her basement and that’s about it.
Schlemazel
@GregB:
either he does or the US does. never been a less qualified buffoon in the office & this is a time when he can easily do the most damage
BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: It’s really clear here since we have mild Santa Ana, and the moon is big and bright.
That pic was taken with a Samsung NX500, 1300mm lens at f/8 and a 28mp image.
Betty Cracker
@BillinGlendaleCA: Co-fucking-signed.
@Schlemazel: This too. The patriotic thing is to hope Trump fails because he is either consciously a white nationalist or a puppet white nationalists manipulate by appeals to his vanity.
OzarkHillbilly
The Corruption Will Be Endless
-Josh Marshall
more at the link
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, I’ve been thinking of retiring just so my labor-generated tax dollars aren’t being used to line their pockets.
Aimai
@Another Holocene Human: the urge to find a “just” explanatiin for why Hillary lost may be personally reassuring to you but its bizarre, victim blaming, insulting to 60 million viters and, ultimatly, ridiculous. No politician can please everyone. Every politician is going to trip over someones personal tragedy or fail to excite them or even repulse them. You are not entitled to a barack obama in every election cycle. you never were and you never will be. In additiin, though you dont seem to have noticed it, trump ran against Obama and his voters voted against Obama–even those who voted for him previously. So much for charisma. I loved HRC–and I know plenty of people who did. I honor her for the work she has done and the shit she has endured. Your experience with your mother is tragic but your willingness to project it on to her and other women is even more tragic.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: The NYTimes describes Steve Bannon as a populist, and it appears that the rest of MSM just ignores his connections to hate groups. If it became a problem though, Trump would remove him, but still consult with him on a daily basis. Corey Lewandowski was fired, went to CNN and continued to work for Trump.
Mustang Bobby
@OzarkHillbilly: This is going to make the history of the regime of Gov. William J. Lepetomane seem like a documentary.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Tax evasion will become the most patriotic of acts.
Jeffro
@Baud: Thought for sure that was going to be “Eye of the Tiger”
Baud
@Jeffro: Another good choice.
WereBear
@BillinGlendaleCA: very nice!
BillinGlendaleCA
I went to pick up the replacement ice maker module for my fridge yesterday, about a 30 mile drive. On the way back, I decided to stop at the Huntington Library and Gardens(I’d taken my camera, just in case) and I took some great 3-d pics of the roses in their rose garden. I’d share them in anaglyph format, but they just aren’t coming out very well(especially red/blue since most of the roses are red and pink shades)?.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby: It’s going to be epic and coming right after Obama, an admin during which there was none zero nil nada corruption it is going to be impossible for people to not see it. The Dems will need to hammer the GOP for it daily/hourly.
BillinGlendaleCA
@WereBear: Thanks, I may try for another shot as the moon is more towards the horizon and before dawn.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
One of the unfortunate things that’s happened is that we’ve dumbed corruption down to mean things like accepting high dollar campaign donations or having former government officials working for industry. I hope people are still able to recognize the difference. People didn’t see to appreciate how much better Obama was from Bush.
Mustang Bobby
@OzarkHillbilly: I should invest in popcorn futures.
Schlemazel
@Aimai:
I seriously believe we need to find us a Ronald Reagan. A pretty, empty suit, who seems so gosh darn likable. His job, as was Reagan’s, is to be the front man, the pretty face that assures voters he is a great guy you want to have a beer with. Once in office we could trot him out to smile and wave & give stirring speeches while people who actually care and can get things done run the show.
This is what the GOP has done successfully twice to the detriment of the nation. Apparently qualifications and ability take a back seat to being entertained & feeling good about yourself in today’s America. We may need to play the game.
MomSense
@Mustang Bobby:
Thank you Mustang Bobby and Jacy.
Applejinx
@Another Holocene Human: I agree with Holocene completely.
It reminds me of British politics. Reminds me of New Labor… I’ve been watching some documentaries.
I get that these problems are hard. It’s the ideology that gets me. When you go full-on with an aspirational thing—and Clinton’s message was ABSOLUTELY an aspirational thing—to the point that you’re going ‘be the bright shining urban multicultural winners! Don’t be the old rural monocultural fucks, they’re dying off! They cling to guns and religion because nothing will save them! Good riddance!’ you’d goddamned well better have a lot of seats on your bus.
It was your job to save them. More convenient to watch them die, I guess. What could go wrong?
More and more I’m looking at this postmortem and realizing, unhappily: I had no choice. There was no chance I was ever going to vote for Trump, the idea is just stupid. Even if he is ‘disruptive’ of the status quo in relevant ways the cost is impossibly too high.
But that meant I could only vote for Clinton: and now it looks like it was always going to be more of the same. Technocratic Google-lobbyed macroeconomics to put a ‘USA’ stamp on the unthinkably vast flows of abstract money held by banks and corporations, all while small settlements of human beings wither and die. Clinton was on track to put the United States of America firmly in control of that globalized world, I firmly believe. Everything suggests that she would’ve been more powerful than anyone’s ever been, dominating the Eurozone, directing the flows of capital for the benefit of the USA.
And it would have meant nothing to me. Begging for scraps in the crevices of the huge shiny machine, like street people in San Francisco, wondering when I’ll be shot by police for having to poop and having no private property in which to do that in a civilized way.
Trump is obviously no better, but that’s not saying a hell of a lot.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Yep. Again it’s that getting people to pay attention problem. Maybe if we just hammer on it 24/7 it’ll pay off in 40 years.
@Mustang Bobby: I bought 5,000 shares of Vase1ine Weds morning. Too late for Orville Redenbacher, they’ve already gone thru the roof.
RedDirtGirl
My rallying cry is this:
This CRISIS should not be a call to activism,
but rather a call to active citizenship.
I propose regular BJ meet-ups that act as political cells all over the country, where we write letters to our elected officials and local papers, make calls to said elected officials, volunteer as a group for some organization, etc.
We can do these things individually, but they will have more impact collectively, while also feeding our hunger for community.
Any thoughts? I’m in the NYC metro area and we are already having a gathering when Hillary Rettig comes through on 11/21. I’d love to brainstorm with folks about ways to be a more engaged participant in my civic society.
Baud
@Schlemazel: Meh. We had a Barack Obama and we took him for granted. Not sure how having a Reagan helps much.
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ll file my taxes when I see the President’s returns. They can play their Hitler fantasies without my help.
Darkrose
@Schlemazel: I hate this idea, but in my more bleak moments I can’t deny that I’ve been wondering how Chris Evans would be in that role. I mean, Captain America!
MomSense
@Schlemazel:
The media wouldn’t fluff a Democratic Reagan. We managed to elect Obama because the country was so messed up people had nothing to lose by giving the black guy a go.
