What else can I say?
Well, Fuck
This post is in: John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House"
Well, Fuck
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Sis
Right there with you.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Sometimes, that’s all that can be said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNVEQgXsBgs
If that link doesn’t work, google:
fuck scene the wire
Layer8Problem
You. Above all, you and those close to you and that you love. You take care of yourself and them.
Oh, and call up Omnes and make sure he’s ok. Thanks.
schrodingers_cat
This community no longer feels like a safe space for a nonwhite, immigrant person like myself. I feel unwelcome. I don’t know how long I will stick around. Also I will register as an independent. I don’t want to be a part of the party that pushed a successful President out for optics.
I was afraid something like this would happen back when the party elders, I am looking at you Nancy Pelosi didn’t have Biden’s back. Yesterday’s result is disappointing but also unsurprising
FDRLincoln
People want fascism. They’ll get it, good and hard.
My concern now is protecting my family and doing the best I can to shield those who will be subjected to the upcoming persecutions.
America, as I’ve known and loved it, is dead.
Maybe a new and better one will rise in its place.
Ohio Mom
I’m still in denial. How did this happen? How could this be?
With a smidgen of bargaining. How will will manage?
Not yet up to anger and yelling Fuck. I am sure I’ll get there.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Another pertinent comment from a reader at electoral-vote:
I honestly thought that the issue of race and gender, while always a factor in national politics, wasn’t *that* much of an obstacle. Sure, an obstacle but with the right candidate and conditions (like this time) wasn’t insurmountable. Boy was I wrong.
New Deal democrat
Today is January 30, 1933.
Help those you can. Say a prayer for those (e.g., Ukrainians) you can’t.
Now you know who our countrymen truly are (Native Americans and enslaved Africans say hello).
NobodySpecial
A reminder to Juicers that open enrollment for the ACA has started; it might very well be the last year it’s available. If you’re not registered, now would be a good time.
rikyrah
Nothing to say 😔
Delosgatos
Just Fuck.
Ohio Mom
@schrodingers_cat: You think you’ll find a safer place?
As a Jew, I know there are no completely safe places, just conditionally and temporary ones. There have been antisemetic comments here, I just roll my eyes (and I don’t mean comments complaining and cursing at Israel, I can berate that country with the best of them).
I will miss you if you leave. I think your voice makes this a stronger community.
Dangerman
Pithy. Efficient. I’m more of a “what were you dumb motherfuckers thinking?” kinda guy. But fuck will do.
I’ve already had a Trumper celebrate with me this morning. My politics are not known. I think my best fuck off look gave him the info he needed to walk away.
ETA: I’ve been told I look mean. I’m the opposite really. But when I need to give THAT look, it is apparently effective.
billcoop4
I agree completely.
BC
Mo MacArbie
You’ll get no recriminations from a lurker like me. I ask that everyone else who just knows why this happened to, uh, just reflect on that a bit longer before telling us.
Like democracy, Balloon Juice is the worst place on the net, except for all the other ones.
schrodingers_cat
@Ohio Mom: IDK perhaps not. But I want to lay low for a while. Did that when W won again.
Harrison Wesley
The president of Mexico is a woman. Apparently such a reality can’t be imagined by the Leader Of The Free World, Unipolar Rules-Based Order version.
Omnes Omnibus
@Layer8Problem: Hey, I never panicked. I went straight to disgust. This country knowingly chose what’s coming. A lot of us don’t deserve it and worked hard to prevent it, but we’ll get it just the same.
Betty Cracker
I think analysts who are pointing out that incumbents are behind the 8-ball everywhere (not just the US) and that any incumbent Democrat would have lost may be right. There’s a lot of inchoate rage in the post-pandemic world. It even bit Trump’s ass four years ago.
We had great candidates who executed an excellent campaign. We came up short. It sucks, but blaming Democrats rather than the morons who voted for a decompensating fascist makes no sense at all, IMO. Fuck that noise, I say.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Seconded.
MazeDancer
45% of Hispanics voted for a party that objects to Spanish translations of anything.
My guidelines in life have always been Kindness, Truth, Beauty, Justice, and Humor. Now that America is dead, left with humor.
Having cats has kept me alive. And pet shelters will be in trouble as the economy collapses. But my economy will collapse, too.
People who somehow managed to survive abusive childhoods barely made it through Trump 1. Suffering the constant onslaught from an evil tyrant who can’t be stopped was too tiggering.
Not as many will make it through Trump 2.
Maybe, eventually, I will rally to fight for them. And cats.
RandomMonster
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” –H.L. Mencken
This country is about to go through some things.
