Here’s a nice shiny thread for you all to fill up into the wee hours. But first a Balloon Juice Public Service Announcement:
I’ve gotten a number of emails from some long time lurkers and from some new readers who would like you regulars and us front pagers to know that they appreciate this place and that its helping to keep them sane right now. But they’re also a bit frazzled as they dip a toe into the waters here to begin commenting because everyone has been just a wee bit testy since Tuesday. So while I know we take pride in having the social graces of the last thylacine eyeing a family of wombats (this reference was for Sarah Proud and Tall, The Mighty Trowel, Viva Bris Vegas, and the rest of our Antipodean readers), perhaps we might just want to cut each other a little slack? Especially the newbies. They’ve decided they want to join us in contributing as a result of the election and some other recent events, so maybe we could ease off, every so slightly,eviscerating everything and everyone, within digital/virtual reach.
Nuff said!
(this is not now a comics book thread – just using the image)
And now, some music.
This last one gets a warning. Its loud, obnoxious, and the imagery is graphic (Balloon Juice in a nutshell).
I’m going to bed, see everyone on the flip!
Arclite
I guess I was expecting the music video for “Kumbaya” after that public service announcement.
=P
khead
I will whip up some fresh cat pics…. just not tonight. Been a long weekend and I have to get up and get back to work in a little while.
RobertDSC-Mac Mini
The new Metallica album is online. I’ll still purchase it on Friday when it officially drops, but i got a listen tonight. For the most part, it is good. The three tracks that have been released so far, Hardwired, Moth Into Flame, and Atlas Rise are all very good. The rest of the tracks vary in quality. The new sound is very good, though I am a bit hesitant about the many layers each song has.
Still, I look forward to picking up a copy in store when I see one.
Major Major Major Major
Had brunch with some upwardly-mobile, fuck-it-let’s-sell-out vaguely-idealistic-but-not-enough-to-do-anything-more-than-live-in-a-commune-one-time-for-six-months fellows. The sort of people who’ve been saying we need a 50-state strategy for eight years, but now that the guy who came up with it is back, they don’t want any damn clinton-era retreads. (Just their ideas, ideally implemented as competently as they used to be, but by somebody else.)
It was nice enough until the DNC stuff came up. I knew it would so I brought a novel. It’s in this series, about a teenage punk magician (in the urban fantasy sense) who gets exiled to hell and crawls his way out. Now he lives in L.A. In the book I’m reading, Lucifer comes and hires him to be his bodyguard since he’s working on a biopic and wants some muscle.
ETA: Oh, and I watched “Arrival” today. It’s pretty good!
Feebog
It has been a very long week for all of us. And I think we all need a little time and space to process what happened Tuesday night. I know I do. I vacillate between fearing for my fellow citizens and hoping the morons who voted for Trump feel the pain hardest. Problem with the latter is some people I know pretty well and like are some of those morons.
Arclite
On the plus side, marijuana is now legal in California, so all those protesters will shortly have a coping mechanism.
ArchTeryx
And my primal screams…pretty much the last of my fight…mostly went into the void, even here. I did at least find one kindred spirit, though, in MomSense.
Still, I hover on the very lip of the abyss, and have been spending the weekend trying very hard to convince myself not to fall into it. Nietzsche absolutely was right: When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
Among my friends, we’ve already lost one to that abyss, for precisely the same reason as I; she was a filk singer with a deadly chronic illness on Expanded Medicaid, and knew the moment that Trump won, she’d lose her healthcare and shortly after her life, so she took it on her own terms.
She was not the first. Nor will she be the last, not by a long shot. This old dinosaur figures to see far worse times, for as long as he himself can hold out against what’s coming.
Archibald K. Mirenopteryx…out.
Adam L Silverman
@ArchTeryx: I am very sorry for your loss. Sincerest condolences.
Suzanne
@Feebog: I have cooled slightly—SLIGHTLY—with the rage I was feeling on Wednesday and Thursday. All’s I can say is that it’s good I didn’t encounter any emergent situations last week, because I probably would have asked if the people trapped in the burning building were Trump voters, and if so, would have let them DIAF. I am trying to find some happiness.
