Election night 2016 came as a vile surprise. It wasn’t just that the candidate I supported lost — I’m old enough to have backed many losing candidates, all the way back to Michael Dukakis.
It wasn’t just that the loss was unexpected. I went into the 2000 and 2004 elections expecting Al Gore and John Kerry to win — Gore because he was obviously more qualified and Kerry because Bush had already screwed the pooch in Iraq by 2004, so why would we “reelect” that fuck-up? But we did.
No, 2016 wasn’t just an electoral defeat. It was a revelation of the extent of the rot, a loss of faith as profound as any I’ve ever experienced. And the defeat of a highly qualified woman by a crude sexist bully sent a personal message to me, as a woman: You’re a second-class citizen at best, an object at worst.
Like many of you, I’ve responded in a variety of ways, becoming more involved in local politics, joining or forming groups to protect those most targeted by the racist, sexist, xenophobic demagogue who will be president in 15 days. Long term, I suspect these will be the most important responses.
But I’m going to the Women’s March on Washington because I want to stand up and say, “Women’s rights are human rights. We’re here. We’re Americans, even if we weren’t born here. We matter. We’re not going away. And we’ll oppose you, Trump, and you, Republicans in Congress, when you try to strip our rights away.”
I’m hoping tens of thousands of us show up, that there are so many of us that our presence can’t be ignored. I’m hoping our numbers demonstrate on a visceral level that the crude sexist bully in the Oval Office doesn’t represent all of us, that there’s another America that still values diversity and progress, that many of us still believe the greatness in America comes from our halting struggle for equality and resides in our efforts to create a more equitable, united future, not our nostalgia for a past that was actually pretty shitty for anyone who wasn’t a white male.
I’m under no illusions about how the march will be covered in the crap media or what effect it will have on the leering groper in the White House or his craven supporters in Congress. I’m aware that even some feminists consider it an empty gesture. I don’t expect it to make a difference politically. But it will mean something to my daughter, my sister and me, and right now, that seems like reason enough to go.
ETA — WTF, WaPo:
Le sigh.
Juice Box
I’m planning on going to San Diego’s march.
The Moar You Know
You’re not the only one. My wife has been crushed emotionally and spiritually since the election. It was a referendum on women in our society, and women lost. Big time.
Miki
And yes – I’m going to the Minnesota march.
Trinity
I’m with you Betty. I’m going to be in DC for the march for me, my Mom, my sister, and my niece.
Droppy
One of the lessons that this disaster has driven home for me is that the built-in advantages of being a white male in America are like the built-in advantages of being rich in America: they aren’t advantages even for the privileged group in the long run. When middle class and poor people are helped to be less oppressed, the economy actually works better even for the wealthy. When women and minorities are recognized as full members of the community and not as weaker or less functional cogs in the machine, then the whole society works better, even for those who already have it pretty good. So even for selfish, Republican-approved reasons, they ought to be insisting on such equality. But that need to further trod down the downtrodden is too great, I guess.
Mzinformation
Going to the Denver CO march
Ruckus
I was thinking that attending the LA march might be a good Idea for this old white guy. Can’t have too many people standing up for human rights. No matter their gender.
tobie
I’m going to DC with the spousal unit and 5 or so co-workers.
MomSense
I can’t get to the march but I’m sending some hats as part of the pu$$yhat project. FYWP won’t let me post the link to the website. I also plan to wear my pu$$yhat everywhere. I welcome the questions about it.
Taylor
People in my wife’s family who are going, will be wearing knit caps of cats. Geddit? I think this is stupid to the point of infantilism. I am dreading a picture of women wearing these being put up on Breitbart as a subject of derision. My wife’s family won’t hear anything bad about the idea. She was under pressure to knit the hats (she refused), and she’ll be under pressure to wear them on the day. She also thinks the idea is stupid, but she’s tired of talking about it.
I don’t know how widespread this idea is, or if anyone else feels it is self-defeating.
ETA x-posted with MomSense.
Gator90
Betty, you’re the kind of person I hope my daughters will be like when they grow up. And I’d say the same if I had sons.
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: Is this the link? Hadn’t heard about it, but I like it!
geg6
@The Moar You Know:
Tell her I’m right there with her. I’ve never felt so crushed by an election. Totally disoriented and feeling that I’m living in a foreign country and didn’t know I was.
I can’t make any of the marches, in DC or Harrisburg. But I’m with them in my heart and I hope there are huge numbers. I don’t expect any concrete things to come from just these marches, but I do want my enemies to know that there are a lot of us and we aren’t going away and we aren’t going to take their crap sitting down. I’ll be marching, as there will surely be regular protests, when I don’t have work conflicts. And I’ve been calling my senators and reps regularly, so that will be an ongoing effort and one I expect to have more concrete results.
And I will never forget this. Never will I feel comfortable as an American ever again.
Nicole
I’m going to the DC one, too, Betty, along with some friends. For all the same reasons.
My son’s school has a very diverse population, both racially and economically, and there were a lot of tears and frightened children on November 9th. The school responded by encouraging the kids to write letters and statements about how they feel and they’ve put the kids’ work up all over the hallways. I think it was very cathartic for the children, but it’s also been very comforting for a lot of us parents, too. This election was so crushing for me because, naive white liberal that I am, I really thought we were farther along than we are, but these kids are giving me hope that they will take the country to the places my generation is still too afraid to go.
MazeDancer
Congratulations and thank you, Betty. Applause and gratitude to all those marching anywhere and everywhere.
Just this morning I realized that Trump being a monster doesn’t change Freedom. Unless we let him. America is still open and free. It is that unchecked, wide-open freedom that means people get to stew in their ignorance, their hate, their TV reality, their fears, and express them by putting their faith in a monster.
It is that same freedom that lets more of us than them support and fight for what is right.
They want to create an authoritarian state even when most of them don’t understand that a “strongman savior” is the opposite of Freedom. Mr. Obama and HRC have both said things like “I still believe in America”. That means the America that lets everyone speak and be equal. So we fight for Freedom. Ironically, both ours and theirs.
It still hurts that so many hate women and PoC so much. May that much-experienced pain show up and be transformed in the numbers marching. And the long-term calling Congress and fighting for the America in which we believe.
Betty Cracker
@Gator90: You are too kind. :)
@Taylor: I think the hats are kinda cute, even though I am not a hat person. Also, a dress code to deflect criticism of liberals from Breitbart does not exist.
Redshift
I’ll be there, along with my friend from WV who has insurance because of Medicaid expansion, and whose sister probably wouldn’t be dead from cancer if we’d had the ACA ten years earlier.
Balloon Juice contingent, anyone?
geg6
@Redshift:
All Balloon Juicers there should have a green balloon. That would be awesome.
germy
Lindy West:
“Lord, give me the confidence of a mediocre white man.”
PowerMAD
I’m going, with my husband proudly by my side, along with my sister and her partner – and I’d estimate that at least 10% of our little town of 2000 people are going! We’ve got SIX buses booked, and that doesn’t count the folks who will drive to the Metro (we’re in the Eastern Panhandle of WV, so only about an hour from one of several Metro stations).
Elmo
@geg6:
Co-sign. I didn’t think it was possible for one event like this to completely drain away any sense of patriotism or love of country, but this appears to have done it. This isn’t my country, and it never was.
Starfish
@Mzinformation: Me too!
wuzzat
@Elmo:
It hurts because it could have been.
We fight because it still could be.
Redshift
@Taylor: I wouldn’t worry about it too much. At the second YearlyKos (before it was Netroots Nation), somebody brought a roll of tin foil for an impromptu tinfoil hat making workshop, to mock the wingnut attacks on us. A bunch of people were worried that it would be used to try to make us look bad. And sure enough, they did try – I still have a screen capture of myself on the front page of the Drudge Report. But if it wasn’t that, they would have made fun of something else, and it was of no consequence in the end.
MobiusKlein
Going in SF too.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
Yes! On IG yesterday someone posted a blurry photo of Patti Smith wearing one. It’s becoming a thing.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@geg6:
I look at all the pain and anguish that the Trump voters have caused, all the upcoming horrors that they’ve unleashed, and then I see that THEY want US to apologize to them. Fuck them forever.
schrodingers_cat
I felt like it was a message to me too. The person who won the electoral college vote ran on an explicit platform of xenophobia, racism, misogyny, ignorance and religious bigotry. It felt like a rejection of everything I stand for and my very being. That he is no longer fringe told me something I was not prepared to hear. I am still in shock.
schrodingers_cat
@Taylor: Why do you care so much. Brietbart and the people who read it and take it for gospel truth, hate our very existence. Hats are not going to make their opinion of us any worse than it already is.
cosima
My mother is going (from Alaska) with her sister (from NC). That is some earth-shattering stuff in my family-world. My mother never bothered to be politically active through Vietnam or the 70s. Never raised her children to care about politics, but I became politically active later in life (mid 30s) and began to pester her about voting in every election, etc etc, never made a difference, she was still apathetic. This election has shaken her, I think, along with the thought that her daughter & granddaughters will never move back to the US if they have the choice because of the apathy as much as the racism & misogyny & every other societal ill that has brought us to this dark place.
