Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

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

Consistently wrong since 2002

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

I really should read my own blog.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

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

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

“But what about the lurkers?”

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Agonize - Organize / Empowering Open Thread: The 2018 Women’s March

Empowering Open Thread: The 2018 Women’s March

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Okay, I got distracted. What I’d been seeing in advance about the 2018 Women’s March wasn’t always encouraging, and there was so much day-to-day churn from the Oval Office occupants. Should’ve known that the #Resistance is deeper and much, much stronger than its opposition…

… [T]he energy behind the anti-Donald Trump protests that exploded a year ago, which turned everything from T-shirts to yoga into a form of political “resistance,” has started to coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated political force ahead of November’s midterm elections.

“Last year we marched and we resisted and we organized, and now we’re going to bring that collective power to the polls,” said Bob Bland, co-chair of the Women’s March. “Moving into 2018, we need to look beyond just ‘resistance.'”

This weekend, the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration and the massive Women’s March that followed, there will be more marches — 389 are planned around the world. But organizers this year are more focused on a new political effort dubbed PowerToThePolls, which aims to register 1 million voters and will kick off Sunday in Las Vegas.

In fact, almost everyone involved in the “Resistance,” from scrappy new startups to venerable stalwarts like the American Civil Liberties Union, are turning their focus to the midterms, in which Democrats are trying to seize control of Congress from Republicans.

“Central to our philosophy is fighting the fight at hand. Last year, that was advocacy. This year it’s electoral,” said Ezra Levin, the co-founder of Indivisible, which started as an organizing guide and has since blossomed into a network of hundreds of local groups across the country. “It’s do or die for November.” …

… Call it payback, call it a revolution, call it the Pink Wave, inspired by marchers in their magenta hats, and the activism that followed. There is an unprecedented surge of first-time female candidates, overwhelmingly Democratic, running for offices big and small, from the U.S. Senate and state legislatures to local school boards. At least 79 women are exploring runs for governor in 2018, potentially doubling a record for female candidates set in 1994, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. The number of Democratic women likely challenging incumbents in the U.S. House of Representatives is up nearly 350% from 41 women in 2016. Roughly 900 women contacted Emily’s List, which recruits and trains pro-choice Democratic women, about running for office from 2015 to 2016; since President Trump’s election, more than 26,000 women have reached out about launching a campaign. The group had to knock down a wall in its Washington office to make room for more staff.

It’s not just candidates. Experienced female political operatives are striking out on their own, creating new organizations independent from the party apparatus to raise money, marshal volunteers and assist candidates with everything from fundraising to figuring out how to balance child care with campaigns…


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Everyone’s trying to jump on the bandwagon…


(Or it would’ve been, if Trump were actually responsible for writing that tweet.)

Reader Interactions

163Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    Hot damn! It’s good to see those photos. Also good that each of them is way yuuuger than Trump’s Inauguration audience.

  5. 5.

    jk

    Yesterday’s marches were certainly encouraging and I hope they bode well for the 2018 mid term elections. Nonetheless, I remain amazed by the deep and profound ignorance of his supporters, especially female supporters, as evidenced by this Reuters story:

    Belinda Miller has never regretted voting for him in 2016. “My 401(k) and my 403 have soared, and if anybody doesn’t realize that, they’ve been asleep for a year,” said Miller, a 50-year-old emergency room nurse from Audubon, Pennsylvania, referring to her retirement accounts’ growth in a booming stock market. “I look overall not at what he says but what he does. All that other stuff is just rhetoric, smoke and mirrors,” she added.

    The Philadelphia suburb where Miller lives in Montgomery County was key to Trump’s surprising 2016 triumph. In a sign of its importance, his campaign dispatched his daughter Ivanka to the region late in the race to woo women there.

    In interviews with more than half a dozen Trump supporters in the region, mostly women, his backers remained largely committed to him, citing his immigration policies and a belief that tax reform will create jobs amid a growing economy.

    Carol Markowicz, a 52-year-old Philadelphia resident, said she voted for former Democratic President Barack Obama in 2012 but cast her ballot for Trump, convinced his business background and anti-illegal immigration stance would secure more jobs for Pennsylvanians. “I really think they need to build a wall,” she said of Trump’s proposed Mexican border barrier. “I think they need to send back all these people that aren’t supposed to be here, because they’re taking jobs from Americans.”

    h/t https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-voters/in-pennsylvania-women-who-voted-for-trump-voice-support-after-first-year-idUSKBN1F90FT

  7. 7.

    Jeffro

    There was a good article in the dead-tree edition of the Post today about how women all across the country are fired up, and they’re running for office, and they’re getting folks registered, and and and. It was kind of novel, hearing from Democrats for once.

    You can tell the wave is coming, and not a moment too soon!

  9. 9.

    toocanAnj

    I am gobsmacked, totally caught by surprise, at the size of the marches yesterday. I knew there was a piece of the resistance still active, I had no idea of the breadth of it. Yesterday, restored a lot of hope that we will prevail. Thank God, because I needed that to keep on with my part of the resistance work.

  10. 10.

    Betty Cracker

    Same! As I said in a thread last night, a couple of weeks or so ago, someone here (can’t remember who) brought up the 2018 Women’s Marches and suggested posting about them. I said I was skeptical, thinking that a repeat of the 2017 marches couldn’t live up to the original and worried that low turnout would be a PR boon to Trump and the GOP. I was so wrong!

    I’ve been super-busy this weekend, so I haven’t seen a whole lot of news coverage, but from what I have seen, it looks like the MSM isn’t giving the massive turnout for the marches the attention it deserves. They’re devoting most of their time to both-sidesing the Trump shutdown. But photos of the marches are all over social media, and it’s awfully encouraging!

    Kudos to all who participated!

  11. 11.

    debbie

    @jk:

    “My 401(k) and my 403 have soared, and if anybody doesn’t realize that, they’ve been asleep for a year,” said Miller, a 50-year-old emergency room nurse from Audubon, Pennsylvania, referring to her retirement accounts’ growth in a booming stock market.

    She may want to rethink her irrational exuberance. I won’t link because it’s an AOL article, but BOA is warning that a correction may be near. Their four major indicators are all getting very close to the levels warranting worry.

  12. 12.

    jk

    @Baud:

    You should care because you’ll need to flip some of them in 2020 to beat Trump and it also helps to know the thinking of your opponent, regardless of how warped or delusional it is.