Spawn the Elder is on fire, though. She declared today that she wants to go into politics or government in some fashion, and that she wants to be President. Spawn the Elder 2040!!!!
justawriter
That’s OK. I’ll eviscerate myself, if nobody minds. Gluck. Glook. Brororahgh. Boop!
Suzanne
@ArchTeryx: I’m so, so sorry. Hugs to you from across the miles.
enplaned
So, my contention is that our loss was due to a not-great candidate who ran a not-great campaign.
Some others dispute this, want to chalk it up purely to voter suppression and so forth. And I agree that those were factors — but I don’t think it’s proven that they were decisive factors relative to the impact of an uninspiring candidate.
So, I’ll throw out some data from California. Why CA? No voter suppression there!
In 2008, Obama got 8.3mm votes in CA. Population was 36.6mm, today’s population is 39.2, so that 8.3mm is roughly 8.9mm adjusted for the larger population. Hillary got 5.9mm — down 2.9mm from the Obama 2008 benchmark, as adjusted for population change.
In 2012, Obama got 7.9mm votes in CA. Population was 38.1mm, today’s population 39.2, so that 7.9mm is roughly 8.1mm adjusted for the larger population. Hillary got 5.9mm — down 2.1mm from the Obama 2012 benchmark, as adjusted for population change.
That’s a massive drop — and is a state with a large Latino population you’d think would make an anti-Trump statement.
In 2008, Prop 8 may have helped get folks to the polls. But this time there was recreational pot.
In any event, there’s at least one situation where Hillary just massively underperformed Obama in a state where you cannot blame voter suppression.
So those of you who say this was purely racism, purely voter suppression, there was nothing wrong with Hillary from an inspiration standpoint, she was great, it was all other stuff — fine, throw out some data to support that.
Tell us why the data above doesn’t strongly suggest that, in fact, we had a major problem with who we picked to be our champion in 2016, and that *that* must be considered as a substantial reason why we went down in flames.
BTW – not saying that Hillary Clinton is a bad person, didn’t work her tail off, wouldn’t have been a highly competent president, etc.
And to answer one of you who asked why am I still here — (1) been reading John since well before he became a Democrat and (2) only dipped into the comments in a big way during and after this election to find that man, in some serious ways this is not a reality-based community.
So bring the data.
Mnemosyne
Welcome, potential new commenters! A quick pro tip that may help: if you see a long thread with a lot of vitriolic back-and-forth between a few commenters, that’s probably a longstanding feud that dates back to 2012 at a minimum, and possibly back to 2008. Don’t try to pick sides on one of those, and you should be fine.
Major Major Major Major
@ArchTeryx: Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry to hear that. Hang in there.
ArchTeryx
@Suzanne: Thank you. I may be a toothy old dinosaur, but I always take hugs.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy, other then the loss of my acquaintance, was to think that perhaps what she did was the right thing to do. She at least went on her own terms, not the what the alt-Nazis and the Granny Starver and his band of amoral psychopaths had in mind for her. I don’t see it as a senseless loss. I see it as perhaps the most logical course of action there was.
Or maybe it’s just the shock talking.
M. Bouffant
@enplaned: Yeah, but … it’s California. I voted Peace & Freedom, myself.
ArchTeryx
@Major Major Major Major: It’s incredibly tough, but I’m trying. Seeing folks actually respond helps, believe it or not. To know that even as fractious and snarky this place is, there’s a community here that may accept me.
WarMunchkin
I’m having Trump induced aneurysms again, it’s really fucking bad. I’ve had alternating panic attacks all week. I just realized he gets a presidential library which is probably just going to be exclusively nudie mags and a presidential portrait that will hang in the White House for all eternity.
FUCK 2016.
Here is the John Oliver episode “President-Elect Trump”. Enjoy.
Mnemosyne
@enplaned:
You mean data other than the fact where she got 2 million more votes than her opponent?
I can’t remember who said it, but there is apparently a reliable study out there that says that Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters hate nasty campaigns, even when the Democrat is the victim of the nasty campaign.
So first you had Sanders screaming that Hillary and the whole Democratic Party apparatus was corrupt, then you had the die-hard Berniebros throwing their very public tantrum at the DNC while Bernie sulked, and then you had Trump, the most negative campaigner of all time.