Everything that my mother let others fight for and then took for granted, and that I took for granted when I was young, is all falling to pieces…
To be honest, I’m still mired in despair and am vacillating about whether or not to disconnect from the internet for a while, and would probably not find it a difficult decision if it weren’t for needing to be social-media-connected for my ‘job’ (a volunteer position that consumes a lot of time & effort). This is a march I’d go to if we were still in the US, and I would have taken both my girls to Standing Rock as well.
Redshift
@PowerMAD: Where in WV, if I may ask? My friend is in Martinsburg, and I’d love to get her connected up with people local to her.
chopper
I’ll be there.
The Moar You Know
@geg6: Both my wife and I are struggling with this, me more so. There’s people I know, people I’m related to, people I work with and for who voted for this sack of crap BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA. How the fuck are you supposed to trust anyone after finding that out?
Mustang Bobby
There will be a rally in Miami at Bayfront Park. I am going and I’ll see how many friends I can get to go with me.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
My wife is going. Normally I’m the political hothead in the family but her reaction to this election has been remarkable. I’ve known her for 35 years and have never seen her this engaged and pissed off at something political.
I have to hold down the fort (feeding foster kittehs, our kittehs and the chickens). But I’ll keep the fires of rage burning on the home front while she’s marching.
We have to remind ourselves that the only reason the apocalypse is upon us is because 80K pissed off white people in 3 counties in 3 states protest voted for a guy they thought had no chance of winning. Here’s the result. I wish nothing but ill on them.
hovercraft
THIS Betty, so much this.
The election of Barrack Obama was a revelation of how far the majority of this country has come. It was a night of profound joy and I felt so much hope for me and mine. The morning of November 9 th was such a setback because it came on the heels of ’08 and ’12. To go from such inspirational nights, where I was so very proud of my country, in a way as a black woman I had never been before, to realizing the depth of the hate and reactionary resentment that those very events had engendered in so many, was devastating.
As you say these two candidates were not in the same galaxy, the election should never have been close, but because this woman had the audacity to strive to become president, they came out of the woodwork to beat her back into her place. They came out to ensure that this woman who not only was trespassing in a sphere where she didn’t belong, but also had the audacity to embrace and praise the accomplishments of the black current interloper. They came to take their country back and they did, barely, with three million less votes, with enough voter suppression in just the right places, with a complicit media, they “won”. Their “victory” will be a pyrrhic one, because most of the people who voted for the Shitgibbon will be the ones hurt the most by his policies. They voted for him because he was a white ball of resentment and fury, who gave voice to all of their own hate and frustrations. It will also be short lived because we actually won this time, they do not have the numbers to beat us, we have it in our power to beat back these Neanderthals who want to keep women, and people of color and the LGBT, under the yoke of second class citizenry. They have shaken many of the complacent who couldn’t be bothered to vote because they were too busy, she was too flawed. To flawed compared to what? She was running against a lying, ignorant, misogynist, con man who admitted to molesting women and is accused of much worse. A woman more qualified than anyone else who has ever run in the history of our country was judged lacking against this piece of shit because he has a tiny piece of flesh between his legs? Fuck you anyone who voted for this shit, fuck you for screwing the rest of us, you deserve everything that you get.
For the rest of us we will fight. The vocal pissed off majority will fight to take back our country from a bunch of racist misogynist assholes who want us to go back to being second class citizens. We can do this, we’ve been fighting for a more perfect union for over two hundred years, suffered many setbacks, but slowly we are getting there. Let’s get to work.
OzarkHillbilly
I’ll be going to the STL march.
Yarrow
Here’s the link to the Women’s March website if you want more info, transportation info, sister marches, etc.
rikyrah
@Elmo:
This is your country. And, you have to fight for it.
rikyrah
Good going, BC.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@OzarkHillbilly:
Do you have any details? I could drive in that morning and meet up. I’m just east of Jeff City. Takes me about 2 hours to get to the airport.
rikyrah
NEVER forget that the MAJORITY of the American voters DID vote for Hillary.
But, due to a system put in place linked to this country’s original sin- SLAVERY, we are now stuck with THAT MAN.
Taylor
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t give a shit about Breitbart. I care about what should be a powerful political statement looking silly.
Since I’m alone on this, I will say no more.
rikyrah
I think that the supporters of THAT MAN are surprised by the continued resistance to him and everyone around him. Like, you telling me you voted for that muthaphucka is supposed to mean anything other than disgust and anger from me. They don’t get it. Their antipathy towards Barack Obama was nothing but pure racism, and they can never point to anything factual, or sensible as to why they disliked him. So, they live in a fantasy world of conspiracies, and outright ridiculousness.
WE, on the other hand, can be here until next week, pointing out FACTUAL things that Cheeto Benito has done that disgust us AS HUMAN BEINGS.
And, because we have that list, we can only look towards those who pulled the lever for him with utter disgust, because YOU KNEW THIS AND VOTED FOR HIM – so that tells me everything that I need to know about YOUR character too.
schrodingers_cat
@The Moar You Know: I just found that a friend’s husband voted for the TV star. How can a Jewish person with a chronic illness have voted the way he did, makes no sense to me. Native New Yorker too, so ignorance is no defense either.
Yarrow
@Taylor:
Breitbart’s job is to hate everything they decide to hate. Usually that’s women, non-white people, LGBTQ people, immigrants, non-Christians. I’m probably missing something. They will put up anything and everything and declare it as something to be derided, hated, mocked, whatever. No matter what people at the march do, Breitbart will find something to deride.
O. Felix Culpa
I’m organizing groups from my village and my church to attend the Santa Fe march.
(To Ella in NM, there will also be a march in ABQ, if that’s more convenient for you. Of course you’re most welcome to join us at the Roundhouse!)
Iowa Old Lady
Usually, I can be philosophical about Republican voters, but I will never forgive Trump voters.
RedDirtGirl
@MomSense:
I’ve made a button that says: This Pu$$y Grabs Back. Nasty Women March. 1/21 in DC
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Oy. What the hell can they have been trying to say? If you put enough women together they … almost add up to a man? Turn shit pink? Or just “WaPo is from Mars?”
RedDirtGirl
@Redshift: I’ll be there. It would be so cool to meet other BJers.
Cermet
That Wash (up) Post picture says it all – a male symbol used to represent a women’s based march. Would be funny if it wasn’t so indicative of the way the media treats women. Bet they aren’t even aware of what they did – that say’s even more … .
randy khan
We’re going, and we’re hosting a friend from out of town who’s going. So far as I can tell from my Facebook feed, there are a lot of people coming from out of town for the march – many of our local friends are hosting people, and are going as well. I think this is really important as a way to set the tone and to give people a jumping-off place for other activism. I’m also kind of amazed that it’s coming together so quickly; usually these things take an incredible amount of advance planning.
On the hat front, I agree that they’re silly and I doubt that I’ll wear one, but I’m in favor of a little silliness now and then. I’ve never been to a single large political event where there wasn’t at least a little silliness, and they’re better for it.
schrodingers_cat
@Taylor: Silly is in the eyes of the beholder. What we wear sends a signal. The Brits who hated Gandhi’s guts mocked him as the naked fakir. Said it was a stunt to dress like the lowliest peasant. His followers too gave up British made textiles and started wearing khadi, homespun cloth they had spun themselves. This included Nehru, Patel etc who were practicing barristers, who gave up their fancy Savile Row suits for coarse hand spun cotton. Women too, like my grandmother’s sister gave up their jewelry and fancy silks and started wearing khadi saris.
bystander
I will attend the March in NYC.
I went to multiple marches in DC and NYC over LGBT rights and AIDS care and research. They were all but ignored by the MSM. I hold no hope these will be covered no matter the size. I do believe, however, in the therapeutic value.
Betty Cracker
@hovercraft: Well said! A-fucking-men!
@rikyrah:
Absolutely true, in my experience with wingnut relatives and acquaintances (I do not call them friends). I will never forget, I will never forgive, and I will no longer remain silent in the naive hope of preserving family ties and neighborly relationships. This is not about political disagreement. If you voted for that unqualified piece of shit, you voted to make me and mine second-class citizens, so fuck you.
