Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

No one could have predicted…

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

In after Baud. Damn.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

Cole is on a roll !

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Books are my comfort food!

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / The Rising Neo-Nationalism

The Rising Neo-Nationalism

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With Steven Bannon being named Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor in the upcoming Trump Administration, his ties to neo-nationalist and neo-fascist movements are getting some press and being downplayed or ignored in other places. And while I’m planning on doing a more detailed post about the linkages between these groups, their receipt of patronage from Vladimir Putin as part of his revanchist strategy against the West (the US, the EU, NATO, liberal democracy), I think it is important to pay attention to sort of the Ur-neo-nationalist of the late 20th/early 21st Century. Dr. Jasmin Mujanovic (h/t: Dr. Sarah Kendzior) does just that for us in a tweet storm:

Reader Interactions

226Comments

  1. 1.

    Served

    Remember Shirley Sherrod and Van Jones and how quickly they were routed and savaged in the media and public.

    Bannon gets a free pass though.

  3. 3.

    catclub

    I agree with much of that about Milosevic, but I think Rwandan hate radio is not given it’s due respect.

  4. 4.

    Alain the site fixer

    Adam, I think we’re all sensing something differnent has happened and our future is unrecnognizable. As Watergirl’s letter said, it’s like a loved one died. Not Hillary lost, the first possible woman president lost,or that a republican won. This is something different. I think we are coming to terms with the present reality. Just like many monsters of the past were different and new, so is Trump. Our media will continue failing and Pravda type media will thrive. They are who we always said they were and what’s scary is that the masks come off soon and we get to see how unexceptional our country really is.

  5. 5.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Served: A USA today political reporter drew an equivalence between Bannon and Valerie Jarrett, the latter in this view having some connection to Bill Ayers that I don’t remember and don’t care enough to look up.

    I have never even heard what the conspiracy theory about Valerie Jarrett is, just her presence is somehow supposed to be a scandal.

  7. 7.

    sharl

    Elizabeth Warren has been beating the Personnel is Policy drum for months now, although that message seems to have been specifically intended for Hillary Clinton’s campaign leadership. This fact is not a surprise to people experienced in making upper level hiring decisions. Unfortunately, coverage of political campaigns doesn’t hammer the point home well enough in my opinion, e.g., with adequate coverage of who a candidate surrounds himself with.

    This Bannon appointment is very ominous.

    ETA: Link to a VOX piece on Elizabeth Warren regarding senior personnel decisions.

  9. 9.

    Shalimar

    @Served: I turned on the tv yesterday and saw Van Jones beginning to make a point that started with Trump’s supporters aren’t racist. I changed the channels before getting to whatever his larger belief is, because no, just no, and Van Jones should be among the first to recognize it.

  10. 10.

    Mnemosyne

    Not only did both Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and Sanders campaign manager Tad Devine work for Putin in Ukraine, they worked together.

    Funny how all of these Russian-connected “coincidences” just keep piling up. And yet some people will never admit that they weren’t really coincidences.

  11. 11.

    Diana

    Thank you for posting this. It sounds correct, and it’s not something that I’m likely to see anywhere else.

  13. 13.

    Mnemosyne

    @cervantes:

    That means that Trump can move straight to the genocide. That whole rounding up 10 million immigrants is sounding a lot more ominous now.

  14. 14.

    JMG

    I’d like to use Adam’s very relevant post to make a point I don’t think we can repeat often or loudly enough. The first priority of white Democrats like myself right now MUST be to make sure people of color, LGBTQ, Muslims, immigrants of all kinds, that is, the likely scapegoats, that we have their back to the extent of our power. Otherwise, they will surely be entitled to walk away from our coalition and lump us in with the Trump crowd. I’ve led a life of total white privilege. It’s been pleasant most of the time. I know I can’t speak for PoC, Maybe I can’t even speak to them effectively. But I can damn well say, I will stand next to you.

  16. 16.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    I knew this country was lost when Hillary’s alt-right speech was a one day story, and a “both sides accused the other of racism” one day story at that. The media caping for white supremacy was the story of the election, and which is why our media just simply is incapable of doing their jobs.

  17. 17.

    Kay

    Adam, You’re supposed to praise Trump for picking a standard issue political hack ALONG with the virulent racist.

    We lowered the standards to rock bottom the second Trump was elected. He gets his own special snowflake measure – graded on a curve.

  18. 18.

    Yutsano

    @Mnemosyne: He’s already promised to deport 3 million right away. And the has the DREAM act list. A LOT of families are about to suffer come January 20th 2017.

  19. 19.

    Adam L Silverman

    @schrodinger’s cat: 1) Don’t panic. 2) Stay informed and don’t knee jerk react and jump at shadows, rumors, etc. 3) Provide cover for those who need it. Specifically, if someone is being verbally or physically attacked for race/ethnicity (or perceptions thereof) or speaking a foreign language or being a visible minority religion then, if you’re comfortable doing so, place yourself between the attacker/attackers and the victim. This can include just calling the cops and staying on site and videoing with your phone if necessary and if you’re not comfortable physically interposing. 4) Recognize that no matter how much we here recognize that the state and society provides positive liberty, as well as negative, that its a fine line and tipping point. The state and society need to be strong enough to provide positive liberty, but not so strong as to take away the negative liberty (which is what people that fetishize liberty think is liberty because they don’t get the bigger picture). Given that we’re no longer sure how much of the positive liberty will hold, whether it’ll tip over into the wrong direction, everyone has to be prepared to provide their own safety and security. And those of their immediate communities. 5) Organization. Protests and such can no longer be this bottom up, no one is in charge, because we’re all in charge, we’re going to do everything by consensus stuff. Someone needs to get whoever the next gen of civil rights leaders are, Deray and others, park them next to John Lewis, Elijah Cummings, etc and have them soak up everything they can from them. Then they need to be packed off to Reverend Barber to report in and say: “you are our General, where do you need me to go and what do you need me to do?”

    That would all be a good start.

  20. 20.

    Hal

    This is why my eyes roll right out of my head every time someone says to give Trump a chance, he isn’t even President yet. Normalizing white nationalism is the only thing that can happen keeping quiet.

  21. 21.

    Chris

    @Alain the site fixer:

    Adam, I think we’re all sensing something differnent has happened and our future is unrecnognizable.

    In a nutshell, this. With these kinds of movements happening all over the West (Hungary, Turkey, Britain, France), I actually do think we’re looking at the possible death of the post-WW2 West. Both in the sense of the liberal democratic values that most of the countries in it embraced, and in the sense of its death as a strongly unified power bloc opposed to more authoritarian nations like Russia.

    The liberal democratic values always had a heavy helping of hypocrisy and self-delusion behind them, even though there was a lot of struggling to make us live up to our ideals from 1945 to the modern day, with quite a few results. But now we’re seeing an increasing rise to power of movements who don’t even pretend to care for them anymore (aided and abetted by elites that’ve gotten tired of democracy).

