Some of you are asking about this so here’s my best guess. Reports were Musk looked at something on his phone and said Trump won hours before it was called.
Having sat with a lot of election and data analysts on election night, I can tell you that anyone who’s worked enough… https://t.co/xCPQWxhUgI
— Mallory McMorrow (@MalloryMcMorrow) November 10, 2024
…Having sat with a lot of election and data analysts on election night, I can tell you that anyone who’s worked enough elections knows how to analyze data, and there were people I was with who saw lower than expected Dem votes in key counties in MI, PA, Wis etc who had a sinking sense that Harris might lose all of the swing states. It wasn’t official and wouldn’t be for many hours still, but they knew where the votes needed to be to win and just weren’t seeing them. This was all from publicly available data on various states and county elections websites as results were being posted in real time.
(Mallory McMorrow is the Michigan State Senate Majority Whip.)
https://t.co/7NTLSqPnln https://t.co/eLYZZAMT7j
— Mallory McMorrow (@MalloryMcMorrow) November 10, 2024
Please review this entire page, watch the videos, read the explainers to understand the entire election and post-election process. Other states have similar systems, and many of the things people are demanding (audits!) are built into the process. https://t.co/NosTyeC2RF
— Mallory McMorrow (@MalloryMcMorrow) November 9, 2024
No.
— Mallory McMorrow (@MalloryMcMorrow) November 10, 2024
Have you contacted your clerk directly or are you just seeing people make claims on social media? Having lived through 2020 and the chaos after, my best advice if you see a claim on social media is to go straight to your source – your election official.
— Mallory McMorrow (@MalloryMcMorrow) November 10, 2024
Coda:
Why do they get to do this shit and we don't though? Why do they get away with bullying and hateful rhetoric but we can't? Why are we held to a different standard? No one can explain this to me (cc: @MollyJongFast who retweeted this into my mentions)
— Skylar Baker-Jordan (@SkylarJordan) November 9, 2024
Because we’re the Rule of Law party now, and it’s our task to stay within the law even when the Disloyal Opposition doesn’t. In an ideal world, *both* parties would respect the law, but this is the world in which we now live. We need to be the honest party… even when it hurts.
Push that boulder up the damned hill!
.@MalloryMcMorrow: “2016 gave us 2018. And here in Michigan, that gave us Gretchen Whitmer… Gretchen won on a message of ‘fix the damn roads.’ People want to see people who talk like them, listen to them, and fight for them.” pic.twitter.com/uxv7DwJ22V
— Inside with Jen Psaki (@InsideWithPsaki) November 10, 2024
War for Ukraine Day 992: Veterans’ Day/Remembrance Day/Armistice Day 2024 During Another World War in Europe
Tim C.
All this is correct. One of the worst thing the Trumpers have done, to themselves and to the country, is the denial of reality.
We fucking lost. It sucks, but we lost. It’s unfair the standard we were held to, it’s unfair that the information environment is what it is, it’s unfair that a manifestly unfit human like Trump won, but it happened, and like Adam said down below, the grifters are gonna grift on it, but we shouldn’t support them.
Gin & Tonic
I’m frankly surprised that the “The Rent Is Too Damn High” Party didn’t make a stronger showing
Omnes Omnibus
It’s just people stuck in the denial phase. Unfortunately, some of them have megaphones.
NotMax
FYI.
How to deactivate your X account
Pass it on.
Michael Bersin
It’s an aversion to accepting the disturbing truth. We live in a country of people who will vote for Donald Trump (r) in sufficient numbers to overwhelm those who can’t be bothered to vote and everyone else.
They’ve shown us what America is. That is a very unpleasant reality check for individuals who have any faith in humanity.
The really disturbing thing is encountering people who tell me, “it will all be okay,” and dismiss me when I tell them it won’t.
This is going to be bad, really bad.
Kent
I think it will be bad. Really bad.
But I do happen to disagree with a lot of people as to HOW it will be bad.
Jackie
I am a huge Mallory McMorrow fan girl.
Edited for spelling and to add this video that made me her forever fan:
https://youtu.be/iLWo8B1R0MY?si=BwGgd40uuLhqqmZi
hrprogressive
I turned on MSNBC for about 30 mins on Election Night and as soon as Kornacki started talking about Florida counties and how Harris wasn’t getting enough Latino vote there…and after some corners of the internet started saying even Florida was in play and the Puerto Rico fiasco was going to make a difference…
I just knew.
My stomach dropped.
The internet was losing their shit.
And lo and behold I went to bed at 10p eastern, wishing to wake up wrong, but feeling I already knew the outcome.
