Mourning in America - Trump Year One: November '16 to

Outer space, Evan, duh

My parents are on medicare after a decade-plus-long rough patch after my dad lost his job (he worked again and continues to, and a much lower salary, and never had employer insurance again), during which they paid out a huge part of their income to insurance premiums. I breathed such a sigh of relief a couple years ago when they finally got on medicare. I really do hope that's an overreach that blows up in their faces.

seems like bernie sanders has upset you, mh

I think Keith Ellison is a solid dude but why is an endorsement from a non-democrat such a great idea? Is Sanders considering joining the party again? Is he giving out ideas on RNC chairs next?

A bunch of friends have shared Sanders' endorsement and I am just like wtf

― mh 😏, Friday, November 11, 2016 12:21 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Way to reform from without and not within you fly by night candidate

― mh 😏, Friday, November 11, 2016 12:21 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No one gives a shit about this "not a real democrat" shit except the party insiders who lost this election.

He can endorse whatever he wants but someone who joined the democratic to run and then immediately left seems like a weird endorsement to share for an administrative position

it seems it would be pretty rich for 'actual' democrats to be all 'tyvm but we need to let people committed to our party make these decisions', given that they have no credible leadership

is there any reason he immediately left than for some sort of idealistic purity?

I mean, it's a party, which is a non binding thing in the US but idk wtf

Missed this one earlier: https://www.buzzfeed.com/aramroston/sources-donald-trump-listened-in-on-phone-lines-at-mar-a-lag

paintings with eyes that mysteriously follow you

is there any reason he immediately left than for some sort of idealistic purity?

I mean, it's a party, which is a non binding thing in the US but idk wtf

― mh 😏, Friday, November 11, 2016 12:27 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

All he is now is the Senator from Vermont and that's how his constituency elected him. Only seems right.

that article oo posted has this insane tidbit:

"...The day before the election, I looked at the Facebook page of the current mayor. Among the items he posted there in the final 48 hours of the campaign: Hillary Clinton Calling for Civil War If Trump Is Elected. Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President. Barack Obama Admits He Was Born in Kenya. FBI Agent Who Was Suspected Of Leaking Hillary’s Corruption Is Dead.
These are not legit anti-Hillary stories. (There were plenty of those, to be sure, both on his page and in this election cycle.) These are imaginary, made up, frauds. And yet Facebook has built a platform for the active dispersal of these lies — in part because these lies travel really, really well. (The pope’s “endorsement” has over 868,000 Facebook shares. The Snopes piece noting the story is fake has but 33,000.)"

ok, long post here, this is from a friend of a friend on fb who was canvassing for the election in Ohio:

I wanted to share some illuminating insights on real, actual Trump & Hillary supporters I met while canvassing in Ohio.

I only met a handful of Trump voters. A couple of them were even African American. A few things REALLY surprised me:

- Yes, some folks are really, super racist, homophobic, and awful. I’ve had people scream at me: Hillary is a murderer! She broke the law & is being indicted by the FBI! Perverts can go into girls and boys bathrooms, and you Democrats make me sick! You get the picture. They have swallowed up the alt-right Breitbart lies & this is their reality.

- I met some undecided voters. One very nice, young woman said she didn’t like that Hillary was going to take away all her guns (not true), and she also didn’t like the email thing (no specifics). She didn’t like Trump because he was an asshole, but she was glad he released his taxes (dude, all caps NOT TRUE). I refuted the lies about Clinton & tried to correct her on Trump, but she still didn’t seem to understand. Or maybe she didn’t believe me — after all, I’m campaigning for one side. Clearly, she’s getting a lot of lies & misinformation, and no details — I would guess it’s from cable TV, shares on social media, quick headlines, memes, and her bubble of friends.

