I knew I didn’t want to look at the basket of deplorables that Donald Trump is considering for his cabinet, so I put if off for as long as I could. I should have found a way to live in denial just a little bit longer.
It’s worse than anything some sick demented sadist would impose on the country and the world.
Honestly, I don’t expect the National Parks to survive unscathed. I doubt any of the Trumps respect them, and there will be nobody in his administration to defend them.
Expect plenty of Bundy type actions, only this time the FBI will help them!
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My suggestion: run, don’t walk, to your nearest & dearest Nat’l Park bc they be going away real soon. Trump has promised to sell them out to the highest bidder (who’ll no doubt provide a kick back to Trump), most likely in the extraction industries.
But after all, having National Parks and Federal Lands dramatically infringes on our “liberties.” So there ya go.
There are lots of policy discussions on the Pond today. ‘Oh my, how do we appeal to the rural areas that voted Trump?’.
First of all, they don’t give a shit about policy. This was a grievance election. Somebody said ‘talk to them, find out what they want’. I can tell you what they want,
Gays and women out of the military.
No gay marriage.
No abortions.
No Black Lives Matter, police kill whomever they please.
Only black votes allowed are if they are republican.
No trans in bathrooms.
No foreign signs on stores.
No foreign languages spoken.
Today I ran into two acquaintances who voted Trump. Both brought up the election for one reason, and it was not to talk policy. They wanted to hear me cry and whine.
That is what drives them.
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In Colorado public lands for recreation of all types are big money and also a huge part of the state’s culture. Protection of public lands is for the most part one of a very few bi-partisan issues. Then there’s Utah, where they want to take back the land from the federal government. I’ve got news for you folks. It belonged to the federal government before it was a state.
Hence the cabinet choices. This has nothing to do with running the agencies, or in executing Trump’s policy preferences. He has no policy preferences. He’s a human middle finger. That’s it.
His cabinet is going to merely be a collection of other middle fingers.
“Fuck you!” is the alpha and omega of Trumpism. As long as he gets to say it loud, and often, he’ll not give a rat’s ass about what McConnell and Ryan — if he survives — are actually doing.
It’s all performative. A reality TV show with a guaranteed four year run.
Yep.
And it’s why they voted for him. They love that ‘fuck you’ as long as it’s aimed at the correct types.
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One guy I work with brought it up just to rub it in my face that “Bernie would have beat Trump.” I ignored it because the only thing he cared about was legal weed in CA, and he got that.
Right now it’s all I care about.
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OK, I laughed. Thanks, nalbar.
Gov Schwarzenegger proposed something like that wrt state parks, including beaches. Didn’t go anywhere. Americans, even nutty rightwingers, are surprisingly protective of our national parks even if they haven’t and never will personally visit one.
Comparing rightwing Caleeefornians to the rest of the Trump hoardes is comparing apples to oranges (cough cough). I agree that in CA, most rightwingers will not want State, County, local and national parks and seashores to be privatized.
I wouldn’t count on most of the rest of the Trump voters to feel similarly. It’s all slash and burn with that crowd.
Would love to be wrong, but…
Our new National White Peoples Front likely holds onto the National Parks, but allows any requested corporate resource extraction on park lands to proceed.
It is Dept of Interior/BLM lands (including national forests) that Der Trumper will divest to the highest bidder or to any (Repub-controlled) Western state. Wilderness areas will be decertified and allowed to be open for all resource extraction and/or returned to states for economic exploitation. “Conservative” Repubs and yahoos hostile to wilderness areas for a long time now.
So yes, kids, if you’d like to visit national forests, and wilderness areas, smart to do it by end of next year. These public lands will not survive the coming Repub apocalypse.
And that garden Michele Obama loves so much?
It’s gone within a month. And he will use a bulldozer to take the concrete out.
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Yep. Like stupid Reagan taking down the solar panels that Carter put on the White House.
There’s no such thing as conservation when you’re a conservative. Use, abuse, make money, lather, rinse, repeat.
In any given situation, ask yourself “What’s the ‘Fuck you!’ move?”
That’s what Trump will do. And that’s all he’ll do.
Bulldozer? More like mini-nukes.
All public lands are at risk, especially here in the West where they are a large part of most states.
It’s the story-board for a dystopian movie. Perhaps a Sharknado sequel.
America, down the trumphole.
Then the second movie trumpening, how the left managed to be better at dividing themselves than a dysfunctional zombie corpse.
And to finish the triology, Its about rebels fighting an exsistential war to be free, but more get killed from infighting than the totalitarian emperor. A group of hero`s manages to organize a final battle that easily hands them their freedon, all they have to do is to agree on one thing…
The title will be determined at a later time.
