Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Come on, man.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Accountability, motherfuckers.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

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

This fight is for everything.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

People are complicated. Love is not.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

In my day, never was longer.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

T R E 4 5 O N

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Today In Presidential Farewell Addresses: President Washington

Today In Presidential Farewell Addresses: President Washington

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(President Washington’s Farewell Address)

An excerpt from President Washington’s Farewell Address:

I have already intimated to you the danger of Parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on Geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, & warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party, generally.

This Spirit, unfortunately, is inseperable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human Mind. It exists under different shapes in all Governments, more or less stifled, controuled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissention, which in different ages & countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders & miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security & repose in the absolute power of an Individual: and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight) the common & continual mischiefs of the spirit of Party are sufficient to make it the interest and the duty of a wise People to discourage and restrain it.

Click on through to read the whole thing.

Reader Interactions

142Comments

  2. 2.

    Pogonip

    Yes, it’s a darn shame the 2-party system developed as it did. I’m going to cast about for a likely, or the least unlikely, 3rd party and devote my efforts to it.

    Would you be interested in the Silverman Party? We could run Baud.

  3. 3.

    Pogonip

    I am sorry to barge in with an unrelated question, but I want it up near the top where Debit might see it: How’s Walter? When is the last trip to the vet? I hope he stays comfortable and the last trip is nowhere near soon.

  6. 6.

    GregB

    Not to go OT but I was just reading the Twitters and saw that Sen. Wyden was reportedly asking KGB Director Comey about an investigation of Paul Manafort.

  7. 7.

    Iowa Old Lady

    I’m reading Chernow’s bio of Washington and just got to the Farewell Address. I must admit to being shocked by the paranoid things people accused Washington of–plotting to become a monarch being the most common. You’d think he’d demonstrated his good faith. And Jefferson was instrumental in a lot of the accusatory rhetoric.

  9. 9.

    Jeffro

    Shocked that only 50% of the above comments referenced HAMILTON…would have thought it’d be 73% or better

  10. 10.

    hovercraft

    I’m not ready for this, I will prepare myself for this later. Right now I am in hate mode, riling against what will soon be. Tonight I will revel in what we have had, it will be emotional, but I will be grateful for what we, the American people did eight years ago when we elected this man as our president. For now back to raging against the machine that is setting up to devour al it can, including us if we let it.

  11. 11.

    sukabi

    To think…we started as a country with men who could envision a better future for everyone, put their own lives and futures on the line to achieve that goal, could express themselves clearly and eloquently, understood the dangers of tribal identity, and we end with a party and it’s “man” that is everything our founding fathers fought against.

  15. 15.

    Ella in New Mexico

    Lyin’ Ted Cruz is on the tv.
    I’d forgotten just how much listening to him talk is like the sound of nails on a chalkboard.

    I so fucking want to punch him in the puss.

  16. 16.

    dedc79

    Used to think our political system was the worst except for all the others. Now I’m not so sure.

  18. 18.

    Pogonip

    @Pogonip: Or the Bull Moose Party!

    Except a lot of people these days have never seen a moose. Maybe we better stick with the Silverman Party.

  20. 20.

    Elizabelle

    @Pogonip: What’s up with third party?

    Why must we castigate the Democrats so badly? What are we? MSM pundits and reporters, getting paid to smear and obfuscate?

    The Democrats have solid achievements. They’re grown-ups, and realize governing requires compromise and getting the best that you can, not the perfect.

    RE those solid achievements: that’s why the obfuscation. Government works when Democrats and other people who care about public service are in charge.

    Wait until we see Obama’s approval rating in about five months. Probably Hillary’s, too.

  21. 21.

    Mnemosyne

    And I’m going to go off on a little rant that’s not really directed at Pogonip, but has been triggered by what she said:

    The fact that people on the left are willing to abandon the Democrats at the drop of a hat is why we lose. Republicans vote for anything with an R after its name.

    Look at the Electoral College results. Moronic Democrats dicked around with the results by voting for Colin fucking Powell, Sanders, and that nice lady who was one of the leaders against the pipeline going through an Indian reservation.

    Meanwhile, every single Republican voted in lockstep for Donald J. Trump. Every. Single. One.

    They are united while we thrash around looking for a “better” party that will satisfy our every emotional need rather than coalescing around the existing party and changing it from the inside just like the conservatives and radicals did with the Republicans.

    This. Is. Why. We. Lose.

  24. 24.

    Elizabelle

    AP via the LA Times:

    The publisher of Monica Crowley’s “What the (Bleep) Just Happened?” is halting sales of the book, pending the “opportunity” for the aide to President-elect Donald Trump to revise her material.

    Crowley is a syndicated talk show host and Trump’s pick to serve as director of communications at the White House’s National Security Council.

    She is accused of plagiarizing numerous passages in the 2012 book.