Quinerly
Trump won first time voters by 9 points. 54% to 45%
Belafon
At 4 am this morning, that was the message I sent to my family.
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat:
Maybe your feelings of being unwelcome right now have more to do with
than with your being nonwhite or an immigrant.
Few people here want to relitigate that whole business. And it’s really not the time for it.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: Sherrod Brown helped push Biden out, after running a Tim Ryan campaign (Republican Lite) all summer. Now he’s out too.
We may still have the House so I am not going to be blaming Pelosi.
schrodingers_cat
Getting rid of Biden was an own goal. We tried telling you but were drowned out, belittled and called nasty names by “valued” commenters on here.
different-church-lady
Good morning community.
I avoided the news all last night. Finally decided to get it over with a few minute ago. At least this time I was emotionally prepared.
We cannot do anything about how fucked up half the country is. We just have to keep fighting it off.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: She was instrumental in pushing Biden out. Election results speak for themselves.
CliosFanBoy
Talked with one of my old colleagues. Her DACA students are terrified.
Ramona
@Quinerly: I’ll be first in line to congratulate them on their fine “purchase” the first time they get a taste of Trumps tariffs!
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
This. There are going to be challenges ahead of us, and we’ll need to be as united as reasonably possible in facing them, and in doing what we can to oppose and resist the Orange Fascist’s agenda.
schrodingers_cat
Anyway I am going to work on my watercolor skills.
The Red Pen
After my cat Philbert died, we waited a while to give our other cat, Ender, a chance to mourn. Then we got a new cat, Fizz. She’s a little over a year old and tiny — 6.7 pounds/3 kg. She’s delightful and Ender plays with her in the morning.
I mention this because it’s all I’m going to be thinking about today. I have no idea what y’all are talking about. Nothing happened. Just thinkin’ about the cats.
Quinerly
@lowtechcyclist: I guess I don’t have a hands clapping emoji. If I did I would hold it down for 5 seconds. Thank you.
the pollyanna from hell
Relentless positivity doesn’t prove anything, but I have to live up to my nym. The Repugs actually lost, because now they’ll make a mess. They will fail to clean it up.
narya
@Betty Cracker: @Baud: Thirded.
Layer8Problem
@schrodingers_cat: Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Do what you need to do. But thanks for being here.
different-church-lady
Thought: we don’t have a political problem. We have a societal problem. Evil actors have become too good at using technology to manipulate.
It’s an explanation, I suppose.
Ohio Mom
@schrodingers_cat: I get that. I didn’t come by very much in the run up to the election, the certainty that Harris would win and win big felt unwise to me. I guess I am a pessimist at heart, no matter how I try not to be.
rivers
@Mo MacArbie: Yes, a thousand times. Right now BJ seems one of the few places where I want to go online because it really is a community. But that’s based on my assumption that we can be kind to each other.
Starfish
@schrodingers_cat: Have fun in the community of your choosing. I hope you feel supported there.
Sorry about the loss of your mother.
Layer8Problem
@Omnes Omnibus: Good! Mostly I thought you were getting a good night’s sleep somehow. I’m told the Army trains one to sleep wherever at any time thanks to exhaustion or something.
I’m disgusted to the gills, and trying to think of what the most useful thing to do is for those I care about who are despairing.
trnc
I’d like to know how we got to a turnout of about 20 million less, given the historic early vote. IOW, what was everyone doing yesterday instead of voting? I know votes are still being counted, but I suspect we’ll still have a turnout of 15 million less than 2020.
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: What?! What was Sherrod Brown thinking running a Tim Ryan style campaign?
The Dems can never outbid the Repubs on self-victimization or xenophobia, & shouldn’t want to.
schrodingers_cat
@lowtechcyclist: I don’t need you tell me how I feel. White women’s voices have more weight here especially since WG has run the whole show. I don’t need your gaslighting right now. Fuck off.
suzanne
@Betty Cracker: Agree. I think this election was unwinnable.
I think people are genuinely not experiencing the benefits of a good economy, like more buying power and more freedom of choice in where and how they live. I also think that a lot of men consider “having a financially dependent wife who cares for my home and my children” to be a keystone of “a good economy”.
Having women earn more degrees and make more money and have more social prominence actually hurts those people’s perception of the economy.
Matt Smith
Appreciate y’all. Stopping by here was a better start to my day than some of the other things I tried.
Quinerly
I took a break. Have been up 28 hrs. What’s the deal with Trump’s ad about Trans folks that apparently ran 10,0000 times? Walked back in from being outside and the MJ panel are going on and on about it and how Harris campaign didn’t address it.