  13. 13.

    Schlemazel

    @jk:
    Short version
    Il Duce made the trains run on time
    Hitler had some good ideas

    There are always morons who will make excuses. Even when the excuse is a falsehood

  14. 14.

    MomSense

    @Jeffro:

    The executive director of Emily’s List, Emily Cain, was at our Augusta, Maine women’s march. She said that in the year since Dolt45s inauguration, more than 26,000 pro-choice women have contacted them about running for office.

  15. 15.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I thought the 2018 marches would be much smaller than 2017. I was okay with that, because it’s election activism that makes a difference and lasts, and the marches started a giant wave of actual involvement in politics. That the marches were even bigger a year later is stunning. Liberals have not been this angry in modern history. Please, let it continue. We will never win over Republican voters, but if liberal voters become as motivated and vote as actively as conservative voters, the Republican Party can kiss its ass goodbye. Especially since every state we can take full control of gets its gerrymandering nuked.

  16. 16.

    Schlemazel

    @jk:
    Nope, don’t need to flip a single one of them & they are not going to flip if they are this dense. What we need is to get Democrats to vote

  19. 19.

    H.E.Wolf

    Fine turnout in our local march, as well – and a laminated sign makes a good umbrella while waiting for the march to begin.

    Now back to volunteer recruitment. It’s very encouraging to see the huge volunteer sign-up numbers from all over the state!

  20. 20.

    Cheryl Rofer

    There will be demonstrations today, too. I know there will be one here in Santa Fe.

    The Crowd Counting Consortium would be happy to hear from you if you have (somewhat) reliable estimates of the marchers in your area. Here are their estimates from 2017. Their early estimate for yesterday of 54 cities (so not all marches) is one million participants.

  22. 22.

    Chyron HR

    @jk:

    you’ll need to flip some of them in 2020 to beat Trump

    Or the 100 million people who didn’t even bother to vote in 2016 could show up at the polls next time?

  24. 24.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Chyron HR:
    This. We cannot flip enough of them to notice. Our politics has become too polarized, two sides with incompatible value systems. Thank goodness we seriously outnumber them, so we just have to get our side to vote.

  25. 25.

    chris

    @Chyron HR:

    Or the 100 million people who didn’t even bother to vote in 2016 could show up at the polls next time?

    This above all! Find one, or more, get them registered and drag them to the voting booth.

  26. 26.

    JPL

    @germy: I saw that and i’m shocked that it is legal as long as it’s withing 100 miles of a border or shoreline. If that were to happen to me, I’d get arrested.

  27. 27.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    it looks like the MSM isn’t giving the massive turnout for the marches the attention it deserves

    I sort of love that, though, that the organizers got all those people out without Tea Party levels of media coverage. It’s a fool’s game, expecting their approval. Not going to happen. There’s a nice “solidarity” feeling that springs up among participants in efforts like that, where you feel it’s under the radar. “Everyone” is surprised other people knew about it :)

    I saw some of that on Twitter yesterday ” I went and I was shocked when I saw…. everyone else” :)

  28. 28.

    TaMara (HFG)

    okay, I got distracted. What I’d been seeing in advance about the 2018 Women’s March wasn’t always encouraging,

    I had the same reaction yesterday. I was so happy it was so big – I mean I feel like I’m plugged into all of this and somehow I missed the enthusiasm. I’m grateful for those who fight so hard in this way.

  31. 31.

    Honus

    @jk: “trump voters like trump” Not really news. Might be interesting if he’d actually received a majority.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    I’m giving them the rising stock market and low unemployment because it’s true. Of course, it was also true with Obama (second term) and they wouldn’t give it to him, but reality does matter to me so I don’t deny 5% unemployment and gains in 401k’s. They went from “the economy sucks and white working class are dying in the streets” one day before Trump was elected to “the economy is great and white working class have regained their rightful place as vitally important” one day after. I’m not doing that. It’s nonsense. It was nonsense when they did it and it would be nonsense if we did.

    I knew they’d move on from their intense concern about white working class the minute the election ended, however, and they have. They all put away their (unread) copies of “Hillbilly Eligy” and returned to covering CEO’s and rich people. Their populism was a fad. Nothing at all changed in areas like where I live, they just went back to being ignored.

  33. 33.

    BruceFromOhio

    The crowd in Cleveland seemed more diverse this year, and the speakers knew they had to do a better job of recognizing the challenges to and efforts by women of color. Signed petitions to get candidates on ballots, to fight the gerrymandered district map. Lots of clever signs. It was a beautiful day to exercise our 1st amendment rights.

  34. 34.

    Honus

    @jk: not really. If none flip and democrats turn out to vote trump is toast. See Virginia and Alabama. And you only need to flip 1-2% or his base and it’s a landslide.

  35. 35.

    germy

    @rikyrah:

    Since when is Ft. Lauderdale at the border?

    I remember when I was in elementary and middle school, being taught that government officials demanding “papers” was something that happened in “those bad countries.”

    @JPL:

    If that were to happen to me, I’d get arrested.

    I wonder if part of their endgame is to provoke people into getting themselves hauled away.

  36. 36.

    Gelfling 545

    @debbie: And of course a few bucks added to her personal income is worth robbing the poor. A few bucks that she’ll likely lose soon.

  37. 37.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @debbie: also, I wish her well, but I wonder how many middle class people (I’m making an assumption about her, but more broadly speaking…) realize how long their impressive to them nest-eggs will last once they start spending them down, to say nothing of, as you say, the correction that I myself have been expecting since long before trump even got on his escalator

  38. 38.

    clay

    @debbie: The WSJ just ran an article pointing out that the stock market increase in the United State is about the average of the global stock increase. Which means that some places — like the European Union — are doing much better. The article concludes that the Trump effect on stocks is likely marginal, at best.

    Not that I expect Trump supporters to read or absorb this information, from a lefty rag like the Wall Street Journal.

  40. 40.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay: I’m still stunned by how many Republicans seem to have a vivid false memory of the entire Obama presidency having been an unrelenting economic hellfire.

  41. 41.

    Duane

    Sometimes I watch the Sunday news shows. This is Dickerson’s last day as host of Disgrace the Nation. I can’t take it. His replacement is John Cole. Oh, just woke up, I was dreaming. Never mind.