    The West as a unified power bloc – that, too, has done a lot of damage to the world, but I also can’t imagine any other major power bloc doing better (not the Soviet Bloc; certainly not the Axis).

  22. 22.

    Kay

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne:

    I’m still shocked at how fast the standards collapsed. Appointing a virulent racist is now A-Ok and we are ONE WEEK into this.

    God almighty, imagine a year from now. Breitbart will literally be the state-owned news service.

  23. 23.

    Botsplainer

    My current operating theory is that much of continental Europe will snap back to center left policies when they observe what an incompetent shitshow Anglo-American rightist governments put on.

  26. 26.

    matryoshka

    I will support any Dem who strongly states opposition to this and proposes a course of action to resist it.

  27. 27.

    RinaX

    @Kay:

    I’m idly looking forward to him pulling some press credentials for networks that dare to give him less than glowing coverage. By doing that, surely the network heads will wake up and realize that they have to start doing some serious, hard-nosed investigation of this administration and hahahahaha, couldn’t even finish. They’ll grovel and promise to never do it again.

  28. 28.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kay:

    In a weird way, I do feel like I did on 9/11. No one expected the Twin Towers to collapse the way they did, including the terrorists who planned the attack, but they did.

    I doubt the Republicans realized that their shenanigans would manage to collapse the American polity, but the people they’ve put into power don’t care.

    Turns out when you elect a bunch of people who promise to drown the US government in the bathtub, they gleefully start doing it the moment they have a chance.

  30. 30.

    Elmo

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Adam, I don’t ever want to get crosswise with you, but I think this bit of yours below makes a big, and unwarranted, assumption:

    … place yourself between the attacker/attackers and the victim. This can include just calling the cops and staying on site and videoing with your phone if necessary and if you’re not comfortable physically interposing.

    You’re assuming individual, lone wolf type attacks. I’m not. The attackers are going to be the cops.

  31. 31.

    WereBear

    The corporate media is useless. But there’s still social media, and our own networks of people, and places like the Washington Post, apparently.

    They win when we give up. Don’t do that.

  32. 32.

    Gin & Tonic

    Pro-Putin leaders elected just now in Bulgaria and Moldova, too. “Hybrid war” is working very well.

  34. 34.

    Kay

    Someone needs to sit Mr. Trump down and explain “President” to him. I’m not his employee. I don’t plan on negotiating the terms of my surrender to him and his family and their celebrity hangers-on.

    He has this backward. I don’t have to change to become acceptable to him and his posse. That isn’t how this works.

    I’m keeping my standards for decency. These people don’t meet them. I’ll let them know when they’re acceptable to me.

  39. 39.

    Shalimar

    @debbie: Glenn Beck was libelously stirring up anti-muslim hate after the Boston Marathon bombing as recently as 3 years ago. Nothing he ever says will be any kind of comfort.

  40. 40.

    Timurid

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    The city I live in went 64% for Trump. That’s got to be something like 90% of the white vote. I’m feeling perfectly sanguine, in the “Horror of Dracula” sense of the word.

  43. 43.

    spc

    The French left need to push Juppe into the runoff. Hollande is a goner and a Holland or Sakrkozy vs. LePen runoff is a big, big risk.

  44. 44.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Botsplainer: My current operating theory is that much of continental Europe will snap back to center left policies when they observe what an incompetent shitshow Anglo-American rightist governments put on.

    Center-left or left of LePen? I don’t know much about Sarko other than that he’s said to be kind of a dick in person, and IIRC he pretty much told Dubya to his face that the Iraq War was a stupid move?

  45. 45.

    Betty Cracker

    @Yutsano: Who, specifically, has that list? Can someone in the Obama admin delete it before they give the keys to the TrumpTroopers? Because they should.

  48. 48.

    LibraryGuy

    It comes down to this, I think: Since “we” (the media, the Left, liberals) took down Nixon, the amorphous Right (not just Republicans, but racists, CT people, anti-federalists, militia) have fought on all fronts to do one thing – beat us, defeat us, destroy us. They work in the streams of thought (think tanks, biased TV/radio/newspapers/books), in retail politics at all levels (Texas textbook commissioners, local school/home school/charter school “choice”, school boards, town council/statehouses/state legislatures), in economic discussions (taxation is inherently wrong, austerity is always good), in every arena they can possibly imagine. They are relentless and, most importantly, dedicated on a daily/monthly/yearly basis to continuing the fight.

    While I don’t believe there has been a group of conspirators running this, there is something worse – a unified message shared by all elements of our opposition. The message: Democratic rule(s) is illegitimate at every level and in every arena of public life. We are wrong in our individual choices for president, senator, representative, governor, etc. as well as wrong in our principles and values. Top to bottom, they don’t want to and will not listen to us. While we have enjoyed the brief hiatus of an Obama presidency, they simply continued on as if the 2006 midterms and 2008 election didn’t even happen. And by the time Trump and his (far worse) associates are done, much of what he did will be uprooted.

    We cannot give up, but we also cannot legitimize their beliefs by not standing up firmly for ours. We have to be dedicated to a multi-election national/state/local strategy just like our opposition. It’s insanely hard, and it’s a mountain that can only be climbed with blood, sweat, and tears. But I am consoled by the fact that we know this strategy and this effort can prevail, because we are looking at the results of such a fight right now.

  49. 49.

    debbie

    @the Conster, la Citoyenne:

    Yes, but don’t you think she provided her opponents that opportunity when she resorted to using the word “deplorables”? It’s like that word was the platter she used to deliver the election to them.

  50. 50.

    Kay

    @Mnemosyne:

    I love this idea that if we all just go along and coddle these people they’ll get better. What an insane approach. We’ve already accepted this entirely passive role- “oh, God, I hope they become good people!”

    They’ll get worse! Of course they will! Trump knows half the country thinks he’s a racist and a misogynist. He appointed this guy anyway.

    He doesn’t care.

  51. 51.

    Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire

    First off, Adam, thank you for all the knowledge you bring us. You are able to back up what many of us have suspected, and you provide more depth.

    Second, I have really enjoyed Sarah Kendzior’s Twitter feed during this election, and will seek out more of her work.

    Third, all those Latinos (and I am sure there are no concrete numbers because apparently polling Latinos iz, like, haaaarrrd you guise!) who voted for Trump will be defending him until he puts them in a camp or his minions kill one of their legal/citizen family members in the street for being Latino. The Black Legend of the Spanish lives again.

  53. 53.

    amygdala

    @Adam L Silverman:

    3) Provide cover for those who need it. Specifically, if someone is being verbally or physically attacked for race/ethnicity (or perceptions thereof) or speaking a foreign language or being a visible minority religion then, if you’re comfortable doing so, place yourself between the attacker/attackers and the victim. This can include just calling the cops and staying on site and videoing with your phone if necessary and if you’re not comfortable physically interposing.

    I did some reading about this and the advice was to talk directly to the person who is being harassed, and ignore whoever it is that is bothering him or her. Seemed reasonable to me. Are there studies, do you know, about how best to intervene in such situations?