CliosFanBoy
Looking for a meme I saw earlier but neglected to save. It shows German civilians being forced to view the idea in a death camp and features a quote (by Ike?) about the German people knowingly putting their country into the hands of madmen. If you have a copy, please put a link to it here it in a reply. Thank you.
MazeDancer
In the 80’s and 90’s, I would oft say it feels like we are overwhelmed with information before we have the ability to process it.
That was before the media took on the task of processing with “nothing to see here”.
Ramona
@schrodingers_cat: the (corporate) mainstream media sanewashed Trump, did not put fascism in its proper historical context, buried John Kelly’s proclamation of Trump’s fascism on page 12, blathered on about Biden being old and did not adequately cover how Bill Barr, David Weiss and the judge in charge stitched up Hunter Biden. I doubt Biden could have prevailed while also doing the tough work of being President.
I’m a desi immigrant and I value your incisive commentary. Don’t leave and don’t fear.
CliosFanBoy
@Layer8Problem: I agree. I hope you stay SC. But do what is best for you. I’ll miss you if you go, but will understand.
@mistermix.bsky.social
The Republicans will make a mess — and they will build up a myth around that mess that blames others.
This is the challenge facing us next year — how to hang it around their heads.
taumaturgo
Guys, what happened? She had more money, the best message, the best GOTV organization, enthusiasm, and the complete support of the democratic establishment, and yet they could deliver? Losing twice to a senile, fascist, decrepit narcissist? What happened, more importantly, can the party change? Should the leadership be fired for this colossal catastrophe?
Philbert
@Betty Cracker: Agree.
As one of the Udalls said, ‘The people have spoken. The bastards.’
different-church-lady
Welp, so much for Selzer.
Tim C.
@suzanne: that and prices are higher and most Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Trump won’t be able to fix that, and in fact will probably make it worse.
FDRLincoln
We had an excellent candidate who had an excellent campaign. Economic conditions were sound. The electoral college didn’t fuck us this time.
We lost because a majority of American voters consciously, knowingly, chose a man who says he wants to be dictator and wants to kill his opponents.
So, what now? How do we resist?
I’m not going to waste any time thinking about what Kamala or the Democrats should have done differently.
THIS IS ON THE VOTERS. They picked a rapist, traitor, felon, fraud, knowingly and deliberately.
How do we protect our families and the victims of the approaching darkness? That’s the question now.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Betty Cracker:
My morning-after musings on this I hope won’t be construed as “blaming Democrats”. Every campaign has to make strategic decisions based on their read of the proverbial land and proceed. If that doesn’t prove to be the “correct” way (based totally on hindsight), it shouldn’t result in blame. We did the best we could with great people.
It’s we as a country and our political culture that’s awful and this little exercise in democracy shows that awfulness. We are well and truly fucked.
Starfish
@trnc: Some states were aggressively tossing votes for various reasons. That has been going on for a few weeks now.
different-church-lady
@taumaturgo: What happened is humans.
Belafon
@schrodingers_cat: Would Biden have won, though?
Starfish
@YY_Sima Qian: Was he? The postcards we sent on Sherrod’s behalf were flaming liberal.
dlwchico
Today I am Charlton Heston.
https://youtu.be/pbBpinyqE-0?si=BPs_WXsCoLfGXQVR
New Deal democrat
@trnc:
At the voting location I was at yesterday, the promised wave of voters late in the day never materialized. A little increase about 4 p.m., and then absolutely dead in the last couple of hours.
Karen S.
@taumaturgo: This is a deeply racist and sexist country, so there’s that.
Lobo
Be good and gracious to everyone here. We are all hurting and grieving. TPM had a good summary of the situation without sugarcoating it. I am a bit depressed and disappointed in my fellow Latinos. It is also unpleasant to have this Come to Jesus moment of who a large portion of fellow Americans are. A lot of misogyny and racism. I am processing it.
I will be trying to create sparks of hope in the darkness. Many of you are that and I thank you. Be good to yourselves to.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@schrodingers_cat: i wish you would reconsider hanging around: your perspective is invaluable.
Layer8Problem
That’s a troll, folks. No value in engaging.
Geminid
@the pollyanna from hell: Nice to see you, hope you drop by more often.
The Red Pen
@different-church-lady: Selzer has only been wrong once before.
Now she’s been wrong twice. Still not a bad record.
Steve LaBonne
@Karen S.: I never could have imagined that Trump could win the popular vote, but now we have clarity. This is undeniably what our country is.
different-church-lady
@The Red Pen: Well, all very nice, but at least this time I was smart enough not to hang my emotional health on it.