Net even there, at least.
There perhaps 2 or 3 that would only be as bad as the Bushies. ‘Only.’ God.
GS always controls the Treasury Secretary. If they don’t come from GS, they go there afterward.
IMHO, some retirement eligible Treasury professional should hold that job.
We’re in for a bumpy ride.
Duh, Christie needs to head the Dept of Transportation.
And of course, Trump wants to eventually eliminate the Dept of Education.
“deplorable” doesn’t even start to describe it.
Well that would get rid of No Child Left Behind anyway.
Replaced with No Child Left…
That would be horrible, eliminating the Department of Education. Imagine schools having to decide for themselves how to educate children without the experts in DC telling them how. Goodness, that would be disastrous.
Yes, let’s allow the several States to educate, miseducate, or fail to educate their children. It’ll work out great for non-whites in States under Republican control.
The purest expression of Make America Great Again possible.
Riiiight. Better for the governors andy/or mayors of either party to use federal sugar to privatize those schools right out of the neighborhood. Like Nathan Deal and Rahm in Chicago.
You’re dishonestly inferring that the wholesale private school push is equally supported by both Parties. The Republicans have it in their platform; the Democrats do not. Rahm does not represent the center of his Party on this issue.
Enjoy your President Trump. Consider the contradictions heightened. But you’ll be fine. Many of the people I work with and for will be devastated. No concern of yours.
The experts in DC believe in evolution.
I’ll take my chances with them.
Well, they believe in Social Darwinism–which is a part of their atomized merit system.
Actual Darwinian evolution is all about the population, not the individual.
Medicare crook Rick Scott over HHS, yes, that makes sense.
“…Goldman Sachs veteran Steven Mnuchin as Treasury secretary.”
Yes, for all those people who were angry beyond words at Hillary’s Wall Street speeches, this is the change you were looking for, no?
“…Mayor Giuliani, one of Trump’s leading public defenders, is the leading candidate for attorney general.”
Those unhappy with the “insufficient” work the Justice Department has done on voting rights and cases against financial instutions- hey, problems solved.
“…Forrest Lucas, the 74-year-old co-founder of oil products company Lucas Oil, as a top contender for Interior secretary…”.
But let’s remember that the platforms of Hillary and the Democratic Party were insufficiently militant against fracking. All good now!
“A handful of Republican politicians may also make the cut, including…Sen. Jeff Sessions for secretary of defense.”
Remember the cases made here about what a warmonger Hillary would have been. Certainly she would have nominated someone even worse, right?
“One person close to Trump’s campaign said David Clarke, the conservative sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, is a possible candidate for Homeland Security secretary.”
This one’s for those who made the case that the President and Hillary did an insufficient job responding to Black Lives Matter. Congratulations; you helped choose a better leader.
She lost, and it wasn’t because of anything anyone in this tiny corner of the world said.
well, you missed the point of the criticism – it wasn’t that T is ok, it’s that Clinton has/ had flaws and baggage. doubt that any of the Sanders supporters are anti-women, and most said they were voting for HRC anyway. hope your wife takes some comfort in the great women just elected to the Senate NH, IL and NV each one more impressive than the one before. in the not too distant future one of them will run for prez, without the Clinton baggage and without the encumbrance of a previous POTUS spouse. From people I talked with, that Bill would be part of the deal affected their vote.
Trump won.
Hillary’s policies and choices for Cabinet positions would have been miles and miles better than Trump’s.
Liberal criticisms of Hillary were often expressed with extreme personal animus, were often factually flawed, and became incredibly counterproductive, as the outcome of the election revealed in the most literal sense imaginable.
And we’re not talking about the fact that the FBI intervened in the election. In such an extraordinarily close election, it is not difficult to make the case that their intervention was decisive.
Hillary was not criticized enough from the left, especially during the primaries. The election was in her hands – she got that too easily.
A candidate “making history” should remember to enjoy full responsibility for overcoming whatever hostile prejudices, criticisms. Comparison to “the other guy” is not mature enough.
I’ll be more direct.
Hillary was criticized quite substantially during the primary. Bernie did well for a reason. If Hillary hadn’t been criticized, she would have rolled over Bernie easily. She did not.
Some, far from all, of the liberal criticisms were bullshit. Many people believed the portions of the criticisms which were bullshit. Americans had been trained to accept bullshit about Hillary by a decades-long media war against the Clintons. BooMan made the point as far back as 2014 that the significant downside of a Hillary nomination would be that Clinton Bullshit Mountain would be brought down on her. It was.
