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

*tiny hands, dunno why i said skinny.

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

Sure, but that's what happened with the high levels of late-breaking undecided voters - if you've seen 10 minutes of Donald Trump and you're undecided, you're trying to find an excuse for yourself to vote for him when you know it's indefensible. And if you don't find one, you'll still find one.

Obama & Trump - Come on, he's finally found a Republican who will listen to him!

Actually pretty much that - It's obviously uncomfortable to him that here's this idiot who won't have a fraction of the trouble that Obama had getting stuff done, but Obama is def. exactly the kind of dork who will suck it up in the hope of getting some good done.

The excuse for late-breaking voters were given to them by Comey.

xp xp xp

lopk. last sunday i read a piece where west virginians who were already pissed about hillary's stance on coal were literally saying clinton had 10,000+ gullotines ready for her opponents' necks:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/11/05/west-virginia-citizens-paint-dystopian-picture-under-clinton-presidency/jDCbxZ0Dkz8Xd5B2MUdp3O/story.html

this was not a normal election and you can't use normal narratives to explain it away. one side had been demonized extra (because she was already in the hole for being an ambitious woman) by right wing BROADCAST media for a quarter century. there were "impeach hillary" bumper stickers when she was FIRST LADY.

i feel like this race was in some ways a particularly rancid manifestation of nostalgia culture. (which is not to say there weren't other curdled elements, but bear with me.) clinton and trump are both brands that have been molded in the public since the "gosh, 57 channels do seem like a lot" era, and in a lot of ways they were fighting as their avatars from 20 years ago. what up and comers have that sort of name recognition among a mass quotient of the electorate? jeb, maybe. but i don't think he wants to run again. the national parties' benches are alarming to me because i feel like an even worse demagogue could capture the electorate's imagination (if we have a functioning government in four years, which, lol).

(i swear to god if i don't have a stroke before the year ends i'll consider it a success. i've already had two aura migraines in the last week and quitting fb and twitter has yet to help. also anyone who doesn't think sanders would have been strung up by anti-semites is delusional. trump's final campaign ad was a 21st century rewrite of THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION ffs!)

can't believe we're still talking about "deplorables" but imho it felt like an obvious misstatement where she obviously started out intending to say that half of the people in trump's inner circle or half of the people running the media outlets that have been aggressively backing him. i really can't believe any politician means to say half of the guy's supporters or voters, period, and clearly given the timing she was trying to talk about those smaller groups of backers. but the damage was done and it was very hard to convincingly walk back or 'clarify.' but i think if she had said the first thing, clearly, it would not have blown up, and it would have helped maintain a space for surrogates and others to spend the week calling out these specific and repulsive alt-right characters. instead it was a week of clinton surrogates having to say she misspoke, etc.

it was, in other words, your basic, classic, "gaffe," moreso than romney's 47%, where he really DID mean to say 47% of the people voting for obama! no slip of the tongue there. given how close the race was in the states that mattered, every gaffe probably matters so i guess in thirty years the conventional wisdom for kids may be that clinton lost the election because of "deplorables," notwithstanding everything else. so it goes.

the deplorables thing was bad, bc you never want to insult any segment of the people who are rallying behind your opponent, bc everyone else who's voting for him will take offense to it and rally behind it. the 47 percent thing from romney should have been a cautionary tale to follow but she went and said it anyway, and now anytime i see an anti-trump comment on twitter there are half a dozen replies from, idk, "Deplorable Dave" or others w/similar proud names.

xp!

after Putin talks on phone w/Trump, Kremlin releases statement that says there is mutual hope for "noninterference in the other’s internal affairs”

worse thing about deplorables is how small a role schwarzenegger had

That doesn't make any sense though DC - the speech is here, it's pretty clearly what she meant to say: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/sep/11/context-hillary-clinton-basket-deplorables/

I mean one thing we can all agree on is that she's not a spur of the moment improv master - this is the speech intended.

I can see the argument for it as threading a needle between the idea that yeah these people have been screwed and we should do something about that*, without lapsing into the "legitimate concerns about immigration" type of talk that has sprung up all over the UK, which would damage her with the base.

I'm not suggesting it didn't blow up in her face, of course.

*If you're cynical you can consider this similar to Trump making his inner-cities pitch to a room full of white people - they're not going for the black/poor vote, they're going for the "don't want to feel like I'm voting for someone who doesn't give a shit about the black/poor vote" vote.