    On Tuesday, HarperCollins announced the book and its 2013 edition, “What the (Bleep) Just Happened . . . Again?” will “no longer be offered for purchase” until Crowley has “the opportunity to source and revise” the text.

    Little late. I hope Columbia pulls her doctorate.

    It’s time to push back on the no ethics, no norms people.

  25. 25.

    Elizabelle

    @Mnemosyne: I agree.

    FWIW, I think the national Democrats are holding their fire, the better to aim. The Grifter-Elect hasn’t done that much “official” yet. No point in running around with Dems’ hair on fire. It’s going to be a long four years.

    Republicans are unified. And craven. And they will overreach. They do not serve the average American.

  26. 26.

    Napoleon

    @Pogonip:

    Yes, the original cast album is out and has been for a while. Double CD, about 30 songs a disc. I love it, it really is that good, and I am a middle age white guy, not really a fan of rap, but it really covers a bunch of different styles. The rap type songs are really saved for those parts where they need to cover a lot of territory quickly (it is an amazingly wordy musical). The whole thing can be found on YouTube if you want to listen to it to see if you like it first, but at least for me the more I listened to it the more I liked it.

  31. 31.

    Shell

    Not looking forward to Obama’s farewell speech tonight. We’re saying goodbye to a man who was actually qualified for the job and took seriously the idea of public service. Man, it feels like being abandoned. A real “So long, and thanks for all the fish”, moment.

  32. 32.

    dmsilev

    @Mnemosyne: While I agree with your overall point, I think the Electoral College thing was simply because it was a “free” vote for a few morons to express their snowflake purity pony status without actually changing the result.

  34. 34.

    Major Major Major Major

    @dmsilev:

    it was a “free” vote for a few morons to express their snowflake purity pony status without actually changing the result.

    You know, like in Florida in 2000.

    If you actually look at what the people who cast those EV votes said, they fall into two camps. One, the ‘Hamilton Electors’, in which Democrats are willing to compromise to do something moderate Republicans want to do to prevent the apocalypse, even as no Republicans would or will reciprocate (the votes that went to Powell); and two, precious snowflakes who couldn’t bear to do their legal duty to vote for Hillary Clinton because of their feelings. Hillary Clinton, the Democrat that actually had a chance of beating Trump. You really think those people voted for her in the actual election either?

    Either of these sound familiar?

  36. 36.

    Mnemosyne

    @dmsilev:

    I think the Electoral College thing was simply because it was a “free” vote for a few morons to express their snowflake purity pony status without actually changing the result.

    And that’s why we lose — because we think there are “free,” “safe” votes we can make against the “establishment” that aren’t going to matter, while Republicans vote in lockstep every single time.

    And please note, I say this as one of the fucking idiots who fell for Ralph Nader’s patter in 2000 and voted for him, only to watch in horror as the Republicans claimed an Electoral College victory with a minority of the vote.

    And they liked that victory so much, they plotted to do it again, and kept plotting until they got it right.

    And meanwhile, liberals dicked around with third parties and lost the election for us. Thanks a lot, fuckwads. You had your chance to stand up to fascism, and you blew it. Big league.

  37. 37.

    Cacti

    @Shell:

    Not looking forward to Obama’s farewell speech tonight. We’re saying goodbye to a man who was actually qualified for the job and took seriously the idea of public service. Man, it feels like being abandoned. A real “So long, and thanks for all the fish”, moment.

    The end of Camelot 2.0.

    The Obamas are a true American success story and the avatars of all that can be good about our country. It’s terribly bitter to see them replaced by the embodiment of all that is ugly about our country.

  38. 38.

    Betty Cracker

    I’m not going to watch the president’s farewell address. I think it’ll be the first major, prime-time speech of his I’ve ever missed, but honestly, I’d find it unbearable right now. It’ll be archived on YouTube if I’m ever ready to watch it.

  39. 39.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Pogonip: As I answered you in the previous thread:
    https://balloon-juice.com/2017/01/10/long-reads-jared-kushner-the-half-bright-prince/#comment-6190490

    In the case of Senator Walsh he was retired from the Army and whatever clearance he had/needed came as a result of being a Constitutional officer, specifically a US senator. It should be disqualifying as part of the 13 category, whole of person assessment. Ultimately it is up to the adjudicator. I’ve seen people who claim to have doctorates, and don’t and who we were able to demonstrably show did not and had been repeatedly lying about it, maintain clearances. Took me three years to get one of those knuckleheads fired. Another one we have reason to believe was a KGB for cover asset before becoming an American citizen based on the position he held at a USSR member country embassy in DC when the Soviet Union ended. We couldn’t get the CI guys to do much about him – largely because he has an SES 3 as top cover. Hell, because that SES 3, who had hired him and was actually covering his own incompetence in vetting, was covering for him we couldn’t get him fired even though his term appointment required he provide transcripts or equivalent verification of his doctorate. Of course this guy only has a secret clearance, so he’s limited in what he can access.