Even with this, the voters decided the primary. They chose Clinton. The DNC did not choose Clinton, the voters in the several States did, under each State’s distinct rules. Just as the voters chose Trump yesterday, not in the popular vote but in the Electoral College, the only thing that counts in the end. It would be hostile to claim that yesterday’s voters should be respected but the voters in the primaries and caucuses should be disrespected.
People took on the habit of not just disliking Hillary on policy, but disliking her personally. That added juice to Clinton opposition, a juice which defined some people’s electoral choices yesterday. Some Bernie supporters and other leftists helped elect Donald Trump yesterday. That makes no sense on a policy basis, but it makes sense when you add personal hatred and mistrust to the mix.
Hillary took responsibility to attempt to overcome hostile prejudices and criticisms she received during the primary by adding many parts of Bernie’s agenda into her platform and the DNC platform. This failed to satisfy many Bernie supporters and others, because personal opinions were brought into the policy analysis. “SHE’S LYING, SHE’S A LIAR,” we were told. Many people formed their electoral choice on that opinion. Again, not fact, opinion.
All of this cumulatively helped lead to her defeat and the election of Trump. With the extreme closeness of the election in so many states, each of these became unimaginably significant.
Comparison to “the other guy” is literally what an election is. Pretending that it is something else is disappointing.
I was going to say let’s unpack this but looking at it now I’m not sure we should. At the very least this is a case study in missing the very basic point.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his tribal identity depends on his not understanding it.
Bernie did not really help Hillary to connect with economic “deplorables”.
He was not competitive in testing alliance of non-white voters and women. CNN says independent women voted for Trump 47-43, white women 53-43.
And Bernie stayed away from the email server – pretty fatally. “That is not going to happen” is basically the new “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
No cumulative effects would matter if Hillary were more prudent as the State Secretary, or talking about “deplorables”. Hillary relied too much on comparison to “the other guy” – a classic mistake, in politics as well.
Even a devoted water carrier like Jonathan Chait has now had to acknowledge the “paranoia and terrible judgment” of the private email server. And of course Hillary’s instinctive stonewalling made everything worse.
But the coup de grace was their crude attempt to co-opt Lynch with Hillary’s talk of a continuing position for her and Bill’s tarmac visit. By putting her in a place where she had to recuse herself, they put the bludgeoning weapon in Comey’s hands.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer couple.
So it’s not personal, then.
Enjoy your President Trump. In your own way, you were helpful to his cause. Hardly a peep about Trump here, but wall-to-wall hammering away at Clinton down the stretch.
I think honest members of a progressive community who fail to make a quality distinction between Clinton and Trump show terrible judgment. But who knows what you want out of your government policies. You may be getting what you prefer.
Oh, so if this site had just railed louder against Trump, all those millions of blue-collar men and women would have voted for Hillary? All those millions that NEVER EVEN HEARD OF THIS SITE AND NEVER GO TO A POLITICAL BLOG?
And regarding the “I’d like to grab them by the pussy remark.” That shocks you but much cruder talk is routine amongst blue-collar men and blue-collar women just hear that he’s like all the other guys she knows.
And even with that, moralizing might have been a little more effective if it didn’t come from the woman who stayed married to the “Mmm that cigar tastes good” guy, which IMHO is a LOT more disgusting.
missed that about continuing position for Lynch. wow!
LOT of women pay the bills. They know first hand when they are losing ground.
The worse, the better — i.e., the more quickly and dramatically they make fools of themselves. A lot of people are still not paying attention. Trump won — well, he won because of every piece of his support, but one of those was the voter-by-habit for Genericrepublican. I do not say “pivot”, because it was less something Trump did than something that happened to him, but in the last phase of the campaign he became Genericrepublican, and as such, he got a lot of votes from people who never heard of Breitbart and who vaguely remember Rudy Giuliani as the prosecutor who busted Michael Milken. These voters have unpleasant surprises coming, unlike the harder-core Trumpets who will be pleased but not surprised.
People never learn. I agree with you in theory, but not in practice. If things get really bad, the R party, in collusion with the Oligarch-owned media, will commence to blaming all ills on Democrats, DFHs, the minorities, and all the other usual suspects. Rightwingers will never ever learn. They just won’t. As long as they can blame everything bad on Democrats, they’re happy. The end.
Why didn’t they come out for McCain and Romney then if only Right wingers voted for Trump?
Face it. Some people, in fact many people, who voted for Obama then, voted for Trump now. The question is “Why?” If you don’t acknowledge that as the problem, then you will never find the solution.