  54. 54.

    Betty Cracker

    @RinaX: Hannity is all over Twitter urging Trump to deny press credentials to WaPo and the NYT. I can understand the latter, but the former should receive a Medal of Freedom from Trump for its email coverage.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    So Bernie Sanders thinks his role is to somehow make Donald Trump acceptable to me? When did I appoint Bernie Sanders as my spokesperson? I’m not negotiating with Donald Trump to reach a position Donald Trump finds acceptable. I’m not his employee. I don’t work for him. Bernie can negotiate on behalf of Bernie. Leave me the fuck out of it.

  59. 59.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yutsano: First off, there’s less than a million undocumented immigrants that have records for violent criminal felonies. That number is a conflation of legal and undocumented immigrants. Second, it costs $10,000 and change to deport a single person. Say he only does 2 million, that’s $20 billion dollars. He’s got to get that money first. He may want to do something, he may think he can do something. But the reality is that unless Congress increases its funding for enough to deport 400,000 a year to 2 or 3 million, he’s not doing anything.

  60. 60.

    rikyrah

    Bannon is a racist, and anti-Semite.

    It’s quite clear to me.

    and, phuck anyone who tries to downplay it.

    He has a suit on now.

    in 1948, he would have been in the crowds at a lynching.

  61. 61.

    Chris

    @Botsplainer:

    My current operating theory is that much of continental Europe will snap back to center left policies when they observe what an incompetent shitshow Anglo-American rightist governments put on.

    This was kind of my hope in 2008, when a financial crisis based on economic values that were never as firmly implanted in Europe as they were in America happened – that the rest of the developed world would see it as the failure of the Washington consensus and try to backpedal away from it.

    Instead, we got years of austerity and a further rise of a far right aided and abetted by conservative politicians.

  63. 63.

    spc

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Juppe is center right and entirely normal. Sark would be better than LePen but his views have gotten crazier this time around (close to LePen light without the anti-EU position). He’s kind of like a French Guiliani.

  64. 64.

    Enhanced Voting Techinques

    I still say it’s live by the tabloid, die by the tabloid. Writting cheesy glowing reports about Trump the Great Leader won’t get subscriptions for the MSM, writting about the crises of the day will. sooner or later stuff like Trump’s messing with underaged girls, the Mob and the Russians conection will just comeout because it’s all to much fun.

  65. 65.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    So Bernie Sanders thinks his role is to somehow make Donald Trump acceptable to me? When did I appoint Bernie Sanders as my spokesperson? I’m not negotiating with Donald Trump to reach a position Donald Trump finds acceptable. I’m not his employee. I don’t work for him. Bernie can negotiate on behalf of Bernie. Leave me the fuck out of it.

    YES, KAY!!

    TELL IT!!!

  67. 67.

    Taylor

    I have a question for Adam which I’ve been wondering for some time:

    Where the FUCK were our counter-intelligence services while our Presidential election was apparently being manipulated by a foreign power?

    Are they the Keystone Cops?

    Or was this “Russian interference” in the election a false flag operation all along?

    Asking for a friend.

  68. 68.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    I love this idea that if we all just go along and coddle these people they’ll get better. What an insane approach. We’ve already accepted this entirely passive role- “oh, God, I hope they become good people!”

    Absolutely RIDICULOUS!!!

  70. 70.

    Enhanced Voting Techinques

    @Adam L Silverman: ROFL, that would be oh so typically Republictard if they refuse to fund the INS because of SOCIALISMS!!!

    “Get the governments out of my Illegal Immigration!”

  72. 72.

    Kay

    We had another story over the weekend examining what the outcome of last week’s presidential election might mean for West Virginia’s coal industry, and more importantly for the coalfield communities that are hurting in the wake of mining’s inevitable decline.
    At the same time, there were remarkable reports out of both of the major papers in Kentucky that are worth reading.
    First, here’s the Courier-Journal:
    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hedged on Friday about when and if Republicans would be able to bring coal mining jobs to Kentucky, saying that is a “private sector activity.”
    “We are going to be presenting to the president a variety of options that could end this assault,” McConnell said. “Whether that immediately brings business back, that’s hard to tell because this is a private sector activity.”
    And there’s this even more remarkable line from the Herald-Leader:
    The interim president of the Kentucky Coal Association was more direct about the future of coal mining in Eastern Kentucky.
    “I would not expect to see a lot of growth because of the Trump presidency,” Nick Carter said in an interview. “If there is any growth in Eastern Kentucky, it will be because of an improved economy for coal.”

    So I’m sorry these people were conned by the Trump Family but I wasn’t fooled and I don’t intend to lower my standards so I can become their victim too.

    I oppose. I don’t know how letting myself get conned makes it any better for the people they’ve already victimized.

  74. 74.

    JMG

    Call the local district office of your Congressperson ASAP and let the poor staffer who answers know politely but firmly that voting to privatize Medicare or turn it into a subsidies program for private insurance will make a lifelong enemy for him/her. Phone calls are easy, and doing SOMETHING will make you feel better. I don’t mean this to be pessimistic, because I believe the opposite, but if 49 percent of voters are down with authoritarianism, I don’t see how they can be reached through sweet reason. But here’s a bread and butter issue. We have to wait to fight Trump. We can fight Ryan today.

  76. 76.

    Another Holocene Human

    @debbie: unforced error but to me not as troubling as falling to articulate a simple economic message for our unlikely voters. You can’t win with the D base alone.

  78. 78.

    The Moar You Know

    I’d like to use Adam’s very relevant post to make a point I don’t think we can repeat often or loudly enough. The first priority of white Democrats like myself right now MUST be to make sure people of color, LGBTQ, Muslims, immigrants of all kinds, that is, the likely scapegoats, that we have their back to the extent of our power.

    @JMG: Hate to say it, but the priority of this white Democrat is to make damn sure that my family can GTFO out of Dodge while the getting is good. I might be able to help others. I might not.

  81. 81.

    low-tech cyclist

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Second, it costs $10,000 and change to deport a single person. Say he only does 2 million, that’s $20 billion dollars. He’s got to get that money first.

    Do you really think that’s going to be a problem for him?

  82. 82.

    sharl

    WaPo – including Fahrenhold and Weigel – did a pretty good job up to the election (on the other hand, Cillizza is a waste of oxygen, and in a better world would be sharing a basement closet with Richard Cohen).

    I wonder how many among the big media will go all Kent Brockman in Trumpworld?

    One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.

  84. 84.

    Peale

    Honestly, I think 1987 is a bit too far in the past to explain the rise of of the global far right and authoritarian regimes we currently face. I also don’t know how long it will last. I don’t think change in inevitable and that there will be some easy snapback. This could go on forever, but I feel like we’re six years in and we can only say that it is effective at winning, not lasting. When can we actually date Putin’s truly authoritarian turn? 2008? When did we start to hear news reports of far right racists meeting in Ukraine? 2004?

  85. 85.

