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

pretty counterintuitive to not focus on the fact that your opponent is LITERALLY ONE OF THE WORST HUMAN BEINGS IN AMERICA

if people cared about this she would have won by 50 points

ultimately this election was a harrowing experience for everyone and I think Hillary played into it more than I would've liked. her running nonstop commercials with Trump mocking the disabled reporter or saying "they're rapists" didn't help. it wasn't getting people excited about Hillary, it was making them just wish the whole thing was over.

i for one am glad we've had this discussion and all agree that the democrats and clinton did everything right, and it's all [someone else's] fault. can't wait for 2020!

― k3vin k., Monday, November 14, 2016 6:01 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I still think the main thing was her surname and reputation. i barely know anyone who has isn't of the belief that she's a criminal/corrupt/etc

if you want to say the clinton foundation is skeevy and she should have shut it down years ago when she planned to run for president, that seems like a legit critique. if you want to say her caginess read as untrustworthy, that seems like a legit critique. if you want to say bill clinton is a toad and she should have sloughed him off years ago, AMEN. if you want to say she's terrifyingly hawkish then the 1% of this country that cares about the lives of brown people in other countries agrees with you. but i think the idea that she did not communicate why she wanted to be president is weak sauce.

<3 u horseshoe. unstintingly.

"terrifyingly" is hyperbole btw i was trying to get in the head of someone like kevin k.

it wasn't getting people excited about Hillary, it was making them just wish the whole thing was over.

― frogbs, Monday, November 14, 2016 6:07 PM (fifty seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

now we get 4-8 years of it!

i love you too, in orbit.

btw the "superpredator" thing sucked, for sure. i am not saying she is above critique.

i think a lot of people just don't really pay attention. Maybe apply the thinking we do about why popular music is popular to why candidates do well in politics, idk.

y'all should step away for a few minutes, have a drink, watch Marnie.

For better or worse, she was on the hook for Bill and Obama's administrations and both saw real wage stagnation, economic pain for a lot of people and a scarcity of solutions to the problem. We can rightfully blame Republicans for much of it but the fact that Bernie did so well and Obama beat her should point to people not necessarily buying into the view that she was serving working families. Should she have distanced herself or been more combative? Probably, but then you get shrill and blah blah blah.

I think you're viewing this as anyone on ILX saying she was unfit or unqualified to be President in any way, and that's untrue.

and again, "basket of deplorables". kinda cool how the Trump side managed to totally self-own themselves with that, but...still, you don't insult the electorate

truth is I think a lot of people saw parts of themselves in Trump. they aren't proud of the fact that they've said some racist things or once mocked someone with a handicap, or that they rate women or talk dirty with the dudes. they don't approve of that behavior but seeing Hillary and the Dems condemn him and basically call him a horrible person for doing it may have hit a little close to home for them? like, back off, I'm a good person, these are just words.

No way this could in any possible way be bad and wrong, right?

Julianna Goldman ‏@juliannagoldman 54m54 minutes ago

.@realDonaldTrump team has asked @WhiteHouse how his children could receive top secret security clearances - details on @CBSEveningNews

i'd rather they have clearances than donald himself.

back off, I'm a good person, these are just words.

I think it was important to call him out on these things, but yeah, I think that response was common.

i think a lot of people just don't really pay attention. Maybe apply the thinking we do about why popular music is popular to why candidates do well in politics, idk.

― sarahell, Monday, November 14, 2016 5:10 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is probably what it boils down to, mostly.

So many many xposts

She did communicate "why you should vote for her/why she wanted to be president", but she didn't project it as forcefully as Sanders or Trump. Her rhetorical skills and habits are simply not enough to penetrate the dense fog of impatient boredom that most have when listening to politicians. The other two spoke in a way that could shake the bleachers, where she struggled for the attention of even the good students in the front row of the classroom. (Exaggeration, but whatever)

And thing is, she acknowledges this.

it is possibly without precedent that the national leadership of BOTH major parties campaigned heavily against this result and lost. trump was basically a third-party candidate. i don't see how either party has any credibility left even on a practical level.

i saw a relative of a friend become very animated in a fb thread this week just because of the use of the word 'deplorables'. she said it changed her vote.

i think there is something to frogbs comment about how people secretly saw themselves in trump

i think i need to stop having drink as a kneejerk response to anxiety about the Trump era :( don't want to slide into a debilitating alcohol habit.

tired of rehashing the election, it's pointless.

in other news:
“Folks should do what President Obama, Secretary Clinton and others are doing, frankly,” Ms. Conway said. “Bernie Sanders this morning, I heard Senator Sanders this morning, which is to support this new president-elect and his mission to unify the country and to implement his 100-day plan.”

quotes like this are exactly why people like Sanders should not use this "let's give him a chance" rhetoric at all. their words/positions will get misrepresented as supporting Trump outright, it will damage their reputation with Dem supporters, and in turn will feed a media narrative of legitimizing Trump/GOP

give em an inch and they will take a fucking mile, every time.

the deplorables comment was badly calculated and i would see it as a major misstep in any other campaign. it still defies understanding why that was seen as worse than virtually anything trump has said in public over these past eighteen months

this is already a ways upthread, but just want to say alfred is otm on ''infrastructure'' - generic word getting thrown around, even Sanders is being needlessly vague on how he will be interested in trump delivering on his windbag promises on this point. if trump has an infrastructure program it'll be giveaways to corporations, on projects that can be nudged in the direction of being profitable for them. that will inevitably mean some jobs, but not equitably distributed and not necessarily serving actual real-world needs. don't count on new water pipes for the flints of the world.