Was the fault Hillary’s (I think so). Was the fault Comey’s? Was the fault Sanders’? Was it the media? Was it black people staying home? Was it the phase of the Moon? Doesn’t matter, you won’t find the solution until you acknowledge the problem – people who voted for Barack Obama before voted for Donald Trump now. And enough of them that 4% of Republicans bleeding off to Johnson didn’t save you. Hillary Clinton got 47% of the vote in MINNESOTA! As AG says, wake the fuck up! That number should send alarm bells ringing to every Democrat.
Marie3? What percentage did she get in California and how does it compare to Obama, Kerry and Gore? I’ll bet it was less even though she won.
The numbers suggest that Obama > Trump voters would be minuscule. If the reports are correct on Trump’s AA and Latino vote being higher than Romney’s, that’s where the Obama > Trump vote could exist. OTOH, perhaps the increase in AA and Latino voters for Trump were people that hadn’t voted in ’12.
While there appears not to be many ballots left to count, that not many could number several thousand. As it stands at this point:
Trump: 59.612
Romney: 60,934
McCain: 59,948
Bush: 62,041 (in ’04)
Bush: 50,046 (in ’00)
Rove’s millions of missing white voters still failed to show up.
wrt CA — Hillary did better than Obama in ’12. She won with 61.5% compared to Obama’s 60.2%. Trump lost with 33.3% compared to Romney at 37.1%. Might be a bit misleading because the vote was way down from ’12. Near two million fewer voters for Trump than for Romney.
National Review counts Trump 2016 beating Obama 2012. Possibly the difference hangs on the 47 percent speech.
More salt from the “NeverTrump” NRO:
The Great Progressive Repudiation
I have a smart but annoyingly conservative friend who makes this same point. It drives me nuts because it’s so wrong.
The portion about the protest vote is 100% correct. But the idea that Trump supporters were “rejecting progressivism” is a mix of inaccuracy and those voters’ incoherence; their victimization by decades’ worth of conservative propaganda.
Trump conned the public into thinking he’s something different — exactly the way General Motors created the “Saturn” line in the 1990s, described it as “A different kind of car company — a different kind of car” in ads and removed the General Motors branding. Trump’s going to rubber-stamp the same old establishment Republican agenda as Jeb Bush or anyone else. There will be no wall; there will be no deportations; there will be no Obamacare “replacement”; there will be no solution to ISIS.
To be clear: I mean that the NRO point is wrong; not anything you said.
They are talking about SOCIAL progressivism–you know, treating ALL citizens as having the same rights.
It it very convenient of them to ignore ECONOMIC progressivism by conflating the two. They never want the class issue to arise, so they conceal it with social greivances.
“Basket of deplorables” was red meat. Worth a million in GOTV, which Trump barely bothered with.
I agree, let us forget those words ever passed the lips of a presidential candidate of EITHER party, much less the supposedly “progressive” one.
grrr grievances.
great comment
So California was totally different from the Midwest. Not really a surprise. Here in IL, AA’s stayed pretty much the same as a percentage, but turnout was lower. Since Obama had actually represented the South Side of Chicago in the state legislature and was black, it’s not surprising that there was more enthusiasm for him than her on the South side.
I suspect there may have been lingering resentment from the 2008 primary campaign. Or maybe, without the first black President on the ticket, AA turnout went from spectacular to normal. One would have to look at many elections to tell. But one can’t discount Trump’s possible appeal in his anti-illegal rhetoric. Blue collar black men see Mexican immigrants as job rivals and it’s probably more true for them than it is for whites. At the bottom rungs of the blue collar world blacks and latinos scramble for the same scraps. Latino, there’s another misnomer. It lumps together all Spanish-speaking people which is convenient for English-speaking people but ignores cultural differences and hostilities between Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans and more. I’ve worked with several Puerto Ricans and they all were very proud of being native born Americans ,”Not like those Mexican immigrants, WE are native born Americans.” Even amongst Mexicans, all all pro-illegal? I know amongst the older Italian-Americans there was prejudice against the immigrants (just off the boat) by the US born and by the legal immigrants against the illegal (without papers, WOP). I would be surprised if Mexican-Americans were different. I think it’s a big mistake to single out Latino or Mexican-Americans overriding concern being an open border. Perhaps those already here would like to see the doors closed to lower the competition. It would be consistent with American History.
We had neighbors from Belize, a tiny but very proud nation bordering Mexico. They hated and feared Mexicans and deeply resented being classified with them. My wife was very surprised, but consider the rivalries and prejudices between the English, Irish, French and Germans. To non-European non-white outsiders aren’t they just white nations that are neighbors? Aren’t they all the same?
I think another issue that is being overlooked is how the overall campaigns of the two differed. Trump was holding rallies with voters ALL THE TIME. It fed his vanity.
Hillary was holding fund raisers, I think history will conclude.