Ken
It’s over. Come January 20, Alito and Thomas will retire and be replaced by 40 somethings. We will have a 6-3 conservative supermajority for 25 years. This country has no concept of what is about to happen. And yes, Trump will f*ck things up and Gavin Newsome and Pete Buttigieg will win in 2028, but it won’t much matter.
Belafon
As someone who complained big time when people started trying to get Biden to drop out of the race after the debate rather than just saying “It was one bad debate”, I’m not sure he would have won anyway. Nor any Democrat. Especially since 44% of voters saw Harris as too progressive. Would Pete have won under those conditions?
Omnes Omnibus
Cole from the Bad Place.
you can shove your hot takes and snap analysis up your arse. I need a couple months before I hear your bullshit blaming me or anyone else who voted for team good.
I heartily endorse his sentiment.
Steve LaBonne
@New Deal democrat: Wouldn’t have helped. Trump cleaned up among new voters. Been saying for years to people who think high turnout is a panacea, be careful what you wish for. We should have known better since 2016.
Chris Johnson
@the pollyanna from hell: That at least is beyond question. They gonna FUCK UUUUUP. They’ve got rid of everybody competent on their team and gone over completely to Trump family members and Russia-driven organizers and personalities. Trump didn’t appear on Tim Pool for nothing.
They’re all like Trump now. All the competent ones bailed and voted for Harris. These people wouldn’t be able to run a lemonade stand.
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was telling my wife that I must’ve gone through the five stages of grief when I was up in the middle of the night last night, because this morning I’m pretty much: yeah, this happened, too late to undo it. All we can do is figure out how best to move forward from here. After anti-satori, chop wood, draw water.
MisterForkbeard
I think “well fuck” is appropriate.
We’ll just have to deal with it. Probably for 1-2 decades. And I hope there’s going to be a significant amount of buyer’s remorse for people who voted for him.
@lowtechcyclist: That’s sort of where I’m at. For the next 10 minutes, anyway.
Steve LaBonne
@Belafon: There was a massive, widespread swing to the right. I don’t believe for a moment that any candidate could have reversed it. Johnny Unbeatable doesn’t actually exist.
kalakal
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
This.
Eolirin
@different-church-lady: I’ve been saying that a ton.
The Truffle
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I hope it is do-able. We need new faces for the party, though.
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat:
I can’t stop you from burning your bridges.
different-church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus:
Practice makes perfect.
Harrison Wesley
@Omnes Omnibus: Absolutely. The Trump presidency is the product of people who voted for it, not people who opposed it.
Karen S.
As sad and angry as I feel at the moment, I also feel glad that the majority of Black men and women like me voted for Harris. It’s a bittersweet feeling, though. And, as a Black woman (and a lesbian to boot) I’m tired of trying to help make this country live up to its proclaimed ideals. I’m taking what will probably be a long break from all of that.
Xentik
@schrodingers_cat: I feel your pain. For a moment I wanted to come here and bring all that up, but honestly I just don’t have it in me anymore. Not even sure what the point would be honestly.
The fact is that the Media wanted Trump. They did everything they could to normalize him and attack her right up to the end. Additionally sizeable portion of our country is either ok with fascism or doesn’t really believe that it will be so bad. And so here we are.
But I have more important things to do now. As an openly non-binary person employed by the Federal Government, I have until Jan 20 to find a new job. I don’t intend to be around when the brown shirts start coming for the LGTBQ employees.
I’ll re-evaluate whether that needs to be “a new country” instead as the scope of the danger becomes more clear. But honestly with a Fascist US government, I don’t know that there is a truly safe place on this planet.
I hope you are able to find a place where you feel safe and welcomed. I will miss your updates about the situation in India, I learned a lot from them.
different-church-lady
@Harrison Wesley: Yes, this is not a time to apply Murc’s Law to ourselves.
Chris Johnson
@different-church-lady: This. It was no different in the 1930s when mass-produced radio was the new thing.
What with the internet and social media being this, it’s time to learn from surviving another 1000-year Reich.
Some people turned out to be real good at learning the lessons from that guy that got him power… while somehow not noticing that the 1000 years turned out to be twelve years, count them twelve. I’m not sure if Trump gets to re-start the count, but the track record of going full fascist is that it does not last the 1000 years they like to think it does.
kalakal
reposted from below
One area where reality will bite them in the ass. Tragically the return of very high infant mortality due to easily preventable disease. When Measles starts doing it’s thing along with Polio etc. Thank fuck Smallpox is extinct
different-church-lady
@Chris Johnson: Whole lotta people died in that twelve.