  42. 42.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Of course, it was also true with Obama (second term) and they wouldn’t give it to him, 

    A good portion of “we” also wouldn’t give it to him.

  43. 43.

    Shalimar

    @jk: Their only justification seems to be the stock market, which all of economic history says won’t remain high for much longer. There is no need to court them or worry about them. They will depress their own turnout when their financial situation worsens.

  44. 44.

    debbie

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Yeah, they think if it’s in the account, it won’t disappear unless and until they spend it.

    @clay:

    Plus they all believe Trump’s lie that things radically improved after he took office, as if the previous 18 (?) quarters hadn’t also been increases.

  46. 46.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @FlipYrWhig: I think it was Tom Cole who said– in the same interview where he said I don’t know nothin’ about the economy I just let Paul Ryan do my thinkin’– that the stock market was up under trump and he didn’t see anything like that under Obama. He didn’t get mocked nearly enough because 1) as rightwing marble-headed stupes go, he’s one of the quieter ones and 2) his marble-headed stupidity is already baked in to those who do know him

  48. 48.

    debit

    @Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Yep. A prime example of “I got mine, fuck you.”

    To anyone else STILL, AFTER ALL THIS TIME, saying we need to reach out to these voters, please, just stop. Some may have buyer’s remorse, but most are only unhappy that their ugly inner core has been exposed to everyone.

  50. 50.

    germy

    G G !

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/glenn-greenwald-russia-investigation.html

    “It is not an insubstantial portion of Democratic online loyalists who believe that if you deviate from Democratic Party orthodoxy on the Trump-Russia question, you are a paid Kremlin agent,” Greenwald says. And many of those who don’t believe Greenwald works for Vladimir Putin tend to think he does his bidding for free. “I love him,” says former Gawker editor John Cook, who worked with Greenwald at the Intercept. “He’s dead, tragically wrong on this.”

    Greenwald’s home is located on a dead-end cobblestone street, under a thick canopy of trees, a few miles inland from Ipanema Beach. The grounds are large enough to comfortably accommodate Greenwald; his husband, David Miranda; their two recently adopted children; household staff; 24 formerly stray dogs; and some dog poop, which, when I visit the day before his appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight, I step in.

    Greenwald greets me in his cathedral-like living room dressed in his usual shorts and polo. When I joke that he lives in a gated community — a guard in a booth controls access to the street — he seems wounded and explains that he could afford the place only because the recent Brazilian recession had devastated Rio’s housing market. He plays coy when I ask him who owned the house previously. “I think it was some hedge-fund pig,” he says.

  51. 51.

    clay

    @debbie: Trump’s message last year:

    “The economy is the best it’s ever been!!”

    and

    “We need massive tax cuts for corporations and the rich to help the economy!”

  54. 54.

    glory b

    @TaMara (HFG): The (so far wrong) theme this year is “discouraged Dems.” I’ve heard over and over that African Americans and women and Dems in general weren’t going to turn out in VA, in AL, etc., by folks I hoped would be better. I remember Yamiche Alcindor saying her contacts told her that we weren’t turning out because we felt snubbed by Northam, ignored by Jones, and how the Dems have real concerns.

    BS. As someone said, African Americans voted in North Korean numbers. Not to say I’m certain we got this, but these media folks hhaven’t explained how they got this soooo wrong and how they’ll try to do better.

  55. 55.

    Facebones

    Considering I saw absolutely no media coverage at all about Women’s March 2, I was expecting small crowds. Bravo to all who came out and forced the media to pay attention

  57. 57.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    That’s true Baud, but again- I won’t play economy cheerleader. I feel I gave Obama credit for the gains in the economy that he was responsible for- there have to be shared facts. If the woman in the piece didn’t notice that her 401k went up during Obama’s 2nd term but miraculously notices it does under Trump then she’s a hack. I am also a hack to a certain extent- I’m a proudly partisan Democrat- but not that extent :)

    I knew this would happen and I’m sure you did too. One of the reasons I wanted Obama re-elected was I knew that any growth in the economy would be attributed to Romney and conservative policy if Obama lost.

    This is worse because now we have corporate endorsements of Trump because he gave them billions and billions in tax money. We have companies like Apple out there basically stumping for Team Trump. It sucks because obviously they have a huge platform but thinking they were anything other than multinationals who don’t want to pay taxes is naive. Trump broke a lot of promises but he didn’t break the one that matters- the one where he said he would give rich people more money.

  59. 59.

    cain

    @germy:

    Why would they expect any of us to carry our citizenship papers? They can go fuck themselves. We don’t need to carry proof of jack shit, we’re american citizens traveling in our own country. I’m also sure this is unconstitutional. Fucking ICE.

  61. 61.

    Kay

    @Facebones:

    I know there are fewer and fewer local outlets but I think local news does matter. Things can be “covered” and reach a lot of people and get scant attention from national political reporters. If the marches were covered locally then they got most of what they need as far as coverage if organizing is what they’re about and I think it is.

  63. 63.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @glory b:
    The national press are Republicans. They’re another group we’re never going to win over and effort trying is wasted. As Republicans, they have all kinds of reasons to run with stories like that. I think the top two are that this is what obviously must be true in the fantasy world inside their heads, and that they have almost no exposure to minority voters, who they have mild contempt for as not Real Americans anyway.

  65. 65.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @germy: household staff;… before his appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight, I step in…. I joke that he lives in a gated community — a guard in a booth controls access to the street — he seems wounded and explains that he could afford the place only because the recent Brazilian recession had devastated Rio’s housing market. He plays coy when I ask him who owned the house previously. “I think it was some hedge-fund pig,” he says.

    Dear god. How does anyone take this clown seriously

  68. 68.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I know that “the Left” of the Democratic Party hurt Obama by bashing the economy even as it was growing and that they probably also hurt their cause because they made it so no one could even mention good economic news without “how DARE you ignore the plight of people!” – they went wildly fucking overboard and shot themselves in the foot, as they tend to do.

    But. It’s hard to come up with some middle ground even for regular Democrats. They had to admit there were problems with income inequality and wages while promoting their role in the economic recovery. Lefties didn’t help matters anyway by insisting things were WORSE than they were but it’s harder for Democrats (in general) because Democrats are different than Republicans.

  71. 71.

    Baud

    @Kay: Yeah, I get that we are more complex, but if we want to win IMHO, we need to learn to simplify. Voters aren’t interested in joining our debating society.