Negative campaigning means automatic lower turnout for the Democrats. And Republicans know this.
bluehill
Started reading Machiavelli’s The Prince. Might as well try to understand what we could be in for. Only a handful of pages in, but this line resonated with me, “Time sweeps everything along and can bring good as well as evil, evil as well as good.” This stuff has been going on for thousands of years. We’re human is a blessing and a curse.
Major Major Major Major
@ArchTeryx: Of course, any time :)
I really only flip out at trolls. Apologies to people who aren’t, who I have done that to this week. Bit of a tough time.
ArchTeryx
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you. Nothing more dispiriting then sinking into thread-oblivion…part of why I so rarely post here is because threads go by far too fast to keep up with most of the time, and it’s too easy to end up just commenting into the void, or into a dead thread.
But thank you again for the support.
ArchTeryx
@Major Major Major Major: I may be many things, up to and including a melodramatic Tiger Beat attention queen, but the one small pride I take in myself is that I’m not UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH!!!!
Unless they’re the fuzzy-haired type that just got their own animated movie, f*ck trolls with a rusty pitchfork.
Peale
All I can say is that I’m glad the 30 day period of mourning for the king of Thailand is almost over and Thai TV will be back on the air. Yeah. It’s bad, with no production values, but that stuff really helped distract me quite a bit from the the 2014 bloodbath. I know we need to avoid thinking of this as normal, but I want a bit of normalcy. Watching Japanese series isn’t the same…
I went to a broadway show last night called “in transit”. All a capella. Primarily set on a subway platform. It was funny, but I kept thinking “I bet the people in rural PA will hate that joke”…buzz kill.
I also went to see the movie “moonlight” today, a very good film about a gay kid growing up in liberty city. It was heartbreaking. I need a bit of righteous uplift.
Major Major Major Major
@ArchTeryx: The concern trolls are the worst.
Mnemosyne
@ArchTeryx:
If you are feeling that way, please call the National Suicide Lifeline. Their website says they are getting a LOT of post-election calls.
Please reach out to them when you get overwhelmed. They and we are here for you.
piratedan
well… since we’re still hashing out the post mortem and divining the game plan for the future, there are a few things I want to mention, as an idea for how we deal and cope with the present and the future.
1) the exoneration of Hillary Clinton… what do I mean by this? By getting this done in a very public and demonstrative manner.. I want to make sure that everyone in the country knows and understands that she hasn’t done anything wrong. No laws were broken. NOTHING. By doing this, in an extremely public fashion I believe it will kick one of the pegs out of the GOP stool. One, it will show that one of the main pillars of the GOP platform is essentially vaporware. Two, it will eviscerate the MSM. especially the NY Times and Fox News. THIS NEEDS to be done and it needs to be bought up for the next six months. It needs to be turned as a cautionary tale for both the MSM and the GOP that you can’t convict someone in the court of “public opinion” and not pay a price when you’re wrong.
2) the state Dem parties need to organize and coordinate with the national party. If the GOP is going to make registration of voters more arduous, then we need to outwork them and begin now.
3) We need to abandon the MSM as the preferred method of disseminating information. We need to use and implement better tools via social media. Instead of reliance of the MSM, we use the web to a larger and better extent. Viral videos, web-sites, online commentary, pod-casts, comedy. We need to be more involved on spanish language media as well as asian media.
4) We need to understand and lay out a game plan that makes sense for people that have been told they are left out. Obviously lower taxes, cheap education and opportunity don’t sell these people. So what does? Different messenger?
Amaranthine RBG
@enplaned:
Yes, I’m looking forward to delving into the data, too.
Certain folks have already made up their mind about what went wrong and have made hundreds of posts just in Balloon Juice flogging the shit out of their hobby horse. But fuck them. We have to take a clear eyed look at what the real problems were.
Over the past couple of days – particularly as information leaked out about Clintons resource allocation in the two weeks before the campaign, I am starting to wonder whether the internal polling was any better than what was available commercially.
Simply put – I wonder how the Clinton campaign would have been different if there had been accurate polling.
Also, I don’t understand why Nevada tracked polling better than the rust belt states. I know there was a huge push in Nevada with probably thousands of Californians pouring over the border for GOTV (I was one of them), but I also know that lots of people back east from safe states poured into PA, too.
Eljai
@ArchTeryx: I am saddened for your loss. I wish you peace and strength and comfort.