Lit3Bolt
My impression of the lessons learned by Dems this cycle:
Layer8Problem
@lowtechcyclist: We stopped reading at 11 PM EST or so and watched an episode of Shrinking for the cheer value, having just come back from seeing Conclave. In retrospect seeing an election movie may not have been the best move.
When I woke up in the middle of the night I didn’t look at anything news-related, but I did enumerate to myself the things I like about my partner. And before we went out to face whatever happened I told my partner those things.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Eloquently put, Cole.
Belafon
@The Truffle: We went with a new face for the party.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Betty Cracker: not sure if that’s the case: musk and the corrupt news media kept the kleig lights on every misstep by biden and harris since the withdrawal from afghanistan while giving groper cleveland the soft focus and cutting away from his rants as they devolved into incoherence.
i think rogan, musk and a corrupt and pliant news media just made a president.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: Me too!
bjacques
@schrodingers_cat: I hope you’ll stay. I also thought Biden was being railroaded, then became wildly optimistic about Harris afterward. Maybe we were fucked either way.
After a suitable period of mourning, it’s cleanup on Aisle 47. I’ll go grab a mop. Nekkid like JC or pantsless like Baud!—I’ll decide later.
I hope we can at least agree that tumortomato who just now popped up can fuck right off.
Ramona
@New Deal democrat: 1933 in that Hitler 2 is chief executive. Other bad thing is US unlike Germany is the most powerful country in the world. But, the world in the the 1930’s hardly had longstanding democratic institutions, was recovering after only a decade and a half World War, was making a rapid change to industrial capitalism, and despite having Proud Boys and Threepercenters whom he will of course pardon, I doubt Trump has nearly as large a percentage of the population of battle-hardened Brownshirts which Hitler had. Hopefully, we flip the House and in 2026, make the House bluer and is the Senate in reach?
PIGL
@Betty Cracker: universal suffrage plus billionaires equals fascism.
prostratedragon
@CliosFanBoy:
Not a meme, but a short video.
A written account.
Phylllis
I got nuthin. Y’all be gentle with yourselves, and with each other.
Betty Cracker
@strange visitor (from another planet): Are those factors mutually exclusive though? Maybe Musk and fellow oligarchs exploited the existing inchoate rage to that end. In any case, it’s on the dopes who voted Team Fash, not the people who did the right thing.
mali muso
Woke my husband up around 4:30 this morning after getting up at 1am, seeing the way shit was going and hanging out here to be in good company. While he was equally upset, he was also quickly very stoic. He’s a black man and an immigrant. The way he sees subtle racism every day, he was unsurprised. If anything, he felt it better that we all know what we are dealing with. A country that is shot through with racism to its core.
Bettencourt
I just wanted to thank this community and especially John for this site. I’ve been so stressed about the election all year (especially the Sunday when Biden dropped out) that now truly that the very worst has happened I feel a weird sense of calm. I hope that when I finally get that cancer diagnosis I’ve been dreading my whole life that I feel equally calm.
Since this election season has made me largely give up on LGM, I appreciate the vibe here even more, though I suspect I won’t have the heart to check any politically-themed blogs as often as i used to anymore.
This could be the best day of DJT’s life, so I can only hope it rapidly goes downhill from here.
Please be well, all of you.
Hildebrand
I am still mystified with the steep drop off in voting. Compared to 2020, participation cratered.
Aziz, light!
That covers it, John.
All year I told myself and others There Are More of Us Than Them, and When We Vote, We Win. I was wrong. There are more of them than us, and they came crawling out of the woodwork by the millions to prove it.
It really is their country, a place that may never relinquish the profound selfishness of individualism or the self-gratification of lazy bigotry. It’s a country in need of laborers that has allowed poor people to enter and allowed some of them to prosper. The prosperous ones then pull the ladder up.
I’m one of those people with no stomach for any further immersion in the public forum. I don’t want to see the Beast on my screen or hear his voice or hear what anyone has to say about him. More years of snark won’t help.
I think the nation is in a slow death spiral. There won’t be a civil war, but there will be a steady unraveling of our economy and our security and our civil discourse. This is a global problem. The rich won’t fix it. They will just get richer.
I first discovered this blog in 2007. For a decade or so my nym was Soylent Green, then a Russian phrase in cyrillic from the Firefly movie, then this nym from another sci-fi movie. I have been reading almost every comment since the get go. But I think I’ve lost the will to continue participating in social media.