So all this conspiracy nonsense just doesn’t help, and I’m going to guess is some sort of psyop
tam1MI
@Omnes Omnibus: They are still stuck in the “One Weird Trick” mentality, even thought it has been proven that the One Weird Trick doesn’t work.
Timill
Nancy LeTourneau has an early take.
bbleh
I guess it’s ok if people wanna indulge themselves for a little while, as long as they eventually — maybe after some time off — wake up and have a cup of coffee and get back to work. But it’s just silly.
Meanwhile, speaking of silly, the new Secretary of State of the United States of America, the senior Cabinet official and its lead diplomat and face to the world, will be … Marco Rubio!
It is to cry and laugh at the same time.
Jackie
@bbleh:
No stronger and better ass kisser than Lil’ Marco.
Gloria DryGarden
Carried over from the other thread:
This moved me to tears (which I need, I didn’t cry yet, and I need to).
There are several of these tiktoks
Dear American Women
Ms. Deranged in AZ
I knew Harris had lost before I went to bed. Not because I’m some kind of genius, or because the vote was rigged, but because the numbers in the places where it needed to be just weren’t there. Musk isn’t a genius but he is smart enough, like me, to understand that. He’s also autistic, like me. He’s also probably ADHD, like me, and as a result we notice patterns quicker than other types of people. Add that into a built-in type cynicism that people overall just suck and what do you get? You get Trump winning again. Unfortunately that accurately reflected reality. There was no vote rigging. The majority of Americans were either too poorly informed (i.e., stupid), too inaccurately informed i.e., ignorant), or just preferred fascists. That is their coalition and that is what we have to work to change. Can we change the inaccurately informed and the poorly informed? Yes. But we can’t change the ones who would prefer fascism so long as it makes bread and eggs cheaper. I would like to see numbers on which is which. So, all this talk about vote rigging is a waste of time and energy especially if we aren’t willing to go to the mat to challenge it. We should already be focusing on our arguments for the next election. Because I gauran-damn-tee you that the Republicans already have that message ready and are putting it out there.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Michael Bersin:
@Kent:
My boss is one of those. I flipped out on a co-worker who revealed to me that she voted for Trump. Got the lecture from him about how “It’s going to be ok, we’re still a constitutional republic, yada yada, the sun will come up tomorrow, the world isn’t going to end, a year from now you’re not going to be in jail, etc.” Even mentioned he voted for Dukakis and Bill Clinton twice, that he’d seen some crazy crap and seen nearly every state vote for Reagan in 1984.
It was completely stupid, asinine, and patronizing, and I had to sit there and listen to it, not saying a word. I have to apologize to her for yelling at her.
She’s not a vicious MAGA or anything, so it’s not so bad, but it was killing me inside having to listen to him. I should have had better control over myself, but it was only a few days after the election, I was still pretty raw
Part of me wishes he was right
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Why does someone vote for Trump and at the very same time vote for a ballet initiative projection the right to an Abortion? The answer is simple, Trump gave them a bunch of bullshit fantasy land of promises and Harris as stuck promising a reality and reality is boring.
Lobo
My big bang theory on it all:
Headwinds plus
Plus this
I’ve seen this come up. Trump is really an anti-status quo, anti-party candidate at the top. He just happens to be using the Republican name. It is a cult of personality. The closest we had was Obama.
geg6
Oh great. So now we have our own stop the steal idiots. Fuck this shit.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Dude, if you are blowing up at people on the job, you need to get a handle on yourself. Talk to a counselor, clergy member, mental health pro, etc.
ETA: Letting them get you to blow up your life is letting the Nazis win. Don’t let that happen.
Thor Heyerdahl
The underground scene in DC for certain Republican staffers – closeted by their upbringing or by their need to stay “on brand” to the party – will once again see a surge in business.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
How unprofessional of you.
RevRick
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Part of the attraction of fascism is that it is fascinating, like watching a campfire. Fascists are into bombastic displays. Son et luminere. They offer a spectacle. If they thought they could get away with it, they’d have gladiator contests.
frosty
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He’s right that the sun will come up tomorrow, at least. Various grains of salt for the other statements though.
Suzanne
@Lobo:
Trump is an aspirational figure for lots of people. It looks like he isn’t very smart, doesn’t work very hard at anything intellectual, makes a lot of money, has people afraid of him, has a bunch of hot wives, fucks porn stars, hands out business favors to his kids….. this is the dream life for one-truck contractor types.
Chet Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m not gonna tell you that you were unjustified, Goku. But please, you need to -think- about your actions. There will be times when you need to act, and when those actions will count for something. But just yelling at a Trumper — that won’t count for anything, it achieves nothing. I know that you (we!) need to blow off steam, find a way to express our grief and our anger. I know I need to. But we have to do it among people with whom we’re safe.