Kay
The bar for this guy really couldn’t be lower. They’re setting it up so he cannot fail- he just has to show up and not say anything offensive.
Grading on a curve so Donald Trump passes “Presidential” is the wrong approach. There has to be some objective reality or they’re just racing to the bottom.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: True, and it’s also highly selective. I mean, does anyone ever mention that white nationalist, anti-Semite domestic abuser and hate-site impresario Steve Bannon is a former Goldman Sachs executive? If the Common Clay can’t be arsed to object to Bannon’s fomenting of race-based hate, can they at least feel a twinge of outrage that a bankster will be running the shit-gibbon’s strategy shop?
Darkrose
@Kay: This is the most frightening part of all..They’re normalizing this shit.
WereBear
The key is why half the registered voters stayed home. Anyone asked them why? When I do, I get stuff like “Washington wasn’t working, we had to send a message.”
Which is like: my new car has a crappy transmission, so I am going to set it on fire. That will show Ford/Audi/Subaru! Instead of the smart thing, which would be getting them to fix it under warranty.
I mean, on the one hand, it is CERTAIN that they thought it was safe to do so. I had a much better grasp of what Trump meant that they did, and went out and voted for Hillary.
I think, after so many decades of no civics in school and right wing propaganda and useless media, way too many people have no clue how things work.
And, in the upcoming tidal wave of things NOT WORKING, we have an opportunity to explain how they are supposed to be working.
Schlemazel
@Baud:
Obama got elected because he was charismatic. That he was also a good leader was irrelevant to a large number of voters. Imagine an idiot like reagan running as a DEM one that can placate the “have a beer with” folks simply as a place keeper to bring in people who will do right by the nation.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay:
*Translation: He wasn’t foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog.
Schlemazel
@Kay:
HI! Have you noticed this nifty handcart we are all riding in?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: Betty, you know that having an email server in your basement is much more important that these trivial things.
debbie
@Another Holocene Human:
Or casually leave some rope around for them to hang themselves with.
It’s already begun: Trump’s appointing insiders. Connell’s equivocating on coal bringing jobs back to Kentucky. Maybe not a wall everywhere.
It hasn’t even been a week yet.
MomSense
@Kay:
Racing to the bottom or free fall?
Betty Cracker
@Applejinx: Good lord, you bounce around like a pinball, don’t you? Word of advice: avoid getting in the same ZIP code with a cult leader. You are clearly easy pickings.
Botsplainer
America turned out to be the country matoko_chan said it was. The white working class and olds of the rust belt and Deep South spoke up in enough numbers and the electoral college booby trap got triggered. We now go into the third disastrous Republican economy of my working career shortly before my 55th birthday (the one most often cited by Paul Ryan’s plan as the cutoff for eligibility for traditional Medicare), and I just no longer have the time or inclination for traditional political involvement or quiet advocacy.
So here’s my thing – I’m mostly done with political involvement. There will be a couple of hobby horses I hop on (donating to every opponent Bernie Sanders has, Democrat or Republican, is a big one, as is advocating that if I’m to experience the pleasures of the free market in insurance in my elder years, so should America’s seniors who are receiving Medicare now). I’ll also be boycotting American manufactured cars, so as to deprive white working class voters of the rust belt of my dollars.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Schlemazel: “George Clooney, Mr. George Clooney please pick up the white courtesy telephone.”
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Well, Hillary’s son in law, who had no policy role that I’m aware of, was a bankster. Which I know because it always came up. So both sides!
debbie
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Whatever color, roses are beautiful.
MomSense
@WereBear:
I actually came to the realization that the last 25 years of PSAs getting people to vote have been a problem. The message was alway singular. One person one vote, some variation on have your say. The message really should have been to vote what matters. Vote for the people who need your advocacy. The message should have been all about community and responsibility to each other.
debbie
@BillinGlendaleCA:
The true Trump will be in his Twitter feed. There needs to be a way to have that very publicly displayed every day.
Kay
@MomSense:
I was wondering about a tax revolt as a response to Trump’s refusal on taxes, too. It’s appealing to me because it would be unexpected coming from Democrats and/or liberals- it switches up in a way I like.
It would be fun to remind them we pay taxes too.
I’m currently pissed about paying upper management in the FBI. I don’t know why I have to pay the salaries of far Right political operatives. That doesn’t seem fair. If they work for Trump family how about they get on the Trump family payroll and off of ours? Seems like they least they could do.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: You left out “serial practitioner of voter fraud”.
debbie
@Kay:
How to do this if a person gets a paycheck? Did someone forget to tell me I could not have to pay any taxes at all throughout the year?
BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie: OK, I’ll give you a Peppermint Stick.
ETA: Again, the pic looks much better in 3D?.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I’m in if we can figure out a way to do that without going to jail. From what I’ve seen, you’ve got to have armies of lawyers or a few scrawny cows, an abundance of guns and Fox News on your speed dial to get away with it.
dogwood
@BillinGlendaleCA:
He wrote a book; she wrote a book misses the point. I’ve read both of Obama’s books and Clinton’s as well. They are not comparable. I read “Dreams from My Father” in the 90’s, and when I finished it, felt I knew him. I remember thinking, lucky the people who know this man. When I read her books, I came away with a clear sense of what’s she’s done, not much else. It’s the thing they harp on in Comp. 101- don’t tell me; show me. And ‘you’re absolutely right; the DNC video was fabulous, but the Hillary in that video was not reinforced on the stump.
Kay
@MomSense:
They did the exact same thing after 2000. The Supreme Court made the ruling and we were all ordered to get behind the new President. It was unpatriotic not to.
Democrats and liberals got the same scolding, the same stern lectures.
No such lectures were given to GOP voters after Obama won. They were told their opposition was understandable and justified.
I cannot believe they’re pulling the patriotism card. Opposing Trump means you’re not pulling for Team America. Disgusting.
Applejinx
@Schlemazel: Define ‘do right’. I’m convinced Obama was supporting slavery-tolerating countries, pushing the TPP, doing all this stuff that upset hard lefties because he got into office and looked around, like the intelligent guy he is.
And he saw: holy shit, the whole world is a huge globalized clusterfuck and if we don’t play and win that game we will just be roadkill. We have to beat it at its own game because there’s only one game being played, and it’s for keeps.
Clinton never doubted that or even saw it was a question. She lives the game.
Trouble is, the game is Russian Roulette (don’t quote this, fywp). There are some interesting side-effects (if you were in a country where your standard of living was a hundredth that of a Georgia cracker, globalization is awesome for you!) but over a long enough time period, everybody’s fucked except for a very small number of ultimate winners.