Yarrow
@Cermet: I can only hope they get a lot of push back on that. What a dumbass cover.
MoxieM
This was such a succinct post about how I feel, too. I can’t walk so well, but I am going to try and get to the Boston march. (Welcome hearing from other folk who might be there).
I was in Germany for two weeks, and it was like being on planet “Civilized and not depressed”. When I got home …on the jetway! … the first thing that happened was an old white man yelled at me for something that didn’t happen. Any woman with a cane is a handy outlet for male rage now, I guess. I wanted to get right back on the next plane to Europe, for good.
But I have a dog to care for so yeah, no. But I would, boy…would I ever. How ironic that Germany is a place of social and emotional refuge, eh? (it’s not paradise, but it’s loads better.)
Iowa Old Lady
@Betty Cracker: When they lose their health care, I plan to tell them to “get over it.” That’s how low I’ve sunk.
JimV
Yes, it was a totally-unexpected, total heartbreak. It told me a lot of things about the USA that I didn’t want to know.
One thing that seems like should have been a surprise but wasn’t: the group or demographic which had the biggest majority for Trump, according to the post-election Pew poll, the one that elected him was … white evangelical Christians.
(http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/ )
bystander
I love that included in the Sister Marches are many being held abroad.
Elizabelle
@Redshift: I think we should try to do a meetup.
Ideally, can a local DC Juicer host a brunch on Sunday in a private residence? Or even supper (pot luck?) after the march? Otherwise, we could meetup in a commercial venue.
No longer live in DC area, but thinking on coming back for the march.
Juicers? Is a meetup appealing?
MomSense
@RedDirtGirl:
Haha! Love it. From members of the fiber community who are already wearing the pu$$yhats, they are reporting that the hats are serving as conversation starters which is important. Sometimes they are unpleasant conversations but we probably all need to find a way to have those conversations even if they only serve to remind the right wing that we do exist. Liberals are their neighbors and there are a lot of us.
It’s also been interesting to see young women embrace these conversations. There are now generations conversations happening about what life was like before contraception and legal abortions were available. Women are also able to talk about family planning as key to economic security for women. We shouldn’t have to be forced into poverty because of lack of access to contraception.
Major Major Major Major
Glad everybody’s going! Screw the haters, stay safe & peaceful & as Adam would say stay frosty. Maybe y’all should re post his protest advice post before the march.
The Moar You Know
WaPo, c’mon! Please to pull head out of ass now?
El Caganer
@bystander: They will only cover what consumers* wish to see, hear or read. I remember going to an anti-war march in Philadelphia right before Dubyuh (Christ, on 1/21 I’ll probably be comparing him to George Washington) invaded Iraq. We actually closed the streets right around City Hall, which is a pretty big deal in Philly. I’m not sure we got even 30 seconds of airtime in coverage.
*as opposed to people interested in news
SenyorDave
Live half hour from the DC metro, so I’m planning to go barring a major weather event. Since the election I’m still having occasional trouble sleeping, I sometimes start to do the how the hell did this happen (she creamed him in the debates, he was caught in lie after lie, bragged about being a sexual predator, is an uniformed, inarticulate amoral pig). I’d be disturbed if we had a elected a liberal with one-tenth the amount of faults that Trump has.
I’m a white male, solid middle class Jewish liberal background. I’ve become much more political ever since the Iraq war. I think the thing that pushed me into progressivism was when I was treasurer of my synagogue 6 years ago. Part of my duties (and by far the worst one) was calling people for late and back dues. I never realized how many families are one illness or layoff away from disaster. In addition, we have a tzedukah (Hebrew word literally meaning justice or righteousness but commonly used to signify charity) program that gives people in desperate need $100 supermarket gift cards. These people are typically not synagogue members, and are usually struggling families that don’t know where their next meal will come from. I once stopped by during my lunch hour to sign checks and a woman who received one of these cards came over and hugged me, tears were literally streaming down her face. I think a lot of people, myself included, live in a bubble. We deal with people mostly like ourselves, in our general socioeconomic group and don’t see just how fucked up this country is for many of its people. What enrages me is that Trump and the GOP spends much of their time kicking the people who are down.
Major Major Major Major
@Iowa Old Lady: that’s not too low, at least you aren’t telling them to die quickly.
Elizabelle
@El Caganer:
Yeah. We need to make a point.
Citizens > Consumers.
Mnemosyne
We have a pre-planned trip to Disneyland, so no march for me. I do have friends who are going to our local one.
Betty Cracker
RE meetups: I’ll be on a 72-hour whirlwind with my family, 30 hours or so on the road, so I won’t have the time to attend or organize a meetup. But I’ll be glad to post a notice or details for anyone else who takes that on — just hit me up via email at the drop-down menu.
Elizabelle
RE the WaPost Express cover: remember the good old days, with editors?
How in hell did that make it to publication? Unbelievable.
Jeffro
@Iowa Old Lady:
Seconded here, most especially any who are still defending him after seeing all of his cabinet picks and the Russia connections that’ve come out since the election.
randy khan
Moderate Dem Senators (some more moderate than others, but never mind) sent a letter to Republican leadership saying they should work to strengthen the ACA, not repeal it.
Mend, don’t end.
If one of your Senators signed it, call or email to say thanks; if one of your Senators was a recipient, call or email to say you agree with the letter. (I know, I know, they’re Republicans, but they count constituent calls, too.)
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
I wouldn’t be surprised if whoever did the artwork got the symbols mixed up and nobody knew enough to catch the mistake.
Google is your friend, people.
randy khan
@Mnemosyne:
Just wear one of those unmentionable hats while you’re in the Magic Kingdom in solidarity.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@El Caganer:
Yeeup. At the start of the Iraq war, I participated in a march in San Francisco that drew upwards of 100,000 people. Local news gave it less airtime than a simultaneous demonstration in Hayward (piddly suburb) of about 20 pro-war goofballs. National news didn’t cover it at all – although the BBC did.
So, I will join the march here in SF for solidarity and my own mental health, but not with any expectations that we’ll be noticed.
Chris
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
Gul Dukat Syndrome, as I call it. Not only defeating your enemies and crushing them, but honestly expecting them to thank you for it, honestly believing you’re entitled to it, and being honestly bewildered that they could possibly have another take on things.
First time I noticed it was in the incessant bleating about Iraqi “ingratitude,” after we started a war that put their body count in the hundreds of thousands, and often from people who couldn’t stop themselves spouting the most hardcore Islamophobic rhetoric. But who sincerely couldn’t understand why they didn’t love us.
But it goes well beyond that example.
Jeffro
@rikyrah:
Even the most low-info, media-manipulated folks who might have voted for him and somehow just thought they were getting “change” or “someone to shake things up” – if they aren’t 100% appalled by Trump’s cabinet picks and the Russia connections just since the election, then I’m lumping them in with the spiteful folks who knew good and well what they were getting back on Nov 8.
Immanentize
I do not think it is an empty gesture at all.
I went to second National March for Lesbian and Gay Rights in DC in March, 1987. The first was in ’79 when I was in college and not yet tuned in to that struggle. Mind you, this was before “B” was added to the list which was a huge issue in the community. “T” and “Q” came much later….
I went because of the friends and clients I lost and was losing in the AIDS plague. I went to say here I am, Reagan, fuck you! I went to witness and see the Quilt on the Mall again. I still think that was a very important March for this country. Maybe no straight line, but still a path from the death, dying and demonization of queers to today.
So Betty, enjoy the moment (also for all of us who cannot attend too!) and let’s see in two or four or ten years where that path leads.
Nicole
@JimV: I know three evangelical Christians personally who voted for him- a woman and her parents- I’ve known her for 30+ years, she lives on permanent disability with said parents, who are both retired Post Office employees. They are angry, angry people, all three of them. They justify everything with “the Bible says,” but it’s really about having a cover to say horrible things about anyone who isn’t white, heterosexual and Christian (and by “Christian” I mean, “Not Catholic”).
After the election, I told her I needed a break from emailing (she would get upset if I wouldn’t email every day, because she doesn’t have much to fill her life), and when she reached out after 5 weeks to see if I was ready to be back in contact, just the sight of her email in my inbox caused me so much anxiety that I decided the relationship wasn’t worth it to me anymore. If 30 years of correspondence with me wasn’t enough to make her rethink any of her racism and homophobia, I don’t see the point. I certainly wasn’t getting any pleasure out of our being in touch any more.
She emailed me today. That’s the thing with those people. They don’t get it, ever.