It is what it is, Goku. Find people with whom you can be safe, and express your anger and frustration with them. Not around the enemy.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I admit it was a mistake to blow up at her, but what she essentially did, what everyone who voted for Trump did, was vote to fuck me over. Of course I resented that and I let her know it.
She was meeping to me about inflation (“mayonnaise and ketchup was $15!”) as justification all the while wringing her hands about abortion, that she doesn’t 100% agree with it but thinks the government should stay out of it, wondering aloud why only one person should have so much power to decide on the issue, and she’s worried about her granddaughter. I tell her that lots of vulnerable people are going to be hurt and the only thing she can muster to me is “I hope not”.
I bring up the documents case and the only moronic defense she can come up with is “well, other people did it too.”
Oh, and “they lied to us about Biden’s competence.”
And all that justified voting for fascism and throwing democracy out the window. It was maddening!
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I had* a few “merkins contacts in my life, who said they voted for Dolt 47,
I simply replied “I hope you get what you voted for and hard”, then blocked contact.
like a metaphor
@Omnes Omnibus: I have much love and respect for you, Omnes. But I have to disagree. The folks who need to have mental therapy, or talk to clergy, etc, are the ones who voted for fascism. We don’t have to be nice to people who would just as soon see us dead.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You don’t have to explain yourself to me, but if you can’t get through a work day without a blow-up you need to do something.
narya
Stumbled on this, too (for those looking for resources and research), female rabbi talking about nonviolent organizing.
Omnes Omnibus
@like a metaphor:
I am guessing that Goku needs a job and desires to make it through the next four years. He needs to be able to control when and where he lashes out. Getting fired doesn’t help The Cause.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Ms. Deranged in AZ:
I repost this because it’s basically how the GOP messages now…and how it works.
Like you, anybody yammering “stop the steal” needs to be drowned out immediately. If the people on our side that look at that are silent, then we follow suit.
The modern GOP are masters of this:
It’s called “The Firehose of Falsehood”. A Russian-style of propaganda for an age of information abundance.
-High volume/multi-channel approach
-Shameless in its willingness to broadcast lies
-No commitment to, or requirement for consistency
-Rapid, continuous and repetitive messsaging
-Point is not to persuade but to confuse and overwhelm
-Assumes a low trust environment and lowers it further
-Number of arguments matters more than their quality
-Drown out competing messages thru sheer volume
trnc
@Gin & Tonic:
They did, running under the official party name of “Republicans.”
bluefoot
@Michael Bersin: The people telling me it won’t be so bad are either delusional or have willful amnesia from TFG’s first go round. And it’s not helping.
The day after 9/11, I told some friends I was afraid about what would happen to the country in response. And when TFG was first elected, I thought about the ways it could be bad. In both cases, the reality turned out to be far worse. Considering how bad I think this is going to get, I hope I don’t follow the trend.
And rather than pointing fingers, I’d rather spend my time figuring out what we can do right now to protect ourselves and each other, and those that are vulnerable, and how we can slow the coming onslaught.
Chet Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Goku, please, listen to Omnes. You know that I’ve butted head with him pretty violently in the past. We disagree about lots of things. But on this I know that he is right. If there are MAGAts with whom you -must- transact, -must- associate, then you need to learn how to preserve your civil manner around them.
It’s a matter of self-preservation, Goku.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@trnc:
When did Trump ever say he was going to address housing costs or inflation? I must have missed it. All I remember is “Enemies Within”
like a metaphor
@Omnes Omnibus: well, I don’t work there. So maybe I should show up at her office and Goku all crazy on her bitchass
Chet Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He said that when he’s thru deporting all the immigrants, then native-born (== “white”) Americans will have lots of housing. He’s said that the reason inflation is high, is ….. well, he sticks in whatever he wants here, but for instance, he’s said that energy costs too much, and that drives prices for everything.
I’m sure we could find a ton of other examples of him addressing these problems. Not addressing them credibly, b/c he doesn’t do that -ever-. But he’s addressed them, enough for his devotees and voters. Plennnty enough.
FDRLincoln
Ive been to my therapist twice since the election to help me cope with the anger and rage.
It helps some. I can keep my temper at work now…and keeping a good job will be crucial in the coming years
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chet Murthy:
@Omnes Omnibus:
I understand what both of you are saying and I will refrain from it in the future
Kent
I’ve been thinking about all this “Trump is a fascist” business.
I think there are truly a lot of Americans who are fine with authoritarian government as long as it is about keeping order and making the trains run on time, so to speak . Where they probably think Hitler went wrong was in invading the rest of the world. But an isolationist Hitler? They would have been just fine with that.