I think Obama’s done a great job of riding this tiger knowing the problems with it. I’m sure he’s been pushing the TPP because on the whole it’s a path to increased American dominance, and that’s sort of his job: dominance in a much more intelligent sense than Trump knows it, but dominance all the same. Clinton would be pushing it just as hard if it polled better (she probably was planning to accomplish the same thing in different ways, with the names changed).
I don’t think Clinton sees any problems with it at all, nor did the UK center-left, and this is what happens when people are just grist for the machine, or abandoned for the sake of competitive efficiency. The situation demanding that competitive efficiency does not go away, don’t get me wrong. But suddenly the rabble’s smashing the machine. Not because the machine isn’t a ‘winning machine’ but because it’s crushing them and you don’t give a shit about that part, it’s collateral damage to you and you’re looking at the big picture.
Sinnach
So at the risk of admitting that I’m falling down drunk early on Monday morning I hate to be totally, comically hyperbolic but how long before a terrorist attack/plot under Trump before he declares quasi-martial law or explicitly blames Democrats for it?
‘My fellow Americans – today our national security forces triumphed over a cell of radical Islamic terrorists. While we were able to prevent any loss of life, the terrorists nonetheless managed to sabotage a twinky factory in Wapanucka, Oklahoma. Our national supply of sugary snacks will be sorely tested over the upcoming months – which forces me to employ big league countermeasures to keep every American safe. Not only am i going to immediately ban all Muslims from entering the country, I am going to institute national stop and frisk statuettes and prohibit these violent riots intent on subverting our democracy.’
MomSense
@Kay:
I’m doing it. Are the Republicans suddenly going to turn into IRS defenders? Let them get on the news every night calling for the IRS to go after us. That’ll work with their voters. They only have the power of the purse because we fill it. I’m not paying until I see trump’s returns.
JMG
I will be ready for any action that sounds positive and practical, but right now, I have to recharge. My sleep pattern has been shot to hell since before Halloween. Go to bed, wake up three hours later, wide awake with anxiety for another three hours, doze fitfully but unable to fully drop off. Until I break that bad magic spell, I have to focus on my own state of mind. But that’s different from withdrawing. I just need to take a few plays off.
liberal
I thought of something that cheered me up, about finding courage.
It was the last scene in _Glory_.
If those black recruits could face marching into that kind of battle, we can face Donald Fucking Trump and Paul Ryan.
Forward, for the 54th!!!!
Baud
@Sinnach: Sober up, stop fantasizing, find a group that’s doing good things so we will be prepared to respond to whatever comes out way.
Kay
@debbie:
Well if what you pay is withholding you couldn’t do it- the people who make an income tax payment to the IRS with a return, I meant.
WereBear
@Kay: Actually, everyone could just file an extension instead.
Problem is, lots of people aren’t in a position to pay taxes; they are filing to get their money back.
We need a general strike. Soon. During Christmas season.
Personally, I am not buying gifts this year. When I have to flee the country with gold underwear, I want it to be as heavy as possible.
Which can be a form of protest, too. Hit them in the wallet. They always feel that the most.
liberal
@JMG: do you have a link to the results about trumptards being policy morons?
liberal
@JMG: hear you on that one. Benzos are mt friend…for the short term only, of course.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: It’s an option one may pick on the W2. Not a good option but it is an option.
Applejinx
@Betty Cracker:
If you think this is in any way a change in position or perspective from what I’ve had all along, you’re not paying attention or you told yourself little stories and then viewed everything through the little stories you told yourself. It’s like that Mark Blyth talk with Wendy Schilling where Wendy started up by saying, ‘I know both of us are very surprised at the outcome of this election’…
Nope nope nope. Not only are you ‘rejecting my reality and substituting your own’, you are doing it on points where I CALLED this and made a big unpopular noise about exactly the issues that lost Clinton the election. I didn’t know it was going to be the Rust Belt, but I’ve been whistling past the graveyard for months, desperately trying to believe you folks were right about everything.
You don’t get to come around now and call ME a cult follower.
liberal
@MomSense: somewhat hard to do. At least, during ‘Nam some IRS guy told a friend of my dad’s that if he didn’t write him a check, he’d just go down to the bank and take it out.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think federal- and state-wise, that’s all I can do. Increase my exemptions so there’s less withheld and then just not pay the small balance due. I can stop paying local taxes since they aren’t taken out of my paycheck, but it’s not the locals I’m angry with.
gene108
I know many are hoping Republican overreach will spark a backlash, but Scott, Walker, Snyder, LePage, Brownback and basically everyone but Corbett, who was elected in 2010 overreached and got re-elected.
We need to organize and not count on voter backlash, which may or may not materialize.
liberal
@Another Holocene Human: agreed.
Botsplainer
@WereBear:
I like what you’re thinking.
I’m also not doing any business with loud Christians. They’re not getting my money, either.
debbie
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Very nice. I know zero about 3D, but can’t you mess with color filters and the like?
Baud
@gene108: Louisiana backlashed on the governor. Agree it’s not a surw thing, but it can happen.
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: Please don’t do that. I’m pretty sure regular access to a computer is hard to find in a Federal penitentiary and I’d really miss having you around here.
debbie
@Botsplainer:
The quiet ones are just as bad. Where’s a good list of businesses to avoid?
MomSense
@WereBear:
Finally the war on Christmas begins in earnest. This is probably a good time to point out that the right has only wanted to protect commercial Christmas. The actual message of a child born in poverty to a single mother so far from home and unwanted by society that she gave birth in a stable – they hate that kid and his mother.
Betty Cracker
@Applejinx: I’m not going to bother digging through the archives to prove my point since I assume you know what you’ve said. Bernie was the savior. Then Hillary was the savior. Now nobody is the savior. Guess what — you landed on the right one at last. I was wrong about how this election would shake out, but I’ve never expected any politician to solve all my problems. I suggest you give that a whirl. Or not. It’s your life.
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
I know but I’m just pissed. I like seeing you here, too. ?
Applejinx
@Botsplainer: What if they take in refugees and migrants? And tie that to being loud Christians? That’s apparently happening in some places.
JMG
@gene108: Different situation. Obama was President both times. In 2018 Trump will be. And in 2018, there will be a large number of voters who had stuff taken away from them by the Republicans. Our base will still be pissed off. Theirs no longer has the luxury of the blind rage of opposition.
BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie: If you don’t have a 3D display there are ways to use colored glasses(blue/amber are the best) and a program(I use Tridef on my PC) to get a realistic 3D effect. I wasn’t able to get the anaglyph(color shift with colored glasses to work well, also I usually have posted red/blue pics that won’t work with pics with a lot of red, hence blue/amber being better).
These work pretty good on a smartphone.