I’m 72 and my wife is 63. We will be safe enough in Portland (and later after a planned move up to Washington) and I will be taking up survivalism — in terms of food supply, not ammo. We will travel, hike, garden, birdwatch, walk on our beautiful Pacific Northwest beaches, and try to enjoy the time we have left.
I’m ashamed to be an American, but I’m still a living being on Planet Earth. That counts for a lot.
Chris Johnson
@Omnes Omnibus: Hell, we can take at least a day if not a week, before concluding THAT Trump got a mandate and landslide blah blah blah.
We knew going in that this was what he was going to claim. We didn’t know he’d have receipts. We also didn’t know the Dem vote would mysteriously be way less, and that’s deeply weird: just population growth should be doing something there.
Ridnik Chrome
Already had one heated exchange with a Trumpy co-worker who wanted to gloat this morning.
Also, while getting my morning coffee at the deli by my workplace I had to listen to a homeless drunk yelling about how all the immigrants better get out of the country because there’s a new sheriff in town, like yelling the same thing over and over and over again. Last thing I needed to hear. I was awake almost all night worrying about what’s gonna happen now, serious worries like am I still gonna have health insurance and Social Security when it comes time for me to retire, what’s gonna happen to my elderly parents, that kind of stuff. I walked out of the deli without saying anything, but damn, it wasn’t easy keeping my mouth shut.
Good morning, everyone.
RaflW
@Lit3Bolt: ” Grassroots and ground games don’t mean shit.”
Gonna disagree on this. No way to prove your nor my point, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, but in my view, we woulda gotten clobbered last night without that ground game & turnout.
I mean, obviously we got clobbered in terms of Potus (my god, I finally saw the raw vote numbers and holy shit), but tight races like Tammy Baldwin’s might very well have stumbled without a ton of hard work.
For those in WI, I’m also seeing that WisDems flipped three state senate seats, so the WI GOP has less room for fuckery there, and WisDems have a path to taking the state senate in the next election – half are up each cycle.
p.a.
It’s worse than: a sizable majority of this country is ok with fascism. It’s: a sizable majority of this country doesn’t know what fascism is even when the fascists are goosestepping through their kitchens. Then later: Oh! My face! Owwwww…
TBone
@Lit3Bolt:
Son of a bitch, I am going to touch it anyway!
Read the room, then STFU and fuck off till you reach the top of shutfuck mountain, where there are no more fuckups to shut.
(Unless my snark meter is on the ropes, steamed/pegged by my rage.)
TBone
@Chris Johnson: I hate the smell of hinky in the morning but smell it I do. Blech.
PIGL
@Steve LaBonne: not unlike receiving a diagnosis for something like mesothelioma. It’s about as bad as bad news gets, but at least you know what’s what.
Personally, as a resident of British Columbia, I’m starting to think ” Cascadia”.
different-church-lady
@TBone: I read it as bleak sarcasm, in the service of managing emotions.
Bettencourt
@lowtechcyclist:
“I was telling my wife that I must’ve gone through the five stages of grief when I was up in the middle of the night last night, because this morning I’m pretty much: yeah, this happened, too late to undo it. All we can do is figure out how best to move forward from here.”
Kind of my reaction too (just without the wife)
Kyle Rayner
My mom’s standby assurance when things are awful politically is, “You can leave the country. Your dad and I will follow you wherever you like so you won’t be alone,” which is so so sweet. The three of us moved to the US when I was five, so she gets it. Being alone, looking for a better life.
But I mostly just want this life, in this country, to be secure. I want to work towards that, as long as possible. I’m glad we left Russia, I can’t imagine having to live there while gay and weird, but I like to believe the US isn’t quite such a hopeless case just yet. Ironically, I’m actually in the process of interviewing for a job in the federal government right now, perhaps the last place I should be sticking my nose right now hahaha. But I applied in September and I really want this. Who knows? Who really knows what the right choices are in the next four years, to survive and dare I hope, thrive?
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Betty Cracker: i think musk and others had a lot to do with CREATING that rage.
i dunno. i’m just numb. trying to figure out what i’ll do when they inevitably kill the government programs that keep me alive.
different-church-lady
@Kyle Rayner: The Federal Government is a big place.
New Deal democrat
@Steve LaBonne:
I guest-wrote a post here a few months ago pointing out that the economy really was a problem for Democrats, particularly becuase of the high cost of housing, but also financing of things like automobiles.
This hit young people in their 20s just getting started the hardest.
Also they were in high school or otherwise not paying a lot of attention during Trump’s first term. And they were the group with the least to worry about during the period that COVID hit the hardest.
Also, I hate to say it, but Rogan’s endorsement of Trump on Monday might have been a significant factor.