  42. 42.

    debbie

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’ll be pretty bummed listening to him tonight, knowing what’s coming soon (much too soon), but I feel obligated to hear his speech as he is making it.

  43. 43.

    Elizabelle

    @Cacti:

    It’s terribly bitter to see them replaced by the embodiment of all that is ugly about our country.

    Perhaps overly optimistic by me, but some people can only learn from a negative example that they can see with their own eyes, and cannot be glossed over. Bush with Katrina, etc.

    I think we may see those examples earlier and uglier than expected. I hope that we can correct course, and that the idiots see why norms and standards are enforced. They are there to protect us, not the grifters and malefactors.

  44. 44.

    Cacti

    @Mnemosyne:

    And meanwhile, liberals dicked around with third parties and lost the election for us. Thanks a lot, fuckwads. You had your chance to stand up to fascism, and you blew it. Big league.

    The same thing happened in Germany.

    The far left was more interested in punishing the center left than opposing the fascists. They were certain that the collapse of the Weimar Republic would lead to the long awaited ascendancy of the proletariat. Sound familiar?

  46. 46.

    Betty Cracker

    @Cacti: Watching that pack of grifting hyenas descend on the White House is going to be like watching the Nazis march through the Arc de Triomphe. Fuck that noise. I’ll be on my way to DC to march with the resistance the next day.

  47. 47.

    Yarrow

    @Elizabelle:

    It’s time to push back on the no ethics, no norms people.

    Agreed. Push back on everything. On all of them. Democrats need to be on offense the whole time. All day every day. Let nothing out of the norm go without some pushback. Do not let corruption stand.

    Related, I’ve been mulling over the articles and radio bits I’ve seen/heard about “How the media should handle Trump’s lies/tweets” and it seems that the best thing to do is to recognize the pattern and then point out how “this tweet fits the pattern.” He lies all the time. That’s fact. Instead of parsing every lie, every tweet, point out how this tweet, just like usual, is another lie. Then delve into why he lies.

  48. 48.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker: I don’t blame you.

    I will watch it, and would guess our thread tonight will be lively.

    I think a lot of folks are numb and depressed at the results. That can turn to anger. Anger can be useful.

  53. 53.

    Mnemosyne

    @Cacti:

    Don’t even get me started on the assholes like Cornel fucking West who couldn’t be arsed to get behind the Democratic candidate and are now carping from the sidelines about how they totally knew we would lose. Of course you knew we would lose — you worked to make sure we would lose!

    Fuck these assholes with a rusty garden implement.

    Time for lunch.

  54. 54.

    Yoda Dog Democrat

    @Mnemosyne:

    And I’m going to go off on a little rant that’s not really directed at Pogonip, but has been triggered by what she said:

    The fact that people on the left are willing to abandon the Democrats at the drop of a hat is why we lose. Republicans vote for anything with an R after its name.

    Look at the Electoral College results. Moronic Democrats dicked around with the results by voting for Colin fucking Powell, Sanders, and that nice lady who was one of the leaders against the pipeline going through an Indian reservation.

    Meanwhile, every single Republican voted in lockstep for Donald J. Trump. Every. Single. One.

    They are united while we thrash around looking for a “better” party that will satisfy our every emotional need rather than coalescing around the existing party and changing it from the inside just like the conservatives and radicals did with the Republicans.

    This. Is. Why. We. Lose.

    I have zero to add except to say cosign plus a million and thank you for stating that so well for me. I’ve been reading this blog for a decade and its the only thing that’s been keeping me upright and functioning post-election.

  58. 58.

    Citizen_X

    @Napoleon:

    it is an amazingly wordy musical

    That Miranda could take a frigging cabinet meeting about financial policy* and turn that into a slamming rap battle makes me awestruck at his creative skills.

    *Okay, the country’s first cabinet meeting about financial policy, but still.

  59. 59.

    HeleninEire

    I had trouble sleeping last night. Finally drifted off at 4 this morning. So I got up after 10. I may actually be up at 2 to watch. Prolly gonna cry.

  60. 60.

    Spanky

    Mostly OT, but just a reminder that Daily Kos is live-blogging the Sessions confirmation hearing. Apparently, Al Franken just did the “just an ol’ country lawyer comedian” on him and cleaned his clock.

    Good times, but I don’t think the ultimate outcome is in question. If there’s a history in our future, I hope the name of every Republican enabler to the shitgibbon is forever besmirched.

  62. 62.

    Betty Cracker

    Democrats aren’t the only circular firing squad in town: The other day, Kay told us about Trump people orchestrating the defeat of the Republican Party’s state chair in Ohio, who had been a Kasich loyalist. Trumpsters are trying something similar in FL, working together to kneecap a Lil’ Marco lackey. The vote is Saturday. I’m rooting for injuries.

  63. 63.

    zhena gogolia

    @Citizen_X:

    I’ve started listening to the Mixtape, which I was skeptical about, but it has some great things on it. “Immigrants, We Get the Job Done” is my current favorite.