Betty Cracker
@WereBear: I like the idea of a Christmas boycott, but it may be too late to get something like that started. Maybe not. I like the idea, but it would obviously have to happen on a big scale. Alternatively, we could make donations to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, etc., in lieu of gifts. That would drive my wingnut father batshit.
Botsplainer
@Applejinx:
Quit being obtuse. You know what I’m talking about.
And yes, I’m donating to every Bernie opponent there is – he needs gone yesterday, because his clusterfuck of a campaign had a huge role in this.
Wouldn’t mind seeing somebody take a baseball bat to Jill Stein while we’re at it.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: It is an option on your W4 to have no taxes, state or federal, withheld from your paycheck. A friend of mine checked that box accidentally and never noticed until she went to file and got a BIG not so nice surprise. Really tho, don’t do it. It may sound like a good way to protest but it’s not. IRS trouble is the last kind of trouble one wants.
(up above I said W2, that was a misremember, I always get them mixed up. a W4 is what you fill out when you get hired by an employer and you always have the option to file a new one)
Applejinx
@Betty Cracker: Bernie nailed the problem. I’m honestly sad he didn’t have any better answers, but he really didn’t and I have said that over and over. I tried really hard to convince myself Hillary was going to try to address the problem. No dice, from here it looks like she never intended to do more than identity politics and the same neoliberal agenda that’s been running ALL of the world for decades, and proposed to be better at it than everybody else. I think she would have been. I no longer believe that would have helped.
And Trump is STILL worse.
Dig through the archives all you want, I’ve been saying this all along. I know, because every time I got into macroeconomic problems and oligarchy, people from here flipped out, treated me like a bomb-throwing anarchist, and then denied the whole issue and treated me like I was a bomb-throwing anarchist for no reason who had no functioning brain or consistent position.
Good job, gold star. Clearly this analysis was as good as all the pollsters. Meanwhile, I have been linking to guys like Mark Blyth even when I didn’t think he was calling the election correctly. I continued to agree with everything he said except that I didn’t think Trump had anywhere near 60% chance of winning, and he said that months ago.
And now you want me to listen to YOU?
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
Or make donations in the names of Trumpster friends/relatives.
gene108
@OzarkHillbilly:
But who is going to let us know, when the corruption begins?
Leslie Stahl did a fluff piece interview, with Trump on “60 Minutes” last night. No mention of the possible conflicts of interest between Trump’s personal business dealings and the execution of his duties as President.
Seems like the media wants to stick its head in the sand and pretend there will be no conflicts of interest.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Oh, all right. (grumble grumble)
Applejinx
@Botsplainer: I will never support Bernie for President again. He’s too old, and we’ll need another Socialist.
If you want to decimate the already shattered hopes of the Democratic party, oh by all means organize a vengeance cult to try to take him away from the Vermonters for whom he is home team guy. Raise billions of dollars and spend them all on slick ads demonizing the guy. That worked, and more relevantly that really makes you seem like you’re not a pack of oligarchic elite insiders with no morals and incredibly deep pockets completely ignoring the good of the country in order to enact your vengeful whims.
*shakes head*
I’m interested to see whether cooler heads try to talk you down. I’m interested to see just how many of you guys, and it’s not all of you, but how many of you literally want to go there.
Pro tip: it was about the message. You’ll fail, and even if you won you’ve failed by producing a perfect example of everything he said. You’re literally what he was complaining about. ‘Please proceed, governor’.
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: I’m pissed too. In fact I used those exact words to the Franklin Co Dem party chair this morn. Our problem is going to take time, and work, to fix and it starts at the local level. I’ve been threatening to get involved locally ever since I moved out here. Past time I did so.
Iowa Old Lady
I’m looking at reports that Obama plans to spend more time with Trump than is typical during a transition, I assume because he’s seen how unprepared Trump is. All I can say it, Obama is a much better person than I am.
gene108
@WereBear:
But how do you do it, without falling into the trap of big words and long sentences?
We need to reduce it to slogans that fit on bumper stickers, and we’ve always failed at that.
Kay
Here’s what I’m struggling with as far as staying engaged. I can’t keep my self-respect and also be a Trump Family mark. I can’t be one of the victims of one of their rip-offs because that wouldn’t have happened to me as an individual- I wouldn’t have signed up for Trump U and if I had done contract work they wouldn’t have stiffed me.
Because the country is now about to get fleeced by this family means I have to drop out or I was one of the marks.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
You are meeeeean, I mean just low down dirty rotten mean! I like that. I gave up giving gifts a couple decades ago but I might start up again just so I can do that.
Kay
@Iowa Old Lady:
What’s amazing about Obama is he has gotten absolutely no political benefit out of the decency. None. It has probably hurt him in dealing with Republicans but he still has it
he’s flat out a better person than me.
Jeffro
@Botsplainer:
Don’t forget to boycott all things Trump, Koch, AND Mercer – and then write your local paper explaining why you did it. Get others to join and make sure the folks you’re boycotting know about it.
@WereBear: same advice. If there’s going to be a boycott, be sure people hear about and hear the reasons why.
PS to everyone: since Macy’s is standing by its own boycott of Trump garb (men’s shirts and ties), be sure to support them this holiday season. I know that’s what everyone in my family – wingers especially – is getting this year. ;)
Another Scott
Thanks for the Oliver clip. It was good, though I wish he had been harder on the Times for pushing the OMG EMAILS!!1 and CORRUPT CLINTON FOUNDATION!!1 garbage for so long.
(sigh)
Baud made a good point yesterday that the GOP didn’t announce their obstruction tactics early, so it’s not surprising that Pelosi and Schumer haven’t either. But still, the Tuesday results were a gut punch and we need to know that plans are being worked on…. Or at least, I would take some comfort in it.
I’m reminded of that old saying, attributed to Franklin – “We must all hang together or we will surely hang separately.” JOIN, OR DIE, also too. We can learn lessons from Tuesday’s results, but we have to be united in our determination that Trump’s vision is not the future of America.
Have a good week, everyone.
Cheers,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
@Applejinx:
We see you, motherfucker. We see you.
OzarkHillbilly
@gene108: Like I said in other comments, getting people to pay attention is the problem, one that smarter people than I will have to solve.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Good. I like having you around here too.
O. Felix Culpa
@RedDirtGirl:
Yes. Which may take numerous forms at the local, state, and federal levels. Here’s a former congressional staffer’s recommendation for how most effectively engage with your congresscritters, which is by phone or in person meetings with their staffers. I volunteer with RESULTS, a grassroots organization that advocates for hunger and poverty reduction, and can attest to the effectiveness of this approach. Pick up the phone and call, and establish a relationship with the support staff. It can be amazingly effective.
P.S. One of our (sadly, late) RESULTS members called and talked with a staffer Monday mornings every week, which led to John McCain (!) supporting significant poverty-reduction legislation. So it can make a difference.