- I met one very thoughtful, college educated, African American man, early 30s, who was leaning towards voting for Jill Stein, because he was originally a Bernie supporter. He was staunchly anti-Trump, and liked Hillary, but couldn't decide. He’s married to a white woman who supported Hillary, and they were at home with their toddler. He said to me, “My wife says I’m throwing my vote away!” I said I agreed, because of the Electoral College. He didn’t understand what I meant. As we chatted for 15 min, it became clear to me that this man, living in Ohio, did not understand that we elect a President via the Electoral College. He didn’t understand that his vote was really crucial in determining who would be our next President. And this dude was a journalism major in college! He understood the issues, but before I knocked, he didn’t understand why his Ohio vote mattered so much more than my California vote. Even educated voters are busy — they don’t have the luxury of time to read print journalism. They might watch some TV news. They probably don’t listen NPR. They may not remember their civics lessons, if they even had one at all. Once he understood the impact of his vote, he was 100% behind Hillary.

- A Clinton staging office is usually someone’s house — a wonderful, generous soul who has opened up their home, morning through evening, for weeks. A Clinton operations director is assigned there, to prioritize, delegate and train GOTV volunteers as they come in. The homeowner is there, cheering everyone on. When I arrived at one staging office, I was greeted by the homeowner, who asked where I was from. “California, how wonderful! How’s it looking in California? Do you think Hillary has a chance to win there?” I said yes, Hillary was absolutely going to win CA, because it was very safely a blue state. She beamed, and excitedly told her friend who was visiting, and they cheered. This lovely woman, who was so supportive of Hillary Clinton that she has let complete strangers turn her house upside down for weeks, also did not seem to know basic info about the Electoral College! I get it now — truthful information can be hard to identify & process. There’s a lot out there. How can we do better to educate & inform the voting public?

- I met a young African American woman who voted third party. I met an African American man whose wife voted for Trump. I met a lot of people of color and white voters who voted as though it were a coin toss. I’m not kidding. When asked, they didn’t seem to know a whole lot about Trump — as though the nonstop scandals had just become a jumbled news salad, with nothing really sticking out to define him. Maybe they just recognized him as that flashy businessman on that TV reality show that they liked. They were familiar with the Clinton name, but didn’t know what she really stood for. They were all pretty tuned out.
My main takeaway from canvassing this time was that more than half of our electorate — the folks in the middle, who are neither far right nativists nor lefty progressives — they know little about the candidates. Lots of them do not vote. And if they do show up & vote, they are voting with a critical lack of information or an over abundance of misinformation. It is literally a coin toss for some of them. If you’ve read my previous post, this will sound familiar: I believe that one of the biggest problems is that cable “news" is really just reality TV posing as news, with little to no journalism or investigation of facts. And thanks to the GOP’s decades-long attack of the institution of journalism & the “liberal media," people don’t know who to trust for news anymore. They share memes & news articles without even knowing if what they are sharing is true. They believe conspiracy theories and unfounded rumors. They believe the lies that Trump spews out against Clinton, because TV news reporters don’t dig deep. They just report what people say, and give equal weight to both sides, as though the two candidates and their surrogates were equally reasonable people. For these voters, it’s "he said" versus "she said." They don’t know what or who to believe.

This election is, in part, a reflection of a complete failure of news outlets, and what happens when meaningful journalism is diminished, underfunded or undermined. Without journalism and trust in the free press, democracy is doomed.

Where can we start? I’m still thinking hard about this. For now, if you are an English or history teacher, please teach your students how to be journalists. Teach them how to vet sources of information, how to sift fact from fiction, and how to write a factual news article. It would prepare them well for college, to learn how to research. Have them analyze broadcasts from Fox, CNN, and MSNBC and present their findings. Have them research the whole story, and not just a sound bite. Have them analyze an NPR news report. If you’re a parent, tell your kid’s schools that you want an immersive course about the elections process. Teach students about the history of voter suppression, and how it still exists in many forms today. Teach them about gerrymandering. Insist that the students learn how to be good journalists & good citizens. They’ll be sharing more memes than we can possibly imagine, so let’s get them vetting facts first, so they can share the truth, or knock down a lie when they see one.