    Tenar Arha (same Tenar, more Nameless Ones)

    Is there any Republican officeholder at the national level that will actually listen to non-constituents re: what the Bannon appointment proves?

  87. 87.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Kay:

    So Bernie Sanders thinks his role is to somehow make Donald Trump acceptable to me?

    I’ve seen nothing that would lead me to believe this–what are you referring to?

  88. 88.

    gene108

    @Alain the site fixer:

    I disagree that America is unexceptional. There are reactionary elements in our society, like any society.

    But social progress has been made, in ways that were unimaginable 10 years ago and they are not going away.

    The fight to keep them just got harder, but people are waking up to that now.

  90. 90.

    spc

    @Chris: It was a weird reversal where we at least had some stimulus and all of Europe opted for an Anglo-American response. Europe is infected with the same pitfalls of neoliberalism that we are. Hopefully they are getting their act together for next year’s elections (and the refugee crisis – another failure of US driven foreign policy) will likely result in the taking of some unsettling positions as necessary to prevent the worst.

  91. 91.

    Betty Cracker

    Speaking of Rep. Cummings:

    Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has called on committee chair Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) to begin a review of President-Elect Donald Trump’s business ties.

    In a letter to Chaffetz, Cummings noted that Trump’s stated plan to put his assets in a blind trust run by his children, who also currently serve as advisers on his transition team, “is certainly not a ‘blind trust.’”

    The review of Trump’s financial arrangements, Cummings wrote, would “ensure that our government operates effectively and efficiently and combats even the perception of corruption or abuse.”

    Yes.

  92. 92.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Taylor: They’re where they always are: working. This stuff is not fast, its not easy. And they go out of their way not to make any noise.

  94. 94.

    SatanicPanic

    @Kay: yes, you don’t negotiate with evil. I want to believe the best in Bernie, but I am not convinced he won’t sell us out.

  95. 95.

    low-tech cyclist

    @amygdala:

    Hannity has suggested the WH strip press credentials from the NYT, WaPo, and CNN.

    That might be the best thing (from our perspective, at least) that could happen to them.

    Then they could actually do independent reporting, rather than having to worry about risking their damned access all the time.

  96. 96.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Taylor: CIA is a white supremacist stronghold. Black guy sued them for discrimination a few years back. Like FBI, these traitors think Putin is right on.

  97. 97.

    Enhanced Voting Techinques

    Also, United States doen’t equal Yugoslavia.

    Speaking as a Croat-American with family over there (and who comitted war crimes), that place was never a democracy. To a Serbian “the good old days” was when Tito ran the place with an iron fist and kept all the minorites in line. My relatives were saying since the 70s there was going to be a civil war when Tito died.

  98. 98.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    I’m still shocked at how fast the standards collapsed. Appointing a virulent racist is now A-Ok and we are ONE WEEK into this.

    Last time I was this shocked by a shift was 2009, and the sheer speed with which all the Important People declared Obama’s Failed Presidency and decided that the answer to the catastrophe of the Bush years was to be even more conservative.

    But even that didn’t happen this fast. Of course, this time, I’m much less surprised. I’d been saying for months that the NeverTrumpists were all full of shit and would line up behind him when push came to shove. For everyone to embrace him after the election isn’t what I expected, but only because I didn’t expect him to win – otherwise it’s wholly consistent with my expectations.

  99. 99.

    cokane

    ugh, i think the only hope is that this government gets involved in some petty and salacious scandals, undermining all the nasty stuff they want to do. seems like the only thing that might actually motivate the public in 2018.

  100. 100.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Enhanced Voting Techinques: They have been both bitching about the lack of effort (despite us basically deporting 400,000 per year for the past seven years with a priority on violent, criminal, extremist, connected to organized crime/drug cartels, and suspected of links to terrorism) and at the same time refusing to fund anything that would achieve their loudly declared end states at the same time. Look, I get people are scared and worked up. But these people are 1) overly ambitious (Ryan), 2) overly cautious (McConnell), 3) think they’re very, very smart and capable when they’re neither (Pence), 4) confuse smart with capable (Gingrich), 5) or have absolutely no experience with how any of this works (the rest of them). They are loud, they are sloppy, and they are obvious. They telegraph everything. And now, they don’t even have the top cover of “the Democratic President will veto it, so we can’t do anything.”

    Will things be rough and difficult? Yes. Will these folks stop being incompetent? No.

  101. 101.

    mkro

    Important to also remember that Bannon was an investment banker @ Goldman Sachs before taking over Breitbart. That means he’s a Trump double-whammy of falsehoods in one. Trump claims he’s not racist and hates Wall St. Too funny!

  102. 102.

    SenyorDave

    @Chat Noir: I know Obama loves this country, but I don’t see why he should bother unless he gets something tangible. How about I want Steve Bannon gone, and a notarized guarantee in writing that he will not have access to the White House for your entire term. Or maybe he should just lie to him and say ridiculous shit and see if Trump believe him. “Donald, when you meet the Bulgarian foreign minister the protocol is that you spin around three times, jump up and click your heels, and then say in flawless Bulgarian your mother smells of the strongest garlic”
    Barack Obama is a much better person than I am.

  103. 103.

    Another Holocene Human

    @SatanicPanic: He can’t sell what he doesn’t own. The Democratic Party doesn’t belong to Bernie and his young fans aren’t eager to follow him over a white supremacist cliff.

  104. 104.

    Barbara

    @Enhanced Voting Techinques: As the granddaughter of a Serbian immigrant who grew up in a rust belt city where there were occasional outbreaks of violence between Serbian and Croatian immigrants, not in the 90s, but in the 60s, to the amazement of most of the rest of us, there is a long history of enmity between Serbs, who fancied their language a dominant organizing force, and anyone else who spoke Serbo-Croatian, whether they wanted to fall in line or not, and for whom the term “irredentist” was invented — I don’t think our history has sufficiently close parallels for useful analogies about what happens next.

  107. 107.

    Cermet

    As I said a few times and will continue to say – the small handed dick head is the closet we have to a responsible thug leader. As crazy as that is, it is true; the congress is far worse – look at the dead eyed Ryan or the turtle necked fellow granny starving reptile – these creatures are far less human than the small handed one. Yes, we are screwed but it is possible the dems can fight by blocking everything they can. Maybe, a small chance, the small handed one will discover that the extreme’s he has unleashed need some dial back – maybe. One can hope. Otherwise, the game will get very ugly.

  108. 108.

    Miss Bianca

    saw this floating on the Book of Faces the other day (slightly parapharsed):

    Britain: The Brexit vote was the stupidest move possible on the international stage right now.

    USA: Hold my drink.

  109. 109.

    janeform

    Call your congresspeople and senators and urge them to speak out against Bannon. Even if they’re Dems. They cannot stay silent and normalize this.

  110. 110.

    Patricia Kayden

    @amygdala: And that isn’t fascism, right? It’s going to be interesting (in a scary way) what happens to this country in the next four years.