Baud
@Jeffro: Ugh. I hate Macy’s. Now I have to support them.
The sacrifices I make for my country.
Kay
And so partly what I’m mourning is “the end of all that”- following politics or thinking I have some individual role in it- because Trump’s just a bridge too far for me- it’s too much to ask for me to “respect” someone who has absolute contempt for women. I can’t do it without losing something and I won’t be a Trump victim. I will not.
liberal
@Applejinx: forget it. Might as well be talking to a wall.
Applejinx
@Kay: What would you say if Trump got backstabbed by the Republicans too many times and changed parties? He was a Democrat in 2001, and in 2004 he told Wolf Blitzer “I probably identify more as a Democrat. It seems like the economy does better under the Democrats”.
That happens to be true. And Obama is coaching him, and Obama knows it’s true and also knows the Republicans want to pass a lot of stuff that will be economically catastrophic.
Just saying. Trump is not a Republican. He’s a third party, just like Sanders was not a Democrat. Trump’s third party actually won, and he does not want to be humiliated by economic disaster. It would be personally embarrassing for him, and he clearly trusts Obama’s input more than Republican input. After all, they could be trying to screw him (which they are).
dogwood
@Applejinx:
“Trouble is, the game is Russian Roulette (don’t quote this, fywp). There are some interesting side-effects (if you were in a country where your standard of living was a hundredth that of a Georgia cracker, globalization is awesome for you!) but over a long enough time period, everybody’s fucked except for a very small number of ultimate winners.”
Nice rationalization. Hey all you people of color around the world living hard lives without electricity or running water, globalization might raise your standard of living, but don’t buy it. They’ll get you in the end. And hey all Americans on the West coast. Tpp might be good for your economy, but the employed white guys in the upper Midwest with their big screen tv’s, multiple vehicles, and money to spend at ca$inos don’t like free trade so forget about it.
Applejinx
@Betty Cracker: Oh, for heaven’s sake. Now what am I supposed to be? I expect this from Whig but I thought you were… calmer?
debbie
@Kay:
Kay, I for one would like you not to check out, but to instead fix the Ohio Democratic Party.
liberal
@Betty Cracker: you miss the point.
The point is that identity politics is not sufficient if paired with nonprogressive economic policies (aka neoliberalism).
The point is not to stop supporting black lives matter.
Betty Cracker
@Applejinx:
It’s like watching Republican conversion therapy in real time.
Kay
@Applejinx:
Donald Trump has left every single person he ever dealt with holding the bag. I think you’re delusional that this will be any different. You’re a mark to him- someone who exists so he can cheat you.
All of these backflips and gaming out ignore the essential nature of this person. Character matters. Norms of behavior matter. It’s how people function- on trust. Your analysis is all about how he’s self-interested. You’re hoping this self-interested person won’t screw YOU, that you’ll somehow come out on top. You won’t.
You’re admitting he functions purely on self-interest and asking me to battle him there, on his turf when he holds all the cards. I won’t. I’ll lose everything, including self-respect.
Applejinx
@liberal: This. I don’t think the outcome of the election in ANY way suggests racism, sexism are necessary or even popular. I think that is the nasty taste some people choked down because they were convinced Trump was an economic savior, because he went and told them loudly that he was, and that nobody in Washington would do a thing to help them, nobody but he alone.
The happy racists are a minority and probably a new class of brownshirts. I consider ’em terrorists and unAmerican, and trying to conflate all of them with all possible ‘non-Hillary’ votes pissed off a lot of people.
The point is not to stop supporting black lives matter.
Shalimar
@Applejinx: Your choice was between drinking apple juice and drinking motor oil, and every time you came here it was to talk about how bad apple juice tastes. This is why people still tell you to fuck off. You’re too ignorant to focus on reality.
Betty Cracker
@liberal: At least one commenter right here on this blog who believes HRC offered a neoliberal policy (newsflash: she didn’t) suggested that we stop promoting “identity politics,” i.e., shut up about trans rights, understand that white working class people have a point about BLM, etc. As I said, I’m all ears if folks want to talk about retooling our message and emphasizing economics more. But we can’t triangulate on our core principles. And we should acknowledge that the outcome of the election had a shit-ton of causes and that perhaps “didn’t heed the Berniacs” isn’t #1.
Applejinx
@Betty Cracker: Suggesting even Trump could abandon the Republicans is a vote of confidence in them? I don’t think I follow that one. And the whole point of gaming out is that this guy is a loose canon with no character and no principles. Don’t assume he’s going to play to the advantage of the Republicans.
If he does stuff that bolsters HIM at the expense of the Republicans, somebody’s gonna have to be able to turn that to the advantage of the Left.
Kay
@debbie:
But that’s the sucker move, right? khan said about Donald Trump you have sacrificed nothing and that’s true. You can’t ask me to be one of his marks. He relies on that.
I didn’t make the New Rules and I’m sorry all the standards are gone but I won’t play on that field. That’s like insult to injury.
Shalimar
@Applejinx: The vast majority of Trump racists don’t think they are racists. They just want all the brown (latino and muslim) people out of their country, which is as racist as you can get short of genocide. They LOVE the wall, but don’t mind if he doesn’t build it as long as he expels the Mexicans. Yeah, racism was something they didn’t want but accepted with all the other stuff.
Applejinx
@Shalimar: The people I looked to for information, notably Mark Blyth, called Brexit and this election accurately.
I respectfully submit that I want to continue listening to the people who predicted what was going to happen, ahead of time, when you were still drinking your apple juice and claiming you knew how the world worked. I do not feel like it’s helpful to look to some of you folks for reality.
Kay
@Applejinx:
You know, the extreme chirpiness of the Left with the rise of Donald Trump makes me think it was a mistake to ever ally with any of you.
You’re all fucking thrilled you stuck it to the man and you’ll all happily follow Big Daddy off a fucking cliff. I regret ever listening to any of you. I’m done with that too.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
No.
Applejinx
@Shalimar: Barack Obama has been deporting millions of people, all this time. What happens if Trump makes a huge public deal out of deporting people, like on live television, but the numbers are actually smaller than the deportations Obama’s been legally doing?
Shalimar
@Applejinx: You’re still more concerned with being right than with winning.
Botsplainer
@Applejinx:
God, you’re an idiot. Why do you think Bannon is there?
liberal
@Betty Cracker: HRC’s stated policy wasn’t particularly neoliberal, but the party (including under Obama, and even since Bill Clinton) has had an obvious neoliberal agenda.