  72. 72.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    Please join me in wishing BillinGlendale CA the happiest of birthdays.

  73. 73.

    germy

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Dear god. How does anyone take this clown seriously

    He apparently didn’t like the article. Called it a hit piece.

    Funniest part is when he has to get his car out of a locked parking garage, so he can drive across town for a fox news segment. His TV clothes are in the car, and there’s no attendant on duty!!

    He gets really stressed out until the attendant comes back from break and frees his SUV.

  74. 74.

    cain

    @Facebones:

    Considering I saw absolutely no media coverage at all about Women’s March 2, I was expecting small crowds. Bravo to all who came out and forced the media to pay attention

    The media never gave the attention. They rather interview Trump apologists. Best thing to do is to turn that shit off. Remember the run up to the Iraq War when we made a record in protesting. Didn’t do a thing and i twas hardly covered by the press. The press apparently wants chaos so they can sell their shitty newspapers or coverage. What they don’t realize is that if the economy takes a dump, it won’t be the elites who are going to sit by the boob tube. We’ll all be to busy trying to survive.

  76. 76.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    I agree with you that economic gains based on tax cuts are probably a short term gimmick and we will pay for all this with a spectacular crash where all the “value” will disappear because it never was created in the first place, but no one will listen to that anymore than they listened to anyone who warned about the last crash, and a lot of people warned.

    I’m pissed because I’ll get two in my working lifetime and that seems unfair. There should be one crash per work lifetime, MAX.

  78. 78.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: there was a semi-regular here through much of the campaign who kept insisting that Obama had done nothing for the lower-middle class/working people. Even before the rise of a certain shouty individual, there was a large portion of the emo-left who could not see that Medicaid expansion was a huge boon to some of the poorest working people, I suspect because they don’t know any.
    And then there’s all the hysterical talk about something called “Wall Street”. When I do wade into the rose-tweeting fever swamp, it seems they’ll never accept anything less than the destruction of “Wall Street”. I don’t know exactly what that looks like (nationalization of banks? outlawing publicly traded stocks?) I suspect they don’t either. The ObamaBros did a podcast titled “Wall St: A Necessary Evil” that sounded interesting until I saw that had invited Cenk Ugyur to talk about it.

  80. 80.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    The ObamaBros did a podcast titled “Wall St: A Necessary Evil” that sounded interesting until I saw that had invited Cenk Ugyur to talk about it.

    Didn’t he recently get Wall Street financing? Maybe he was there to talk about that.

  81. 81.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    My basic problem with Greenwald is he insists that HIS policy priorities should be everyone’s. That’s incredibly arrogant, even if I take him as a good faith actor he’s terrible for that one thing.

    I’m willing to give him his thing! I will give him that he cares deeply about civil liberties. But other people are ALLOWED to prioritize something else- civil rights or women’s rights or ordinary things like healthcare. His fury that everyone won’t join his crusade to make a narrow set of subjects Job One pisses me off. Who named him God Of What’s Really Important? Not fucking me.

  82. 82.

    Baud

    @Kay: I don’t find him credible so I don’t follow him. Does he get as worked up about Trump’s threats to civil liberties as he did with what he felt Obama’s were?

  83. 83.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Well, though, it it wasn’t just the economy. Many immigration activists were mad at Obama. I went to a Kos convention in I think ’10 where the headliner was rants on how he hadn’t helped on gay civil rights. The “anti-war”left also went after him.

    It’s the nature of the beast on the Democratic side. Trump was able to capitalize on it and exploit it better than Romney and of course Bernie did too.

  86. 86.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: all true. The whole country suffers in some degree from the cult of Presidency, but it seems to me the Left (broadly speaking) has it a lot worse than the Right

  88. 88.

    danielx

    OT, but too…too typical not to mention. For those who may not recall, the author of this piece is one Peter Suderman, whose spouse is none other than Megan McArdle, she of pink Himalayan salt and kitchen appliance fame. Given this background, you have to know what’s coming – we’re gonna have to “both sides” the shit out of this! Annnnd….wait for it….

    This week’s government shutdown is a bipartisan failure, with bad faith all around, and both parties trying to blame the other for the consequences, in hopes of winning one for the team.

    It’s nice to have things you can count on.

  89. 89.

    tobie

    @jk:

    Carol Markowicz, a 52-year-old Philadelphia resident, said she voted for former Democratic President Barack Obama in 2012 but cast her ballot for Trump.

    I don’t place much stock in Trump voters saying they voted for Obama in 2012. I think they say this so no one can accuse them of being racist. Look at what Ms. Markowitz says about immigration. There’s no way she voted for Obama if she feels we need to build a wall and to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants.

  90. 90.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Yes he does but he doesn’t attack Trump, he attacks Democrats in Congress. IMO he hates Democrats much more than he hates Republicans and that was as true when Obama was president as it is now.

    I find the constant “hypocrisy!” framing of the Greenwaldians tiresome. There’s something so smug about it. I read them sometimes on Twitter and am shocked they don’t see how fucking insufferable they are, lecturing all and sundry, the constant fucking SCOLDING is a deal breaker for me, even if I were a libertarian Democrat, which I’m not. They’re the hypocrisy police. They pass around examples of “hypocrisy” on Twitter and sigh – no one is as honest and consistent as they are, pity that! Insufferable.

  92. 92.

    Heidi Mom

    @cain: From one of my favorite movies, The Hunt for Red October: Captain Borodin (Sam Neill) recounts his plans to see America in an RV after they’ve defected, then asks his CO, Captain Ramius (Sean Connery), “No papers [required]?” Ramius replies, “No papers.”

  93. 93.

    sdhays

    @Baud: Bingo. I don’t follow him either, but whenever I hear about him lately, he’s defending Russia or dismissing evidence of treason by the Trump campaign. If you claim to care about civil liberties and can’t sort out that Russia is worse on all of this compared to the US and Putin and his merry band of mob bosses are not your allies, then you don’t really care about civil liberties. And if you don’t view Trump and the Republican Party as huge threats to civil liberties, then civil liberties really isn’t your focus.

    To me, the most charitable interpretation is that Greenwald is like Republicans: he’s totally willing to overlook any sin, defend any flaw, take anyone’s shady help as long as it furthers some ridiculously narrow and arbitrary set of priorities.

  94. 94.