That is what they see in Trump. An isolationist fascist who is going to crack down on all the “wrong” people here in the US but not get us involved in conflicts overseas. And from their point of view, that’s all good.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: So, Franco?
narya
Dems flipped a House seat in CA (just announced).
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
I recall a headline I saw in the NYT a year ago or so, something about Trump wanting to shoot missiles into Mexico. I’m not sure Trump will be as isolationist as they want
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
@Omnes Omnibus:
@Chet Murthy:
At work, just raise your hand, say “that’s not work related, not interested”.
And keep doing it, no matter if it’s MAGA, their kids, their lives.
Cut them dead.
trnc
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
“Inflation!!!” was the battle cry morning, noon and night. Like literally every issue, he didn’t have to tell voters how he would fix it. “I alone can fix it” covered everything.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It’s tough. I know all of us here sympathize. I mean so many MAGAt’s wear it on their sleeve, shove it in your face, constantly.
We typically defer even though at one level, we’re enabling such bullying behavior.
I don’t know your workplace norms but it sounds like lashing out like that, regardless of “whose side is right” is a line too far for your typical, conservative (not in a political sense) pointy-haired mid-level manager can bear.
Okay, said manager wants you to apologize. Make this a negotiation in a way. You’ll apologize if your manager makes it clear to asshole MAGAt (oops, redundant) fellow worker that they need to STFU about politics in the workplace.
Hang in there. Keep us posted. Tough times for all of us in one way or another.
Jackie
Off Topic, but has anyone seen signs of life from Cole this evening?
trnc
Sweet! Thanks!
Jay
@Jackie:
He is apparently being grouchy on BlueSky.
narya
@Jackie: just posted on bluesky.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jackie: Yes, he is full of hate.
KatKapCC
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: If you found out your coworker was a rapist, would it be unprofessional to get mad at them?
I would say no.
So why is it unprofessional to be mad at someone who openly supports a rapist?
Kent
I’m not talking about logic or reality.
I’m talking about people’s perceptions. And what Trump basically sold the American public on (and what they bought) was isolationist fascism.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
“Professionalism” is kind of trivial in the face of fascism, y’know? I won’t do it in the future, but I was fucking pissed. I rely on the ACA (“Full-time ACA employee”) to qualify for, and my union contract for not paying any premiums, for my health insurance. She put that at risk. She’s on Social Security, Medicare, and has a union pension, only working a limited schedule. My parents also rely on the ACA for insurance, not to mention the protections for pre-existing conditions. My father would never have health insurance if that didn’t exist
bluefoot
@Omnes Omnibus: A friend of mine who grew up in East Germany said that to me last Wednesday, “Welcome to Franco’s Spain.”
@Chet Murthy: Good to see you. Been thinking about moving back to SF if I can find a job. I moved away in the early 2000s for a job. Even before last Wednesday I’d been thinking about it but wanted to wait until I had more time at this new job. But now I might just go – I have family in SF and points south, and still many friends. Plus I found out there are several people in my new dept who voted for TFG.
Chet Murthy
@KatKapCC: [I wanna say, I’m just as angry as Goku. I alternate between thinking maybe it won’t be so bad, and I can wait and watch …. and the gut-certainty that since I’m on the list of race enemies of The Volk, I’m going to be on that list of to-be-herded-to-the-camps before I have enough notice to even flee. Alternating between worried, and stark terror. I’m not the sort who cries often, but I’ve cried twice since Tuesday.]
If you found out your co-worker was a rapist, and that your state was run by rapists, your country was run by rapists, that rapists held all the keys to power, including to the military, it would be …… self-harming to get mad at rapists. It could only lead to bad things happening to you, to do that. B/c merely getting mad at them doesn’t do anything to unseat them, does it? Merely getting mad is self-defeating. We need to find people who can help us, who can hear our cries, so we can get it out. And so we can continue to function in -their- society. Because it isn’t ours anymore, is it?
I write all the above, not because I know how to do what I write above, but because I do not. I don’t know how to do it. So I just avoid all social interactions. I’m bereft, I’m grieving, and I don’t know how to move on. I just don’t know. But I know that I (and we) must, if we’re going to survive this.
Omnes Omnibus
@KatKapCC:
I, for one, was not saying he shouldn’t be mad. I was saying he needs to be able to control it in situations where it is necessary.
Chet Murthy
@bluefoot: Maybe CA, maybe the Bay Area, will be safe longer than other places. Maybe. I don’t even know. Tonight I’m watching a movie, _Seneca.On.The.Creation.Of.Earthquakes_. It stars John Malkovich (itself a reason to watch any film) and it’s about …. well, about Seneca and Nero, and Seneca’s death sentence. 2023 film, but oddly topical at this very moment. Oddly topical.