I’ll try to end this on a positive note:

While canvassing at dusk, I met a family. I didn’t know if they were pro- or anti-Clinton. Their kids were playing in the driveway. Mid-way through my pitch for Hillary, the husband said, "I have a felony conviction, and I've been told for years I can't vote. Is that true?" I told him the law varies by state; I looked it up on the ACLU website, and he did, in fact, have the right to vote. He nearly cried. This muscular tough guy looked at his wife in disbelief, "Honey, did you hear that? I can vote!" He looked at me and said with real sadness, "If I knew, I would have registered. That's why my wife is registered — she's really voting for me. I want Hillary to win."
Voter suppression, bad journalism, online misinformation & lies really do have an impact on our elections. Please consider the small things you can do locally to help us build a more informed and engaged electorate, one who can base their choices on facts & not lies.

And now… how do we win the Senate and House in 2018, when Democrats usually have record low turnout? I'll need to marinate on that one...

obama's graciousness with trump today seemed like it could have been part of a deep strategy. beyond just basic politeness he also tried to make inside quips with trump, giving him jokey tips on how to deal with reporters etc. hopefully, he is trying to win trump over via flattery and wield some influence over him. trump loves flattery, and what could be more exciting than having a world historic figure like obama as a friend?

― Treeship, Thursday, November 10, 2016 11:07 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ohhh, I thought this, too. Obama knows that flattering Trump wins out over any potential differences, and I'll bet he'd be able to play him like a fiddle were he so inclined.

I deeply admire that person's reaction to those people because I'd start carrying a flask and drinking heavily after the first one.

My main takeaway from canvassing this time was that more than half of our electorate — the folks in the middle, who are neither far right nativists nor lefty progressives — they know little about the candidates. Lots of them do not vote. And if they do show up & vote, they are voting with a critical lack of information or an over abundance of misinformation. It is literally a coin toss for some of them.

This is one point that seems both important and, in hindsight, obvious, yet not one I am seeing made by almost anyone

Good post. I saw a lot of people saying "how the fuck are there still undecideds?" during the last few weeks but that's just the truth, some people do not engage with political shit on any level. Disheartening to find that the late undecideds broke heavy for Trump and that the bullshit email story almost certainly had a lot to do with it.

Thank you so much for sharing that post, Moodles. That gives me some food for thought, as I'm thinking that education of the electorate has to be one of our main priorities in the coming days and months and years.

And honestly that's why I thought Debate #1 was gonna win it for Hillary - it was hyped up, the undecideds and disengaged were gonna watch, and he was going to get demolished. That all happened and it showed in the polls but.......yeah

God, education is so important. Here's some crucial information for an under informed voter: "By the way, nearly everything Trump says is a baldfaced lie. You can look it up yourself in real time. When he says 50, the real number could be 3,000, it could be 0. When he claims 'I never said X' there is almost certainly a tape of him saying X. He routinely makes up fake people and recounts fake interactions that the other party cannot corroborate. He once posed as his own publicist so he could brag to newspapers about cheating on his wife."

American high schools need to return to teaching about the obligations of citizenship. Even my old, highly-regarded high school no longer offers civics classes. When I went there, civics was mandatory for all 9th graders.

yeah, it was interesting to read the shared moodles post just after reading my aunt's comment on facebook: "What part of Hillary's character do th3se people believe makes her any better than Trump? I think everyone should give him, at least a year, before they pass judgement on his ability to turn America around for the better."

i was like "yeah he's a racist, that's one thing"

I'm pretty sure she did something for another person at least one time in her life

I'm thinking that education of the electorate has to be one of our main priorities in the coming days and months and years.

this would have been tremendously important either way, but it's at least doubly so now. genuinely flabbergasted that the discussion hasn't trended towards the face of trump's ten year old son as he stands at his father's side at 3AM or whatever to accept the presidency.

life is a long game, Leonard Cohen just passed at the age of 82 and we NEED to educate and otherwise take care of the children of this world pronto imo

https://medium.com/@Brocktoon/lexington-c1825d25442e#.qsa7gluua
Who’s on their side here? The Democrats? The ones who floated NAFTA? Who deregulated the banks? Who gutted unions which might’ve stepped in and mediated these ugly, ugly racial disputes?