Although Trump told his fans that he would protect Social Security & Medicare, he also made a deal with Paul Ryan to cut and gut SS & Medicare. Trump specifically told Ryan that he was only saying he’d “save” them (no doubt using scare quotes) to get votes. As bad as the Grand Bargain was under Obama, I expect things to get much much worse.
Of course, those dastardly federal “entitlements” are infringing on all of our “liberties,” so at least we won’t have our “liberties” infringed on anymore by having to use Medicare and accept a montly SS check. Phew! Dodged those 2 bullets! Thanks, Trump!
And Obama appointed the Catfood Commission on HRC’s advice.
Presumably the EPA will be wound up as a going concern and abolished by statute–a long sought “conservative” and plutocrat goal.
Oh yeah. Count on it. I heard Trump fans whining and crying about how the EPA “infringes on their liberties.” I have been redundant today about this phrase, but it’s because I heard it so often when Trump fans were interviewed. The damn gubmint is just infringing on their “liberties” all over the place.
Needless to say, absolutly NO ONE asked what specific “liberties” were being infringed on and how. But I heard this phrase a lot, and I heard it used specifically in regard to the EPA. Do these people even KNOW what the EPA is and what it does? I find it unlikely in many cases. It’s what they’ve been taught to spout out by Trump, Limbaugh, Fox, etc. Yet these same people are claimed to be hating on the “media” and not paying attention to it.
Oh really?
To most people the EPA is why their cars are crap.
As an engineer, I know the US Auto Industry died of self-inficted wounds, the result of being run by financial men instead of engineers, manufacturing specialists or salesmen (like Iacocca who replaced finance guy Lynn Townsend); but they blamed the EPA and people believed them. I saw an actual recall notice sent to one of my colleagues about his 1973 Plymouth. It said if the car was running unusually smooth and the gas mileage was abnormally high, to bring it in and they would fix it. The cause was a non-working EGR system. If you got that notice, would you bring your car in so they could make it run rough and suck gas? Well if you are Green, I suppose you would, but 90+% of the public wouldn’t.
It’s fine. Once he gets his private screening of “the movie,” he’ll change up some of it.
He also may yet to have learned that his nominees require Senate confirmation. And if Senate Democrats don’t use their filibuster power to reject these unqualified people, then they should all those their Senate seats the next time they run.
But not filibustering out of sight of the American people, but boldly and upfront so that they can see why they are unsuitable for the positions they’ve been appointed to. They could all take lessons from Senator Warren on how this should be done.
Better not to panic and keep our wits about us.
You’re counting on Democrats to do WHAT? Stand up to Republicans? I can’t wait to see that happen…
(yeah somewhat snarky but not 100%)
you think the senate won’t change the rules on the filibuster?
Dream on. The filibuster will be the first thing to go.
I don’t know. But contrary to opinions around here, I’m not a pessimistic cynic but a rationally optimistic cynic.
As of right now left-liberals and younger Americans have exhibited power and political skill that Senate DINOs, Schemers, and feather-bedders didn’t know existed and enough aim to use it in the next two years and the two years after that. If they want to hold onto their jobs, they need to do their freakin jobs or we’ll find someone new that will do it.
oh, the old “winning by losing” strategy.
Whatever Marie3. I don’t agree with you at all on this.
Sure, they had the power to deny a vote to the Democrats. Great. But political skill? We just lost the SCOTUS. SO yeah, political skill in getting an own-goal.
Brilliant.
I don’t know about cynicism, but I am pessimistic.
The Democrats abolished the filibuster on executive appointments didn’t they? Including judicial app’ts except Supreme Court.
Darn — and thanks for reminding me — that Reid pulled the nuclear option on filibustering nominees to all but the SC. So, I guess they’ll have to do it the real old-fashioned way by exposing these frauds sufficiently that they can’t get a simple majority to confirm.
So keep running the supreme Court on 8 or 7 justices until you control the Senate AND the White House again, if ever. If you Democrats continue playing by Marquis of Queensbury rules while Republicans are playing Gunfight At The OK Corral, you will continue to lose even when you DO nominally control the process.
Sarah Palin being considered for Interior?
What a joke. What a goddamn sick joke.
This country is going to resemble a goddamn hellhole after 4 years (we are definitely losing Senate seats in 2018, unless Trump has screwed up so badly even racist white assholes living in the middle of nowhere can see through it).
But it will be an awesome hellhole. Full of real Americans.
I’ve consoled my wife through her episodes of hard crying yesterday and today. Today, she said in between her tears “Why do people hate women so much? They really hate me, they hate us! And Hillary is an accomplished woman with a great heart and fantastic plans! I don’t understand…”.