ArchTeryx
@Mnemosyne: This is a truly sincere question…what on Earth can they really do? Platitudes about how my life is precious and suicide is irreversible won’t do me that much good. I’m an agnostic and a (unemployed, broke) scientist. A plurality, many many millions of American voters, have just decided my life is not worth sustaining, and pretty soon my pharmacist and doctors will say the same, albeit not directly. Can’t pay sticker price? No medicine for you, sorry! I’ve already danced that dance before, many years ago, and only a very large gift from a well off friend saved my life then.
If you think they may have concrete solutions, or referrals to people who WOULD have concrete solutions, to my imminent end of healthcare, I’d happily give them a shot. I’d rather live then die. I just am determined, at all costs, not to die on Granny Starver’s terms.
InternetDragons
Even though I’ve definitely been right there alongside everyone on the emotional roller-coaster since the election, I had been functioning pretty well. I find when I am really stressed that I do better if I force myself to show up – to my job, to life, to whatever. But after all the major shocks of the last several days, it was one little sentence fragment, almost hidden within the blather of a press conference, that made me literally lose my breath and struggle to regain my composure.
In the discussions about Steve Bannon, the white supremacist who will now be Trump’s ‘chief strategist and senior counselor’, Trump’s folks chuckled that he’d be there to make sure the trains run on time.
Anyone recognize that statement? It’s the famous last excuse for fascism: “Say what you like about Mussolini – he made the trains run on time”.
Seeing that was an absolute punch in the gut to me. Bannon and crew freaking KNOW what they are saying. I am sure this was not an accidental or meaningless choice of phrase. It was a dog-whistle, and I’m horrified.
I guess I just needed to vent about it here, because I can at least hope that here on BJ, nobody will tell me I’m crazy or hysterical for reacting like this =P
ruemara
@Major Major Major Major: Teen? Kadrey would laugh at that. He’s no teen. But the series is good.
@ArchTeryx: My deepest sympathies. I’m truly sorry.
OzarkHillbilly
Insomnia. Fuck me.
@ArchTeryx: It’s a gut punch.
ArchTeryx
@OzarkHillbilly: Only the second of many, many such punches. And Rocky Balboa, I ain’t.
hovercraft
@ArchTeryx:
I’m sorry that you lost your friend, it’s sad that people feel pushed into making such an important, irrevocable decision based on the outcome of an election. It’s a sad testament of how far we still need to go as a country.
ArchTeryx
@Eljai: Thank you, Eljai. I appreciate this.
Major Major Major Major
@ruemara: He was a teen.
Wasn’t he?
ArchTeryx
@hovercraft: Were it not for the fact that they got the trifecta, right after Granny Starver made it blindingly clear he was going after every bit of community healthcare we have, she might not have made such a drastic decision. Elections have consequences…and some of them are fatal to those of us that are most vulnerable.
Adam L Silverman
@ArchTeryx: No worries.
Eljai
@Amaranthine RBG: Nevada has a significant latino population and they had the culinary union to encourage turnout.
Major Major Major Major
@Eljai: Exurban whites crawling out of the woodwork for Trump in the rust belt, plus Latinos in NV always outperforming the polling, explains the difference.
ArchTeryx
Thank you for the support (thanks for all the fish?) and I wish I could stay online, but it’s time for this old dinosaur to get to bed. Rest well, all, until another day.
OzarkHillbilly
@InternetDragons: Bannon won’t make the trains run on time. He’ll be too busy tearing up the tracks. Unfortunately the people standing at the station waiting for the train won’t even notice.
hovercraft
As far as the de-lurkers go, on the one hand I’m sympathetic to their being sensitive right now, and maybe even feeling stung when they dip their toes into our normally friendly waters, and getting said toes bitten off. But as they are lurkers or even if they are newbies, they should also be sensitive to the fact that we are hurting too, right now we are all feeling sensitive too, and we are a great deal more testy than usual. I would also say that for every time you get your head bitten off, there are many who jump to your defense when the attack is unfair. We are a collection of oddballs, curmudgeons and misfits, but we are usually civil, and when one of steps out of line, we usually step up and tell whoever to back off. So welcome newbies and de-lurkers, come on in, the waters warm, and as long as you’re not here to just piss in the pool, we will take care of you, and defend you from unfair attacks.
ceece
@enplaned:
Data: As of the last report, 4.36 MILLION ballots are yet to be counted in California. link So keep your pants on about lower turnout there until all the numbers are in.