  64. 64.

    hovercraft

    On a less/more depressing not:

    Fox Settled O’Reilly Sexual Harassment Claims Weeks After Ailes Resignation

    Fox News executives struck a secret, six-figure settlement agreement with a former network host who accused Bill O’Reilly of sexual harassment just weeks after Roger Ailes resigned as CEO amid his own sexual harassment scandal, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

    Juliet Huddy alleged that her former colleague made sexual advances towards her in 2011, when she had a regular segment on “The O’Reilly Factor,” and that he tried to hurt her career when she refused them, according to an August letter from Huddy’s lawyer to Fox News that was obtained by the Times.

    In the letter, first reported Monday by LawNewz.com, Huddy alleged that O’Reilly kissed her without permission after lunch near his Long Island home and once gave her a key to the room in the Manhattan hotel where he was staying after the two went to see a Broadway show.

    She also alleged in the letter that O’Reilly called her after work hours for “highly inappropriate and sexual” conversations during which she said he sometimes sounded like he was masturbating.

    Huddy’s lawyers say their client felt pressure to continue to see and speak to O’Reilly outside of the office despite her discomfort because he “had total control over her work assignment,” according to the Times.

  65. 65.

    japa21

    Like Betty and MajorX4, I am probably not going to watch live. But then again, someday I want to be able to tell my great grandchildren that I watched one of the best Presidents we ever had say goodbye to the country just before the worst ever took office.

  66. 66.

    Chris

    @Cacti:

    I started reading about fascism in 2009/2010 in reaction to the rise of the teabaggers. It’s depressing to what extent everything here has parallels in the past.

  67. 67.

    donnah

    Call me a coward, but I won’t watch the farewell by Obama, nor will I watch the Inauguration of the faux-president trump. I remember how I felt in the wee hours of the election and I don’t want to go there again.

  68. 68.

    Napoleon

    @Elizabelle:

    Perhaps overly optimistic by me, but some people can only learn from a negative example that they can see with their own eyes, and cannot be glossed over. Bush with Katrina, etc.

    The end of what you said debunks the first part. 8 years ago today a person who was arguably one of the 2 or 3 worst presidents we have ever had was president, someone lionized by the Republicans, who was an complete disaster, and yet just a few years later the voters turn both houses of congress and the presidency over to the Republicans.

  69. 69.

    Brachiator

    @Mnemosyne:

    You realize that all of the Hamilmaniacs will now have this as an all-day earworm, right?

    Did you see the article in today’s Times about the auction of some Hamilton letters?

    Starting on Wednesday, Hamil-fans will be able to enjoy a double dose of America’s newly favorite founding father: a public exhibition of a trove of documents held privately for more than two centuries by descendants of Alexander Hamilton, in a display at Sotheby’s designed by David Korins, the set designer for the musical “Hamilton.”…

    There are several passionate early love letters from Hamilton to his wife, Elizabeth, as well as the only known surviving letter to Hamilton from his son Philip, complete with a hole, torn by sealing wax, that eerily evokes the younger man’s death in a duel in 1801.

  70. 70.

    mai naem mobile

    @Mnemosyne: I can’t stand Cornel West. Also, Greenwald, Bernie Sanders,Nader and the Bernie Ohio suporter – I can’t remember her name Nina whatshername. All holier than thou assholes sitting there with their good money making jobs and benefits, claiming to understand people who live paycheck to paycheck.

  72. 72.

    dmsilev

    @Mnemosyne: Cornel West in particular is amazing. Apparently, a big part of his motivation is that he got snubbed for tickets to one of Obama’s inaugurations and took it very very personally. That combination of egocentricity and thin-skin-syndrome is positively Trumpian.

  73. 73.

    hovercraft

    @donnah:
    No you are not a coward, you just need more time to get used to the Obama’s being gone. Because of what will follow him, his departure is a thousand times harder. Like Betty said it will be available on YouTube when you are ready, if you ever are. As to watching that steaming pustule of a rancid shitgibbons anus, I will not be watching that travesty either, and I can confidently say that I never will.

  74. 74.

    Spanky

    @HeleninEire: Dublin in winter is an incredibly apt place for late-night depression jags. Tonight is a very good reason for one – just don’t let it become habit. Do more walking so you’re properly fatigued when you go to bed.

  76. 76.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle:

    Wait until we see Obama’s approval rating in about five months. Probably Hillary’s, too.

    Just last month, for the ninth consecutive year, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were, respectively, the Most Admired Man and Most Admired Woman in the World in Gallup’s annual poll. Source.

  77. 77.

    Calouste

    @Betty Cracker: You’d think that people like Kasich and Rubio would realize that the shitgibbon is going to consolidate his power in the GOP first, and then move it out further. In the end there will be no one with a significant powerbase in the GOP except the shitgibbon, and even if you are a governor or a senator, without a powerbase it’s pretty easy to run you off on trumped up charges if you don’t fall in line with the leader.