Wait, is he talking about the same NAFTA that was negotiated by George Bush? Democrats helped pass it, but I don't see how they "floated" it. And by bank deregulation is he talking about the 1999 Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act which happens to be named after the three Republicans who co-sponsored it? And by what bizarre logic have Democrats been the ones to gut unions?

But sure, it's awfully sad that those racist small town white folks can't work at the non-union furniture factory anymore. Thanks Obama.

gramm-leach-bliley was passed by a veto-proof majority republican congress, but this never seems to get in the way of the "bill clinton was more republican than the republicans" narrative

One of the things I've noted from my overseas perspective is that a lot of the black rapper FB friends I have in Alabama seem really confused about the Electoral College. I saw a lot of "#RESEARCH
"..although Americans vote directly for their chosen candidate in the presidential election every 4 years, 👉the president is elected by the institution called the Electoral College👈" and "Electoral college picks the pres not us" posts in the weeks leading up to the election, with the subtext that voting did not matter since the establishment would disregard whatever votes they did not like and go for their own candidate anyway.

Earlier today, one of the younger ladies I work with asked me if I cried, and after a moment of wondering if it was a serious question, I admitted that "yeah I was furious in the middle of the night and then when i woke up I cried some."

I was encouraging these kids to vote, and they deserve to know that the outcome hurts me.

fantasies!

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-election-tie-519696

instinctive "oh for fuck's sake" when I read that tweet

Wouldn't professional protesters be hired rather than incited?

Thanks to improvements in technology we can have tragedy and farce at the same time!

I'm frustrated by the extent to which the discussions on the Left following Trump's election are all happening within the landscape the right has constructed over the last year. They're not dismissing the narratives of 'corrupt Clinton' vs 'Mr Sanders goes to Washington', or of the 'warmongering dems' vs the 'anti-war Trump', or of 'identity politics' vs 'working people' etc. etc.

In some ways this has all been a victory for the young 'class-only' left who want a socialism without content, without analysis. We've done the class-only thing before - we can't go back to the pre-70s unionism that focused on white men and became an organ of oppression for women and minorities. You can't focus on class and ignore the rest. There is no trickle-down emancipation.

Before focusing on which candidate would have won, if any, imagining that the problem was the options people were presented, we have to ask why people made the wrong choice (and it was the wrong choice) - no matter what would have been better, why did people on the day choose to abandon women and minorities, so mutilate the chances of 'progressive politics' in the future.

Trump has given Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, and Mike Rogers the nation's highest security clearances - NBC News

Newt please save our country

When asked how a system of registering Muslims would be carried out — whether, for instance, mosques would be where people could register — Mr. Trump said: “Different places. You sign up at different places. But it’s all about management. Our country has no management.’’

Asked later, as he signed autographs, how such a database would be different from Jews having to register in Nazi Germany, Mr. Trump repeatedly said, “You tell me,” until he stopped responding to the question.

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/20/donald-trump-says-hed-absolutely-require-muslims-to-register/

The Trump train really does have no brakes.

So for the Right to accept state actions you just have to call them management? You should have been pushing for gun management, damn it.

If vast chunks of the working class, blue color, the poor, the isolated and complacent and others truly have no or little idea how voting works, how elections work, how the country works, how the courts work, then they have been failed by almost every institution, on almost too many levels to fix. News. Education. Local politics. National politics.

I have a cousin in Maryland of indeterminate intelligence and political allegiance. I have no idea where she falls on either front, but I know she is very well-off and comfortable. And also, she exercises a lot. This is what she posted the other day:

There have been 6 terms of republican presidents since the Roe vs Wade decision. Over turning that decision was not on any one of those presidents list of things to do during their term. Why do people always assume that decision will be overturned when a republican president is elected?

Like, just try to parse that degree of ignorance, however innocent (or even not) the impetus behind it.

