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

Poppy Bush + Chris Farley + a nine-year-old Berlusconi

bad enough

4 years will fuck us

I had a long talk with a Jill stein-voting couple last night. everything they told me about Clinton was a kind of facebook status misinformation thing. She doesn't believe in the second amendment. She's killed people. She loves Putin (???). Maybe it's because I avoid fb so stridently, idk, I've just been shocked at how common this is. And there is no counter for it.

What's so flummoxing to me and so difficult to process is that there were *plenty* of legit criticisms to pin down Clinton, but it was the Above Top Secret narrative that the Greens bought into.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/democratic-debate-milwaukee-2016/2016/02/hillary-clinton-henry-kissinger-219183
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/us/politics/25clinton.html
http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-clinton-honduras-coup-20160501-story.html

idk, I was born in the Carter administration and the level of the-sky-is-green in Tracer's story is hard for me to wrap my mind around. 'Cult of personality' doesn't make sense when someone believes in Bizarro Trump

People were the same way about Reagan! My mother voted for Reagan. She didn't tell me until I was older, you know, around the same age one finds out a relative who died when you were a child was probably gay, or that a relative who died before you were born suffered from a serious mental illness.

so frustrated with my parents. my mom recited a laundry list of reasons not to support clinton (basically just a rundown of breitbart/alex jones/fox views). one of those was that "black people got free cell phones from her tax money thanks to Obama". my sister decided to hone in on that one first, and found a factcheck.org article debunking it. my dad then found an article debunking factcheck.org as an organization: http://www.matchdoctor.com/blog_141905/Factcheck_org_--_A_Fraudulent_Fact_Check_Site_Funded_By_Biased_Political_Group.html

. They are biased, politically motivated propaganda Web sites, manned and funded by biased political organizations who set up the sites for the sole purpose of deviously "backing up" the political arguments of those who hold the same views that they do.

...Think about it. Would you rely on any particular Web site to get the "truth?" Anyone honest would tell you that you should NOT rely solely on them to get your facts. You should get them by considering many different and sources, with different points of view and opinions and arrive at what you believe to be the truth by using your own God given senses. Only con artists purport to be the de facto source of truth.

and of course it goes on and on. factcheck.org is partially funded by the Annenburg Foundation, who in turn have ties to...wait for it..BILL AYERS. therefore factcheck.org propaganda.

i don't know how to get anywhere with them. what do you do when they respond to a factchecking website by pointing to an idiotic factbending article hosted by what appears to be the worst dating website of all time? they also think climate change is bunk and that the EPA is a waste of money that should instead go to the military, which particularly hurts coming from them because it's like, what did you think i was doing for the last 7 years? totally pointless work? fuck.

but there's something else at work (many things, i guess). a cult-like need for belief in some authority? someone to project every unfulfilled emotional need onto?

The 53% of white women who voted for Trump are simply leaning in to the same toxic, patriarchal, privilege-enforcing system that’s existed for centuries. They think that these white men are going to save them and protect them, and they’re willing to sell out anyone else–but especially Black women–to lock down that protection.

The problem with that, of course, is that the system hates them just as much as it hates everyone else. Donald Trump stated on camera that he takes any woman’s body that he wants. That he wants to “punish” women for controlling their own bodies. He has said in a loud voice that he is not going to protect women. But the women who voted for him have talked themselves into believing that they’re safe, even when they’re told flat out that they aren’t. They think that this is literally a game of Prisoner’s Dilemma. Or a red line system, in which anyone who falls below the red line gets cut, so all they have to do is shove someone else down below them to ensure that they make the cut.

The system as it exists–our financial system, our economy, work culture and policies, social customs, male-female interpersonal relations, education–is hostile to everyone who isn’t a middle class (or higher) educated straight white cisgender man. That means that all the rest of us are simply trying to navigate survival inside this rigged system. The optimal solution to Prisoner’s Dilemma is for both prisoners to protect each other. But for prisoners who have been beaten down by previous encounters with the system, it’s difficult to trust that the other prisoner will protect them, so they act out of self-interest with bad information.