Despite all the very hard work I had done to help lead campaigns for Hillary and lots of State and local candidates and campaigns, I was thrown off by my wife’s emotional admiration for Hillary as a person. I did see her campaign platform as a very broad and liberal one, but the Clinton wars, the incredible level of extremely personal animus constantly expressed against Hillary here and elsewhere in the progressive movement, and her less than stellar speaking style had beaten the personal enthusiasm for Clinton out of me.
My wife is an intelligent and informed person, slightly cynical in her own style, and not inclined to admire politicians. Her love for Hillary brought my mind back to the many people I know who also had expressed real caring for Hillary over recent months and years. It’s a completely valid point of view to hold.
For those who have constantly expressed their free-flowing hatred for Clinton here, I don’t just find them partially responsible for Trump’s win, and personally responsible for the tremendous damage that will be done to people and institutions around the world, damage which we all would have avoided if Clinton had won yesterday.
I also want those people here to know how disgusted I am by myself in allowing them, each of them personally, to play a part in separating me from my personal affection for the woman who was by far the best candidate to lead the free world in this election.
Propaganda, it’s a helluva drug.
I’m not ready to make nice /
I’m not ready to back down /
I’m still mad as hell, and I don’t have time /
To go ’round and ’round and ’round
Well, stick it up your jumper. If you can’t see what a malign influence she and all her neoliberal fellow-travellers have been on the party there is no fixing it now.
We let the Republicans get to our left, dammit. That’s just stupid. And against all warnings.
Get over it and for God’s sake move away from the flaming wreckage.
Of all the absurd things that a Clinton hater could claim, the claim that Trump ran to Hillary’s left is the biggest whopper.
Trump’s campaign centered its fire on the left, all the voters in the Obama coalition, and almost all the social and economic issues leftists care about most. Trump disrespected the hell out of Bernie and the Senator’s budgetary priorities at the moments when he wasn’t reappropriating Bernie’s attacks on Clinton for his own purposes.
And on trade and elite control, the issues where he rhetorically claimed turf to Clinton’s left, Trump is absurdly untrustworthy.
Trump will sign any international trade deal which enriches him personally. Everything about his past behavior shows this to be true. He will viciously fuck over American workers. He will not bring back middle- and high-wage jobs. If manufacturing jobs were to come back, it would be because he worked with Ryan and McConnell to eliminate the Federal minimum wage.
Trump thinks deregulations of all industries is the way to go, especially and including the financial institutions and the oil companies. And he believes voter suppression and the tearing down of all campaign finance laws are peachy keen. Control by his favored subculture of financial elites will increase, not decrease.
You’ve been taken for a ride.
Whether Trump is trustworthy or not is hardly the point, he ran to Hillary’s Left and we shouldn’t allow that to happen. We should make a point of that in future.
As if Burnie Sanders didn’t do a 3D presentation on the subject for all to see; no f*cking excuses there. He was very popular and his message was unequivocal.
FUCK YOU,ASSHOLE.
A fine reasoned response.
We stuffed up. The thing is now we have to listen and not paint big murals of the tragic death of our preconceived beliefs. Bernie ran to Hillary’s Left because she left a big gap there. The difficulty she had in putting down that insurrection was a warning. She actually corrected a bit and Sanders got the credit, but it wasn’t enough; not nearly. She relied on big data and a GOTV that proved merely adequate.
The thing is by then it was obviously a change election. Hillary or no we had Trump emerge after bulldozing all the establishment candidates out of the race. Would Sanders have won? I’m guessing he may have done better but we’ll never know. What we do know is that the warning was clear. I’m not criticising HIllary but hers was the status quo candidacy. We should have know better. The coronation turned into a funeral march.
We got our clocks cleaned. Time for a big rethink. Look at the map again; really look at it down to the county level. See anything? Metro areas like islands in a sea of red.
So let’s try this, say. Let’s be the party of anti-fascism and civil liberties, the party of a fair deal for the working class; the advocate for those whom have no other in a world fraught with intentional traps and injustices after decades of maladministration, mischief and regulatory capture. The party of the rule of law and modesty. Let’s be that party.
Lets be the party that makes life fairer or more secure for people not the one that performs the dance of the seven veils whenever someone mentions financial oversight.
Warren and Sanders are the future; Clinton and Schumer are the past. Won’t change tomorrow but soon. Otherwise it’s likely to be a long march without a drink.
In other words become the Democratic Party of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. There was a gap there occupied by Stevenson, but he stood for those things too. He was popular too but couldn’t stand against the popularity of Eisenhower, the conqueror of Nazi Germany. IIRC the House at that time was solidly Democratic. And I’d trade ANY neolib for the reincarnation of Eisenhower who raised the top income bracket higher than FDR did and had a deep distrust of military contractors. I don’t know his civil rights views but he didn’t undo Truman’s integration of the armed forces and he did send troops to integrate schools (actually federalized the local National guard which was politically smarter than sending in “yankee” regulars from out of state).