Chuck Schumer said he endorses Keith Ellison as DNC chair.

that muslim registration thing is from a year ago. not that it isn't horribly disturbing; but trump has walked it back sicne and also scrubbed all of it from his website. so I think they've realized doing that would be a very, very, very unconstitutional thing to do

With my day off, I watched a pretty remarkable -- yes -- "Morning Joe" segment in which for thirty minutes Michael Moore said shit about Trump that you won't hear on any other political gas bag show.

i'd written moore off but now I feel like that was a mistake this time; he seemed to nail the outcome of this election perfectly in advance (so did van jones back in the summer).

I thought a number of sources were accentuating the importance of going and voting to counter the one load of assured/dedicated voters.
Would have thought that the one lesson that could be taken from Brexit would have been the importance of every vote. But I'm not sure how Brexit figures in the US mindscape, other than Trump having put it forward as essentially positive.

I'd say with a great deal of certainty that a sizable number of Americans have never heard about Brexit and therefore have no opinion about it whatsoever.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cw7KZlxVEAAkMt9.jpg

Do people think that protesting at the moment is a good idea? I won't tell people what to protest about, but...well, I guess I'm going to do that anyway. I really think protesting at the moment is a bad idea - when you're punch drunk and dazed it's good to sit in your corner for a minute.

Protesting won't do much, but it will raise the picture of some people that are not pleased right now.

This raises the issue - does Trump get these people on side, or slag them off and continue without them?

I was on the fence about the usefulness of protesting the election results until president elect Trump petulantly tweeted about the unfairness of that constitutionally-protected right, so now I think it basically needs to continue every single day for the next four years.

There are a lot of reasons to protest. I joined the march in NYC a couple nights ago and god, was it reaffirming to just hear this tremendous background roar of voices, be amongst so many other people who were hurting, to have this visible sense of not being alone. It served an important need for a lot of people. Also think there may potentially be something to letting people all over the country who are afraid of what this regime will do to them, that they have allies. Not saying it's the best or final step in that effort but I don't see a strong reason NOT to do it.

American high schools need to return to teaching about the obligations of citizenship. Even my old, highly-regarded high school no longer offers civics classes. When I went there, civics was mandatory for all 9th graders.

― jane burkini (suzy), Friday, November 11, 2016 5:51 AM (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

We had it too but it made no impression on me whatsoever. It was taught by a cranky old guy, we didn't go out and register to vote or work on a campaign or learn about our local politicians (because in a town of 3000 people, the politicians are your next-door neighbors and the school wouldn't be able to get away with educating ppl about them in case it caused any CONTROVERSY), and afaict it was completely useless. So not that kind of civics, pls.

This raises the issue - does Trump get these people on side, or slag them off and continue without them?

depends if you believe him last night or in the morning

now that he's not running, watching him bitch and moan about the large swaths of the population who rightfully hate his guts should be rather interesting

The idea of showing solidarity is a good one, not quite as good as a higher turn out meaning the vote went the other way.
But since there is the closeness in voting it is good to show taht there are loads of people that do find this result inherently wrong.
JUst hoping that the right to protest doesn't wind up being curtailed over the next 4 years.

You guys, I have a full-time Americorps volunteer working with/for me this year, and since that program is federally funded and has to have approval of Congress, there are A LOT of restrictions on what the workers are and aren't allowed to do, like oh, hilariously, they're not allowed to talk to girls about their options in case of unwanted pregnancy. Even when their specific job is to mentor teens for the purpose of getting them ahead in life and not letting them get trapped in their teenaged mistakes, they can't even answer a single question about abortion.

Here's another thing they can't do: THEY CAN'T PARTICIPATE IN ANY ACTIVITY THAT HAS THE EFFECT OF HELPING PEOPLE REGISTER TO VOTE. That's right! Congress wouldn't approve the funding for the national service corps unless they were forbidden from registering citizens to vote.

So I'm thinking register the fuck out of our school community from this point on, what do you think?

I think the protests are very good

Just please, please, please, don't get violent or start breaking things, the last thing we need is more "Hillary thugs" headlines on FOX and a cry that we do not live in a "law and order" society anymore