Desargues
I’m going to DC from Boston, with my wife. Straight white man here, calling out to all the SWMs to stand up for our fellow Americans. Join us in DC or make your way to another protest, closer to where you are. Watch out, Cheeto Benito — this pussy grabs back!
Chris
@schrodingers_cat:
And to me. The message in that case was “I don’t care if you die or go bankrupt for lack of health insurance.”
The only thing lessening the blow is the previous eight years. The rise of the teabaggers disillusioned me, long before Trump, or any notion that the other half of my countrymen have my back, or that of anyone outside their tribe.
karensky
@Trinity: Me too, Betty C. I am marching in Philly. And, what a complete fail on the part of WaPo’s graphic shop and the editor.
schrodingers_cat
@Chris: Republicans are not that different from Cardassians siding with the Dominion for short term benefit, are they?
randy khan
@Immanentize:
I agree, it’s not at all an empty gesture.
And, for what it’s worth, the coverage that’s already happens more or less ensures that there will be coverage the day of the event. It’s now a Story, and therefore must be covered.
SiubhanDuinne
HAHAHAHAHA.
geg6
@The Moar You Know:
Other than my family, close friends and co-workers, everyone around me voted for That Man. All my neighbors, all the social members we used to hang out with at the local VFW, all the people that hang out at the Greek bar/restaurant across the street that we used to frequent. They are all around me. We don’t go out any more, unless it’s to a friend or family member’s place or a restaurant where don’t know anyone (the only exception being the local Chinese restaurant). I can’t be around these people and keep my mouth shut. I almost got into a fistfight at the Greek place right before the election. And I’m a woman and the guy threatening to punch me out didn’t give a shit about that nor about my guy who was jumping to my defense. He told us he’d make our lives miserable and how much satisfaction it will give him to see people like me suffer under That Man. And we are white professionals. I can’t imagine how these people are acting toward those who aren’t in our demographic. Their hate for us cannot be measured or stopped or reasoned with. I never realized how very much they hate us.
matryoshka
@OzarkHillbilly: Looks like I might be there too.
BGinCHI
Mrs. BG will be there, as will some other friends from here in Chicago.
I’m going to guess right now it’s bigger than people think.
donnah
I have come to the realization that the majority of people who voted for trump will support him regardless of what his administration looks like and what it does. They will choke down the loss of their health care and every other disaster he causes because they honestly are glad that the poor will suffer and human and civil rights will be under attack.
They’re glad that women will be second-class citizens and minorities will be openly despised. Everything that appalls decent human beings is a bonus for them. What they want is the suspension of rules, the erasing of laws, and the freedom to destroy anyone with whom they disagree.
Face it; the very things we’re protesting, the liars and billionaires and self-promoting money-grabbers are their heroes. The Cabinet members we abhor are their gods. And they laugh when we rage against their terrible, terrible decisions.
We have to fight back however possible and figure out how to stop them whenver we can. But it won’t be easy. We have to outlast them. And outmarch them. And hope that we can turn some people around.
rikyrah
Black parents take their kids to school on how to deal with police
By Janell Ross
January 3
HANOVER, Md. — The workshop title is simple, straightforward: “Race & the Law.”
The problems it seeks to address are anything but.
Capt. Katherine Goodwin, Western District commander of the Anne Arundel County Police Department, is the only white person in the room — part of a panel of experts leading the session — and she is the one who invites the question.
“Let’s hear from this young man in the middle,” Goodwin says.
“Hi, my name is Ezra,” the boy says. “I was wondering, can a police officer arrest another police officer?”
The room goes silent. A father multitasking his way through email on an iPad stops scrolling and stares.
It is a Saturday afternoon in early December, and Room 104 at Anne Arundel Community College is packed, all 150 seats taken. There are moms with oversized Louis Vuitton bags from which they produce items such as granola bars and string cheese. But there are more fathers than mothers and a few elementary-school-aged kids. Most of all, there are teens with Beats headphones draped around their necks like electronic jewelry.
Organized by the Arundel Bay Area Chapter of Jack and Jill of America Inc., “Race & the Law” was one of more than 225 similar events held around the country last year and more than 50 such events scheduled across the nation in the first three months of 2017. They are places where anxious black parents bring their children in hopes of preparing them for potentially fateful encounters with the police. They are, in essence, mini boot camps for children about how to be black in 21st-century America.
Jack and Jill is a family organization with more than 40,000 members. It aims to entertain and educate the kids of mostly middle-class and wealthy black families. It is an organization where kids are exposed to big experiences, such as lobbying on Capitol Hill and serving holiday food to the homeless, that do not look bad on college applications either.
“All of these deaths, these unanswered questions about what police officers did or did not do, whether situations could have been handled a different way, have always been with us,” said Devin Tucker, a Jack and Jill father of two who brought his daughters, 14 and 10, to the Hanover event. “They are, however, coming at a frequency and a velocity now that I think no parent is really prepared for.”
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@matryoshka:
The main site doesn’t show a Sister March in STL so I’m not sure of details. Per above, I can go and would like to meet up with some fellow BJers.
glory b
@schrodingers_cat: Haters gonna hate.
Gindy51
It would have been nice if they had used the FEMALE sex sign instead of the male… talk about the absolute blatant sexism shoved in our faces BIG time..
Chris
@schrodingers_cat:
I’ve been using Duras as analogy for them and their relationship to their society since forever, but yeah, the Cardie/Dominion thing has occurred to me since the election too.
Like I said a month ago: it’s really sad that I find Klingon and Cardassian politics so much more relatable than the Federation kind.
GregB
@Nicole:
Respond that you have made a donation to Planned Parenthood in her name.
Then say that every additional email will prompt another donation.
Jeffro
Anyone else watching the intelligence hearings going on right now?
Sen. King trying to be very helpful at the moment.
rikyrah
uh huh
uh huh
…………………….
Judge rules doctors can refuse trans patients and women who have had abortions
By Marie Solis
January 04, 2017
On Saturday, a United States district judge ruled that doctors may turn away women who have had abortions and transgender patients on the basis of religious freedom.
In his verdict, Judge Reed O’Connor argued laws that would otherwise forbid gender-based discrimination require doctors “to remove the categorical exclusion of transitions and abortions (a condition they assert is a reflection of their religious beliefs and an exercise of their religion) and conduct an individualized assessment of every request for those procedures.” In other words, doctors would have to argue on an individual basis their refusal of a patient.
This requirement, O’Connor said, “imposes a burden” on doctors’ ability to exercise their religion.
O’Connor cited 2014’s Burwell v. Hobby Lobby ruling, which allowed family-owned corporations to refuse insurance coverage for birth control under the Affordable Care Act if it went against their religious beliefs.
At the time, the New York Times predicted the 5-4 Supreme Court decision would “[open] the door to many challenges from corporations over laws that they claim violate their religious liberty.” And, given O’Connor’s interpretation of the decision, it seems the outlet was right.
Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern called O’Connor’s ruling “an extreme extension of the dubious logic” behind Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, as it flouts the nondiscriminatory guidelines of the Affordable Care Act and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Whereas they both include discrimination based on “gender identity” and “termination of pregnancy” under the umbrella of sex discrimination, O’Connor’s ruling only acknowledges a more rudimentary definition of gender discrimination — “hostility against a man or woman for being a man or a woman,” Stern wrote.
O’Connor also justified his ruling by claiming that individual doctors’ refusal to treat trans patients or women who have had abortions does not limit their access to health care and coverage. He argued that the government doesn’t seem to be too concerned about specifically trans people’s access to health care anyway.
schrodingers_cat
@Jeffro: Angus King?
glory b
@rikyrah: OMG, Jack and Jill doing these kinds of events?
For all who don’t know, this is an old organization, and is traditionally a way for successful, professional African Americans to provide experiences for their children. They went to concerts plays and their own social events.
My Mom’s family always rejected it as to “bourgie,” (my grandfather was an electrical engineer and they would have qualified for entrance) and my father’s family were southern sharecroppers working in the cotton fields so, even when he became a professional, it was never on his radar screen.
Lizzy L
The first political march I ever attended was in New York in April 1962: it was a march for peace and against the resumption of nuclear tests. I’ve been marching/protesting/politically active for most of my life.
On January 21 I’ll be marching in Oakland, CA.
Major Major Major Major
@donnah:
I keep trying to explain this to people but my mostly bubblified friends are only now accepting that Americans really are this cruel.
schrodingers_cat
@Chris: The show trial of O’Brien reminds me of what the press did to Hillary.
Barbara
I have not decided whether to march. I have attended so many useless marches in my lifetime. If I go it will be to keep people from crowing that not many people showed up. But no enthusiasm from this quarter. Sorry.