  80. 80.

    Elizabelle

    @Napoleon: It took a lot of lying, though. And complete intransigence by the Republicans, not voting on stimulus or jobs bills in a Great Recession. He said, she said stenography.

    It pains me they polarized, lied, and were rewarded for it.

    I guess this is a multi-act drama; hopefully not tragedy through and through.

  82. 82.

    debbie

    @Betty Cracker:

    The new Ohio Chair is mostly known as a fundraiser and has zero experience in organizing. GOOPERS here have long prided themselves for being very strong organizers. It will be fun witnessing the disarray. The odds are long, but hopefully the Ohio Dems will take advantage of this.

  83. 83.

    Citizen Alan

    @Pogonip: if the founders wanted to avoid a two party system, they easily could have done so by replacing first-past-the-post voting with a system that would have allowed smaller parties to flourish. They didn’t.

  84. 84.

    geg6

    @debbie:

    Yes, this. I’m tuning out a lot of things these days, but I owe him this. He wants to leave us with something. The least I can do is be there to hear whatever it is.

  86. 86.

    geg6

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Oh, there are meetings, meetings, meetings happening all over campus now. Academia in an uproar. Having been an innocent bystander while my institution blew up a few years back, I sympathize.

  87. 87.

    HeleninEire

    @Spanky: LOL I am laughing cuz I did an 8 mile walk today. Love this city for it’s walkability. Except for those corners where there are 7 permutations of the way cars can turn and as a pedestrian you wait FOREVER. Dubliners have figured out how to jay walk around that. But I’m to scared of dying.

  88. 88.

    manyakitty

    @debbie: Um, have you seen our Ohio Dems? Let’s hope they can get their act together soon, because we won’t survive another farce like Fitzgerald, running against Kasich without any apparent vetting. Yeesh.

  89. 89.

    Shell

    In the 21st century we expected a flying car,

    Or that we’d all have individual jet-packs. Oh, and we’d all be wearing capes.

  91. 91.

    Napoleon

    @debbie:

    The new Ohio Chair is mostly known as a fundraiser and has zero experience in organizing.

    You are talking about Jane Timken, most importantly she is from the Timken family a long time chamber of commerce Republican type family that has supported the Republicans for 100 years. She is no Tea Partier, she is the wife of the Timken Steel CEO

    http://www.timkensteel.com/who-we-are/100-years

  94. 94.

    Timurid

    I’m a big fan of Obama. I voted for him twice and would have voted for him again if that were possible.
    But if he pours out another big puddle of platitudes tonight, I’m going to start breaking things…

  95. 95.

    Elizabelle

    @geg6: I don’t think tuning out is that bad. For a while. Because I believe you and most of us are suffering through “Collective Trauma.”

    Good article by sociologist Neil Gross in the Fuck the Fucking New York Times.
    Are Americans Experiencing Collective Trauma?

    … [Discussing Kai Erikson’s book about a 1972 dam burst and flood that killed 125 in West Virginia:] … Erikson noticed “collective trauma” as well. As he documented in his 1976 book about Buffalo Creek, “Everything in Its Path,” the floodwaters carried away not just physical objects but also relationships and routines that had defined life there for generations. Without these social anchors, residents struggled to find meaning and purpose. They were disoriented and disconnected in ways that could outlast even the effects of their individual psychological traumas. Socially, they were in a permanent state of shock.

    The concept of collective trauma was rooted in the thought of Émile Durkheim, a turn-of-the-20th-century French sociologist and an architect of the field. Durkheim argued that norms, values and rituals were the linchpins of social order; they provided the basis for solidarity and social cohesion. Collective trauma occurs when an unexpected event severs the ties that bind community members to one another.

    …. Last month’s presidential election has collective trauma written all over it. For working-class white people whose communities had been hollowed out by the decline of manufacturing, the rhetoric and promises of Donald J. Trump’s campaign offered a salve. He vowed to restore the world they had lost.

    But those who voted for Hillary Clinton may now be experiencing collective trauma of their own. In the aftermath of the election, they have been walking around in a daze. Some of this is because forecasts based on problematic polling strongly predicted a Democratic win. Some is fear or uncertainty about the future. But there’s more to it than that: For progressives, moderates and “Never Trump” Republicans, the political order they long took for granted — defined by polarization, yes, but also by a commitment to basic principles of democracy and decency — is suddenly gone.

    In recent decades, Democrats and Republicans rarely agreed on substance, but all candidates for major office were expected to adhere to fundamental ethical norms, like “don’t threaten to jail your opponent” and “don’t celebrate sexual assault.” Mr. Trump’s victory signals that that world, with the assurances it offered that there were some lines those seeking power wouldn’t cross (or that the American electorate wouldn’t let them cross), is no longer. Rightly or wrongly, memories have been activated of historical traumas linked with anti-democratic politics, such as the emergence of fascism in interwar Europe and the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.

    We live in “interesting times.” And they are harrowing.