Major Major Major Major
@hovercraft: Hell, didn’t the official greeting here used to be a hearty “go fuck yourself”? Offered with a wink, of course.
ETA: @ceece: Saw this at Kos’s place: http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/13/1598426/-Hmmm-What-If-Democrats-Actually-DID-Turnout-It-s-Kinda-Looking-That-Way
pseudonymous in nc
On polling, I think it was a case that you model the electorate you fear you might have and not the one you hope you have. On the campaign, I think the debates showed how direct unmediated exposure helped Clinton and indirect exposure through the media filter hurt her — the tide shifted over those final weeks when people could lie to themselves again about what they’d seen and nestle in their social media bubbles.
I hope Comey never has a complete night’s sleep again.
Some of the local stories are staggering. People in their 50s who voted for that man without knowing that their health insurance — the first decent coverage they’d had in years — would be taken away and are now panicking. Parents who had nothing good to say about him other than he wasn’t Clinton, have convinced themselves that they didn’t fuck up, and are hoping that their liberal kids will respect the “no politics” rule at Thanksgiving. (Fuck that, eat at your table alone and choke on overcooked turkey.)
Hello newbies and delurkers. I’ve been somewhat intermittent over the past weeks. Stay for the pet pictures and the hope that a very American form of spoilt-bastard fascism can be averted.
Viva BrisVegas
Just to keep the topic off of you know what, Errol Flynn’s father was a very respected professor of zoology who studied some of the last wild thylacines known to exist and was probably among the last academics to do so.
Also too, thylacines rarely hunted wombats, which are too hard to kill, they much preferred wallaby.
Also also too, I feel your pain but always remember, be excellent to each other.
hovercraft
@Major Major Major Major:
I normal times, and especially to those we know and love. But during these turbulent times, with our emotions all over the fucking place, we have to at least pretend we’re housebroken. Lets lure them in with our gentility, and when we get our equilibrium back, we can revert back to our true selves.
And so in the spirit of kumbaya, good night.
Jacel
@enplaned: Bad week to choose California for a comparison to past elections. Many votes are cast by mail, and are still to be counted. About half as many votes again as have been in the totals of the numbers that are passed off as news so far. Keep an eye on the state’s unprocessed ballot report to see when that backlog gets reduced far enough to say anything meaningful about California voting numbers.
Jacel
Are there enough Republican senators from states with Democratic governors to fill Trump’s cabinet? A boy can dream…
MadClaw
@hovercraft: I’m one of the lurkers, been reading here for a few years. So, I “know” most of the commenters. I think the people here are great, smart, and funny. Well, except for the tiresome trolls, but it’s easy to scroll by their remarks. I ain’t scared or intimidated, just very shy.
NR
@enplaned: Here’s the damage neoliberalism has done to the Democratic party, in one picture.
And here’s 2009 for comparison.
Deborah
@pseudonymous in nc:
Where are these local stories? As far as Thanksgiving goes, I’ve already decided not to attend. I have no immediate family but always spend it with aunts, uncles, and cousins. Not this year. They won’t miss the only unreconstructed liberal among them.
Mary G
@MadClaw: I am always happy to see lurkers speak up. The first time is the hardest. Welcome.
Everyone who hasn’t dipped a toe in yet, come on in, the water’s fine. It’s encouraging me to know that there are more of us out there than we know.
fuckwit
@enplaned: I agree. My point is that we are well and truly fucked if we’ll only drag our asses out to the polls if someone of the caliber of Obama is on the ballot. He’s a one-in-a-generation talent. We won’t see someone on his level for 20-30 years.
Hilary was a fine candidate, eminently qualified, and would have made an effective President. The structural problem is that the Rethugs don’t have to float a perfect candidate in order to get their people to the polls– in fact they can float a truly fucked up candidate and still win.
Part of that is because Democrats are so fucking picky and perfectionistic (the perfect is the enemy of the good). Part of it is because of deep structural problems built in to the Constitution itself: namely the Electoral College, the Senate, and letting states do their own gerrymandering.
fuckwit
@ArchTeryx: That’s horrible. What we did in this country with medical care before Obamacare– and soon all over again without it– is essentially slow-motion genocide.