    Baud

    @Kay: At a meta level, there’s really not much difference between both-sides centrists and both-sides leftists. Different philosophies in the abstract, but same anti-Dem culture.

  95. 95.

    Jeffro

    @Kay: speaking of corporate endorsements…in the Post’s business section today, in an article about Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway, it was noted that the recent tax bill will save BH $37 billion-with-a-B. Not sure over what timeframe but WOW. And BH is already sitting on over $100B in cash.

    Naturally neither the $100B nor $37B will be getting distributed out to American workers, schools, or anything else useful. Just more dough for BH shareholders to roll around in…

  97. 97.

    Gvg

    @cain: I think you overestimate the anti war protests. They were pretty minor in my area of the country and what I could find elsewhere was just not huge enough. The ones who did protest here did not impress. They seemed to be conspirousy theorists or romantics who wanted to promote themselves.
    A lot of people were very uneasy about the war prospects but it wasn’t a hard sentiment. It wasn’t sure. I also think the war support was soft and thought Bush and company knew that which is why they were so definite that it wouldn’t cost anything…lies from the get go. They got away with it because of the way Gulf War I went under papa Bush.
    The news broadcasts I saw yesterday were definitely covering the protests not ignoring them.

  98. 98.

    Tom

    @germy: And while Glenn Grenwald sits in his Brazilian splendor, the poor young woman who tragically mis-trusted him with confidential information is in jail awaiting trial, and will probably spend most of her life in prison. Glenn, you may currently be enjoying the tangible rewards of this world, but on the inside you’re a rotten, filthy morass of decay and putrification. Fuck off!

  101. 101.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    People’s feelings about the economy aren’t really fact-based. Lefties bashing Obama hurt him, but Obama himself couldn’t sell the recovery and the recovery was real and Obama is a very talented politician. People settled in to the idea that the economy sucked and nothing would change their mind, because it wasn’t based on “the economy” at all.

    It’s amusing here when the Trumpsters point to the unemployment # as proof of Trump’s genius because they’re actually slightly higher than they were last year. We’ve been at essentially full employment here for 3 going on 4 years. They finally raised wages because they didn’t have enough workers at the rock bottom rate and people were able to shop around for a job. They’re desperate at places like Wal Mart. I had one of my clients give me a flyer to work at the McDonalds with my coffee at the drive thru and she apologized, because she thought I would be insulted because obviously she knows what I do and knows I have a job. (I was not insulted). They have to hand them out to everyone :) DESPERATE for warm bodies.

  103. 103.

    Tom

    @Jeffro: I will say in Warren Buffett’s defense that he was opposed to the current tax bill and those like it (see Kansas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, and all the wonderful growth that similar tax scams gave them). In fact, Buffett has advocated for the end of the “carried interest” loophole that lets billionaires, in his words, “pay taxes at a lower rate than my secretary.”

  104. 104.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: Including the courts. I haven’t seen/felt (I have no real data) seen the judiciary as an issue among the Left since ’92. Almost every one of those Republicans in the NYT handover of the op/ed page mentioned Gorsuch

  105. 105.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    The market practically doubled during Obama (January 20, 2009 — 8,228 to January 20, 2016 — 16,093). Trump cannot possibly top that.

  106. 106.

    Baud

    @Kay: The negative framing is why I left GOS in 2010. I loved them during the Bush years, but the protoWilmerism of the first two obama years was maddening. We were able to get Obama reelected, but it bit us in the ass in 2016. I am quite bitter about the whole thing.

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Biggest shock of 2016 is how few on your side took the open seat seriously.

  108. 108.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    Yeah, my 401k did quite well. Interest rates really helped me too, and tens of millions of other people. The truth is a lot of us got some upside from the misery of others with all the foreclosures, etc. because we didn’t just refinance debt, we took the benefit and didn’t lower the payment but instead reduced the term of the loan which is where you save real money. 15 or 10 instead of 30 years. I’ve never seen interest rates like that and banks were desperate to lend. I once paid 13% interest on a mortgage when we were poor. Now I pay like…nothing. If it got any better they were going to have to pay ME to borrow from them :)

  109. 109.

    tobie

    @Kay: Given everything we know about Russian disinformation campaigns, I think we have to ask how much of the fury directed at Obama from various groups (anti-war Dems, immigration activists, economic populists, LGBTQ advocates, etc.) wasn’t encouraged by outside actors.

  110. 110.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    And then there’s all the hysterical talk about something called “Wall Street”.

    The Left views everything as a class war, where the rich are evil and must be torn down. If you do not approach everything in terms that rich people are the enemy, you must be on the side of the rich.

    @Kay:
    My main problem with Greenwald is that he’s a liar. I don’t give him the credit of caring about civil liberties, because he argues about them dishonestly, with ridiculous and offensive strawmen – and I mean ridiculous – and conveniently leaves out facts he has to know that blow up his arguments. He’s a Libertarian ratfucker for whom the true enemy is always Democrats.

  111. 111.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I think you were RIGHT-ER about the whole thing than I was. I knew it was damaging but I discounted the damage too much. Thought it wasn’t big and it was big. I knew Bernie was hurting Clinton though, because he was parroting Trump’s lines.

    I sympathized with her at that one debate where she got mad because he WAS full of shit with that wide-eyed “who ME? bullshit. He was calling her a crook. He refused to own that, which made me lose respect for him. My favorite Clinton aspects are the things that pundits hate. I like her best when she’s fucking had it with the bullshit and speaks plainly. I found that hugely appealing.

  112. 112.

    Roger Moore

    @clay:

    The WSJ just ran an article pointing out that the stock market increase in the United State is about the average of the global stock increase.

    Which just means the bubble is global rather than local.

  113. 113.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: I sympathized with her at that one debate where she got mad because he WAS full of shit with that wide-eyed “who ME? bullshit. He was calling her a crook. He refused to own that, which made me lose respect for him.

    He did the same thing when challenged about his calls to primary Obama in 2012. Literally waving his hands in the air and dismissively saying “that was meany years ago”

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    He does this thing that shitty lawyers do in my work world. In my head I shorten it to using “clearly”, which is a kind of trigger word for me in lawyer work- I know bullshit is coming after “clearly” because what it means is “I am about to pronounce something and I’m hoping you’re too lazy or cowed to think”. Not LIES, but spin and omissions. I’m sorry but he just screams “weasel” to me. It;s okay! There are a lot of them and sometimes they have redeeming qualities but that “weasel” just jumps right out at me after practicing in and around them for so long.