  111. 111.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @amygdala: That could work out OK. They would no longer be worried about ‘access’ and would have a personal stake in ending the Trump administration.

  112. 112.

    Another Holocene Human

    So this happened: my blood pressure is up 20pts in two weeks. It’s been measured. I’m keeping a lid on things but bp don’t lie

  113. 113.

    Enhanced Voting Techinques

    @low-tech cyclist:

    Do you really think that’s going to be a problem for him?

    Put it this way; the Defense Industry is a mess because the House can’t get it’s act together on the funding. Sure they are all for every Aircraft Carrier and Fighter Jet in the world, but paying for it, that’s socialisms and no.

  114. 114.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @amygdala: The thing is…they don’t need access to the press room to savage the guy. And Jeff Bezos doesn’t really need any more money. He could finance the WaPo from here to kingdom come just for the sole purpose of exposing Trump. I’d call his bluff if I were Bezos, but who knows exactly what he’s committed to? For all I know he’s apolitical.

  116. 116.

    Chris

    @SenyorDave:

    I know Obama loves this country, but I don’t see why he should bother unless he gets something tangible. How about I want Steve Bannon gone, and a notarized guarantee in writing that he will not have access to the White House for your entire term. Or maybe he should just lie to him and say ridiculous shit and see if Trump believe him. “Donald, when you meet the Bulgarian foreign minister the protocol is that you spin around three times, jump up and click your heels, and then say in flawless Bulgarian your mother smells of the strongest garlic”

    The only good thing to come out of the last week has been the explosion of Obama/Biden memes.

    Obama: “Did you replace all the toiletries with travel sized bottles?”
    Biden: “He’s got tiny hands, Barack. I want him to feel welcome.”

    Biden: “I left a Kenyan passport in the White House drawer just to fuck with him.”

    Etc…

  121. 121.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kay:

    Apparently, the Trump team didn’t realize they have to hire an entire White House staff. They thought it came pre-staffed. Now our president has to sit down with this clown and explain what the clown’s job is.

    It would be funny if it didn’t make me want to find a safe hiding place.

  122. 122.

    Chris

    @Another Holocene Human:

    He can’t sell what he doesn’t own. The Democratic Party doesn’t belong to Bernie and his young fans aren’t eager to follow him over a white supremacist cliff.

    Hope not.

    This entire rush to legitimize Trump and call for reconciliation reminds me of nothing more than the post-1877 consensus on the Civil War, which was that the most important thing was for white people to hug it out, and if it came at everyone else’s expense, meh.

  123. 123.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Barbara: History is great in helping us organize the present until it isn’t. Especially when it isn’t remembered correctly. I think there’s a major difference between Milosevic and Trump. President Elect Trump is a cypher. He really has no idea what the Presidency is, what the Presidency does, what actual powers and authorities the President has and what the limits are. And I don’t think he really knows much about even his signature, for lack of a better term, themes. He instinctively had a feel for how to conduct a hostile takeover of the GOP and what themes he needed to use to do so. Beyond that there’s no substance.

  127. 127.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Enhanced Voting Techinques: Exactly. Getting six more members for the GOP caucus isn’t going to change the fact that they can’t produce a budget, let alone an omnibus or individual appropriations bills. Until they can prove they can do more than just CRs because they can’t get their actual caucus to all move in a similar direction, there is no reason to borrow trouble from the future.

  129. 129.

    rp

    It just occurred to me that Trump IS tire rims and anthrax. He’s the living embodiment of those things. And GOP voters were happy to vote for him over the Democrat.

  133. 133.

    Porky Pine

    @LibraryGuy: This. And don’t forget money. The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy has always had a metric ton of it more than the Democrats and has been effective in its use. I would disagree that it is not a coordinated effort, too, given the poison the Koch-funded ALEC, to name but one outfit, has been able to inject into the system.

    Jasmina Mujanovic’s comparison to Milosevic’s Yugoslavia does seem apt, albeit in microcosm. Ethnic/linguistic/confessional divisions there, as opposed to racial ones, but in both countries a widening urban/rural divide. The cities were places where the ethnic divisions could be, and were, overcome [prior to the war]; the countryside was fine with kill thy [fill in the blank] neighbor. Mujanovic also correctly notes that part of Milosevic’s strategy was first the capture of the media. I recall a Yugoslav commentator many years ago saying, “Imagine if your [i.e., the US’s] media was taken over by David Duke; that happened in Yugoslavia.” And now Steve Bannon is to have a White House appointment.

    I’m a long-time lurker, first-time poster. BJ has been my refuge, especially since last Tuesday. Oh, and shout-out to Mnemosyne from threads over the past days: I’m not usually a conspiracy theorist, but I’m with you that something unusual and hinky (beyond the voter suppression, of course) happened in the Rust Belt states. As Stalin said, it doesn’t matter who votes, it matters who COUNTS the votes.

  134. 134.

    Emerald

    @SFBayAreaGal:

    California might be the safest place for now. A few days ago our legislature put out a statement that ended with:

    While Donald Trump may have won the presidency, he hasn’t changed our values. America is greater than any one man or party. We will not be dragged back into the past. We will lead the resistance to any effort that would shred our social fabric or our Constitution.

    California was not a part of this nation when its history began, but we are clearly now the keeper of its future.

  135. 135.

    Enhanced Voting Techinques

    @Barbara:

    “I don’t think our history has sufficiently close parallels for useful analogies about what happens next. “

    Yes, I agree; even at the height of the Old South or Segregation it was Democracy for the people with the correct skin pigment. On top that there is a long tradition of fear of government over reach in this country. I don’t see that just going away and if anything “Trump cheated to win” is only going to stroke those fears of some Illuminati New World Order Protocols of Zion Templar Lizard Space Anti Christ Alien take over.

  137. 137.

    Chris

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Is it romanticizing, or is my impression correct that the CIA’s always been more broad-minded than a lot of national security agencies? I mean, on some level it has to be; employees have to learn everything there is to know about a number of foreign societies, most of them radically different from the U.S, and it’s difficult to do that without coming out with more of an open mind.

    (Now, the FBI…)

    @Woodrowfan:

    Incidentally; the right wing hates, hates, hates, hates the CIA, and always has. McCarthy thought it was a communist plot (he had some backing from the fact that the agency was still young and learning the trade, and the Soviets had had some success controlling them). Nixon thought it was full of Ivy Leaguers, and also that it had helped throw the 1960 election to Kennedy. And you remember what the Bushies were like.

  139. 139.

    jacy

    @Adam L Silverman:

    He may want to do something, he may think he can do something. But the reality is that unless Congress increases its funding for enough to deport 400,000 a year to 2 or 3 million, he’s not doing anything.

    This. Trump doesn’t understand how things work, which is going to gum shit up. As a friend said, Trump is used to proposing something or trying something and then walking away the minute it doesn’t work. He doesn’t plan, and holds no actual stake in success. His history is littered with failure and unworkable schemes.

  140. 140.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mnemosyne:

    Now our president has to sit down with this clown and explain what the clown’s job is.