CliosFanBoy
@prostratedragon:
Thank you. I will save it for my World Wars class.
Kyle Rayner
@different-church-lady: That’s what I figure. Not even Trump can gut the entire infrastructure. It’ll have to keep functioning and limping on, doing what it can for the country, and if it’s the job I want, it’s the job I want.
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat: It’s impossible to know if Biden would have won. However we now do know that our concerns about the electability of a woman of color in this country at this time were correct. That hypothesis has been tested and proven.
New Deal democrat
@Ramona: The best hope for the liberal democracies right now is if Europe learned its lessons from the first Trump Administration.
Supposedly they have a list of tariff retaliations all lined up and ready to go. More importantly, the EU has an “in case of emergency break glass” defense organization on the books (will be necessary for them when Trump pulls out of NATO). If Biden empties out the cabinets for Ukraine before January 20 and the EU steps up defense-wise, the liberal world order might be able to weather next 4 (if we’re lucky) years.
But to be honest, I do not think the 1789 US Constitution survives this.
suzanne
@Lit3Bolt:
Unions are full of men who want to protect their income so they can have tradwives, y’all.
schrodingers_cat
@O. Felix Culpa: Yep. Plus we wasted an entire month or more in that drama.
different-church-lady
@New Deal democrat:
Two things about this piss me off:
1) Democrats/Biden had a really crappy hand to play. There really isn’t much anyone can do about it short of major legislation that would take time and never gain enough support.
2) But on top of that, they played it ridiculously badly, just utterly meek statements about “your income is going up faster” that felt like a lame sales job.
Geminid
@Aziz, light!: One bit of good news I saw ghis morning was that Portland-area Demo rsts Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Janelle are on track to win their Toss-up Congressionsl races. That would be a Hold in the case of Rep. Perez in the WA03, and a Flip in the case of Oregon state Rep. Janelle Bynum in the OR05.
David Villaneuve of the Northwest Progressive Policy Institute wrote in an article this morning that for the most part, Oregon and Washington bucked the Republican trend seen nationally.
different-church-lady
While I’m throwing out random thoughts: I’m really really really glad this time I didn’t put much emotional investment in the bullshit tea-leaf-readers of social media. They don’t know anything. They might be on our side but they’re just loudmouths with opinions on our side.
TBone
@different-church-lady: in that case, I apologize. Snark meter adjustment in progress.
CliosFanBoy
`
I’m 65. To paraphrase British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey in August 1914, “The lamps are going out all over the world; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Betty Cracker: Co-sign.
tam1MI
@schrodingers_cat: I hope you will stay also. You were right all along.
Chris
@New Deal democrat:
Yeah. I felt reassured at 7 in the morning when I went to vote and there was a line, but then I went for a walk again during the last hours in the evening and there was no line at all outside the voting location either time. I’d expected that to be when the lines were longest.
the pollyanna from hell
@Geminid: The worse things look, the more I show up. I have no internet, so that’s maybe once a week.
Chris
@Lit3Bolt:
The problem is you can’t even apply these lessons. The end result of them is “run as the Republican Party but lite,” but people who want that are just going to vote for the Republicans, and in the meantime you’ll lose too many people to make up the difference.
Yarrow
@O. Felix Culpa:
You could have just stopped at “concerns about the electability of a woman.” We have two data points for that issue. Both times the country won’t elect a woman.
Chris
@Hildebrand:
I wish I was. For pretty much all of the last four years, it’s been next to impossible to find anyone in meatspace with anything nice to say about Biden, and I live in one of the bluest states in the nation. Even those who fully intended to vote for him were just pissing and moaning that not everything was fixed yet and their particular pet issue wasn’t at the top of the line. I don’t know how that could’ve failed to affect turnout.
different-church-lady
@Yarrow: Which is ‘funny’ as hell considering the number of times we were told nobody wanted an election between two old white men.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Lobo: I’m not surprised. Most Latino’s are culturally conservative. The misogyny is deep seated from what I have seen. This is why I’ve been so skeptical that immigration and demographic changes were a positive for Democrats as many have suggested. It’s only a positive if the Democratic party isn’t the party of cultural change (LGBTQ+, women’s rights, etc). It takes a couple of generations for most people from deeply conservative cultures to embrace liberal social values. I know, for example, a hardcore Q-anon Trumper who is a naturalized citizen from the Philippines (came here as a child). His views about the role of women in society are basically not much more evolved than the world his parents came from. There are plenty of exceptions, of course. However, on balance, the flow of people bringing their conservative cultural values with them is going to keep this country less friendly to women’s and LGBTQ+ rights.