I’m finding these threads about our -feelings- to be the most important ones. I no longer care about the news, about the election, about MAGA, about any of that. All I think that I can handle, is our feelings, our coping, how we can heal enough to survive.
frosty
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You can bite your tongue then come rant at us. You won’t be the first!!
Check out the Grey Rock Method, too. My brother who lived in NYC called it the Subway Face. Let your face go slack, unfocus your eyes, and look through whatever craziness is in front of you.
Basically, disengage. Mumble “Hmm, interesting. I’ve got to go check something, be right back.”
ETA Jay at #45 had the best advice: “That’s not work-related.” There’s no legitimate argument for that one.
Salty Sam
Until we wrap our heads around the fact that we are in an asymmetrical information war (that we are losing, badly!), and figure out how to beat this, this sort of thing will continue. We, meaning Democrats/liberals/progressives/WTF ever you wanna call us, have been branded by right wing media as “the enemy”, and low info voters** will vote against us until we figure out how to counter that.
I live among these people. I promise you, many/most of them consider us sub-human. This is how warfare goes- define the enemy as “other” and you can justify all sorts of atrocities, including electing Donald Fucking Trump.
I wish to all the gods I knew how to change this, but I, and any of the many people I’ve talked to about this this week just come up empty-handed.*
*(teaching critical thinking skills to our kids is a valid answer, but that is a multigenerational project.)
**polite way to say “ignorant, stupid, or evil, or a combination of the three”
ETA- I see Comrade Scott posted the tactical version @32
bluefoot
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): if this person persists in talking politics even after being asked to stop, document each instance. Depending on your workplace’s HR policies you may have recourse in getting it to stop. I don’t know if it would qualify as creating a hostile environment, but still document in case it does. Don’t respond except to ask her to stop, if you can help it.
I discovered my new boss would have voted for TFG except she is pro-choice. She’s more concerned about her stock portfolio than rule of law and defending democracy. I am also going to have to find reserves of self-restraint.
Jackie
@Jay: @narya: @Omnes Omnibus:
LOL Thanks! I can sleep soundly tonight!😊
Edited to add:
Speaking of the devil… Cole just started a new post lol
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@bluefoot:
She’s usually not the type to talk politics, really, but I’ll keep that in mind.
That stock portfolio is only possible because of the rule of law. People who rely on stock and bond indexes for their retirements (a lot of people) are going to be in for quite a shock if the worst happens
rationalman
> @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)I recall a headline I saw in the NYT a year ago or so, something about Trump wanting to shoot missiles into Mexico. I’m not sure Trump will be as isolationist as they want
>
Yup, he did.
He also has in the past talked about having Army invade Mexico to get the cartels.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@frosty:
That’s more or less what I’m going to do from now on. Go stone face and not engage on a personal level anymore. It sucks because my job is public-facing and requires me to pretend to be everyone’s friend
bluefoot
@Chet Murthy: I don’t know either if SF will be safer for longer but I’ll have more of a support system there than here in Boston. We might be able to accomplish more together (protecting ourselves and others) there than I can here. That New England mentality of going it alone makes things like mutual aid difficult here.
bluefoot
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): ain’t that the truth. I lost a few friends for the same reason in 2016 – people who voted for TFG because they’d make more money. When I pointed out how bad it could get for people like me, their friend, they mostly shrugged or tried to justify themselves.
KatKapCC
@Omnes Omnibus: Speaking only for myself because I don’t know the details of anyone else’s identity:
Some of us, because of our marginalizations, have been told over and over we don’t get to be angry at people who hate us. And we have held that anger in over and over and over and over. Sometimes, holding it in becomes impossible. And telling us to keep doing so is condescending and ignores the fact that you may not be able to even imagine understanding our situation and lived experiences.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@KatKapCC:
For the record, I’m a white guy. Thinking on it, that probably influences me a bit to voice my anger more openly
Salty Sam
This is an excellent skill to develop- I learned it when disengaging from a toxic relationship with a Borderline Personality Disordered woman. I called it “Emotional Invisibility”. It is difficult at first, especially for folks like us who normally WANT to engage with others- but sometimes you have to cut that engagement off to save yourself.
Chet Murthy
@KatKapCC: I don’t think Omnes is saying to hold it in for any other reason than self-preservation. I have a bunch of anti-Trump/GOP tshirts. I’m not going to wear them anymore. Why not? B/c what use is that? How does that help anything? It’s just me acting out, painting a target on my back. To no good end. Much better to go to a big demonstration, where my actions will be joined-up with others.
ISTR you’re Jewish, and lesbian? Maybe my memory is failing. I do remember you’re a woman. And you have a right to be angry AF. Angry. AF. But we all have to learn how to control our emotions, so we can survive.