    Our POTUS is scheduled to give a press conference at 3:15 p.m. (EST). Wonder whether he’ll get any questions about the sheer obvious ineptitude of his successor. I plan to watch on the livestream from whitehouse.gov.

  141. 141.

    Kay

    @Mnemosyne:

    Now our president has to sit down with this clown and explain what the clown’s job is.

    The US has really low standards now. Rock-bottom. Get used to it. It’s collapsing on front of our eyes. Trump lied over and over in his 60 Minutes interview and it isn’t even mentioned.

    It seems brutal for the Trump Family to expect African Americans to pay the salaries of the racists they hire.That seems like a bridge too far. Maybe we need a tax revolt. The Trump’s don’t pay taxes anyway. Why should anyone else?

  142. 142.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Chris:

    I actually do think we’re looking at the possible death of the post-WW2 West.

    Tony Judt clearly thought so.

  143. 143.

    Chris

    @Enhanced Voting Techinques:

    Yes, I agree; even at the height of the Old South or Segregation it was Democracy for the people with the correct skin pigment

    Well, sort of.

    One of the cushy side effects of slave owners getting to cast the votes of two-thirds of their slaves was that they utterly dominated the politics of their states, making it next to impossible for even the other white people to overrule their politics, even if they’d wanted to.

    Similarly, while poll taxes were primarily aimed at disenfranchising black voters, they also had the convenient side effect of disenfranchising a non trivial number of poor whites. Which was a further help in crushing any attempt at economic populism similar to the union activity that was happening up North.

    I mention this because we can expect more and more of these kinds of shenanigans under a Trump administration.

  145. 145.

    Barbara

    @Mnemosyne: Trump is used to running hotels, obviously. I think most candidates underestimate the work involved in assuming the office of the presidency.

  147. 147.

    Botsplainer

    OT – Just overheard in court during a docket call in family court:

    Female Judge: “Now calling the case of Michael Hunt. Has anyone seen Michael Hunt?”

    There was a contingent of us sitting in the back, gleefully wishing for her to shorten the first name. Sadly, she didn’t satisfy our juvenile senses of humor, but it was close enough for giggles…

  148. 148.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The American Jewish Congress and the Islamic Society of North American have now made formal, common cause too:

    Silver lining?

    Come on people, work with me here!

  149. 149.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @rp:

    It just occurred to me that Trump IS tire rims and anthrax.

    Ha!! I thought EXACTLY this last night! Almost posted the thought, but it was so late that both the thread and I were pretty dead.

  152. 152.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Barbara: Roman Catholic v. Orthodox, too. Lots of fault lines.

    a single Serb-led Yugoslavia was a Greater Serbian project from before WW1.

  153. 153.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Adam L Silverman: FBI and CIA are famously insular. How did Richard Hansen happen? It’s called affiliation fraud. They believe espionage is done by distrusted others and upper middle class white men like us are the only reliable ones.

  154. 154.

    Woodrowfan

    @Woodrowfan: My apologies, I was thinking of another case where the guy was a total nutbag who insisted every white woman in the Agency wanted to have sex with him and he was fired because the white guys were jealous. different guy.

  155. 155.

    Enhanced Voting Techinques

    @Adam L Silverman: Yes. My take is this going to be four years of marking time until the conservatives realize they are incompetent and just give up.

    In fact, it seems like the House Republicans have this vibe that if they had their way, Obama would be dictator for life and they would keep their seats and just sit there passing resolutions how bad he is.

  158. 158.

    Kay

    Washington PostVerified account
    ‏@washingtonpost
    Giuliani says Trump can’t do a blind trust because it “would basically put his children out of work”

    the US will be rock bottom on government ethics too, soon. We’re going down fast. Turns out it was really pretty fragile. You just need like 15 well-connected thugs.

  159. 159.

    brendancalling

    I don’t like re-branding.
    I don’t like terms like “neo-nationalism” or “alt right”.

    They are fascists, racists, and neo-Nazis, plain and simple, and that is what I will call them.

  160. 160.

    Woodrowfan

    @Chris: I actually do think we’re looking at the possible death of the post-WW2 West. Both in the sense of the liberal democratic values that most of the countries in it embraced, and in the sense of its death as a strongly unified power bloc opposed to more authoritarian nations like Russia.

    me too

  162. 162.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Betty Cracker: Hope is not a strategy, but until they can actually demonstrate some basic competence beyond getting some of the media to fluff them, everyone should stop borrowing trouble. Panic isn’t going to fix anything.

  163. 163.

    sharl

    OT: PBS journalist Gwen Ifill has died

    :Gwen Ifill, the longtime news anchor who had served as a co-host of PBS’s NewsHour and as moderator of “Washington Week,” has died, PBS has confirmed, after a battle with cancer. She was 61.

    I didn’t have strong feelings one way or the other about her work – she seemed to do a good job – but beyond losing her at a relatively young age, the additional suck is losing an experienced African-American journalist who knew the ropes in DC, just when we need such folks the most.

    RIP Ms. Ifill.

  165. 165.

    Botsplainer

    @Davis X. Machina:

    I know one lawyer (super nice guy) named Richard Head.

    There was a gyno in town named Barrett Hyman, as well as a proctologist with the last name of Heine (pronounced hiney).

    And I had a law school classmate named Rob Swindler.

  167. 167.

    smintheus

    Count on the news media to pretend that nothing too untoward is going on with the Trumpies, least of all the rise of a proto fascistic movement. At noon NPR described Bannon as “an outsider” and a “populist”; no word about his racism, xenophobia, virulence, conspiracy theories, or international ties to ultra-nationalist parties. Because that might upset the kittens.

  168. 168.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Betty Cracker: Kudos to Cummings but unfortunately, I don’t see any investigations of Trump actually going forward when all committees are under Republican control. But of course, Chaffetz has already promised to continue his investigations into Secretary Clinton — probably for the rest of his natural life.

  169. 169.

    Chris

    @Chris:

    One of the cushy side effects of slave owners getting to cast the votes of two-thirds of their slaves was that they utterly dominated the politics of their states, making it next to impossible for even the other white people to overrule their politics, even if they’d wanted to.

    By “two thirds,” I obviously meant “three fifths.” Sorry, I have no idea why I said the other thing.

  170. 170.

    Adam L Silverman

    @debbie: Yes, and the Episcopal Church in MD that was doing Hispanic outreach. And the synagogue in Montana. And… But thanks.

  171. 171.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Adam L Silverman: Some fraction of that 2 million are going to be either already below the radar, have experience in staying below the radar, or have associates who know how to do it.

    The $10,000 is the cost of deporting them. You have to catch them first. ¿Como se dice ‘Whack-a-mole’ en español?

  172. 172.

    Botsplainer

    @Kay:

    There’s a reason why Putin reportedly has a 40 billion dollar fortune despite never working outside government service.

  173. 173.

    PaulW

    I’m not entirely surprised that the adspace up top is now showing “Date Russian Models” ads whenever I refresh.