Now, when I say HRC’s stated policy, she didn’t come off as particularly neoliberal, but OTOH she’s been neoliberal herself for a long time, had no simple unifying message, had a late anti-TPP conversion which a lot of us agreed with but didn’t feel was particularly convincing…
Whatever. I voted for her in the general, and I’m not stupid enough to think that Trump won’t be a gazillion times worse than any problems I had with Hillary. But that’s all water under the bridge.
The question is what to do going forward.
I don’t want to ditch protecting minorities (I’m leaving “identity politics” aside as a perjorative), but in the big picture, the party has really seemed to be about neoliberalism plus identity politics, and not much more. Yeah, yeah, we had Wall Street reforms, but in the big picture they were tiny. Finance takes a huge fraction of GDP, and as long as that’s true, the reforms can be seen as not amounting to much.
The big battle forward will be between those who want to keep pushing the neoliberal agenda, with crumbs for the rest of us—e.g. identity politics, and those who believe in true liberal/progressive policy.
Does that mean ignoring black lives matter? No. Part of liberal policy is the establishment and maintenance of a just order, and a regime where a privileged class of people can execute an unprivileged class is neither just nor an order.
tarragon
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Have you seen Wiggle 3d? It’s surprisingly effective and easy to do.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rachel:
Worth keeping in mind the Right sold itself to the devil to win that election and they are not going to like what they got.
* Trump is all over the place.
* The House sounds like it will just say no to anything, because that’s how they see they get reelected.
* The press is still going to need a new victim to play mean girls on and only the Republicans are left.
So a lot of those Republicans voters are going to quickly start feeling disillusioned.
liberal
@Kay: But he’s correct if he means scenario planning.
It’s not _impossible_ that Trump will defy the Republicans on many issues—he ran, after all, as a fascist populist.
I don’t read that as saying “see, Trump isn’t so bad, and Hillary was awful!” I read it as saying “for tactics, we need to be prepared for anything.”
That being said, I think the probability Trump will really resist the Republicans is very low, if not zero. He’s both too lazy and too low-IQ to really push an ideological agenda.
Applejinx
@Kay: You’re talking to someone who voted for and followed Hillary Clinton off a cliff, with none of the certainty you guys wallowed in. Now because I’m talking about the things I knew were problems and were proved to be problems, I’m chirpy and thrilled and love my big circus peanut of a President-elect personally.
Sure, and Barack Obama must love Massa with all his heart, just because he’s not spitting in the ridiculous man’s face.
I think my attitude here is closer to Barack Obama’s. But no, I have to go down with Clinton, because voting for her isn’t enough.
Shalimar
@liberal:
And right there, I’m never reading another word you say. Fuck off.
Applejinx
@Shalimar: WE. LOST!
I’m concerned with staying alive so there’s anybody to fight another day. And yes, I want West Virginia and Wisconsin and Michigan to stay alive too. Crazy talk, I know.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Applejinx: A tree falls in the woods and nobody hears. The press did report it, it didn’t happen.
But it won’t be “Trump Saves America!”, good news doesn’t sell, bad news does, so it will be “Trump Deportations Tear Families Apart” The MSM’s customers are disaster porn addicts. Ironically in our gasp of horror we gave the MSM their new narrative.
liberal
@Applejinx: I think it’s difficult to pull apart the motivations of Trump voters. Even if a particular Trump voter isn’t outwardly racist, or much even inwardly, there’s some kind of tribal affiliation thing that’s going on which is repulsive even if the individual isn’t that racist/sexist.
The black lives matter thing…we should support it because it’s right, not because it’s a winner (or not losing) proposition.
Thing is, cops even execute white people for no reason. Obviously they do so to a far, far less extent than people of color, but they do do it.
It’s the same way as stand your ground in FL. If I lived there (thank god I don’t!), since I’m very white, I almost certainly wouldn’t be a victim. But it’s not just, and it’s not an order: the state has essentially legalized murder. I cannot fathom living under such conditions even if I’m not targeted myself.
Shalimar
@Applejinx: You were screaming WE’RE GOING TO LOSE! way before WE LOST!.
OzarkHillbilly
@liberal:
This.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker: @Applejinx:
I’m sorry, friend, but I call bullshit on this comment. First, whence comes this remarkable insight into her motivations? Because she lost? Can you provide documentation about what she “never intended” to do?
Second, please explain how supporting policies (including many of Bernie’s proposals) that support women, children, working- and middle-class families, immigrants, and students constitutes “identity politics.” Seems those identities include most of us.
Third, how is this helpful? To be honest, I’m detecting more than a whiff of misogyny here. How about we accord Hillary the honor she deserves for having fought a good fight in the face of unrelenting personal attack, smears, and lies, while we move forward with concrete proposals for action to defend what we hold dear. It’s on us, individually and collectively, to make a difference.
liberal
@Shalimar: That won’t make a difference, since obviously you can’t read.
BillinGlendaleCA
@tarragon: Yes, I’ve tried it. I’ve found the results less that satisfactory, colored glasses(blue/amber) and an anaglyph work much better.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Shalimar:
This
The only change is things should be done in a way to make it clear they protect everyone, not just minorities.
Applejinx
@liberal:
I’m not quarreling with you, I’m amplifying that. WHAT Wall Street reforms? They got bailed out at our expense, and then continued to prosper so much that they paid off the bailout and continued on their merry way. Mark Blyth has mentioned one cute little statistic. Here it is from the New York Times and also Forbes.
That’s BONUSES. Not their pay: BONUSES alone are worth more than every minimum wage worker in America.
Forgive me for not thinking that is a sustainable condition, and for thinking that Barack Obama has chosen not to upset that applecart… and that Hillary Clinton had no intention of doing anything about it at all, because those Wall Streeters count as American workers when you look at the big picture.
Kay
@Applejinx:
Oh,fuck off. And stop romanticizing “white working class”. A lot of them ARE racist and sexist and hate gay people. I get that they’re fashionable right now but they’re not a WPA mural.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Madame works there.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: Naw, spread the word. Strike now, while the despair is high and people have real economic insecurity uppermost in their minds.
I know I do.
I like the idea of donating to good organizations in a wingnut relatives name. If I hadn’t cut them all out of my life, I might just do that :)
But really: give cookies. Give time. Give donations and volunteering and food for the hungry and coats against the cold.
They want a War on Christmas? We’ll war on their Christmas.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: You are a sucker. You will always be a sucker. You enjoy being manipulated, and you don’t know very much about anything, and yet you think you do. You don’t even know what the word “neoliberal” means and yet you fling it around like a chimp flings his own shit.
Vermont, where you live, elected a Republican governor. Why do you think that was? Because of “neoliberalism”?
liberal
@O. Felix Culpa: Attacking Hillary is pointless, insofar as 2016 is now water under the bridge.