Botsplainer
Today in Conservatism:
Using the Holman Rule to reach down into the budget to reduce the pay of individual Federal employees to $1.00
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: American Taliban.
Barbara
@rikyrah: Let’s boycott the doctor instead.
Chris
@Jeffro:
The IRA motherfucker? Doesn’t he have British children he should be bombing?
geg6
@GregB:
I did a similar thing with an old “friend” who kept trying to contact me a few years ago (actually, during 2008-09) with racist Obama memes. I donated to the local NAACP in her name and told her that I’d be doing that every time she sent me some of that shit. It only took about 4 or 5 donations to shut her up forever.
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah: “individual doctors’ refusal to treat trans patients or women who have had abortions does not limit their access to health care and coverage” is the dumbest thing I’ve read all day and I’m calling it now will also be the dumbest thing I read for the rest of the day.
@Chris: SENATOR King.
rikyrah
State of Mich. Tries to Pull a Fast One With Invite-Only Meeting on Flint Water
In its latest faux pas, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality tried to have an invitation-only town hall meeting on the condition of Flint’s water.
BY: MONIQUE JUDGE
Posted: January 4, 2017
The state of Michigan continues to insult the residents of the city of Flint, who are already enduring what seems to be a never-ending water crisis and the inability to get clean bottled water delivered to their homes without a fight.
In its latest faux pas, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality tried to have an invitation-only town hall meeting on the condition of Flint’s water.
You read that correctly. The same state that, according to MLive, went to court to fight against having to deliver clean bottled water to residents who are unable to drink out of the tap figured it would be a good idea to hold a public session with a handpicked group of people.
It was only after MLive questioned city and state officials on how attendees were going to be picked for attendance that the organizers of the town hall agreed on Jan. 3 to make the event open to the public.
According to MLive, the event in its present state still raises questions. Flint has a population of 99,000 people, and public attendance at the Jan. 11 event at the University of Michigan-Flint Northbank Center is capped at 300 people.
This means that in a town of 99,000 people who cannot drink or use water from the tap without a filter, less than 1 percent will be able to attend a town hall meeting and hear about the condition of the water in their city.
The state is offering a live stream of the event, but as MLive points out, how many people will be able to find the live stream? And given that 40 percent of the city’s population is living below the poverty level, how many will have internet access to even view the live stream?
rikyrah
@glory b:
Yeah, Jack and Jill.
I said when it happened that Trayvon Martin was really the massive earthquake on the San Andreas fault for a lot of Black people.
rikyrah
@Botsplainer:
this is who they are
MomSense
@Chris:
Uh no. Angus King.
JPL
@Botsplainer: I read that earlier and it gave me chills. We are in a world of hurt, and until Paul Ryan passes a tax cut for the rich law, he won’t pay attention to anything else.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Drum is on the Holman Rule reinstatement:
Republicans to Civil Servants: Do What We Tell You Or You’re Fired
It is a big fuckin’ deal on everything from climate change to energy to education. In that environment, you’ll have proposed agency findings drafted by the bottom graduate of “Billy Bob’s School of Trucking and Advanced Bible Studies” who can claim that his degree focused on the relationship between Creation, the Flood, Jesus’ Ma and the Constimatooshin….
GregB
@Chris:
Sen. Angus King from (I) Maine, not Congressman Peter “Heat Miser” King (IRA) from NY.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
And we should have known when we saw the demographic break down of those poll results that trouble for this election was brewing.
Chris
@Major Major Major Major:
@MomSense:
My mistake. Thought you were talking about Peter King. I was misremembering the chamber he served in.
Taylor
@glory b: I came on this thread to see what other people thought.
schrodingers_cat’s response was helpful (I forwarded it to my wife).
Yours was not.
Ohio Mom
@Nicole: I had an old friend I dropped during the Bush II years. She and her family helped found the Cincinnati Tea Party and that was too much for me.
Over the years there had been many times I gently tried to reach her. I remember in particular a discussion on Social Security and how it isn’t a Ponzi scheme. I could almost see her taking the information in, then I could see her mind snapping shut.
I was nervous about telling her we were through though my only continuing regret is that I didn’t give her a dissertation’s worth of reasons why she was wrong and evil and a mockery of everything our religion stands for — I unfriended her in front of synagogue on Yom Kippur.
She and her family continue to work to harm my family, I’d do it all again.
Barbara O'Brien
@The Moar You Know: I disagree that the 2016 election was a referendum on women. I know it looked like that to educated, upper-middle-class urban and suburban women, but I suspect to most Trump voters women’s issues weren’t that high on their list of concerns. Well, except for the anti-reproductive rights evangelicals, but that’s a subset. Another Democratic woman who was not Hillary Clinton and All Her Baggage probably would have won.
raven
Atlanta March
SiubhanDuinne
@Gindy51:
They’ve changed it. See my link @SiubhanDuinne in Comment 86.
MomSense
@Taylor:
We are going to be confronting a deluge of bullshit from the trump administration. He hasn’t been sworn in yet and there are already too many outrages to keep track of. Despair and depression are going to be our biggest obstacles. This is going to be a long and unrelenting fight without any breaks. We have to find ways to have fun, laugh, feel community and joy. We have to be happy warriors or we will not have the stamina to do what is necessary. I don’t think people are wearing the hats for the trumpers. We are wearing the hats because we are sick of being demoralized and because many of us are trying to cope with being triggered by someone who bragged about sexual assault.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Sadly, I have MET Opera commitment that day, but I’ll be marching in spirit.
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: And they issued a real apology, not a fake “sorry if anyone was offended” non-apology, so good for them.
Peter H Desmond
@Cermet:
it reminds me of the blooper on the cover of the may/june 1996 Ms. magazine:
SiubhanDuinne
@GregB:
Nor even Congressman Steve “Canteloupe Calves” King (BIGOT) from IA.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker:
Good for them! Some of the original tweets in response to the WaPo cover error were pretty funny. I have no idea how to link to tweets, so copy/paste is the best I can do. Alternatively, see link @ SuibhanDuinne #86.
artem1s
yes, this. I feel like an orphan
SiubhanDuinne
@BGinCHI:
Trump’s Tweets about the march(es) will be epic. EP. IC.
SiubhanDuinne
@O. Felix Culpa:
“You Had ONE Job!” never gets old.
Chris
@Ohio Mom:
It’s always blown my mind the way they can do this.
I had a friend (since dropped) in college who was the test case for things like this. After enough whining about the evil stimulus, her liberal boyfriend and friends finally asked her “okay, what did you want instead?” She proceeded to outline, basically, the Obama stimulus. Long silence. “… That’s the Obama stimulus.” Zap! Awkward silence, eventual dropping of the matter, and of course, she still thinks the Obama stimulus was a disaster, even though it’s her idea of what a good stimulus should be, because Fox News tells her to.
Another time was when she was taking one of those interminable online quizzes to see which Republican candidate she aligned with the most. It was McCain. She was immediately disappointed, because “he’s not a real conservative.” Not an ounce of thought as to what it says that the person she agrees with the most is the one who’s “not a real conservative,” or whether that means she should reexamine her own relationship with the political spectrum.
Another memorable moment was during the health care debate, when she said she wanted to learn more, because she doesn’t know anything about health care/insurance while her liberal boyfriend – son of two doctors, prepping for med school, and troubled himself to learn a ton about health insurance – did, and she wanted to “have counterarguments ready for him.” No consideration of the fact that, if she really didn’t know anything about health care, maybe she should trouble herself to learn about it first and decide who she agreed with after.
It really is an extraordinary sight to watch a person repeatedly catching themselves in mid-crimethink and immediately performing a self-lobotomy, lest they break with what the Ministry of Truth told them they believe.
zhena gogolia
@The Moar You Know:
Yes, that is how I feel. And the fact that lots and lots of women voted for him only makes it worse.
Kay
I can’t go but I’m gonna watch on tv. CSPAN will the only coverage I PRESUME :)
Yay! Something exciting and uplifting that weekend!
O. Felix Culpa
@SiubhanDuinne:
Truth.
SiubhanDuinne
A Facebook friend (former colleague) just posted this:
I so devoutly hope this is true.
LongHairedWeirdo
I can’t say that I feel the same way from the citizenship standpoint – I’m a white guy with strong IT skills, so I’ve got privilege all over.
But I did feel that this was the worst people in the world, winning using the worst tactics in the world, for the worst reasons in the world; my faith was also shattered (and I didn’t have a lot!).