    I hate keyword-based marketing bots.

  174. 174.

    Timurid

    @Emerald:

    Most people won’t be able to get jobs in ‘safe places.’ You think the Bay Area is a hypercompetitive snakepit now?
    You’re not safe if you can’t afford a roof over your head. They won’t punish you for being gay or black or Muslim. But they will punish you for being a ‘failure.’

  176. 176.

    gogol's wife

    @Cermet:

    I hate to say it but I am more afraid of Ryan and McConnell than Trump. Which is not to say I’m not afraid of Trump.

  177. 177.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Chris: So the CIA is an interesting place. Its two longstanding/traditional divisions are the Directorates of Analysis and Operations. The former does just what it says: research and analysis. And because the CIA is the only one of our 18 intel agencies that isn’t part of a larger department, they stay out of the policy game with the research and analysis product. So a lot of very smart, very inquisitive people with a lot of information trying to make sense of the world. The latter is divided into two groups. One does traditional intel operations – for and not for cover officers working abroad with host country nationals. Recruiting them, handling them, etc. The second is the paramilitary teams that were, with US Special Forces, some of the first people into Afghanistan after 9-11 and, by all published accounts, saved the military’s bacon at Tora Bora.

    There are several other divisions that have evolved over time to handle H/R, IT and tech, things like that.
    https://www.cia.gov/about-cia
    https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia

  178. 178.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    Six feet beneath the soil of Poplarville, Mississippi, Theodore Bilbo weeps that he is not living at this hour.

    And if a man who could be denounced by the Mississippi State Senate in 1910 as “unfit to sit with honest, upright men in a respectable legislative body” is on your side, I’m pretty sure you don’t belong in public life.

  179. 179.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Patricia Kayden: I don’t see any investigations of Trump actually going forward when all committees are under Republican control.
    The only hope is that the “blind trust” which is neither starts to poll really, really badly. That might, might, happen, but I would be pretty surprised if it started to affect Senate/House polling in purple districts and red states (the 2018 Senate map is pretty red)

    A less unlikely scenario, by which I mean I’m not counting on it, is that Putin et al decide that they’re done helping Trump and are more interested in sowing confusion in the US polity in general, in which case things could get beyond McConnell’s control.

  182. 182.

    greengoblin

    @Kay: I work in the power industry and no one is building coal plants. They are much more expensive, harder to site, much more labor intensive. Natural gas and other market forces are responsible for the decline of coal.

  183. 183.

    Barbara

    @Davis X. Machina: The first 300 or so pages of “Sleepwalkers,” about the origins of WWI, traces the origin of Serbian nationalism from the early 19th century forward. Basically, what happened in the 1990s was simply the last chapter (I hope) in a drama that had been going on for close to 200 years. By the time you have read those chapters, you are still just getting to the events of August, 2014. With my Serbian heritage, I found this to be really illuminating.

  184. 184.

    Adam L Silverman

    @brendancalling: neo-nationalism and neo-fascism have been academic terms for these groups since the late 80s/early 90s. I learned these terms in grad school, at the Center for Terrorism and Political Violence, between 1992–1995.

  187. 187.

    Gravenstone

    @Betty Cracker:

    Adam: Will things be rough and difficult? Yes. Will these folks stop being incompetent? No.

    All my hopes are hanging on that slim reed.

    The incompetence is baked in. It occurred to me this morning as I was reading over Richard’s post from last night that we’ve seen a variation of this before. The Trump admin will resemble nothing so much as the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Where ideology trumped competence every damn time and at every damn level. Plus the graft and corruption, so much graft and corruption. All that will be missing is the stolen pallet loads of bundled cash. They’ll use wire transfers this time around.

  188. 188.

    Mnemosyne

    @Gravenstone:

    The Trump admin will resemble nothing so much as the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

    Yep, only even less organized, and with more infighting.

  189. 189.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @sharl: NPR (Nice Polite Republicans, ignoring that Bannon is a proud racist fuck), therefore a Villager. My nym. Again and again.

  190. 190.

    Bill Arnold

    @Adam L Silverman:

    1) Don’t panic. 2) Stay informed and don’t knee jerk react and jump at shadows, rumors, etc. 3) Provide cover for those who need it. … 4) Recognize that no matter how much we here recognize that the state and society provides positive liberty, as well as negative, that its a fine line and tipping point. … 5) Organization….

    Some poorly-formed early thoughts, but perhaps worth writing down.
    Another dimension to focus on is (1) An honest examination of how the Democrats were so outplayed on the media/marketing/emotional manipulation front. (2) Do something about it; build up a Democratic bleeding edge propaganda capability (hold nose as needed), and work on defenses against the right-wing emotional manipulations including broad education about how to recognize such manipulations, and work on better real time sentiment analysis (and yes, manipulation).
    For those of deeply intuitive bent, know that elements on the right are familiar with stuff like this: Meme Magic (a magifesto). (That’s the tic-tac-toe version. Just saying.) For those that aren’t, well, consider studying political marketing (ewww, personally), and get high tech, e.g. Sentiment analysis etc. (or wikipedia.)

  191. 191.

    Chris

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I need to read more about Afghanistan; I did not know that at all about CIA involvement at Tora Bora.

    Related question: are there any books and/or authors you recommend in particular that best cover the rise of Daesh? (I have lots of free time on the metro right now, which means reading material :D ).

    Thank you, also, for the job searching advice the other day. I already knew some of it, but hadn’t looked much into the linguistic jobs yet and will be doing that too.

  192. 192.

    Chris

    @greengoblin:

    Natural gas and other market forces are responsible for the decline of coal.

    You’ve got to love the utter refusal of right-wingers to accept the laws of the market every time they lead to any outcome they don’t like.

    (Don’t get me wrong, I sympathize entirely with the “market should not control every aspect of our lives” thing. But you’d think it would occur to some of them after some point to stop voting for the party that elevates free market principles to the level of divine will given the results. But no. Let’s imagine vast conspiracies of Politically Correct Liberal Elitists instead).

  194. 194.

    Porky Pine

    @Barbara: I actually just finished reading The Sleepwalkers on Election Day. None of the protagonists comes off in a favorable light–no surprise there–except (unexpectedly, just slightly) Austria-Hungary. And the project of Serbian nationalism actually goes back to 1389, right? Or so the national mythos has it. ;)

  195. 195.

    Chris

    @Mnemosyne:

    The Trump admin will resemble nothing so much as the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
    …
    Yep, only even less organized, and with more infighting.

    1990s conservative ideologues destroyed Russia, 2000s conservative ideologues destroyed Iraq. For the 2010s, they’re coming to America.

  198. 198.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @jenn: I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers.

    They wouldn’t even have needed it. “I’m going to raise your taxes– FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!” is not a winning message in this country.

  199. 199.

    Bill Arnold

    @The Moar You Know:

    …the priority of this white Democrat is to make damn sure that my family can GTFO out of Dodge while the getting is good.