  115. 115.

    JMG

    @Roger Moore: I don’t think it’s a bubble. It’s pretty much standard for this stage of the business cycle. We’re almost a decade out from the financial crisis. Capital is again looking for yield.

  116. 116.

    tobie

    @Roger Moore: Europe’s been late to the recovery but it has now come and seems to be pulling the US, which is starting to flat-line. If you look at statistics like new car sales, the economy is beginning to slow down.

  117. 117.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    @Kay:

    What I find appealing about Hillary is that all the evil in the world joined together in a Legion of Doom to defeat her.

  118. 118.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    He was running against her based on his constant, endless theme that she IS CORRUPT. To not admit that when she herself called him on it is one of the most cowardly things I have ever seen. It also made me think he would be a lousy president because hes weak and a coward. We weren’t hiring him to be our bullshit “conscience man” – we were hiring him to run something. “Conscience man” is a different job altogether.

  119. 119.

    HeleninEire

    Just saw The Post. Pretty good. A bit formulaic, but it was Spielberg and starring Streep and Hanks. We also knew the outcome, so… But he put a funny joke at the end. All in all very good.

  120. 120.

    Betty Cracker

    @sdhays: My sense is Greenwald’s hysterical insistence that Russian meddling a) didn’t happen, or b) if it did happen, is no big deal is driven entirely by his zeal to protect the goose that laid the golden egg, i.e., Snowden. Greenwald’s fame and accolades all flow from his relationship with Snowden — before that, he was just a snippy, long-winded blogger with fringe media connections.

    His post-Snowden fame is tinged with irony since, when Snowden originally contacted Greenwald, Greenwald ignored him, so Snowden had to go to Laura Poitras, who recognized the importance of Snowden as a source and clued Greenwald in. How shocking that a woman did the legwork and a man took the credit! (Not.)

    Anyhoo, Greenwald needs Snowden to be pure and righteous. And, like any zealot, he attacks people who criticizes his idol and makes excuses for those who protect the object of veneration. It’s a threat to Snowden’s halo for WikiLeaks to be revealed as an autocrat’s tool. WikiLeaks led Snowden to Moscow, after all. So Greenwald is still — absurdly — claiming that Assange is playing eleventy-dimensional chess instead of acknowledging reality.

    Snowden is one of an army of self-important, pencil-necked schlubs whose delusions of grandeur have plagued history since Cain picked up a stone to kill Abel. Lee Harvey Oswald was another. Bitter little Napoleons whose bosses / coworkers / girlfriends failed to universally acknowledge their greatness, and who responded with a dramatic “I’ll show YOU.”

    I’m glad Snowden absconded with some files instead of trying to assassinate the president, but the impulse is similar, IMO, and there’s very little that’s “noble” about it, even if the originating action results in something positive.

  121. 121.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I know everyone is sick to death of the national past time of bashing Hillary Clinton but I really feel if she were able to BE HERSELF she would have been better off. I saw flashes of her and THAT’S when I was proud to support her. But she seemed incapable of trusting us to show that more, her real self. I get it- her mistrust is 100% justified based on 30 years of bad faith assholes lying about her, but what a goddamned shame. She woulda been a great President.

  124. 124.

    Roger Moore

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Even before the rise of a certain shouty individual, there was a large portion of the emo-left who could not see that Medicaid expansion was a huge boon to some of the poorest working people, I suspect because they don’t know any.

    Wilmer never would have been a thing if those people hadn’t already been there ready to support him. Similarly, many of those people don’t understand that things like childcare, sexual harassment, and racial discrimination are really economic issues, not just “identity politics”.

  125. 125.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    No one cares about stories about his supporters.

    Pinchette (Pinchini? Mini-Pinch? Little Pinche?) Sulzberger begs to differ. And he also wants you to know that the shutdown is entirely the fault of the Democrat Party..

    I had hopes that Junior would be more like Gramps than Pop, but it’s clear (so far) that it is not to be.

  126. 126.

    hitchhiker

    Yesterday I went from the Seattle march to a memorial service for an old friend. She passed at 93, which means she fell into the demo of women born at a time when their talents and energy had very few outlets. It was wrenching to see her lively young adult granddaughters reading proudly the poetry she’d kept hidden in drawers.

    The service was in a downtown church our family was once part of — until that became too much of a difficult charade, given that I’ve always been a firm FSM-er. I did like the ready-made community, full of educated people who welcomed insecure me and trusted me with things to do that felt real & useful. Like all those sorts of churches, it’s been in decline for awhile, in the sense of losing members … but not money. There’s a fat endowment, the income from which now pays to keep things running. These well-intentioned, well-off, well-positioned people cannot/will not support their own building and staff! They make solemn, self-congratulatory noises about their service to the community, but it’s paid for with money that’s earned off the stock market.

    And the only black face in the room yesterday belonged to their new pastor, who sat in her white robe, impassive, while the service for my friend unfolded. Later I said to her that this was definitely the whitest thing I’d seen all day … white European music, white people stories, white men reading from what other white men wrote. She laughed this big, knowing laugh.

    I don’t know what made me want to tell you all this, except that we live in a weird & disorienting time, and the buoys that used to show where we are relative to one another are unreliable — in good ways.

  127. 127.

    FlipYrWhig

    This is probably a low blow but I have intense pity for the young people who will now have to suffer through being parented by Glenn Greenwald.

  128. 128.

    Kristine

    @Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):

    I’m bowled over that Chicago had more people marching this year than last.

    I was there. I missed last year’s march, so I was really glad I was able to attend this one. Voter registrants walked through the crowd. Folks running for office set out the donation hats. The mood was upbeat.

    I’m sure it helped that the temps had warmed over the last week. But even so, I was also surprised that turnout was higher than last year’s. Hoping it bodes well for the midterm elections.

  129. 129.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Kay:
    The thing is, that’s fine in a court of law. It’s your job. You represent one side, not the truth. When you’re doing it under the title of legal expert to the public, it’s a disgusting malfeasance and reveals your personal prejudices.

    @Roger Moore:
    They particularly don’t understand that even if those issues had no economic effect at all, they would still be at least as important as fighting economic inequality.