The point is to (a) develop better tactics and strategies moving forward, (b) move the party as a whole to the left, because that will win more elections and is also the right thing to do anyway.
So using the defeat of Hillary as data regarding tactics and strategy isn’t “attacking her”. It’s saying “this general lost an enormous battle…why? What does that tell us about selecting leaders in the future?”
I’ll submit these:
* Hillary wasn’t charismatic
* Hillary got her start off of Bill’s coattails. That doesn’t mean I think Bill is “better” than her in a general sense; but rather my impression is that such candidates have an inherit weakness unless they’ve been in politics for a long time (e.g. Nancy Pelosi)
* Hillary lost in 2008. OK, she lost to Obama, who is a very talented politicians, but she had every possible advantage at the party and primary level, and she lost (albeit closely) to someone who was pretty much a newcomer. Another tactic: don’t put forward also-rans
* Hillary had sky-high negatives going into the election. We can piss and moan that that was the unfair result of decades of negative branding, as Billmon put it, but it really was a huge handicap, fair or unfair.
Other examples I can think of which aren’t Hillary: I’ve seen Dems lose gubernatorial elections because we put forward Lt. govs who weren’t really battle tested. Don’t do that.
Finally, come to grips with the fact that a neoliberal agenda (meaning, specifically, “free” trade agreements that benefit large corporations, the continued coddling of the FIRE sector (which, reforms or no reforms, eats up a huge fraction of GDP), and what appears to be sympathy for essentially open borders (for labor, anyway) are going to continue to result in electoral defeat.
Kay
@Applejinx:
I defended Bernie people here for months, but that was a sucker move too. You’ve all been insufferable since democrats lost. Take your victory lap and go away. You won. It’s “disrupted”. Good luck not getting hit by the Trump Train.
liberal
@Applejinx: Yeah, I know you’re not quarrelling with me.
I’m quarreling with the people here who think that because we gave Wall Street 95% of what it wanted instead of 120%, that somehow makes us “reformers”.
tarragon
@BillinGlendaleCA:
They do when you’ve already got the glasses. Wiggle is a nice way to share widely and keeps the colors.
A buddy of mine once build a system for building random dot stereograms. He then ran video through it. Then built it so he could play Doom through it. It was apparently quite effective if you could focus on it. I couldn’t do it, I’m mono-vision enough that I can get 3D from some headsets but not the real world.
liberal
@Kay: Not speaking for Applejinx, but as a Bernie “defender”, I do think Bernie was flawed. The thing is though that the problem with HRC wasn’t “we chose her instead of Bernie.” HRC was a flawed candidate and should have been seen as a flawed candidate, at least since 2008, and we put her up because “it was her turn”.
That’s another thing to be added to the list above: stop it with this “it’s X’s turn” shit. (Though the Republicans have done that in the past, too.)
liberal
@Kay: The point isn’t to suck up to WWC pigs. The point is that moving to the left on economic issues is both the right thing to do and a better electoral strategy. Sure, screw the WWC pigs. (Not all are pigs, but of the ones that are, screw ’em—I agree.)
We won’t do the right thing, though, because it would hurt the fee fees of the big donor base of the party, which everyone here seems to think doesn’t exist.
liberal
@FlipYrWhig: The guy who supported the disastrous Libyan war, which in real time was clearly being sold on false pretenses, even after the same shit was pulled by Bush re Iraq, is calling someone else a “sucker”?
LOL.
Peale
Whatever we do next, I’ll know that we’ve not figured it out in 2020 if we pick a candidate from Massachusetts. Both parties have done that when they got sore internal divisions.
Applejinx
@liberal: Wish I knew what they proposed to do. Note that Republican total obstructionism got their entire field wiped out and replaced with Donald Trump, who they don’t control.
This doesn’t give me a lot of confidence about the prospects of Democratic total obstructionism. I would prefer what I’ve seen Bernie say: put up or shut up. Firstly: no ground to give on racism and sexism, just totally deny that even helped him, fuck it, zero tolerance. Secondly: you promised economic wonders, so cough ’em up. Obama might help if the details are difficult, because that’s the kind of guy he is: a true patriot. But produce the economic miracles, pronto.
I think those are good demands to make of Donald Trump. I don’t care how he does ’em so long as he does, and I particularly don’t care if Paul Ryan cries and stomps his little feet. Ryan is a total fool and would not help the Great Trumpkin produce economic miracles. Quite the reverse.
FlipYrWhig
@liberal: The degree to which I am a sucker is infinitesimal by comparison to the weak-mindedness and perverse, careening impressionability of Applejinx.
MomSense
@Applejinx:
People are being too nice to you. You are being an asshole. If this is your afflict the comfortable strategy, why don’t you take your routine to Stormfront.
O. Felix Culpa
@liberal: I have to go to work, so can’t respond in detail. I appreciate that you are analyzing issues rather than engaging in ad hominem attacks. Just quickly, it’s important to include FBI interference and voter suppression in the analysis. For example, there were 900 fewer polling places in this election than in 2012. As for baggage, I think the opponent had plenty but it wasn’t covered timely or effectively – thanks, MSM and cable tv. Finally, my sense is that misogyny played a significant role, including in assessments of “charisma” or lack thereof.
Applejinx
@liberal:
That does speak for me. I’ve said over and over and over, he was a message candidate, and the message is what carried the Rust Belt, and from the start he didn’t think he would actually win, and he lost his head when it got really close and competitive. He’s going to stay my Senator but will never run for President again. He didn’t have answers because that’s not what he was there for, he was obsessively and perseveratively raising issues that the mainstream Democrats absolutely refuse to listen to, and still are refusing to listen to even after those exact issues destroyed them.
Flawed yes, probably a worse President yes. Worse than Trump? I doubt it, at least he can work with Democrats. But Liberal does speak for me there, and that’s why I voted for Clinton and got others to do likewise. I had no choice.
Therefore I belong at Stormfront. Wait, what?
BillinGlendaleCA
@tarragon: As I said, I’ve done it; just did it with one the images I took yesterday. I’m not pleased with the results. The glasses(blue/amber) with the right program(Tridef) are much better.
FlipYrWhig
@liberal:
Republicans support free trade agreements and deregulating Wall Street, and they win, in the case of Rob Portman by lopsided margins. So, I kinda don’t think that’s what makes the American polity tick.
dogwood
@Applejinx:
I’m gonna tell you a story about what Bernie has done to the Democratic Party in my neck of the woods. You’ll dismiss it but others here might be interested. My sister along with three other women have worked tireless for their Wash. county committee. Last winter the Sanders people started coming in droves and these women were thrilled. Several were middle aged women who had never voted. Unfortunately they weren’t there to help or learn. What happened was both comical and painful. They came to meetings but wouldn’t support the candidates. Spent a lot of time on facebook posting photo shopped pictures the my sister and her friends as Hillary Whores. This week they elected new officers. The Sanders crowed nominated and elected each other until they realized the Democrats weren’t nominating anyone. So they huddled and nominated my sister and she declined. “You have to stay; we need your help” She told them didn’t have to help them any more than they had to help in the election. It’s a volunteer position and she doesn’t work for free with people who malign on social media. Then pointed to the boxes and cabinet with all the materials, told them to start reading up, and left.
tarragon
@liberal:
Bite me.