Behold, the new American National Anthem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgpa7wEAz7I
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: And EMAILS, don’t forget about the EMAILS.
ETA: The emails were a nothing burger, but the press loved em.
fuckwit
@BillinGlendaleCA: Oh those fucking emails. Goddammit. Whitewater all over again.
Who killed America? Wouldn’t it be surprising if it turned out the corporate-owned media did it.
Peter H Desmond
@WarMunchkin:
thank you, munchkin. the oliver was good.
mai naem mobile
Well, I called Jeff Flakes office on Fri because I get my insurance through the exchange. I just let the guy know I got my insurance through the ACA, no subsidy and that I did not know what to do if it wasn’t there. I wasn’t rude and he didn’t argue or anything,just that he would let Sen. Flake know. Sometime later this week, I am planning on calling the offices of Sens Flake,McCain,my Rep Synema (D) and Gov.Douchebag (R) and ask them politely for any advice since I have to do the ’17 enrollment. I am not expecting much of an answer. I just want them to know they will probably get a bunch of similar calls the third week of January. Repealing is all fine and dandy but tell me specifically what I am supposed to do in the meanwhile.
BillinGlendaleCA
@fuckwit:
They could nominate an orange yam and…oh wait, they did.
BillinGlendaleCA
@piratedan: Agreed.
mai naem mobile
@BillinGlendaleCA: if I hear any Camacho voter bitch about something he does in office, I am going to very snidely remind them “But,but,but remember Hillary’s emails!”
Arclite
@MadClaw:
I find that funny, I hope you don’t mind. You’re completely anonymous, and yet shy. =D
And also, I’ve been posting here almost 10 years, and get yelled at pretty often for posting stupid or ignorant stuff (not on purpose, of course).
Bailey
@enplaned:
I’m pretty sure CA is still being counted, so you’ll need to wait for the final analysis on popular vote in that state.
Secondary question, though. Why don’t Dems follow GOP playbook of 2004 where they had gay marriage restrictions in multiple states? Dems should be coordinating to make sure recreational marijuana is an initiative in every swing state.
Matt McIrvin
@Bailey: Probably too late for that- Giuliani will enforce the federal law anyway.
MadClaw
@Mary G: Thank you! I will work at being more involved here.
@Arclite: Besides shy, we can add low self esteem which keeps me from voicing my opinion. Something else to work on.
And now for some sleep. Goodnight and better dreams for us all.
Amir Khalid
I’m sitting at home with an infected finger that’s leaking alarming amounts of pus. (Yeah, I know, gross.) Just got off the phone with my brother the doctor. He reassures me that that’s just how abscesses heal, and that no fever and no pain in the finger is a good sign. Just keep it clean, he says, and apply fresh Betadine and Band-aids as needed.
I can’t help but worry about you, my friends in the Yew Essay. It’s been traumatic for you that your next President is going to be Donald freaking Trump, whose party is planning to bulldoze as much of the Obama legacy (and the New Deal, even) as it can. I know you’re upset about that, and deeply disappointed with the Americans who saw his unfitness for office and still voted him in; I am too.
So we have newbie commenters. I was one myself some years ago, as were we all. I’ve seen a few newbies i wish had stayed longer as commenters: I hope more of you guys will stick around, particularly if (like me) you’re not North American or from an Anglophone country. More diversity in the Juicitariat is always welcome.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: Yikes! Hope that finger heals up quickly!
Duane
Here’s a creepy thought. If Ivanka dyed her hair Brown, she’d look just like Melania.
Sorry, after this week, I’m out of brain bleach.
Zinsky
Hulk vs. The Thing! I love it! FF #112 was after the Silver Age of Marvel, though. I prefer when the two first battled in FF#12. It’s clobberin time!!
Jane2
@ArchTeryx: Condolences on the loss of your friend. Take care of yourself.
MomSense
@ArchTeryx:
Oh ArchTeryx, losing your friend is a gut punch. I’m sending you the biggest hug right now and I give bizarrely strong hugs for such a wiry thing. It’s off the table for me but no judgment. Because I have kids and I want to try to be as warm and loving as I can I can’t shut down emotionally even though my brain is screaming at me to go into zombie mode.