Trump the populist: http://qz.com/813976/you-will-never-see-the-populist-donald-trump-in-jeans-or-a-t-shirt/

maura OTM

the deplorables thing was bad, bc you never want to insult any segment of the people who are rallying behind your opponent, bc everyone else who's voting for him will take offense to it and rally behind it. the 47 percent thing from romney should have been a cautionary tale to follow but she went and said it anyway, and now anytime i see an anti-trump comment on twitter there are half a dozen replies from, idk, "Deplorable Dave" or others w/similar proud names.

― nomar, Monday, November 14, 2016 6:46 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i just dont see how this results in any more net negative votes against hillary though

i mean unless you're counting the trump voters trying to vote twice, lol

so trump wants his kids to get security clearances? he can't read, right? thats what this is about?

either way I hope those hellspawn earn a clearance and aren't just given one

Trump the populist: http://qz.com/813976/you-will-never-see-the-populist-donald-trump-in-jeans-or-a-t-shirt/

― Fake Sam's Club (I M Losted), Tuesday, November 15, 2016 1:04 AM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's this photo:

http://static2.politico.com/dims4/default/548b9b2/2147483647/resize/1160x%3E/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2Fe1%2F09%2Fdcc9c1d74408b41b704a01d81df4%2F151014-ivanka-donald-aspen-gty.jpg

it is kind of jarring seeing him in something other than a suit or golf clothes, though

I've been feeling a lot better and more positive today (particularly after a long talk with a coworker who'd been out of the country)...and then I start watching Obama's press conference and I cannot in any reality imagine anything like this occurring again in the next four years. Like, just on a very basic level, an adult who's in charge speaking like an adult to other adults. It's not going to happen. We have a president-elect who is fundamentally incapable of inspiring hope or confidence in anyone but the most broken.

I'm just going to have to focus on doing what I can to make small differences on the local level for the foreseeable future because paying much attention to what's happening at the top will drive me to cirrhosis.

I have honestly found getting out to be very healthy, if only to see that I am not alone, that there are many people just like me, or not like me, and coping in their own way. But then, I live in a dense, diverse area that went for Clinton or, otherwise, was never going to go for Trump. If I lived in some other part of the country, I'd probably be even more depressed and dismayed than I am.

I remember (back when I was in a band) playing a gig that was literally in a guitar store in a strip mall in Vacaville, CA. It sucked, the band we played with couldn't have been more different (they had wireless guitars!). It was just the worst. But there was this one high school alterna-girl and her friend who showed up, not really for us but for anyone, anything , that was not them. And I remember thinking how sad it was that she literally had no alternative, nowhere to go, and just wanted something different, whatever that was, someone or anything closer to how she thought of herself.

If we take Obama's words today at face value -- that he can guarantee NATO that the rules will continue -- I suspect that the traditional President-elect's 'Here's What You Can't Do, Motherfucker' lecture from the CIA was moved up to last Wednesday or Thursday.

Anyway, what great timing for my first visit to the UK next week. It will be... good?... to get out of this madhouse for 6 days, into an older, more fatigued one.

I think he's been getting a lot of "Here's What You Cant Do," beginning with his request to check out the UFC match.

have fun morbs - first time I went to london was when ukip smashed the local elections around may 2013. a more innocent time when I had no idea wtf was a ukip.

What lots of people seem to be missing in the debate between mitigation and obstructionism is that, unlike the Republicans and Obama, the Democrats won't control a single lever of power come 2017. How do you obstruct when you are the minority in the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court? It's in this context, and this context only, where mitigation seems like the better political tactic. Trump and the party he leads can accomplish anything they choose to do; with certain issues, it makes lots of sense to try to work with them in the hope that some good can still get done.

i think we might be able to get some republican allies to block whatever racist policies might be coming from a white house where a chief advisor is neo nazi steve bannon

i am not optimistic about stopping the traditional republican agenda from getting through unless, for some reason, trump and ryan start feuding or whatever

There's always that hope when monstrous egos are involved.

Forget 'deplorables,' howbout answering the $675,000 Question with a shrug and "That's what they were paying"? Why that didn't create empathy with every single mother knocking her brains out working two jobs, I can't imagine. And there was more where that came from.

sean g otm

can't we filibuster tho?