  130. 130.

    louc

    Quibbling a little bit about the first picture in the tweets. That’s from last year’s DC march, which because there were so many people, spilled onto the blocked off inauguration route on Pennsylvania Ave. Police shrugged their shoulders and let the marchers use it even though they didn’t have permits because there were so damned many people.

    This year’s, with probably tens of thousands, went to the White House from the opposite direction. My gripe with this year’s D.C. organizers: The march was supposed to start at 1. At 2 p.m. people were still speechifying. The crowd first yelled “March! March!” and then voted with its feet and left to go march.

    One anecdote: Some a-hole anti-abortion protester left over from the pro-life march was out with a bullhorn yelling anti-abortion propaganda. The marchers literally bellowed at first to drown him out. Then started chanting “my body, my choice!”

    The best signs: grab ’em by the midterms. Fat lies matter. etc.

  131. 131.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @jk: My big objection to these stories is they have a cookie cutter feel to them. Like these reporters are talking to the same people or just rewriting the same story.

  132. 132.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Frankensteinbeck: t

    wo sides with incompatible value systems.

    That’s the conservative BS; what there is a bunch of minor differences that about been grossly exaggerated by the so call culture warriors as part of their grift. Remember all of those Trump voters were after the socialism Trump was promising.

  133. 133.

    Ruckus

    @debbie:
    This is always a problem with people gambling with their futures when they have no understanding of the rules and risks of the game. They will get burned, and badly and because they are idiots they will blame the wrong people. The example here is someone who thinks that drumpf is a smart businessman. They believe bullshit, they like bullshit, they feed on bullshit, because they think that’s the fuel of business. And in some ways they are right, but not in the ways that count. Sooner or later bullshit overwhelms, like it’s doing for drumpf and the republican congress. It can take decades but it always overwhelms those who practice it above all else, at some point. And when it does it’s always spectacular. Not necessarily in a good way, take the French Revolution.
    On another note and the subject of the post, we, the people have been quiet because the republican bullshit has been stealing all the limelight. But that also has been engaging and enraging, because while a lot of us saw through his bullshit, now far more people are. That was maybe euphoria last year, just being against drumpf. This year was different, this year was defiance. Last year was sadness and reaction to a horrible decades back step in our politics. This year is a renewed effort to not only take that step and move it forward again but to leapfrog ahead. We forget that politics is starts and stops, hopefully 2 steps forward and maybe 1 step back, this last year has been 10 steps back. I’m encouraged that there is a real power at hand to take back that 10 steps and add in a couple more.

  134. 134.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I keep saying I might be interested in stories about trump voters who are disappointed. Who believed the crap about “running the country like a business” and now see, maybe, I hope, for a moment, what stupid notion that is, especially when your business man is a serial-bankrupt gameshow host. What possible value is there in “Jesus sent him to pack the courts” or “herp-dee-derp, the libtards and foreigners are all so mad, haw haw!”

  135. 135.

    Jeffro

    @Tom:

    I will say in Warren Buffett’s defense that he was opposed to the current tax bill and those like it (see Kansas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, and all the wonderful growth that similar tax scams gave them). In fact, Buffett has advocated for the end of the “carried interest” loophole that lets billionaires, in his words, “pay taxes at a lower rate than my secretary.”

    I hear you (and read about WB’s opposition to the tax bill). I was just remarking on it because a) it was still fresh in my mind from this morning and b) it’s illustrative of what Republicans just did: essentially gave a company with over $100B in cash another $37B to play with. It’s crazy.

    For just $1B – the ‘crumbs’, not even a genuine ‘piece of the pie’ that we’re taking about here – how many low-cost housing units could be built? How many kids could have health insurance? Or just drop it into cancer research, or renewable energy conversions. Something actually useful. But instead, it’ll be added to BH’s pile, some of which will eventually get kicked out to well-off shareholders who will add it to their piles.

  136. 136.

    Kay

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    When you’re doing it under the title of legal expert to the public, it’s a disgusting malfeasance and reveals your personal prejudices.

    Absolutely. You said it much better than I did.

    I also feel that Greenwald shows his cards on the arguments he chooses. He was arguing that Democrats are hypocrites for not supporting Manning under a “diversity analysis”. But that isn’t the Democratic argument on diversity. It isn’t diversity for the sake of diversity or diversity divorced from merit. That’s actually the Right wing caricature of the Democratic argument. That he doesn’t SEE this when he’s putting it forth makes me think he’s a conservative, at base. He really doesn’t understand our arguments. He argues the conservative caricature. That’s his go-to or default position, the one he feels comfortable advancing. What it ISN’T is an accurate portrayal of the Democratic position.

  137. 137.

    debbie

    @hitchhiker:

    I’m glad her granddaughters found your friend’s poetry. It’s a good lesson for them: People are always more than you think they are.

  138. 138.

    Roger Moore

    @JMG:
    The stock market has to be a bubble. It’s much higher than it was at its peak under W, and it was only that high back then because of a bubble. I don’t think the current bubble is as dangerous as the 2007 bubble was, if only because Dodd-Frank has helped to prevent the kind of leverage that turned that bubble into a financial crisis, but it’s solidly in bubble territory.

  139. 139.

    Mandarama

    We had 15,000 enthusiastic marchers here in Nashville yesterday! Many great signs, and a cheerful good will and determination in the air. I got some great photos, and I feel renewed. Democrats are nowhere near resigned or apathetic here in TN.

    May we succeed in getting Phil Bredesen into Corker’s Senate seat, and sending Marsha Blackburn home to spend more time with her family. ??

  140. 140.

    Ruckus

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Dear god. How does anyone take this clown seriously?

    They don’t. At least those with any firing synapsis left. Mocking on the other hand is still valid. Look where the interviewee worked, for Tucker Carlson. And he was mocking that clown. Not sure that was his intention though.

  141. 141.

    Fair Economist

    @Kay:

    I’m willing to give [Greenwald] his thing! I will give him that he cares deeply about civil liberties.

    No he doesn’t. He ranted endlessly about drone attacks under Obama. Then Trump took over, TRIPLED the rate of drone attacks and – Greenwald goes silent.

    He’s a paid Russian stooge.

  142. 142.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:
    Who only has one in their lifetimes? Granted I’m a bit older but I’ve had several. The ones caused by politicians were all caused by republican politicians. I don’t expect the current republican politician to be any different. And there is always euphoria from the powers that be when those republican politicians screw all of us. (The powers that be have their heads far enough up their own asses that they believe their own bullshit. Every time.)