That’s exactly why we can’t play along. We need to detach from what we’ve been conditioned to think is really true, about institutions and about Black women and about ourselves. And we need to work toward choosing other women, Black women, instead of trusting a system that hates us.

http://www.posttrump.help/2016/11/11/a-post-specifically-for-white-women-from-a-white-woman/

Geez, I remember taking a handful of media literacy/teaching media literacy classes in grad school that focused on youth. They should really have focused/focus on old(er) people.

https://twitter.com/rilaws/status/797207451238105090

CNN drops its coffee cup as Corey Lewandowski's limp slowly turns into a confident stride

here's the fun thing:

both my parents were teachers. my dad taught a criminal justice course and started a police academy. my mom taught english.

don't mind me, i'll just be over here ripping my hair out

in orbit and Elvis (and everyone else) thank you for these things to read. the piece about 1933-43 is particularly harrowing

Karl i feel for you man. my parents are right-on but my in-laws, good lord. it makes my wife feel completely crazy and oddly vulnerable and off-balance.

No one really thought he was going to bring their jobs back come on. He was a vehicle for white revenge by and large.

― Treeship

late to this but the #1 reason my 85-year-old father-in law voted for Trump was specifically because he was against NAFTA and promised to bring jobs back to the rust belt.

but hey, feel free to continue making the same stupid, blame-shifting generalizations that liberals keep making...

Did he tell you how Trump planned to bring jobs back?

um that's not the point, the point is what people perceived and believed

So does that mean when Trump doesn't deliver they may perceive and believe he has?

my dread that trump will turn out to be the antichrist is dissipating somewhat and now I think he's just going to turn out to be your bog standard shithead republican who everyone will learn to hate when he doesn't deliver manufacturing to everyone, and will be done in 4 years.

I think this is v true tbh

the Hitler comparisons are a bit wide of the mark - Trump doesn't want to invade Mexico or France or whatever and establish global supremacy, and what's more he doesn't have the energy or wherewithal to even plan how to do that. An (admittedly very dangerous) mixture of corruption and ineptitude is much more likely.

xp

xp to Josh

no, I think he is skeptical and worried, and will not hesitate to throw him under the bus when midterms arrive

(he also voted for Eisenhower and JFK, btw, he doesn't toe party lines and I respect that)

I'm finding that people over the age of 60 seem to have a very difficult time telling what's real and what isn't on the internet.

Just want to add that almost everyone I know that voted for Trump has told me it was due to Hilary and Obama's rejection of Keystone XL, Obamacare, cracking down on the enforcement of illegal immigration, and the belief that Clinton would make all of these concerns worse. Today this one guy told me, "I'm sick of people saying I'm sexist because I didn't want Clinton to be president because she's a woman, have Condoleezza Rice run I'll happily vote for her."

like, they not only believe fake news websites, they also allow themselves to get catfished on a regular basis, and share bogus shopping coupons all over the place

and then they get awfully upset when they find out something isn't true...my own mother told me she doesn't believe anything from anywhere anymore. my mother in law continually kept talking to some fake dude with an obviously false social media profile even after we showed her proof that he wasn't who he said he was. what the fuck is wrong with old people?

There's a reason internet scams target the elderly.

What makes Trump scary is no one knows anything. And that's why many have said we should take him at his word. Per the Times:

“There are two options to how you want to anticipate and prepare for a Trump presidency,” Osnos said. “One is to declare that nothing he says is useful and reliable, and we should do nothing. The other is to invest heavily in trying to understand what the history of the presidency tells us.”

“Even if a president doesn’t intend to follow through on a promise,” he continued, “the nature of the presidency compels him to make a good-faith effort to do so because his credibility once in office rests partly on whether he is showing a serious commitment to follow through on the things he does.”

it's not just 60+ year olds, check the long c&p from an HRC canvasser in Ohio upthread for a vivid reminder that even college-educated people in their 30's don't have the time to sort through all this stuff and figure out what's really true.

So the question is, if kicking out Mexicans and Muslims and any other crazy Trump things succeed in making America "great" again to the satisfaction of trump voters, will these people be cool with that? Is that really the price they are willing to pay? If so, then yes, they are every bit the racists they have been painted to be.

how do we confront racism and sexism if we're not allowed to name it?

Kick in the crotch?

just grab it by the pussy

"he says it like it is"
"he says the things that I think but am afraid to say"

these are the classic key phrases of the trump supporter.

but what could these things be that they're proud of him stating bluntly, except for racist things? aren't they afraid to say them because it might sound a little Hitler-y?

serious question. i'm as tired as anybody else of the words. i don't like calling people racist or being called a racist either. i get it. it feels shitty. so what do you do when people vote in favor of, say, racial profiling?