Chet Murthy
@Salty Sam: This thread, this conversation, has convinced me of something: I will not be drinking anymore in public, until this emergency is passed. It’s too dangerous: I might end up losing control of my emotions and saying things that might come back to hurt me or people I care about. Better to stay sober (in public) and safe.
Geminid
@narya: This would be California’s 27th CD, which is just north of Los Angeles. George Whitesides, a former NASA administrator, was the Democrat. Whitesides beat Rep. Mike Garcia, who won the special election to succeed Katie Hill in 2019.
Salty Sam
Yeah, I had a roommate who was a submariner in the Navy. He called it “running at periscope depth”. It’s gonna get weird out there…
ETA- Hell, it’s already weird- I’ve got right wing family to visit for Thanksgiving and the week after. Rock Face!
Chet Murthy
@Salty Sam: It’s commonly noted that there are more Trump voters in CA than in TX, more Biden voters …. yadda yadda yadda not interesting. And so, on the subway, I look around me and wonder with how many Trumpers I am sharing the subway car, in a bar, with how many Trumpers am I sharing the room.
And I guess we all need to be doing that, to remind ourselves to be on guard.
dnfree
@like a metaphor: AT YOUR JOB you have to be respectful of your co-workers, or you won’t have a job, and that won’t improve the state of the world.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@dnfree:
Repeating from my comment at #55:
To reiterate, I won’t be doing it again in the future
Chet Murthy
@dnfree: At one job I was leading a team of troubleshooters working on customer apps. We were all flat-out busy, b/c the software was so shitty. One guy in the team was …. not very busy, b/c he never volunteered to go on troubleshooting assignments. On one con-call, he asked everybody to send him writeups of their troubleshooting work, so he could write up a paper about it. I ….. got pretty damn hot-and-bothered, and told him using pretty florid language that he would not be writing any such paper, that those experiences were -our- property, and if anybody was going to write it up, it would be -us-, the people who had done the actual work.
The next day, my manager (and his too) called me to explain that I couldn’t use such language on work con-calls. He didn’t chide me in any other manner: just stick to the manner of the communication, period. His not chiding me in any other way was his way of agreeing with me about the substance of the issue (and the guy never did write any papers about our work, of course).
There are things that are simply off-limits in work settings. Even if some of those things are just. Ah well.
bjacques
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): it may help to remember that you’re also not obligated to help your co-worker validate her really shitty choice. I don’t work in such an environment as yours, but I would be sorely tempted to drop innocent, hints under HR’s radar about how badly she’s fucked herself and anyone she cares about. I might resist that temptation, maybe.
TiredOfItAll
Today I went to a new-to-me place in the East Village to get my haircut. Turned out to be more of a barbershop than a ladies’ hair salon. The sweet, old Japanese man who cut my hair and I could not communicate with one another very well. Eh, it’s only hair and will grow back. That part of town seems most like the NYC I moved to four decades ago. I could squint and pretend. Like many of you, I have felt much fear, pain and dismay this past week, and it has been hard to get dressed, to leave the apartment, to walk in the world. Tomorrow or the next day or maybe next week I will buckle down and figure out how to fight or resist or something. In the meantime I offer a favorite poem to all of you that has brought me peace in times of difficulty, The War God’s Horse Song. http://www.kipmistral.com/the-war-gods-horse-song-i-stand-for-my-horse/.
I don’t know how to embed links here, or if it’s even allowed, so if it doesn’t work, just google it. (Also, I know I’m mostly a lurker and have not posted here much, but when will my comments be allowed without the 5 minute holding period?)
Elizabelle
@TiredOfItAll: I think you are probably past the delay. It only happens with a first comment by a new email or ‘nym (?).
TiredOfItAll
@Elizabelle: Oh, maybe the countdown I see is just for editing?
Chet Murthy
@TiredOfItAll: the 5-minute countdown is for editing. I see your comment at 18 after the hour. And you posted it at 16 after the hour, so only 2 minutes. I think you’re good to go.
TiredOfItAll
@Chet Murthy: Ah, I see. Thank you!
Msb
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
that is good to hear. Please take good care of yourself!
I agree that things will be bad, so am furiously working my 12-step program: trying to answer the question, what can I do between now and bedtime that will help? Part of my self-care is unfriending a trumper cousin, and I’m looking into the grey rock method (non-response to abusive people).
Elizabelle
@TiredOfItAll: Yes. Probably so. And welcome.
On Eastern time, so must try to sleep now.
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I am trying to figure this out for my homelife.
Tim in SF
Facebook showed me this Veteran’s Day post I posted in 2018:
It’s going to suck, alright, and probably in the most annoying and irritating way possible.