  96. 96.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    I am a little confused that the Republicans always fall in line. They aren’t exactly selfless people. Maybe the Republican equivalent to lefter-than-thou third party voters just stay home instead of getting up and going to their private moment of self-validation.

  97. 97.

    Chris

    @ Patricia Kayden: there’s something wrong with your 93 post. Hitting “reply” will send me to that link.

    But, yeah –

    @Mnemosyne: Me too. Since I’ve become a citizen in 2006, I’ve never voted for anything but Democrats. No matter how “moderate” they are, Republicans suck. Look at Collins defending Jeff Sessions today during his hearing.

    At the presidential level, there’s not a single election from 1932 onwards where I wouldn’t have preferred the Democrat for president. Eisenhower is the single case in which I could see holding my nose and voting Republican.

    At pretty much all other levels, from 1994 onwards it’s also Democrats all the way. Gingrich’s radicalization of the party and original implementation of the politics-as-war mentality pretty much made every Republican toxic. Even the few here and there that might still be sane have to do too much to keep the lunatics happy to be worth it.

  98. 98.

    hovercraft

    @Chris: @ Patricia Kayden: there’s something wrong with your 93 post. Hitting “reply” will send me to that link.

    But, yeah –

    Me too, that may be me tonight.

  99. 99.

    Napoleon

    @Citizen Alan:

    If for no other reason they didn’t is because it was, I don’t know, 200 years after the fact that people figured out it worked that way. The founders did not have political scientist’s academic papers laying around to tell them stuff like that.

  100. 100.

    Chris

    @Thoroughly Pizzled:

    No, but they’re very fundamentally tribal people. Us Good, Dem Bad. However little they understand about politics, they understand that a vote for the Republicans is a vote to hurt the Other People they hate, and they’ll walk a thousand miles to make sure that happens.

  101. 101.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Timurid: Then perhaps you shouldn’t watch his farewell address since he doesn’t speak up to your standards. He usually gives great speeches and is known for a few inspirational ones for the history books. Just saying.

  103. 103.

    Elizabelle

    @Chris: I think it’s become like a team sporting event. Another way of saying “tribal”, but politics has a lot of fandom accoutrements.

    I don’t agree that every Republican necessarily wants to “hurt” others, but they’re on Team GOP, and so they cheer and vote.

    GOP: Gushing Over Putin. Greed Over People. Whatever.

  104. 104.

    bluefoot

    @Elizabelle: It’s never the people who need to learn who pay the price for their ignorance/idiocy. So they don’t learn. Which is why I can only look on in horror.

  105. 105.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Chris:

    they understand that a vote for the Republicans is a vote to hurt the Other People they hate, and they’ll walk a thousand miles to make sure that happens.

    Not entirely true. From what I remember reading, some of the McCain/Romney moderate-establishment Republicans stayed home or voted for Johnson this time, while the Bush 2004 ‘fuck you’ crowd, some of whom had sat on their hands in 2012, came back.

  106. 106.

    mai naem mobile

    @hovercraft: how could I forget Tulsa Gabbard. Freaking first Hindu in Congress. Makes me embarrassed to be a Hindu. She gives me Lieberman/Bayh/Breaux vibes and this was way way before she resigned from her DNC position.

  107. 107.

    Kay

    Comey says, re FBI investign Trump/Russia contacts, “I wd never comment on investigations whether open or not in a public forum”

    Except for really long press conferences where I blab my head off and smear people when they’re not charged with anything.

    The truth is he’s unprofessional, by any measure. It’s not like I’m using a super high bar. His behavior would be considered unprofessional if an assistant county prosecutor had done it- people who are 25, 26 years old with 3 years experience would know better.

  108. 108.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mnemosyne: Pretty much what I wanted to say last night to the nice lady running for state Democratic Party chairman, in repsonse to the Wilmerbros who were meeping about how the Democrtatic Party needed to “change” (ie, becoming what Wilmer says we need to be!) to attract more unaffiliateds.

    No, assholes – what we *need* is to EDUCATE people to vote for the Democrat, no matter WHO it is, no matter what “issues” you have with him or her,. WIN THE GORRAM ELECTION FIRST, then start in on how much the candidate has managed to disappoint you in the space of mere days by his/her neglect of your particular ideological hobby horse.

    Honest to God, the thing I hate the most about leftists is their tendency to prefer losing to compromise. They’re even worse than Republicans that way. Republicans prefer to WIN and *then* refuse to compromise.

  112. 112.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Patricia Kayden:

    When you put a hyperlink as the very last thing in your comment it “eats” the Reply button. You need to put a carriage return after the hyperlink. Or maybe just leave the ending period outside the link.