We celebrated my dog’s birthday with her best friend’s family. The pups met in puppy class and are so sweet together. Turns out they share the same birthday. The family has a brand new baby. I found myself just noticing every detail about her face and her black hair. Maybe the thing we do to resist is to notice everything like the faces babies make when they are sleeping, the weird thing dogs do with their legs when you scratch above their tails, those crazy weeds that grow on sidewalks. They are pretty amazing if you think about it. I’m going to look more at the little things. The grocery store is amazing. The produce section is like a museum of beautiful things. Uncertainty is tough for me which is a big part of why this is so shattering. I don’t really know how to cope except noticing the micro seems to be the only thing that works right now.
Today I’ll go to work and then help with homework and then dinner. I’ll be looking for you later to hear about your day.
MomSense
@Amir Khalid:
Sorry to hear about the finger and hope it improves quickly.
BellyCat
Thanks for inviting a few new hellions into the mix, Adam.
My wife and I have been despondent since Wednesday’s results. We have a new little person and fear very much for his future. While we had hoped that a new era of progress would be cemented, it’s clear that the clock will be badly unwound the next four years.
The most vile of the Republican base played a very long game. 30 years by some estimates. The time for us to play a long game is now and the fix will not be in the next two or four years but rather several decades. Let’s be smart about this and not be discouraged by results that are not immediate.
The one thing that is very clear is that we do not understand the opposition as well as we need to. Yes, there are racists and misogynists but these are often aspects that exist under a larger umbrella called “economic concern”, and they are aspects which do not apply to all of the opposition.
It is no longer useful to defend an approach which did not work ultimately. This result should have been a landslide for Clinton. It was not. We need to understand exactly why not.
The Pew Research Center has an excellent poll comparing perceptions between the two voters on various topics. This seems like an excellent place to start.
Perception is reality. Whether these perceptions are right or wrong is something that we can debate, but ultimately what one believes is highly resistant to change — especially when one’s news sources (Fox, Breitbart, etc) reinforces one’s tendencies.
If we want change we have to figure out how to change perceptions.
Amir Khalid
@ArchTeryx:
I have no words. I can’t imagine what it’s like to face that as your last rational choice. I’m not even sure Idare say, hang in there.
Keith G
@enplaned: The data is beginning to surface and be reported that in fact the Clinton camp made some crucial mistakes in the last two weeks of this election. In essence, in a handful of crucial States Trump simply out campaiged Clinton. Now, I don’t think this needs to be brought up to bash Clinton. This needs to be brought up and mulled over and internalised so that the next time around we don’t make the same set of mistakes.
Smitty
@BellyCat: I think we understand the opposition but we just didn’t see them.
debbie
Any post that includes Fairport Convention cannot be a bad thing.
Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones)
@InternetDragons: nope, not crazy or hysterical. I practically bit the head off a cjp fundraiser who called while I was digesting the Bannon appointment. (She was smooth though; she still got me to pledge a little).
Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones)
@ArchTeryx: My deepest condolences for your loss. I imagine how you must be feeling & I have no more words. I can promise I will be thinking of you & her.
Paul in KY
I saw the Adam Ezra Group at Pilgrimage Fest in Franklin, TN. They played a rollicking set & included that song. Due to presence of some children, he said many versions of ‘beep’ during it! Great song, though & if you ever have a chance to see them live, please do.
tobie
@ArchTeryx: You’re a good writer and your voice has been heard loud and clear. Speak for those like your friend who can’t any longer. We desperately need that right now.
Paul in KY
@ArchTeryx: Don’t let that POS Trump get you down. You are stronger than that.
matryoshka
@ArchTeryx: I’m standing with you, but I also feel like I have come here and just talked to myself, but hey. Maybe if I keep talking the kewl kids will start hearing me. Maybe not. I’ve already decided which parking garage to jump off of, but until that moment, I’m not taking this shit lying down.
tobie
@Keith G: If we’re going to speak about the mishaps of the last two weeks–which I for one think is a little short-sighted–then we shouldn’t ignore the explosion of the last two weeks: Comey’s letter, which upended every decision the campaign made about how it wanted to run its last two weeks. Ignoring that seems like a pretty big omission. It may help a select group of commenters repeat their endless mantra, “Clinton sucked,” but it really explains next to nothing except that the bile directed at Clinton from the left and the right is all but unprecedented in modern politics.
matryoshka
I’m not a newbie but stayed in lurk mode for years because of the need Juicers had to beat up on each other. Not my MO. But I’ve always been here. Just suddenly could not keep quiet any more after the Dem convention.