Gloria DryGarden
@Chet Murthy: the rage simmers inside…
while one quietly remains reasonable and calm.
no beings were harmed in the making of this scene,
except one’s self.
Lets just ignore the rubble of fracture connections,
And step over the debris.
Gloria DryGarden
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: shameless
drowning
Gloria DryGarden
@Lobo: thorough summary!
Gloria DryGarden
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): when angry at work I have found it helpful to go into a bathroom stall, and wring a clump of paper towels until my hands shake. Got me out of the red, into green on the meter.
Another trick I like, w research to back it, is impacts to the palms, or the soles of the feet. So, clapping, patting your legs, tennis, walking, jumping in place, etc. These are proven to bring the internal boiling down.
sometimes there is a moment of choice, where I feel myself going into anger, and can choose not to. More in traffic, where I can choose not to get angry. It’s a grace when that tiny gap of choice appears, it doesn’t always, for me.
Hope this helps. YMMV
Dave
@Omnes Omnibus: Exactly you can be angry and you can be afraid and a million other things but you can not be stupid and reactive; well you can be but it’s not going to go well. You have to be strategic.
sab
@Gloria DryGarden: I think Goku has the sort of job where he cannot just retreat into the bathroom or wherever to deal with stress. A lot of jobs you have assigned (very short) break times and those are the only breaks you get. So all day you are out there dealing with people.
Dave
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Inkinda view it this way professionalism is not by any means a core value or anything it’s a mechanism that helps social smoothing and to protect yourself and it’s something that people often follow reflexively.
Your anger and fear and frustration for yourself and others is entirely valid. I’m livid myself and Veterans Day felt like a festering that is only going to grow worse unless the incoming administration falls into so much infighting as to be wholly ineffective (not something I’m anticipating they are going to do a lot of awful destructive things even if they start backstabbing) but if you want to be effective you have to be strategic.
Rage, fear, all of it have to needs to be used like a scalpel and being reflexively reactive helps them and hurts you.
Dave
@Salty Sam: The real challenge is that the most immediate response probably needs to be build our own similar mechanism but it contradicts the longer run need to figure out how to mitigate the hell out of it so we are in a bit of contradictory place regarding how to get from here to there.
sab
I am completely horrified about the election, but we need to try and:
1) get on with life, and
2)( part of 1 above) do everything we can to stall these people in what the worst of them are planning.
I naively think that our founding fathers were pretty good at setting up the stalling thing, because they developed a local democracy while ruled nationally by kings they did not like.
For me personally, I need to try to carry on, and try to ameliorate, and not just focus on how horrible things are going to become. I am not in denial. I know it’s bad and going to get worse. I just very much do not want to focus solely on that.
That is sort of a touchy issue at home, as spouse starts his second week of rending garments and tearing out hair. I just think that is a useless waste of energy.
Chris Johnson
@Michael Bersin: That shouldn’t be as disturbing as you think. Understand how the Republicans are the party of pushing denial of obvious reality and a set of Big Lies? No you don’t, if you think a victory by them means THEY SPEAK for their own people.
It simply doesn’t work that way. You don’t see the inside of those silos. If you did you’d be shocked.
The people trying to reassure you that everything will be okay think YOU are the problem and yet still love you enough to want to be gentle. They believe in you that you’re not going to be a blood-drinking antifa psycho rabid antichrist-monster. WHILE being told in their silo that you’re all of those things, and yet they persist in not lashing out against you.
I’m sorry, but it’s really important to not uncritically buy the suggestion that folks like Nick Fuentes speak for their whole side. That suggestion is poison meant for OUR silo, to make us as violent as they need us to be. Their silo is carefully insulated from that stuff, so they can feel like the normal ones.
Don’t ever believe that all the people had all our information and cast a vote in favor of what we see.
And anyone who seems like a Trump voter and is trying to talk you off the ledge… is a person who by definition is exposed to all THEIR ‘information’ (about how we are monsters) and has absorbed enough of it to vote, but refuses to just flip on us completely. If they are trying to soothe you it’s because they believe you may not be a monster.
And that’s important to understand. Seeing as we’re not. I for one refuse to be their boogeyman. It sounds exhausting and miserable and the retirement plan is shiiiiiiit…
Chris Johnson
@like a metaphor: Yes we damn well do. That’s what being good is. First because being nice is on purpose and the baseline for being a human, and second because you don’t take people who were lied to that you only want to punch them in the face, and punch them in the face.
Jesus FUCK, people. Be smart enough to think one level deep. Do not volunteer to be the boogeyman, Do not take the tasty bait. If the bait is there, it’s because they need you to take it or their house of cards risks falling down.