  143. 143.

    trollhattan

    Estimates of 500k marching in LA boggle my mind–essentially my city’s entire population coming out in a coordinated fashion to support a movement? Amazing. Admit I thought year 2 would fizzle compared the first march but it seems to stay relevant with every new horror we keep experiencing.

    30k locally, don’t know how that compares with last year but probably no fewer this go–helped that the weather was ideal.

  144. 144.

    Ruckus

    @rikyrah:

    The civil liberties of non-Whites don’t concern him.

    The civil liberties of non-Whites and those people with vaginas, that he doesn’t understand, don’t concern him.
    Fixit for you.

  146. 146.

    cain

    @Baud:

    What I find appealing about Hillary is that all the evil in the world joined together in a Legion of Doom to defeat her.

    I have a different take on that. I think they all wanted Hillary to win so that they can get their hate on, be the party of no, while fundraising like crazy from their crazy base. That I think would have been the best scenario for them. They also would have a pretty good functioning foreign policy etc. But now they have to work for everything and so many parts of the so-called Legion of Evil are evil and nuts, and it’s difficult to govern when you’ve become crazy and your base has as well.

  147. 147.

    redoubt

    @Frankensteinbeck: When Democrats are in power the national press default setting is “adversarial”; when Republicans are in power the national press default setting is “advertorial”.

  148. 148.

    Ruckus

    @Jeffro:
    You are absolutely right.
    But look at it from WB’s standpoint. He didn’t want it. He already knows that $100 billion is sitting there. He still didn’t want this. He will take it though and why hasn’t he just donated some of that $100 billion? Could he not just donate some/all of that $37 billion?
    Just asking for a friend.

  149. 149.

    Roger Moore

    @Frankensteinbeck:
    I guess what I find so frustrating is their inability to acknowledge that economic issues extend beyond the economic issues they choose to focus on. How can somebody claim inequality is a big issue and dismiss equal work for equal pay?

  150. 150.

    Ruckus

    @trollhattan:
    I was at the LA march this year, couldn’t even get to it last year. I have experience at estimating crowds and have been pretty good at it in the past, and my reckoning was 250,000. I’m glad to be off by so much. And thinking about it, the metro was expecting a huge crowd. The light rail trains added an additional car and it was standing room in all of them. They had buses waiting at stations to take people if anything went wrong or if the crowds were even bigger than thought. Someone did proper prep for this in LA, and it worked.

  151. 151.

    Gvg

    @rikyrah: no where in Florida is more than 100 miles from a coast line. Soooo we are near a border. Legally correct and WWII had U boat sightings off the coast and patrols. Cubans used rafts and sometimes swam the last bit to get here. There actually is people and drug smuggling into our swamps tho not dramatic levels.
    I am not happy with anything I hear about ICE I hear lately.

  152. 152.

    Gvg

    @Ruckus: actually no he can’t donate it. That’s not all HIS money, it’s the fund he manages for stockholders which he built up. He owns some of it and can give some away but that number really isn’t his personal property.
    Gates does give a lot away, I think he is a lot richer. Also I think they had a charity project together but can’t recall details now.

  153. 153.

    Felanius Kootea

    @jk: We’re not going to flip die-hard, delusional Trump supporters to win. We’re going to register many of those who sat it out in 2016 and get those new voters to the polls. That’s already happening. Maybe it’s a good thing the news media keeps interviewing the same Trump supporters over and over again. They won’t know what hit them.

  154. 154.

    gammyjill

    Several thoughts.
    1. I traveled to DC last year for the march but this year stayed home in Chicago and attended yesterday’s rally (didn’t stay for the March) with my son, daughter in law, and two granddaughters, ages 4 and 2. Their parents took them last year to the event and this year I joined them. I was shocked to find out there were over 250,000 people there yesterday. Shocked…and entirely pleased. One of the reasons may have been the exceptional weather yesterday – 45 degrees, no wind, and cloudless blue skies. Today is overcast and dank…

    2. I’m so glad that the day was successful. I’d love to see some listing of the numbers of people, but can’t seem to find a website listing them. Anyone have a link?

    3. The importance of the second year of events nation-wide is, I think, more important to show Republican legistators that they have a lot to fear in November. I really don’t care what Trump feels, but I want to scare the hell out of the Republicans. Also, the fact that we probably WILL take to the streets if Trump sacks Mueller is more probable after yesterday’s events.

  155. 155.

    J R in WV

    @Schlemazel:

    Il Duce made the trains run on time

    Actually, he didn’t. What he did do was make it illegal to discuss late trains or travel schedules in a negative light.

  157. 157.

    Another Scott

    Still dead thread. Dunno if anyone else has made this point: The photo in the Luisa tweet above is from the 2017 March (you can tell from the location and the DC flags (from the inauguration) on the light poles) – not yesterday.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  161. 161.

    VFX Lurker

    @Baud:

    The negative framing is why I left GOS in 2010. I loved them during the Bush years, but the protoWilmerism of the first two obama years was maddening. We were able to get Obama reelected, but it bit us in the ass in 2016. I am quite bitter about the whole thing.

    Same here. GOS was great about pointing out the many flaws and failures about the American healthcare system, but I left shortly after one of its prominent writers implored her readers to “Kill the [healthcare] Bill” in 2009-2010. They correctly identified problems, but their focus seemed to be more about tearing down the health insurance companies instead of paying for people’s medical bills.

    I left GOS for the more pragmatic Balloon-Juice in 2010 and haven’t looked back since.

  162. 162.

    Suzanne

    Just got home from the PHX march! It was surprisingly chilly, but turnout looked to be comparable to last year’s. Anne Laurie, are you collecting photos?

  163. 163.

    Tehanu

    @jk:

    Belinda Miller has never regretted voting for him in 2016. “My 401(k) and my 403 have soared, and if anybody doesn’t realize that, they’ve been asleep for a year,” said Miller,

    Republicanism in a nutshell. “Hey, I’ve got mine, who cares if storm troopers are beating up people in the streets?” The number of people in this country who think that voting their pocketbooks is good citizenship never fails to amaze and disgust me.

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    The Left views everything as a class war, where the rich are evil and must be torn down.

    This is such bullshit. Where do you get your talking points, from Father Coughlin and Joe McCarthy? As somebody eloquently pointed out a while back, it’s only class war when we fight back. Kindly FOAD.

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