The Truffle
@Steve LaBonne: What caused the swing to the right? Anti-incumbency?
mapanghimagsik
@different-church-lady:
Definitely this. My thoughts on this are a bit reactive, so I’ll keep ’em to myself.
burritoboy
“But to be honest, I do not think the 1789 US Constitution survives this.”
Perhaps not, and I share your overarching worry, but very rigid written constitutions are both not historically what make democracies / republics have their democratic character, and democratic constitutions have generally have been quite change-able over time over the 2500 year history of republics / democracies. We’ve often made the mistake (we being the liberals) of over-emphasizing the legal and fixed aspects of its nature, and not paying enough attention to the spirit of democracy. Of course, the spirit of the 1789 constitution should be honored, but considerable portions of it were already becoming extremely difficult to defend. We can and will write new constitutions, and there have been any number of fine constitutions written more recently than 1789 (whether they’re better than that one, is a different discussion.) New constitutions are by no means that unusual! Almost all the countries in Europe for instance, have constitutions written within the past 100 years (how well you like each one is up to you, of course.)
Geminid
@the pollyanna from hell: Maybe some day you can drift over to Rome and let us know what people are talking about at the Forum…or as the case might be, the Dollar General.
schrodingers_cat
The less said about actual Trump voters and the media enablers the better. But people supposedly on our side didn’t have our President’s back. White leftists did not have Biden’s back. They never forgave him for defeating their favorites and never gave him credit even when he enacted their agenda. We lost because we were fighting on multiple fronts.
O. Felix Culpa
@Yarrow: No disagreement from me. Alas.
There go two miscreants
My sentiments exactly.
geg6
Well, the only good news is that my state rep, Matzie, and my Congress critter, Deluzio, both won. Why people who voted for them and not Harris/Walz is not a mystery to me. Sexism and racism, no doubt whatsoever. Fuck them all.
burritoboy
“I wish I was. For pretty much all of the last four years, it’s been next to impossible to find anyone in meatspace with anything nice to say about Biden, and I live in one of the bluest states in the nation. Even those who fully intended to vote for him were just pissing and moaning that not everything was fixed yet and their particular pet issue wasn’t at the top of the line. I don’t know how that could’ve failed to affect turnout.”
As the old saying goes, Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love. Everyone knows that one. What isn’t that clear to most people is the proverb indicates that considerable amounts of the Democratic coalition has considerable problems with their political illusions, their expectations being more than occasionally ludicrous (this insight is reinforced by the romance with the very centrist JFK – now pushing over 60 years in evidence, who’s movie star looks so move the hearts of the Democrats even today, but who literally had the same Vietnam policies that LBJ was later vilified for – and how much of that vilification was that LBJ wasn’t conventionally handsome or wasn’t quite as hip or whatever.) This all is very comedic until you try to build political organizations over time. No one (or, at best, extremely few people) can maintain that kind of love for the lengths of time we need. Indeed, the love for JFK probably only has lasted so long because of his early death – he was probably not going to age very well, and he couldn’t have maintained his own leadership for more than another few years anyway. This kind of love isn’t a mature considered appreciation appropriate for a democratic regime whose leading figures are quite literally highly time-limited in office (for excellent reasons!)
Again, the Roman Republic ended because in part the Roman people fell too much in love with Caesar. (And Caesar was indeed very admirable in many ways, but the Roman people let him get away with too much because they loved him. )
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
I hope you stay as I will miss you a lot. We haven’t always agreed but I feel a sisterhood with you, especially since July. We are both cynical and not naturally optimistic, I think. These are times when more people need to be like us, I think.
Subsole
@schrodingers_cat:
Going to join the chorus and hope you stay. But if not, it has been a pleasure. May you find joy wherever you land, be it here or elsewhere.
Ramona
My speculation of the variety Bad news/Good news: A recurrence of the Covid19 pandemic has most likely been prevented by the excellent Biden administration public health management which means that Trump/RFK will trigger a resurgence of at least a US epidemic. The good news is that hopefully Blue localities will vaccinate their people and we Dems will mask up and Trump won’t be able to avoid the blame.
The Truffle
@Karen S.: I don’t blame you, Karen. It must be so exhausting.
Ramona
@New Deal democrat: That is good to know.
I’d say that the version of the Constitution we have today is the one after 1865. Hopefully, we don’t revert to the 1789 version. Although this one with presumed presidential immunity is nuts!
Gloria DryGarden
@Starfish: need a link, back up info to connect to. Tossing out votes aggressively, needs to be investigated..
Nicole Glavin