    Reminder to US citizens potentially significantly more vulnerable during a Trump/Pence presidency; get a passport for yourself and loved ones. Renew it (and encourage others to do so) if it is near expiration.

  200. 200.

    Kay

    Reports say Obama is going to give Trump extra help since Trump “had no idea” how much work it is to be president

    I mean, seriously. When is it too much to ask? They campaigned on obliterating Obama’s legacy. Obama has to help them do it?

    Women and black people have to RESCUE Donald Trump or he’ll take us all down with him?

    How dare he even expect this. It’s the DEFINITION of privilege. What next? Clinton tutors him on foreign policy?

  201. 201.

    Kay

    Donald Trump thinks it is the job of the better than 50% of people who didn’t vote for him to assure he has a successful Presidency. Because that’s what I live for- to serve the Trump Family.

  202. 202.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: How dare he even expect this. It’s the DEFINITION of privilege. What next? Clinton tutors him on foreign policy?

    We should be so lucky, cause it’s gonna be Newt, John Bolton and this guy who just accused Katy Tur of sleeping her way to her job

    Richard GrenellVerified account
    ‏@ RichardGrenell Richard Grenell Retweeted Katy Tur
    calling yourself a journalist is offensive to real ones. Did u intern for @KeithOlbermann or date him? Either way doesn’t make u a reporter

  205. 205.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Chris: even in its vaunted “foreign policy establishment.”

    Isn’t that, at this point, McCain and Graham?

  207. 207.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Kay: If done with sufficient, and richly earned condescension though…

    I do not want to ever, ever, be on the business end of Obama snark.

  208. 208.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Woodrowfan: so, they are supposed to defend us. If this was a war they stood by while the British burned down DC.

    Look at their demographics. I know how they voted.

  209. 209.

    Monala

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: My Sarkozy story: Back in the ’70s and ’80s, a Frenchman teaching French to kids in the U.S. decided to start a program so that American kids could visit France and experience French culture. He worked with school districts throughout the Midwest to implement this program, including several school districts that were largely or predominantly black, such as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Gary, IN. All in all, about 40,000 American youth got to visit France through this program.

    I was one of them. And the French people treated us horribly. (Not all, of course – the French family I stayed with were Jews whose parents/grandparents had survived the Holocaust. Wonderful, very kind people). But we’re talking about people yelling insults and spitting at us on the streets. We were children (middle school age) going through this.

    I shared this story in an online forum following the Charlie Hebdo massacre with someone – who herself had never been to France – who claimed that the French people aren’t racist. To see if there was any documentation to back my memories up, I Googled the program – and discovered that the program’s founder had written a book about it. I ordered the book and read it.

    One of the things I discovered was that he did document the racism against Black children in the program. He also commends Nicholas Sarkozy, then a mayor of a French city where some of the kids in the program were housed, for speaking up against the racism in very strong terms and letting his constituents know it would not be tolerated in his community.

  210. 210.

    Barbara

    @Porky Pine: You can’t really talk about “nationalism” until the 19th century in my opinion. Of course there was tribal warfare, but the concept of national identity with lines drawn specifically around language really started to take hold in the 1800s. The book does not really gain detail until it begins discussing events of the 1820s and 30s.

    ETA: The country that comes off worst in the book, in my view, is France, because it saw Serbia as a purchaser of its arms, fueling Serbia’s determination to trigger a rupture that had a high risk of leading to war — a war that decimated an entire generation of young French men.

  211. 211.

    hovercraft

    @Adam L Silverman:

    They are loud, they are sloppy, and they are obvious. They telegraph everything. And now, they don’t even have the top cover of “the Democratic President will veto it, so we can’t do anything.”

    Will things be rough and difficult? Yes. Will these folks stop being incompetent? No.

    I always appreciate your insights, you bring so much actual knowledge. Now if only you could overcome your shyness and express actual opinions, you’d be the complete package.
    I love when you let your mask slip on domestic policy. Keep it up, both the informative posts with your informed analysis, and telling us how you really feel.

  214. 214.

    Annie

    @Adam L Silverman:

    According to a friend who’s a prosecutor, undocumented immigrants accused of crimes are not just wandering around. Even before a trial they are in jail, not released, since they are a flight risk. The DA may ask ICE if they want someone prosecuted or if ICE just wants to deport immediately. If convicted and sentenced they’re in prison. On release, they go to ICE for deportation.

    In other words, Voldemoron doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Quelle surprise.

  215. 215.

    gus

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: No one sane buys that equivalency bullshit, but go to the comments sections of conservative media. For them, it’s just taken for granted that Obama was a tyrant ruining America, ruling through Presidential decree and Hillary would have been “the end of America as we know it.” Insane apocalyptic rhetoric is par for the course, so of course they’ll see equivalence between a white supremacist and someone who something something BILL AYERS!

  217. 217.

    J R in WV

    @debbie:

    So, what would you call racist, homophobic, misogynist, xenophobic thugs? Instead of deplorable?

    ‘Cause I think she did well in picking out a less-loaded term than the list I used in my first sentence. They are deplorable fascists, after all.

    The President-elect is a fascist, people. I’m not sure whether to be out in front or to go underground. I suppose trying to go underground after posting like this on-line would be silly… it’s child’s play for the NSA to ID all of us and pick us all up late one night.

  218. 218.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Annie: Josh Krashauer, a smarmy little shit I think was a protege of Ron Fournier, was equating Bannon with Keith Ellison, I liked Dave Weigel’s response

    Dave Weigel ‏@ daveweigel 2h2 hours ago
    On the one hand, racial nationalism. On the other, expanded Social Security payments!

    ETA: “Voldemoron”, nice

  219. 219.

    msdc

    @jenn: Thank you for sharing that. I need a cigarette, followed by a quick share to my FB feed, followed by a lot more cigarettes.

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m surprised Eichenwald didn’t mention Sanders’s membership in the Socialist Workers Party when they supported Iran during the hostage crisis. Maybe that was in one of the other binders.

  220. 220.

    Applejinx

    @rp:

    It just occurred to me that Trump IS tire rims and anthrax. He’s the living embodiment of those things. And GOP voters were happy to vote for him over the Democrat.

    Democrat, hell. Never forget that GOP voters voted for him over their own people.

  221. 221.

    Chris

    @Applejinx:

    Trump is one of their own people.

    ETA: although that’s still a nice talking point when discussing things with NeverTrumpists, professional centrists, and other people who claimed that he was something new back in the primaries.

  224. 224.

    Raven Onthill

    @Yutsano:

    He’s already promised to deport 3 million right away.

    I don’t think he can, at least not for some time; the infrastructure to do it isn’t there. Doesn’t mean he can’t do a lot of harm; he can and most likely will. I wonder if Congress will be willing to fund a network of internment camps, or if they intend to dump the whole problem on the states, as in the Kobach/Arpaio model.

    I wonder how Mexico will react? And how will True-Blooded Murcan farmers react when they realize that it’s the people who bring in the crops that will be deported.

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