I mean the right uses different words all the time, "law and order" instead of profiling, for example. I do wonder if it would be possible/effective to engage in the same kind of semantic sleight-of-hand.

wait, what is being proposed here?

if someone is in favor of say, racial profiling, we should say "hmm, that sounds like something a racist person would support."

those things are hard to say. but the solution isn't to shy away from calling it what it is. calling it by different names to avoid social awkwardness is what we ALREADY do.

it's possible i'm just missing something here, if so sorry

yeah there's an obvious answer to my admittedly stupid question. just use different words.

the Hitler comparisons are a bit wide of the mark - Trump doesn't want to invade Mexico or France or whatever and establish global supremacy

if hitler came up in scattergories would you really dash down 'desire for global supremacy' ahead of 'demonisation and persecution of vulnerable minorities'?

it took hitler a good 6 years to invade poland iirc

I do think persecution of minorities was secondary to Hitler's goal of Germany dominating Europe/punishing its historical enemies, although the two were def interrelated, obviously.

Collaborators rush in: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/11/silicon-valley-donald-trump-critics-tech-reactions

Under the Trump administration, the argument of contractor v employee falls more on the Uber side than it does under a Clinton administration,” said Tim Wilson, a venture capitalist with Artiman.

Wilson anticipated both opportunity and potential danger under a Trump administration. Trump’s apparent eagerness to set off a trade war with China could be damaging to consumer electronics companies like Apple, which rely on China’s manufacturing infrastructure and workplace, as well as the global supply chain of minerals.

“Apple can’t manufacture a phone overnight in the United States,” he said. “This is a dangerous game to play.”

Still, other Trump promises might create new markets ripe for Silicon Valley’s favorite form of disruptive innovation, such as his plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, some of whom form the bulk of the country’s agricultural labor force. That might create opportunity for the “agtech” sector, Wilson said.

“If they really are serious and farm labor gets threatened, then anything that automates labor is something that is going to uptrend,” he said.

it took hitler a good 6 years to invade poland iirc

The Dachau concentration camp opened up in 1933.

Charlie Brooker just hosted the first post US election edition of Have I got News For you just in case you missed it. & it is talked about a lot in the show.

i was specifically responding to the 'global supremacy' and invasion thing but yes you're right many things happened quite quickly

xpost

Point made upthread about older people struggling to make sense of information from the internet seems very very otm to me - consider so much material just churned out to get clicks, the writers and editors even less accountable than the paper press. And then the self-confidence and savvy it takes to be properly suspicious, then how easy it is to fall into a caricature of reasonable suspicion (so you end up believing in conspiracies).

yes, exactly, thank you

Don't most Silicon Valley companies employee large numbers of H1B tech workers at below market rates? I would assume anything there would vastly outweigh "agtech disruption" possibilities.

NY Times reporter on Keith Ellison pick-

https://twitter.com/jonathanweisman/status/797120114042793984

I think he's just going to turn out to be your bog standard shithead republican who everyone will learn to hate when he doesn't deliver manufacturing to everyone, and will be done in 4 years.

yeah maybe his approval ratings will tank once he fucks up the economy.. then again, plenty of scapegoats to go around

thinking maybe he'll have a lot more people (dem pols) talking down to him / screaming directly in his face than he's used to.. not that it matters

That's a grotesque tweet, brownie.

yep, the comments are otm

Many xpost to Tracer Hand: that's the point, for a large number of people facts don't matter, truth doesn't matter. Image and personality matters, and so do memes in the original sense: viral ideas. Dems don't seem to understand that. What this does not mean is that the left should abandon the truth; it means we need to be better at making truth sticky - as shamelessly manipulative about it as the right is about their lies (and as they are about the truth when they get hold of it once in a while). It's a tough job, yeah, but I think it would make everything a hell of a lot better. And we'd win more often, because truth is stronger than lies and love is stronger than hate.

Being deliberately reductive here for the sake of rhetoric.

buried in this puff piece by town and fucking country on hope hicks, the likely new press secretary, are the words "there were early signs that the woman Trump has described as a "beautiful beauty" would climb onto the political stage."

http://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/politics/a7274/hope-hicks-donald-trump/

But I'll take the black congressmen from Milwaukee.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, November 11, 2016 2:19 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cmon man, milwaukee??

@hardcore dilettante:

But I would like to hear it from a Trump voter's mouth, or, as I'm typing from the UK, from a Leave voter's mouth, that facts don't matter, truth doesn't matter, to them. Before signing up 100% to the argument that we've moved into a post-fact age.

From what I can gather, most of them think they are in fact in possession of the 'real' facts and the 'real' truth (and are in a dire situation where an evil establishment is always trying to pry this truth out of their hands). That facts don't matter to them, is something that gets said about them.

The thing about 'truth is stronger than lies' is that it's a lie. The truth is that lies are stronger than truth. And I've been telling people this over and over, but it never takes. Because, well, you know...