  113. 113.

    geg6

    @Elizabelle:

    Oh yes, I fully acknowledge my trauma. My John and I are dealing with this very differently. He’s just furious and still wants to keep up on every detail of what is happening, fondly stroking his fury the whole time. I’ve been basically in shock. I’m slowly coming out of that, but I’m pretty fragile and can’t deal with too much information. I mean, what is the point? The world is completely falling apart no matter what, so why sweat the details? But my own anger is coming to the forefront and I’m aiming it at the media more than almost anything. I feel like I can start to fight back better once I get some of my anger at the media out of my system. So I’ve had my own little crusade against the media, especially the ones who consider themselves mainstream and moderate, like the NYT, CBS, ABC, my local rag. I’m writing letters to publishers, commenting on their social media, just being an obnoxious scold, but not obnoxious enough to get banned or ignored. And I’m encouraging my friends to do the same. And the friends (who are not political junkies) who still think the media are honest brokers are being given all the evidence they need to see that I’m right. I’ve gotten a friend who was anti-Trump but innocent to and too trusting of the ways of the Village to see how she was being conned by them. She is now beating that drum among her circle.

    I also had a small rebellion in a store the other day. I was shopping for some boots a week or so ago, taking advantage of January clearances, and was in a Ross Dress for Less checking out a clearance rack of sweaters and tops when I came across some of Elektra’s (love that nickname!) merchandise. So, just for fun, I deliberately dropped it on the floor. It felt so good that I looked for more and made sure they also ended up on the floor. I might even have “accidentally” stomped on a few of them. Another woman noticed when I dropped one top and walked to another rack. She then came over, picked up the top, looked at the label and dropped it again. And then she caught my eye and smiled at me. It felt good, like a secret rebellion.

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @Major Major Major Major:

    It’s too late. He has to shut up and go away. The reason they’re not supposed to cast aspersions on people who aren’t charged with anything is exactly that- it can’t be fixed once it’s done. The person can’t undo the damage. Ever.

    There are mistakes and then there are catastrophes where you have to go. He really doesn’t know the difference?

  115. 115.

    Kay

    @Major Major Major Major:

    What’s funny about it is no one wants to hear from him. No one. Trump doesn’t want him out there blabbing because it just reminds everyone Comey stuck his big fat mouth on the scale and tipped it toward douchebag and Clinton certainly doesn’t want to hear from him because he screwed her. Who wants to hear from this person? His family and friends I guess?

    I mean, life isn’t fair. Whether he intended to fuck it up or not it happened. Just go. Do us all a favor. No more talking.

  116. 116.

    stinger

    @Betty Cracker: This raises a question I’ve been meaning to ask: What happens to the current content of whitehouse.gov on January 20? I’m sure it will be wiped from that URL, but will it be shifted somewhere? There are so many speeches, musical events, etc., that either I missed when they happened or saw but wanted to rewatch some time. I suppose much of it will be available generally via the google, but will it be housed somewhere browseable? Anybody know?

  117. 117.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    @Kay: If I were Comey, I’d seriously consider suicide, Frank Pentangeli style. I could not live with myself for having done that.

  118. 118.

    Elizabelle

    @geg6: LOL re the retail rebellion. I think Elektra’s apparel line is in for some tough sledding.

    @Kay: It’s horrible. And the only reason Comrade Comey is still there is god knows what crazy hack the Grifter-Elect would appoint in his place. Probably the only thing that stopped PBO from firing Comey’s ass on November 10. The only comfort we can take is that Comey trashed his own damn reputation. And that’s no consolation, really.

  119. 119.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    I’m seething. Furious. I cannot believe he had the gall to say that out loud.

    The Russians must have found some really good stuff in his emails.

    Asshole.

  121. 121.

    Kay

    I’m gonna watch the speech with my 8th grader, our youngest. He admires Obama and I’m pleased he admires Obama.

    This is a conservative area though and he’s very much in the mix so he’s been questioning his liberal parents a lot. It’s fine- he’s smart and fun to talk to- but he’s adopted this annoying Young Broderism, where he’s insisting “both sides” are biased. Figures I get a both-siders at this late stage of my parenting career.

  122. 122.

    mai naem mobile

    @geg6: when I was at CVS the other day they had Time magazine with Lumpys pic on the front cover.I picked it up and turned it around so the back was what was visible(I wanted to draw horns on it!) Ive thought of flipping the National Enquirers at the grocery stores. I am going to start doing that. I was at a Tuesday Morning before Christmas and they had an Elektra scarf. I wish I had thought of dropping it on the floor. Next time I will take the scarf to the clearance side and drop it there. I think the clearance aisle gets more traffic so it will get dirtier quicker.

  123. 123.

    stinger

    @geg6: I fully understand the impulse, but by dropping store items on the floor you probably aren’t getting your message across. You’re making more work for the lowly sales staff, who for all we know may have voted for Hillary, while the people who need your message are the store owners (and maybe its buyers). A strongly worded letter to the CEO would have more impact.

  124. 124.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Kay:

    That’s hilarious! Kids unconsciously know where to needle you. At least you didn’t get a full-on mini-Republican.