and of course, The Wall is the ultimate b.s. infrastructure scheme. this has been on my mind today, reading the backlash against the unilateral declaration by the head of the american institute of architects that everybody was looking forward to working with president trump on all the great new infrastructure jobs sure to be coming down the pipe. barf.

xxxp that's kinda the Trump way - see also the NYT's letter "apologizing for their unfair coverage of Trump"

indeed, if he's gonna say stuff like this, don't say anything about him at all.

maybe shakey, xpost, but i think they are thinking about the next four years. sanders and warren know they need to minimize the danger of a trump presidency, which means working with him, despite what it might do to their political reputations

"half" might have been inaccurate, but it's not like it wasn't true. (i understand it was impolitic.)

xxp the reason it wasn't seen as as bad as stuff Trump says is basically there's a lot of sympathy in white America for the view that calling someone racist is worse than being racist.

the deplorables comment was badly calculated and i would see it as a major misstep in any other campaign. it still defies understanding why that was seen as worse than virtually anything trump has said in public over these past eighteen months

part because they have higher standards for Hillary, part because she attacked a large swath of the electorate directly. Trump at least had the "no, I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about the illegals" cover

really any Dem operatives expressing a willingness to "work with Trump" or whatever would be smart to watch their back. Take a lesson from how GOP leaders who did not adequately defer to Tea Party rage ended up - they got primaried/run out of office. Dems should be working to exploit the rage + fear of the party's membership, not tamp it down. anger motivates.

xxp

i saw a relative of a friend become very animated in a fb thread this week just because of the use of the word 'deplorables'. she said it changed her vote.

gotta think that most people who are willing to change their vote over something like that are just looking for an excuse

like twenty xps to horseshoe re: drinking - I haven't had a drink or cigarette since election night, pretty much decided it was time to actually start living healthier if I'm going to have to face a future of unchecked white nationalism, unaffordable healthcare and environmental deregulation (and because Trump would inevitably drive me to drink more and more). If I'm not a spry elderly person I'll be fucked.

sanders and warren know they need to minimize the danger of a trump presidency, which means working with him,

NO it doesn't. It means opposing him tooth and nail, just like the GOP did with Obama. The only way to "work with" him is to exploit and drive wedges between him and the GOP leadership. But that won't be accomplished by publicly stated willingness to go along w him on stuff they happen to agree on. GOP didn't give an inch to Obama on shit they actually wanted, because they didn't want him to get the credit. Why would the Dems want Trump to get credit for doing anything, that will just cement his power.

xp

i agree clinton had v detailed reasons why she'd make a great president (tho possibly not the clear, easy to understand reason she really needed), but ultimately the real problem was running as a continuation of obama. inequality has RISEN. people desperately want to SHAKE OUT OF THIS FUNK. it was a change election and clinton was an establishment candidate running on 'more of the same but better/more'. right? sorry for being all cap'n save-a-conventional-wisdom if that's what i'm being, i am receptive to hot takes, i'll take whatever i can get

Trump is smart enough to know that if he gets some accomodation out of Sanders or Warren or Schumer or whoever, that he has effectively damaged them politically, he will be co-opting them and claiming the lion's share of the glory, while they will be pilloried by former supporters.

xp

shakey otm, obstructionism is the way to go

maybe a slight pass for the few Democratic Senators left in deep-red states but I'd think the positioning should be to let the GOP fuck things up royally on their own and make the economic downturn and new deficit balloon centerpieces of 2018.

yeah, I kinda saw Clinton as similar to LBJ in '68.

Paul Ryan shoves through the end of Medicare, Trump vetoes it or relies on public accommodation with Sanders or Warren to kill it is a scenario I could easily see used to make him more palatable where he currently isn't

we're all well aware of how the ability of a legislative minority to gum up the works is deeply embedded in our system (thx slave-owners!), time to exploit it. shoe's on the other foot now.

Trump isn't gonna veto shit.

Trump doesn't even wanna show up for work

You really think Trump would veto a Medicare-end bill? He won't even read the bill.

^^^

first you would have to explain to him what Medicare is, how it works, why Ryan wants to kill it... by that time he's already fallen asleep in his taco bowl

I've said repeatedly that Sanders would have won, but the discussion of what Clinton did wrong should take into account that she actually won the popular vote, and it's not really that close. Her mistakes were strategic, not fundamental. If it was a change year, why did the establishment candidate get more votes?

Daily Beast: CBS reports Trump wants top secret clearance for kids

It would be all about popularity and approval ratings for him - he doesn't actually need to read the bill or know what it is if he thinks it's going to make people not like him.

how is he gonna know if people don't like him or not? the polls are all wrong! plus people are so excited at his rallies, they're just amazing! he will never think that any sizable chunk of the population legit does not like him.

i don't see why total Rs-against-obama-style oposition isn't our #1 priority

who could possibly think we owe Rs any good faith? or that if we gave it they wouldn't abuse it?

it is our #1 priority, you're not going to see a serious voice on the left advocate working with trump

Sanders already did!