BellyCat
@matryoshka: Glad to see you delurk!
BellyCat
@Smitty: I thought so, too. However, when looking at the pew research report, I was most surprised to see that most Trump voters do not see a large gap between the rich and the poor.
What gives with that?
FlipYrWhig
@BellyCat: My hypothesis would be this: they think if you’re poor you should just try harder, so there’s no gap that can’t be overcome by bootstrappy effort.
tobie
@BellyCat: I’m not so cynical that I can accept the ground rule of advertising that perception is reality. It’s effective, yes. But I would still like to maintain the hope that we can break the stranglehold that the mainstream media has on perceptions and find some way to introduce reality, and empathy, and careful consideration into what is otherwise hype.
Just think, if we had run a campaign on the kind of populism that so many here are recommending, we’d hear an endless recitation of guests and pundits about how this is class warfare and the Bob Schieffers and Jake Tappers of the world would be expressing dismay about the divisiveness of Democratic rhetoric.
Get real, folks. Things have become tribal in this country.We live in a place where a jury of peers decided that the armed band that occupied the Malheur Wildlife Refuge didn’t do anything illegal at all. That should have been a wake-up call to all of us about how the white working class/white rural America sees things.
MattF
@Major Major Major Major: Ah, Sandman Slim. I’ve been reading that series… The first few were superior to the more recent ones, IMO, but the most recent volume makes me think Kadrey is refocussing and winding the series towards a good conclusion. At least I hope so. So, note: anyone starting in on the series should definitely start at the beginning.
BellyCat
@tobie: Agreed on tribalism being a root problem. Any cure aside from spears?
Miss Bianca
@Bailey:
heh heh heh heh. I’d support that strategy.
kindness
I had several BernieBro friends. Most of them happily switched to Hillary when she won. A few didn’t. Those few did go out of their way to announce their purity to the world and do Fox’s work for them by continuing to shout what a terrible person Hillary was. A couple of them repeated Fox memes in doing so (Benghazi, e-mails, CORRUPTION-which they never were able to identify but still they persisted).
Since the election most of them have been honorable but a couple (and all the previously mentioned purity trolls) have made it known we are very bad people because we supported a bad candidate. I’ve asked a couple to dial it back, the old circular firing squad analogy and all. Worked on some. Some are still at it. Only unfriended on person (who is an insane childhood friend who I refuse to listen to her crazy any more. When she loses her income & insurance (she’s on disability) I don’t want to hear her complain about it.
Smitty
@BellyCat: Rich v poor is a sham. People don’t vote economics.At some point it became fashionable in the US to be ignorant, willfill or otherwise. The battle is info v ignorance.
Larkspur
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks for this. I’m way late to the thread, but this is important for newbies and for the less active commenters among us. Also important to remember for newbies: you may not get any response to a comment you make, but BJ doesn’t have up or down voting, so you just have to take it on faith that you’re being heard by at least some of us.
Also: that John Oliver show was fantastic. My finances are limited, but I’m going to up my monthly Planned Parenthood donation and now I’m going to go check out ProPublica.
HeidiMom
Another newbie and long-time lurker here to say thanks for the welcome!
Looking at the Pew Research Center poll that Bellycat linked to, what struck me most forcefully was the difference in answers to “Supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement?” Among Clinton supporters, 53% said yes; among Trump supporters, 6% said yes. That difference confirms my long-held belief that Republicans simply do not get — or do not allow themselves to get — the salience of race in America. Andrew Sullivan had the same problem, IMO; he seemed to think that racial differences in IQ scores was just another fun intellectual problem to explore in an academic vacuum. No, just no.
MomSense
@matryoshka:
I hear how powerfully you are feeling despair. I wish I had more comfort to offer. Please know that I care and am thinking about you and sending you support and big hugs. Please try to reach out for some help now. There may be a way for us to get through this. Sending you some giant hugs.