  125. 125.

    geg6

    @stinger:

    I realize it was petty but it made me feel better. I worked retail myself for many years when I was an adjunct instructor, so I know the drill for them. To be honest, I was glad when I had things to do like pick things up and re-fold things. It kept me busy during slow times, which is a lot of the time this time of year.

    ETA: I did also email the corporate office.

  128. 128.

    stinger

    @geg6: I agree with you about straightening things during slow periods. I can’t recall what happens to dirty, damaged, unsalable merchandise–stomping on it seems, forgive me, childish if understandable, and certainly ineffective. Glad to hear that you wrote to HQ!

  130. 130.

    Betty Cracker

    @stinger: I read something about that the other day. Can’t remember the details, but it will all be archived and available — I think on whitehouse.gov/obama or something like that.

    @geg6: I like the secret rebellion thing. My sister — who is just the kindest, sweetest, most law-abiding creature in the world — engaged in a little pre-dawn Trump sign vandalism in her neighborhood shortly after the election. She was worried she’d be caught on a security camera, but she did it anyway because she couldn’t bear to see it another day. She sweated it out for a few days, worrying she’d be caught, LOL! That was so unlike her. I think this catastrophe has driven many of us over the edge.

  132. 132.

    zhena gogolia

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I’m the champion of word games. I bought a book at the Stop & Shop and do word games obsessively the entire time I’m not working. It’s taken the place of carefully reading the New York Times.

  133. 133.

    zhena gogolia

    @Betty Cracker:

    My domestic terrorism version is that any magazine that enters the house with his face on the cover gets the cover ripped off stat (after I first scribble all over his face with a black felt-tip pen).

  134. 134.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    I had an actual Republican phase in teenagehood, which in retrospect had a lot to do with the belief that surely most of what they were accused of had to be exaggerated, which took years to shed. My parents didn’t push back, partly because they’re generally moderate people (who will never vote GOP again, mind you) but also because they trusted me to figure things out.

    He’ll be fine. Let him keep exploring and as long as he’s not in the echo chamber, he’ll figure it out too. (Ironically, if he’s anything like me, continued exposure to conservatives will probably end up making him exactly like you).

  135. 135.

    Chris

    @Mike E:

    I should hope not.

    Kay wants better elites. I just want better villains. As somebody on LGM pointed out a few weeks ago, the problem with Trump is he thinks he’s Lex Luthor, but he’s not even Syndrome.

  136. 136.

    Betty Cracker

    @zhena gogolia: The only dead-tree mags I still get are Rolling Stone and the New Yorker, which have thus far spared us Trump photos. But if I do see his revolting mug on a magazine in my house, I’ll give it the same treatment you do.

  137. 137.

    debbie

    @manyakitty:

    Yes, I have seen them, and I’m hoping they straighten themselves out and take advantage of Timkien’s sure-to-be lousy leadership.

  138. 138.

    NR

    @Mnemosyne:

    Look at the Electoral College results. Moronic Democrats dicked around with the results by voting for Colin fucking Powell, Sanders, and that nice lady who was one of the leaders against the pipeline going through an Indian reservation.

    Meanwhile, every single Republican voted in lockstep for Donald J. Trump. Every. Single. One.

    First of all, [citation needed.]

    Second, if in the end it turns out that more Republicans vote for their candidates than Democrats vote for theirs, the fault for that lies with the party, not the voters. Republicans deliver what their base wants while Democrats make excuses and pretend that they don’t have any power when they hold the White House and historic majorities in Congress, and finally in the end deliver weak, watered-down crap that would have been perfectly at home in the Republican agenda in the 90s.

    And that is why we lose.

  139. 139.

    Mnemosyne

    @NR:

    Face it, NR, if you ever wondered what would happen if the fascists tried to take over, we all have the answer now: you rolled over and meeped. You said, “Thank you, sir, may I have another?”

    You looked at massive race-based voter suppression and decided it was all the Democrats fault.

    Go fuck yourself, collaborator. We already know you’re always going to take their side, because you already did.

  140. 140.

    NR

    @Mnemosyne: Well that was certainty an irrational and incoherent response that didn’t address any point I made in any way. I also note the lack of any source for your claims about who voted what way.

    In any case, this argument is over and you lost. Obama himself has admitted that he is partly at fault for Democratic losses while he was president. Obama, for all his faults, is at least an adult who has the emotional maturity to admit when he has played a role in something bad that’s happened. Which puts him miles above you. You’d blame your neighbor for getting a headache after you deliberately smashed your head into a stone wall.

    Since you claim to admire Obama so much, how about you pay some attention to the example he sets? Or are you too immature to even try to do that?

  142. 142.

    NR

    @Mnemosyne: Your inability to respond to any of the points I’ve raised, or to provide any support for your claims about who voted what way, has been duly noted.

    And to continue your analogy, the house is on fire because you and the people you support were running around playing with matches. President Obama has the courage and the emotional maturity to admit to his part in causing the disaster. It’s sad that you don’t.

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