If you did that, I would come back and I’m betting that other blue collar workers would too.
One warning on that. Truman and Johnson were turned out because of Asian wars. This obsession with conquest of the middle East has got to stop.
I’ll let Glenn take this one.
http://theintercept.com/2016/11/09/democrats-trump-and-the-ongoing-dangerous-refusal-to-learn-the-le
sson-of-brexit/
So now Glenn wishes us to ignore the FBI Director’s use of targeted propaganda to directly intervene in the Presidential election, and tacitly approves of the intervention by the Russian government and his ally WikiLeaks in our election by the use of stolen private information.
Gosh, this seems rather inconsistent of him.
Well, you know, at least it stopped the woman who he describes here as acting “piggishly” and such. Value systems and professional obsessions are meant to be abandoned over such things.
But if you read the adjectives he uses throughout that essay, you know it’s just Glenn’s intellectual read of the situation. Nothing personal at all.
That Glenn supports Trump’s campaign claim that he will blow up the system in order to help struggling Americans is just the icing on the rancid cake here.
Glenn was always a highly incomplete defender of liberal values. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass for many portions of the progressive agenda; he’s revealed himself as a libertarian in many policy areas. That should be recognized.
Which of these do you think will most effectively serve your interest of returning a Democrat to the White House?
A) Call Glenn Greenwald as a Libertarian
B) Blame Vladimir Putin for exposing the double-dealings of the DNC
C) Nominate a candidate who didn’t support NAFTA and TPP
Take your time. You have 3 years to think about it.
You may be terribly disappointed when, not if, Trump signs an international trade deal which fucks over American workers further. Or maybe you’ll be pleased. Again, who knows what you want.
I’ve been very clear about what I want out of government policies, across the board. I also understand what is achievable under divided Federal governance. What you want in policy terms is a mystery.
You seem excited by, and have taken direct action to achieve, Clinton’s loss and Trump’s win. I mistrust you.
What I would like is for the Democratic Party to learn the lesson that the 5 million voters it lost since 2012 just tried to teach it.
However, as long as its partisans insist that everything would be fine if people just clapped hard enough, I’m not optimistic.
You are literally incoherent here. Is it the Bernie agenda which you believe the American people want? Is it some variant of it?
If Bernie’s agenda is beloved and Hillary’s agenda is despised, why did he not win the Democratic primary?
I’ll warn you off the claim that the Democratic Party prevented the American people from weighing in properly during the primaries. If you’re going to support Greenwald’s claim that the voters have full agency and were not influenced by FBI interference against our electoral process, an extreme violation of Justice Department standard procedures, then you must give the voters the same agency when they selected the Democratic nominee.
What the majority of the electorate wanted was throw-the-table-over change. This much is clear now, I hope?
Bernie offered this. Hillary did not. Ergo, he would certainly have done better than her in the general. (Better enough? We’ll never know.)
The reasons he didn’t beat Hillary in the primaries were several. Enormous disadvantages in money and name recognition, hostile media coverage, the DNC tipping the playing field.
Oh, yes. And people like you insisting, despite the polls, that only Hillary could win the general.
“What the majority of the electorate wanted was throw-the-table-over change.”
So any would do? Rightist change or leftist change? Who cares as long as it’s change, is that what you’re expressing? Sounds like it.
If that’s the case, then Trump would have beaten literally anyone, because no one offered more change than him. So much change, the best change, bigly more change than career politician and known socialist Bernie.
But what change did you want, and how did your exclusive efforts to suppress Clinton’s turnout serve your policy goals?
You know the answer to that! It’s been well documented!
Like i predicted, people got trump elected out of spite.
Congratulations with your new preseident fuckers.
In 4 years he may have fucked up America enough for your planned revolution. Maybe 8, assuming he wont be king or emperor.
What do you want to do with “non-ignoring” the FBI intervention?
Like in 2000, there are millions of causes that the Democratic candidate did not get through to the presidency. We better concentrate on those that were in full control of the Clintons and DNC.
That would require him to acknowledge that nominating the second most disliked candidate history was maybe not so smart..
Not going to happen.
Trump’s “health care plan” is out. Couldn’t get worse? Believed his bullshit about “Medicaid” for poor?
Remember when people talked about how impressive it was that Trump was a Republican who would not touch entitlement programs, and was not animated by religious/social issues?
Good times.