Hillary wasn’t the nominee because it was her turn. She was the nominee because she was the best candidate that was running.
gvg
You know if the voting population really agreed with our definitions of right and wrong, we would not have lost. When we talk about better messages we tend to write better but the same as we always have. Which isn’t wrong because we also have to keep the voters we have aware and they do care about this. However peeling off some of the GOP voters this time into ours next time is more complicated. Looking back at some recent elections where we bagged a bunch 2006 and 2008, the circumstances were a lot of republican scandals of sexual and money and coverups of the same plus the Iraq war going really bad. The democrats had a few scandals too, but the difference is we didn’t cover up so it was just the individuals not the party.
Trump is going to be corrupt in ways that have disgusted voters in the past. He doesn’t know how to not sell his business all the time, doesn’t get what conflict of interest is. People have commented about how his transition website pumps up his business and he finally annoyed reporters by holding a press conference that was a sales seminar. I know people should have not voted for him based on stories about his past but evidently people projected their own dreams on to Trump and ignored real facts. I don’t think that lasts too long after he is in office and he is picking from dregs. Smart guys are staying away. There will be lots of corruption of the money sort and probably sexual ones too. That is going to reflect on him. He also wants to keep holding rallies but I think his fans are going to lose interest. That isn’t part of our national habit. So I think he is going to get bored and he doesn’t actually know governing. He’s going to try to sell things and run into problems. He’s also going to find out what living under a microscope is like. Also scandals sell newspapers. Now i personally prefer corrupt crony business scandals to nuclear war over if Trump was kept waiting at an airport but we did get alot of crossover votes in 2006 because of congressional scandals. The more GOP, not just Trump, garbage that can be exposed widely, the better.
Democrats have defend ours from unjust attacks but when we know it’s valid, not coverup. Tricky but must do.
Its a shame the simple fact he is a racist sexist bully with a history of never keeping his word isn’t enough to prevent his election but i think the corruption can bring him down quickly.
Shalimar
@liberal: common usage, everything someone says before the but is a lie. The part before your but is non-negotiable. Protecting the vulnerable is more important than anything else.
D58826
Being a Monday and first day back from vacation is bad enough but seeing the the Democrats in the Senate think they can work with Trump and will only use the filibusterer sparingly is enough to make me sick to the stomach.
I have no idea why they think that this is even remotely possible. Trump isn’t a conventional horse trading politician. He is all about himself. I doubt that he has any real legislative agenda and will pretty much go along with what Ryan/McConnell want. Maybe the d’s can provide the margin of votes to pass infrastructure legislation but I doubt that there would be much else.
The Senate democrats can behave in one of two ways
1. country before party and donot obstruct everything the GOP wants
2. party before country and obstruct everything.
As a citizen I would prefer option 1. On the other hand given that most of the GOP agenda is horrible then maybe option 2 is really the patriotic option. So for 2017 I go with option 2. Make the GOP provide the votes so they own every bad policy that becomes law. If they can’t pass it on GOP votes alone and it is a halfway decent idea then make the GOP pay a stiff proice for democratic votes.
Shalimar
@D58826: Congress sets the rules on the first day of the new term. If Democrats say now that they will use the filibuster to bottleneck everything, Republicans can get rid of the filibuster on January 3rd with 51 votes. If they say they will play along now and then proceed to bottleneck everything after the rules are set, changing them takes 60 or 67 votes. (I can’t remember if it is 2/3rds majority, or you just have to overcome the inevitable filibusters)
Not saying I believe that is what they’re going to do. I share your distrust. But what they’re saying now is what they should be saying regardless of their actual plans.
D58826
@O. Felix Culpa: That Hillary won the pop. vote while running against the GOP, Trump, FBI, KKK, alt-right, an electoral system that was designed from the get go to favor white male property owners over every one else and for want of a better term alt-left (i.e. unrepentant Bernie Bros, Stein, and the HA Goodman types) seems she didn’t to badly.
gene108
@Applejinx:
The Brownshirts do not need a majority.
All they need is for most white folks to shrug their shoulders and say “cops have a tough job and have to make split second decisions”, when Tamir Rice gets gunned down, because the kid “was big for his age”.
They do not need a majority. They just need complacency by the masses and the media, who inform the masses.
And the media has shown itself to be all too happy to play nice, with the Brownshirts, with right-wing media actively egging them on and justifying their actions.
Kay Eye
@liberal: It wasn’t Hillary’s turn. lt was her time. She’d have been a good president. She may well have been a great president. We’ll never know.
But let’s look to the future. As a native Texan of more years than most of you, I can observe one thing. You think we’ve hit rock bottom? It can always get worse. We went from Governor Bush to Governor Perry to Governor Abbott. Is there a Governor Dan Patrick waiting in the wings? Yes, indeed. The bar can never seem to go too low in Texas.
Me? My candidate for city council made it to a runoff election in December. I’m going to take some positive action. Today. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
O. Felix Culpa
@D58826: Agreed.
D58826
@O. Felix Culpa: even though it will be cold comfort to the 20 million people who see their heath insurance taken away
O. Felix Culpa
@O. Felix Culpa: And again, I post a link with good advice on effective communications with your elected officials, along with a plea that we cease slagging each other and instead work to minimize the harm inflicted by the incoming administration and move the progressive agenda forward at all levels of government.
Miss Bianca
@Schlemazel: Yeah, and I guess it needs to be a
, after all, right? I mean, for maximum appeal. Since apparently women in authority just scare people too much!
Betty Cracker
@Kay:
Perfect! I am so stealing that…
jenn
I’ve seen several mentions about peeling off those who voted for the GOP, but I’m not sure we need to do that. We need to get the people who left the field blank, and we need to get some of the folks who just didn’t vote this year.
matryoshka
@RedDirtGirl: I’m in MO but so far have not had any takers on my offer for same.
debbie
@Kay:
So then what is the answer and what is to be done?
RedDirtGirl
@matryoshka: People have book clubs. Why not letter writing/phone call making clubs?
The Truffle
@D58826: I’m curious: the insurance companies are going to lose profits if 20 million people lose their health insurance. Right?
The Truffle
Can we have regular Monday morning pep talks going forward?
I find this place a refreshing change from Daily Kos.