I have faith that Trump will screw up – and probably “bigly” – in a way that I hope makes it clear that it’s perfect fair to say to the GOP “All you had to do was denounce one hateful, xenophobic, bigoted, serial sexual assailant. That’s it. One candidate, in one election.”
Just remember: Trump set the standard: don’t fix everything, just right, you’re a loser. Make sure he lives to regret that.
zhena gogolia
@Elmo:
It is your country. It is our country. We don’t let them take it away from us. We are the real America.
Thank you to all the people who are going to the protests.
Yarrow
@rikyrah: What the hell? How will doctors know if a woman has had an abortion? I guess if the problem she’s there for is because of the abortion or she has an ongoing problem due to an abortion. But otherwise, what if she’s, say 40, and had one at 20? How would anyone know? Are they going to add a line on the form that says, “Have you had an abortion?”
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Botsplainer: Is anyone pushing back on the claim in that article that Lois Lerner “gave extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status”?
Comments? Twitter?
Calouste
I can see that the graphic designer was trying to do something with people getting together in a circle and then marching in the direction of the arrow, but that is a very charitable explanation.
It doesn’t excuse the f’ing pink = women background (which the WaPo still hasn’t changed btw). It’s not like they accompany every article about men by putting things in baby blue.
Kay
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
And we’re all really secretly counting on ordinary employees actually doing their jobs in the Trump Era.
That’s what’s unstated in all this soothing “the center will hold” stuff from media- they’re basically saying there are a career group of people who are experienced and ethical, which is probably true. Republicans will now cleanse the workforce of competence! :)
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah:
Absolutely.
I was just listening to the Hamilton Mixtape — he quotes Thomas Paine very stirringly: “THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
zhena gogolia
@Taylor:
A little playfulness doesn’t damage the seriousness of the protest.
Yoda Dog
Threads like these keep me positive and energized in spite of everything. I would rather stand with you folks in the direst of circumstances than spend 1 second giving any of those infantile scumbags the time of day. Its of little comfort, but I’ve never been more proud to be a true blue democrat and a (albeit mostly silent) member of this community.
I can’t make the march, I’ll be watching two tiny babies at home, but by FSM, I will be there with you all in spirit.
A Ghost to Most
@SiubhanDuinne:
mj advocates’ inauguration plans.
It’s true.
Yarrow
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Christ. I hope someone can do a front page post on this. Will this affect all federal workers, even those not in DC? Like TSA employees?
Maybe there should be strikes. They don’t work until and unless this law is overturned.
? Martin
Previously politically apathetic wife and daughter are showing increased interest in attending the march. Son and I are encouraging them, make this a family event.
Annie
I’m going to the San Francisco march.
zhena gogolia
@Jeffro:
My formula is that anyone who voted for Trump did it out of stupidity, racism, or greed, or a combination thereof. It’s impossible for one of those elements not to have been present.
gvg
I am American and they don’t get to define who is and isn’t. I am shocked at the election results and no matter how impossible it is, I have realized I want the electoral college gone. So I can’t get what i want right now, I will keep it in mind going forward. I am bothered by comments about “can’t we let the South go” and want people to realize, no you can’t. I am an American and you can’t take away my citizenship nor force me into refugee status just because some of my fellow Americans are thugs. Consider that the South has a higher percent of Black citizens who would be harmed by such actions and just shut up on that.
I am also really really tired of letting the rude conservatives get away with framing only rural white people as “real America”. City dwellers and elites are real too. Even criminals here are citizens.
I am really mad at these insecure bullies who voted so dangerously.
It’s been quite a shock because in spite of all the women who have posted about their own misogynistic experiences, in my life I really haven’t encountered much and I am 53. Luck of my parents and lucky in the boss/job/department sweepstakes.
Kay
I would not have predicted Wikileaks joining the Republican Party- whatever you thought of them (and I didn’t think much) I wouldn’t have said they would join with FOX news millionaire cable tv personalities.
There have been so many surprises this election year, all of them horrible. It seems like we’re due for a good surprise. That’s the thing about chaos and lawlessness- it’s unpredictable. Going their way presently but now that there are no rules or norms it could go any which way.
Botsplainer
@Yarrow:
Detailed medical histories given umpteen times over the years have that data, and woe be to the coverage of a woman who never disclosed it. That stuff has been in the databases for years.
So say a woman you love had a D&C in her teens or early 20s. I can see a bunch of bean counters at Humana, AETNA and Blue Cross deciding that the company has religious scruples so as to effectively exclude women for gynecological or oncological services if they ever had an abortion. Extend that to the “birth control pill is abortion” bullshit, and I can make an argument that you could easily remove all those services from coverage by a company forever.
Drunkenhausfrau
ALL OF THIS. THANK YOU! Cathartic tears, again.
I will be at the Chicago march. Anyone want to meet up?
Kay
@gvg:
Trump doesn’t honor any rules or norms. I don’t know why his opponents should be bound by them.
Innovate! Fee free. Let’s have a real debate on the electoral college. No reason you should aim low. I’m open to anything.
ruemara
I want to go, in a way. Not that I can’t physically attend my local march. More that I want to feel the desire to go. But my country betrayed me with elevating this white supremacist to viable candidate status. Liberals & progressives betrayed me by constantly ignoring voter suppression and elevating the whole goddamned primary & election to a favorite chew toy contest. And some are still arguing the points of the primary, even now. Republicans betrayed any hope that even half of their moral arguments are actually based in morals. White women betrayed that sense of sisterhood in the face of misogyny.
It’s a lot like being a friend of mine, I guess. I take a long time, but I like to be a true friend who has your back. It’s not you, it’s my own backstory of many, many disappointing people fucking up the landscape. I cosign and I cheer on my friends who want to go, but you know, I’ll believe you’re going to be there, when it actually happens, when you’re needed. I feel like HRC had that mule burden. She was just supposed to carry it all, no matter how much shit was stacked on her, no matter what obstacles, no matter how many slings & arrows, all while being told how horrible she was from all sides. It was unfeasible & unfair, even under normal circumstances. To lose based on a technicalities, misinfo and outright cheating to the caliber of man that is Donald Trump. That’s just insanity. Severe hate-induced insanity. I’ve lost a lot of faith in people and they aren’t exactly winning it back right away. Marches are great, but I fear it’s just spectacle now, nothing later.
Nicole
@Ohio Mom: Gadzooks, your experience is like the one I had with my friend a few years ago, except over abortion. She almost, almost got it (that outlawing it will not end it; just insure women will die from it), and admitted she “almost” agreed with me, except, no joke, she couldn’t because then her pastor would get mad at her (a pastor who she finds upsetting because he says pets don’t go to heaven and made a speech about people who committed suicide didn’t go to heaven IN FRONT OF PARISHIONERS WHOSE CHILD HAD RECENTLY COMMITTED SUICIDE). Never, never did it occur to her that maybe, just maybe, a pastor could also be a terrible human being. Because that’s unpossible!
SFBayAreaGal
@Chris: Another Deep Space fan. This show is becoming more and more relevant each day.
Original Lee
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Or, as happened to me, what they want is not possible/feasible/legal. I was a n00b who happened to be the one who answered the phone while everyone was at lunch and was subjected to a blast from a Senator because one of his (I assume wealthy) constituents didn’t get the response she wanted out of my unit. I knew just barely enough to know that the constituent was sadly deluded in her expectations and tried to explain it very politely, but unfortunately, his job was to chew me out, not to listen to explanations. Under the Holman Rule, he could have turned around and cut my (then) GS-5 pay to $1 or demanded that I be fired, which would have been devastating.
Y’all know that those bastards will do exactly this, because they are THAT kind of people.
Yarrow
@Botsplainer: Yeah. I guess older women might skate through now because of poor record keeping. But younger women will be tracked forever. I wonder if Planned Parenthood can be outside that system?
Chris
@gvg:
“Can’t we let the South go” is the equivalent of these people who look at heavily crime-ridden areas in the inner cities and say “don’t even bother to police them, just keep the badness contained.”
Kay
Obama could actually break norms and openly oppose Trump. Trump didn’t respect the “one President at a time rule” I don’t know why everyone else is bound by rules King Donald doesn’t follow. Why does he get a special exception? That doesn’t seem fair.
Trump acted as President prior to his term. Obama can act as President after his. “Terms” don’t mean shit anymore. All the former Presidents could weigh in. “No rules” should apply across the board or not at all.
? Martin
@Botsplainer: Except in California. Women in California have a constitutional right to an abortion.
And, FWIW, the first pro-abortion law passed in California was signed by Ronald Reagan.