Let’s complain about Obamacare some more, and applaud the fact that depressed liberal turnout in 2016 appears likely to take away health care access and financial security from over 20 million Americans.
“depressed liberal turnout in 2016”
Ah! It’s the fault of the DFH’s!
Over 20 million Americans have gained health insurance, and with it health care access and financial protection, by the ACA. It is likely that almost all of them will lose those protections and provisions, and it is likely that any new policies the new Executive and Congress will agree on will be far worse than the policies Americans enjoyed before the ACA.
20 million will lose coverage, and many millions more will have benefits taken away as well. This is what the Republicans campaigned on, and now they will likely have the power to achieve it.
The ACA was worth defending with our votes. That will be made exceedingly clear very soon.
Most of them deeply reset being forced to pay for those crap policies that pay nothing. Working blue collar people, unless they had disqualifying pre-existing conditions HATE Obamacare. It’s just another expense to them. No, they are not clamering for single-payer, talk radio has convinced them that that would be non-care by government bureaucrats. They want good employer paid policies, which Congress could easily have mandated for companies engaged in interstate commerce which is most companies. Easily if they hadn’t had their hands out to those same companies for
bribescampaign contributions.As it ever was, as it always shall be.
Yup the right is scared of change, the left is too nervous to trust each other, and makes sure the right gets what it asks for.
World without end, amen.
depressed Democratic turnout in some states does seem to have been a key feature.
A candidate’s one and only job is to convince people to vote for her. She didn’t do it well enough.
Trump got fewer votes than Romney did in 2012. Romney got trounced, as we recall.
The strategy, proudly admitted to by the Trump campaign, was to drive the campaign so hard into the gutter and support a wide variety of voter suppression tactics that they could prevail with a shrunken electorate, particularly if non-whites were targeted for the greatest shrinking. They prevailed with this strategy.
It is hard to overstate how dangerous this strategy is for democracy in our Republic, and the social fabric in our culture.
Voter suppression? I haven’t seen lines so deep since 1992! And my area is heavily Mexican and Indo-pak. No rednecks.
Keep thnkng like that and you will go the way of the Whigs. and considering Democrats’ coastal elitism, I’ll say “Good Riddancce”. you wanted our votes but didn’t give a shit about our jobs, just joking about fly over territory and you jetted from New York party to Hollywood Party. That’s how Midwesterners view Democratic politicians and Hillary did NOTHING to dispel that. Bernie Sanders, at least came as your kindly grandpa come to help you out of a hole.
Even though you love her policies and kiss the ground she walks on, you have to admit that she ran a crappy campaign. And where did all that Pac money go? I hardly saw any TV ads this year, just free TV of her screeching in that awful grating voice.
Our country is going back to the 1930s.
My concern is that our country is going back to another country’s 1930s.
My twitter feed had someone from San Francisco with a Nazi flag flying high above a house in their old neighborhood.
More:
“Make America White Again
it’s more like going back to the 1970s.
The 1970s in Argentina and Chile.
Ironically while the Deep State will run wild under these fuckers there would probably be less chance of nuclear war than Trump actually wanted to do the work.
BooMan, Why not just immediately retire the quip ‘basket of deplorables’—now? It sunk Hillary Clinton (= Romney’s remark about the 47%), maybe even more than the email discussion (controversy?). It doesn’t contribute anything to a reasoned discussion, describes nothing real and drips of arrogance. People (I can’t say which ones) would obviously be offended by such a condescending remark. I wonder how it came out anyway?, the glitzy LGBT partygoers must have had a good howl at the expense of the unenlightened. I know Trump voters first hand, I can’t say they’re deplorable.
It’s over. Mr. and Mrs Clinton and their daughter Mrs. Mezvinsky are now completely private citizens and have nothing to say. From one day to the next, we witnessed the thundering conclusion of a morality play: I am better than you, no you’re not, so there I’ll turn my back on you, see if I can’t.
There were more than enough people, even on this blog, who intimated where this train wreck was headed, just as there were those who knew that Saddam Hussein has no weapons of mass destruction and that an invasion Iraq would result in a nightmarish situation in the Middle East or, as the then head of the Arab League prophetically proclaimed, ‘open the gates of hell’. Maybe that’s a good way to typify what were going through now. Sobering.
Martin, you need to retire the “basket of deplorables” phrase. it was offensive – a signal of everything that was wrong with her campaign in fact- when she used it and doesn’t help the analysis now. maybe you’re trying to be ironic or something, but it’s not working. btw, some of us wrote about the phrase at the time. we were trying to explain what was going on between the coasts, but the atmosphere was, well raise more $ from bankers in the Hamptons, mouth a few phrases and everyone will fall in line.