To which I say good. Their house of cards deserves to fall down.
Soprano2
@Kent: This is a profound insight.
WereBear
@Michael Bersin:
It wasn’t true in 2016 when people said it to me, constantly, so it will be worse now.
Remember, Act One of the disaster movie is when no one listens to the smart people.
I have some hope for some of the people screaming WTF because maybe they will have a personal Enlightenment…
or decide this to join the victors and agree this means the Rapture is coming for certain. They can stop trying to figure out how the economy works, and party like it’s 666 AD.
Soprano2
@bluefoot: THe people complaining about their stock portfolio are blowing smoke up people’s asses, because the market has been setting records for two years. Above all, “the market” likes stability, so the only reason I can think for why they’re happy is their personal finances that they think TCFG’s tax cut will make better.
WereBear
@hrprogressive: Part of the fractioning of the national mind is that everybody gets a theory!
You get one, and you get one, and you get a different one, and you get the Reptilians!
Soprano2
@KatKapCC: I don’t know what your identity is, but I know if you’re a woman that’s the expectation. You’re only supposed to get angry at certain things, otherwise you’re supposed to smile and get along all the time.
Baud
@Soprano2:
It helped convinced enough working people that they should abandon the work of moving toward a more labor centric economy. So kudos to them.
Soprano2
@Chet Murthy: For me that’s easy, it’s almost always most of them.
WereBear
Trumpist flooded the fundamentalist world online, where mothers are discouraged from working outside the home. This is how MLMs got so big.
One article called Evangelicals and MLMs “a circle” because it’s a new way to prey upon them. And they fall for authority because they were raised Authoritarian.
If there will be Authoritarian Churches, we have the eternal Trump and an excuse for terrible violence. Which is why real spiritual communities mobilized last time, and are doing so now.
The Civil War never ended, just went underground. If we do all we can to create Switzerland in the Blue States, and wield the brains and tech and strategy that helped so much last time, we will be better off, and that is what I am focusing on.
Time to light up the blue phones and faxes and tell our political staff what we think of this latest innovation.
Fax your legislatures, clog the inbox, tell the people who need to hear it
Right now, it is the safest way to vent.
Soprano2
I think that was the purpose of it, because anyone who has a stock portfolio or 401K or 403B or mutual fund or pretty much any type of investment dependent on stocks knows empirically that the market has been going up for at least two years. Conservatives saw the way the wind was blowing as far as labor organizing and they reacted by trying to convince people that everything is terrible. If you look at the history of other pandemics, you can see similar reactions by governments trying to rein in the labor market. They mostly failed.
I’ve been mulling and listening a lot the past few days. I’m hoping to be able to post all my thoughts at the relative beginning of a thread in the next day or two. I think there were a lot of factors that made this election outcome the way it did, it’s not just one thing. Lots of people are going to be disappointed because they didn’t vote for what they think they voted for.
Baud
@Soprano2:
They weren’t disappointed enough the first time. Doesn’t matter. Unless Trump declares himself a dictator, he’s not going to be on the ballot again. The next Republican offers them a clean slate.
AWOL
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Most likely posted here by another reader:
Grey rock method: What it is and how to use it effectively
LAC
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Hi, this a dead thread but I wanted to say I appreciate and understand your anger. I do not want you lose your job and I hope that you will be able to find a way to work peacefully. I have been staying in my safe black woman spaces in order to rage, relate and release so that I can walk out into this world and keep it moving. In those spaces, we recognize what it was really about, and while it hurts to the core, we have to rise. That is why I just have to roll my eyes at the rationalizations and the “grace” given to Trump voters and non voters. Kamala was a bridge too far for y’all – got it. Just hang in there and thank you at least putting her on notice that you are not the white one for her chat about the wonders of Trump with.
No Nym
@Soprano2: “Lots of people are going to be disappointed because they didn’t vote for what they think they voted for.”
I went down a rabbit hole yesterday watching videos of people finding out what Trump’s plans were. They were shocked that their companies were having to cut costs in anticipation of tariffs and that cuts to SSI, Medicare, & Medicaid are most definitely on the table. One guy voted for Trump because he wanted Obamacare destroyed so he could continue to stay alive on the ACA. A Hispanic woman who has undocumented family members voted for Trump because she thought only the “bad” ones would get thrown out. Some girl was shedding tears all over TikTok because her family “unfriended” for voting for Trump. People who did not believe in the legitimacy of elections four years ago suddenly do, and now they want us to be nice and affirm them as “good people.”
NOPE.
Lynn Dee
Kind of eye-opening to see some on the left sounding like the crazed nutjobs on the right. But also very nice to see what a great job Mallory McMorrow is doing to correct the misinformation. Now that’s public service.