Yarrow
@Kay: Obama isn’t like that. He’s just not built that way, as far as I can tell. I’m pretty sure he’s going to go on a nice vacation with Michelle for a few weeks. Then he’ll focus on his book and his family. But who knows. Maybe I’m wrong and he’ll be the “shadow president” since he’s hanging out in DC.
Come to think of it, the fact that Obama is going to be residing in D.C., a break from norm already, could be a very good thing. It’s bound to be a thorn in Donald’s side.
Yarrow
@? Martin: Can California, along with liberals in other states, organize a modern “underground railroad” for women who need abortions? Get them to California where they can get the medical care they need?
Barbara
@geg6: What a great idea. I don’t really look at Facebook much, and one reason is that I had an acquaintance — an old friend of my husband’s — whose posts became increasingly crude about Obama. I didn’t unfriend her but I blocked her posts. They upset me, but since she was never really “my” friend I didn’t feel like engaging. I have engaged, politely, with a friend who sometimes goes Second Amendment happy when she talks about lone wolf Islamic terrorists. I can’t remember which one, but I pointed out that her comment was made on the same day that Dylann Roof was given the right to represent himself for killing nine unarmed people in a church. She acknowledged that evil was not limited by ethnicity or creed but she didn’t understand why people wanted to come to America as immigrants if they really hated America. So I responded that she should know that the U.S. has enforced a deportation policy for non-citizens convicted of felonies since at least 1986. It takes a lot of effort to be reasonable and some people can never be reached.
ETA: She was probably more reachable because her children’s stepmother is Muslim.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Annie:
Yay! Look for me. I’ll be the one with the pink fleece pussyhat and the green balloon.
Botsplainer
@Yarrow:
Nope – a D&C would be a part of any medical history, and you’re obligated to disclose on every application.
Barbara
@Chris: Not to mention that the South will be changing faster than the mountain states. Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina and yes, maybe even South Carolina will be voting Democratic before Idaho, Wyoming and the Dakotas.
J.
Dear Betty and the rest of you attending marches, thank you for representing! (As an agoraphobic introvert, I have huge panic attacks just thinking about attending, though I will be there in spirit.)
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Yarrow: There’s a line for that on the medical history forms now.
SFBayAreaGal
@rikyrah: I’m crying. I hate, hate, hate this is happening to American citizens.
SatanicPanic
I’ll be at the San Diego march. The point for me isn’t that it sends a message to Republicans, it’s that it sends a message to people on our side- don’t give up now, you’re not alone. And the big thing isn’t what happens that day, it’s what happens before and after. I’ve been trying to help organize people here, and we’re going to all go together. It might just be 20-30 people, but that’s not nothing. And it gets people involved. If they can show up to a march then maybe we can get them to call congresspeople, or go to town halls.
Yarrow
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: A line for “have you had an abortion?” Or “have you ever been pregnant?” The “have you been pregnant” has been there a long time. Haven’t seen the abortion one.
@Botsplainer: When you say “application” do you mean applying for medical insurance?
O. Felix Culpa
@Yarrow: I’m not sure that Obama will go away quietly. I’ve heard rumors that he’s going to be heavily involved with OFA. I suspect that his original post-presidential plans have changed radically since the election.
? Martin
@Yarrow: Of course. CA already has pretty strict medical privacy laws, and at least in theory the commerce clause would prevent the feds from barring people crossing state lines to obtain services. We have 300 abortion providers here, all across the state – that’s ⅓ of all the ones in the nation. About ⅓ of all the Planned Parenthood offices in the nation as well, and they receive state funding. We’ve recently expanded the law to allow non-physician abortion services and UCSF is now mandated to train nurses in abortion procedures to ensure that we have an adequate number of health care professionals for those services.
We have several major airports, lots of ridesharing services, and really nice weather (most days, we won’t count today). We’ve got you all covered.
Yarrow
@O. Felix Culpa: He said something like that if he sees something wrong happening, like Muslim registries, he’ll speak out against it. Maybe he’ll need to speak up a lot sooner.
O. Felix Culpa
@J.:
Feel free to send money to the ACLU instead, in case we need to be bailed out of jail. ;)
Mnemosyne
@randy khan:
It may be too warm for an actual hat, but I have a cat ears headband that would be a comfy substitute.
O. Felix Culpa
@Yarrow: A friend of mine is attending a major OFA honcho meeting in Chicago this month. I’ll be curious to hear what she reports back.
I get Obama’s reticence to take a publicly activist role, however I suspect that circumstances will override his customary circumspection.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Ohio Mom: Jesus.
Social security depends on population growth, and economic growth, over a long time. The benefits are meager compared to this. A ponzi scheme promises returns far beyond that, and this is why it fails.
The biggest failure of social security at the moment is that the taxable base used to include – I think it was 95% of wages. Now, I think it’s under 90. If you bumped up the base so it covered 95% of wages again, it would help a lot with the shortfall. So would raising the minimum wage, since it would mean more dollars being taxed.
Keep in mind: the reason Republicans slag social security is that if it were privatized, their wealthy friends would think it was raining money with the cut they get from making the investments. It has nothing to do with fixing the problem, or helping out those who need money for retirement.
That said: if they managed to pass a law that made the employee and the employer contributions both go up by a half point, and that additional 1% was invested, taxed as social security benefits are taxed, I wouldn’t be horrified, if the numbers all worked out. There *is* room to strengthen the system. It’s just not the Republican way – they’re not looking out for anyone but the wealthy.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Yarrow: A line for “Have you ever had outpatient surgery?” with a list of examples that includes abortion. And unlike Botsplainer, I’m talking about a medical history form in a doctor’s office.
I’ve also seen “List all pregnancies” that included a column for “Result (live birth, miscarriage, abortion)”.
If you’ve had a pregnancy aborted for medical reasons, your doc really needs to know.
I also know someone whose doctor called her on leaving her years-ago abortion off her medical history. There apparently were some physical changes that tipped the doctor off that she had been pregnant at some point.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Kay: heh. “Assange, you’re an asshole, but I still only want to see you arrested if the charges are legit and well supported. Because I care about *principles*. I don’t know if the Republicans offered you a deal or not, but if they did, remember Trump’s dealmaking: do business with me, and I guarantee you there will be a big pot of money and we’ll get paid”. “You and I?” “Yeah, keep thinking that – it’d take a buttweasel to say ‘we’ to mean ‘me and my people’ in that context!”
sunny raines
the election result effectively is about being violated. Not sexually of course, but each decent person’s sense of decency, justice, and belief in the American system to, on-whole be, and act for good has been violated. Internalizing such a massive, fundamental violation is very destructive to the individual. People need to respond even if in small gestures.
Spanky
@SiubhanDuinne: Just so long as they’re all concentrated just upwind of the podium.
KS in MA
@Yarrow:
Excellent idea.
artem1s
@rikyrah:
wonder if white working class women will be so worried about emails when their doctors refuse to treat them anymore for taking slut pills?
stupid WWC think that none of this crap is going to touch them, until it does and then it will be too fucking late.
artem1s
@Yarrow: yes. It is part of any woman’s history if she has ever been to an OB/GYN or even a GP. standard question. once answered it follows you the rest of your life. remember this the next time someone mansplains how The Handmaids Tale couldn’t really happen.
phoebes from highland park
@Taylor: I’ll be at the March and will look for your wife and her family and friends. “Pussy” caps don’t sound like a bad idea, when you think about it…
cckids
@Iowa Old Lady:
This. I found out after the election that my mom and aunt voted for him. Solely because of “abortion” as a stated reason, with a barely veiled hatred of Hillary a close second. It is hard to describe how it changes my opinion of them. They’ve been Fox-watching nutty conservatives for a long time, but THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME THEY VOTED IN 30 YEARS. That they’d overcome a lifetime of indifference to register & cast a vote for that tangerine ballsack just destroys me. I have to continually deflect my thoughts & emotions around them.
At least they are doing me the courtesy to not talk politics at all, in any sort of way, around me. It helps preserve the fiction that all is ok between us.
Barbara
@Barbara O’Brien: I don’t think a man with comparable baggage would have lost. Indeed, Trump had more baggage than nearly any other man alive. So while it might be the case that some other woman would have won, it is almost certainly the case that any other man would have won. Maybe that’s too subtle, but discounting gender entirely is naive and inaccurate. The results were not all sui generis to Hillary Clinton.
Barbara
@artem1s: Most doctors, especially ob-gyns, are not going to refuse to provide reproductive services to female patients. The real risk is that Catholic health systems will try to buy more facilities and try to impose their ridiculous fertility cult onto more and more women. These cases are almost all being brought by Catholic health care providers. At a minimum, if you can, you should be boycotting any Catholic health system for any service.
O. Felix Culpa
@Barbara:
Wholeheartedly agreed. And please to recall history: HRC’s “baggage” began with the howls over her cookie comment in 1992:
Nope. Nothing sexist in the poo-flinging monkeys’ response to her then. And no way could there be misogyny fueling the Hillary hate in the years up to and including 2016. Of course not. Those who choose to be blind will not see.
randy khan
@Mnemosyne:
That should work.
phoebes from highland park
Okay, I get it that we hate our friends, family, and co-workers who voted for Trump. BUT, how do you feel about Democrats you know who either didn’t bother to vote or voted for Sanders? I’m almost madder at them!
Miss Bianca
@The Moar You Know: Women didn’t lose “big time”. We lost by a razor-thin, gamed margin. As Public Enemy said, “It takes a nation of millions to hold us back”.
It doesn’t make the defeat any less bitter, or dangerous. I am still angry, still bitter. It’s just that reflecting on the facts of the election makes me feel more hopeful that we might win back some of what we’ve lost – the losses we are being threatened with — in my lifetime.
@Starfish: I may just have to go…I thought my marching days were long past…
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft: you and ruemara have been on fire lately. thanks for this!
Uncle Ebeneezer
I will be joining the Los Angeles march. Meeting my wife there after I get done with work (noon.)
Also, check this out, from one of the co-chairs (Linda Sarsour):
These women who are now spear-heading the march, give me alot of hope and inspiration.
Aleta
I’m going to the DC march if a ride opens up from NYC to DC. (They are working on more transportation.). Otherwise I’ll be marching in NYC. Either way it’s going to be great and I can’t wait.
Aleta
@phoebes from highland park: I was trying to find words about that other flavor of deep chilled disappointment. The likeminded people in my town and family who said they just.could.not.voteforher. It was painful before Nov and the pain still hurts the heart
Mnemosyne
@phoebes from highland park:
Oh, don’t even get me started on the fucking whiny “progressive” dudebros (and their female enablers) who dragged their feet about voting for Hillary like they were goddamned two-year-olds at the mall and then expected us to admire their vote for Stein or not voting like they had finally made doody in the potty.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: @Aleta: @phoebes from highland park: I feel ya, all of youse.
BUT – I have come to the conclusion that the only way I can go forward without spitting on my once and future allies is to say to myself that the people most responsible for electing Donald Trump are…wait for it…the people who voted for him. Much as I may deplore the “yes-but” bros, the third-partiers, the nonvoters…and seek to stuff them into the basket of deplorables…ultimately, the people I am holding responsible for President Trump are the people who pulled the lever for him.
stinger
@Gindy51: And even nicer if it hadn’t had to be f’in PINK. But of course, “girls” = pink.
schrodingers_cat
@phoebes from highland park: I have cooled off considerably towards my JS voting friend and her T voting husband. And they know what I think, no longer going along to get along. Most of my circle was firmly in the HRC camp. These two are considerably older. I don’t know if age was a factor in this election.
Ohio Mom
@LongHairedWeirdo: One of my favorite things this former friend said was that her dad got much better care in the Jewish nursing home than her (Catholic) father-in-law got in the “Medicaid” nursing home.
She refused to believe that it was largely SS, Medicare and Medicaid that allowed the Jewish community to run that continuum of care campus. She insisted it was a nice place precisely because they weren’t “Medicaid.” Whatever she meant by that. If she knew what she was talking about, she’d know the fact that father-on-law’s last abode was a for-profit outfit had something to do with the lack of amenities and mediocre care.
It can be extremely hard and painful to give up a belief system. I get that. But when someone constantly refuses to take to heart what you tell them, it feels disrespectful. How can you have a friendship without mutual respect?
Ohio Mom
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Your cervix is never the same after giving birth, its appearance is different after having gone from surrounding a very small canal (the opening into the uterus) to stretching to allow a fetus being born through. I don’t know if an early term abortion or early miscarriage would change the cervix that much but it might.
PowerMAD
@Redshift: Shepherdstown – we’re less than 10 miles from M’burg. Would love to connect w/your friend.
Miss Bianca
@Ohio Mom: I’m trying to remember whether it was here or somewhere else that I saw this quote: “Getting a smart person to admit they’re wrong is difficult. Getting a stupid person to admit they’re wrong is impossible”.
FWIW
Ohio Mom
@Miss Bianca: I think it definitely has something to do with relative intelligence but I don’t think that is all of it. It sometimes helps to be broadly educated because that gives you different lenses through which to consider things — a biologist looks at things differently than say a sociologist. Both approaches have merit and their own truths.
But I think the biggest thing is ego strength. You have to be psychologically healthy and fit to weather challenges to your belief and values systems because those things are part of your self-concept.
Yeah, there are lots of “stupid” people and there are lots of people with chronically poor mental health. What can you call the women described above who is afraid of her pastor if not someone suffering from almost a complete lack of self-esteem?
I should add, that is how I think of things when I am feeling generous. Other times those people are merely stupid, hateful, assholes who deserve every misfortune they bring upon themselves.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I’m willing to reconcile with the morons who at least admit they were wrong and that they screwed up by not taking the election seriously. I made that mistake myself in 2000.
The ones who keep insisting that it was all that evil Hillary’s fault and she forced them to vote third party or leave that space blank because she was the most corrupt cesspool of corruption to ever corrupt our politics? No. Sale.
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:
What amazes me is that people who voted for Donald Trump voted to make themselves second class citizens. Trump doesn’t respect those who voted from him at all. Most of them will lose their medical insurance, their freedom, their future security, if the Republicans succeed in taking all that away from us.
All of you writing here in this thread, good job! Well done, both the intent and the logically written prose!
I don’t expect to attend the big show in DC. I have too many health issues, and we’re too far away to make it a casual day trip. If there’s a local meeting, we’ll almost certainly go for that. I’ve been to a couple of big demonstrations, and I can’t imagine that President Trump will have it together to oppress the masses better than President Nixon did back in the late 60s and early 70s.
Take some Noxzema to put on exposed skin if there’s CD gas deployed, and scarves or bandannas with water to wet them down. Swimming goggles will help your eyes. Take a list of phone numbers, written on your arm, in case you’re taken into custody and need to call for help. Don’t carry anything that can be construed to be a weapon, even a tiny pocket knife will be called a deadly weapon once you’re searched.
Adam wrote a post with more details, maybe he can be reminded to post it again a couple of days before the big show.
It is so hard to imagine Americans saying the Pledge of Allegiance over and over, yet still not being in favor of freedom and equality! How do they do that?
Those who have decided to go to show your support for freedom and equality, thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Death Panel Truck
@Desargues:
So stealing this.
Chris
@J R in WV:
There is something truly mind-boggling about the number of born serfs there are in this country.
And you don’t have to romanticize or idealize the past to look at the phenomenal amount of work that’ve been put over decades and decades, by everything from labor activists to universal suffrage activists to good government advocates to the various “identity politics” activists that’ve benefited many of these voters (think of all the immigrants who weren’t “white” not so long ago; or white women, a big chunk of which voted Republican…) into ensuring that these people would have a reasonably safe and functional country with a fairly effective and responsive government and a chance at a decent lifestyle…
… and be disgusted by the number of those fucks who’ve been throwing it away with both hands rather have to share it because their spite is just that important to them.
Chris
@Death Panel Truck:
I still think “Twitler” is the best name that’s been come up with yet. You don’t see a trifecta like that every day.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
It’s not just spite. They feel powerful getting to see someone “like them” beat up on someone else. They prefer that feeling of power to actually having power or agency in their own lives.
Barbara
@Mnemosyne: It is not that they prefer the feeling of power. When you feel helpless you are desperate to feel powerful, and for many, I assume, vicarious power is the only kind of power they will ever have. I have been thinking about this a lot. The real question is, why do they feel so helpless to begin with? I don’t think they are helpless in general (and they probably would not describe themselves as helpless). But who they are and more important who they want to be has less and less value. My granddad was a coal miner and my father went to college. He didn’t want to be a coal miner. But if you want to be a coal miner and you don’t want to go to college you are probably feeling kind of bypassed right now. I don’t see why a personal preference to double down on the past should be my problem, but nonetheless do agree that sticking a finger in my eye is a kind of power. It’s contemptible and it leads to snarky questions such as why there are so few people making stagecoaches anymore, but you get the idea.
Barbara
@Chris: Benedict Donald? I saw it on the GOS and think it’s both clever and accurate without being smutty, like pu**ygrabber in chief, which is what I call him in my little coterie of fellow travelers.
Mothra
@Betty Cracker: yeah that!
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
Like preferring masturbation to sex.