GOP expected to abolish filibuster?

AP sez it's Giuliani at State. ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhfuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

GOP expected to abolish filibuster?

lol that would be crazy and super risky/dumb. they would p much have to go fascist, after that.

the Democrats won't control a single lever of power come 2017

AHEM

https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gned/lapham_lights96.pdf

The permanent government, a secular oligarchy of which the company at dinner was representative, comprises the
Fortune 500 companies and their attendant lobbyists, the big media and entertainment syndicates, the civil and military
services, the larger research universities and law firms, It is this government that hires the country's politicians and sees
the terms and conditions under which the country's citizens can exercise their right--God-given but increasingly
expensive--to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Obedient to the rule of men, not laws, the permanent
government oversees the production of wealth, builds cities, manufactures goods, raises capital', fixes prices, shapes the
landscape, anti reserves the right to assume debt, poison rivers, cheat the customers, receive the gifts of federal subsidy,
and speak to the American people in the language of low motive and base emotion.

EXCEPT - and this seems important - since Lapham wrote this, in the nineties, we seem to have inverted his concept.
The permanent government is the one that believes in laws, not men. The provisional one, the one elected on a technicality, not by democracy, appears to believe in nothing.

flopson, recall the 'nuclear option' of 2013 that the Dems did not use

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/14/this-is-why-senate-republicans-might-not-go-nuclear/

Speaking of thte permanent Washington class:

Michelle Obama has burned off her date-night meals at Washington’s new generation of acclaimed restaurants by pedaling at SoulCycle. President Obama has shopped for Jonathan Franzen novels with his daughters at local independent bookstores. Obama administration staff members, their barhopping chronicled in the gossip pages, have hit the 14th Street hot spots hard.

Decades ago, Washington was broke and run by a mayor best known for smoking crack with a prostitute on a surveillance tape. Neighborhoods had not fully recovered from the 1968 riots, and an aging Georgetown elite still set the tone. The administrations of two Bushes and a Clinton in between hardly had an effect on the city.

But Mr. Obama’s arrival in 2009 coincided with an urban renaissance. Economic development, federal and private investment, and an influx of highly educated young, gay and diverse professionals gentrified neighborhoods, leading to an explosion in restaurants, bars and cafes. And the Obama family — African-American, youthful, attractive and urbane — were archetypes of a modern city on the upswing

Dems have the Senate filibuster and thats it. in 2008 that was all the GOP had too (well, and the SC)

Things are moving fast:
https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/798345065571774464

Here's a recent shot of California and Texas separatist leaders meeting in Moscow:

McConnell's recent comment about how "majorities dont last forever" + his past as minority leader would suggest he's not eager to abolish the filibuster. But we'll see.

but didn't Ds have a supermajority in 08?

jesus christ

The whole point of the senate is basically to allow the minority to grind things to a halt.

Xp

Dems never had 2/3rds iirc

Xp

In the House Pelosi should look for opportunities to exploit the division between Ryan and the Freedom Caucus, and engineer combining votes w the Freedom Caucus to oppose legislation where possible.

There are looming cracks and schisms in the GOP majority. When yr in the minority, those are yr weapons.

somehow I'm sure they'll all be able to find common ground

To what extent do the deep blue states gerrymander the hell out of districting like red states?

Dan Savage was advocating figuring out voter suppression for Republican voters which is crazy but if states at least stacked the deck a bit more for the House I wouldn't be mad.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/21/aftermath-sixteen-writers-on-trumps-america

the Dems are going to have to learn tactics that they've been too reluctant to learn out of (a) moral squeamishness (b) collusion

I think pelosi has it in her. Less confident about Schumer.

Gerrymandering favors the minority party. In most of the country, Republicans are still the minority party.

scott, I kinda thank you for sharing that, but I read almost all of it last night and it's pretty clear every one of them phoned it in and there was barely any editing at all (because "essays" don't need fact-checking etc); I was especially disappointed by Shteyngart, although I guess I shouldn't have been and he's probably right anyway we all live in hell etc. And I have no idea what point Gawande was trying to make, other than "we need to keep doing our jobs!" thanks I'm glad the medical profession needed to be reminded of that

"Nancy Pelosi brilliantly exploited tension between Senate Republicans torn apart on whether to starve the poor, hunt them down in the streets, or boil them alive before consuming their flesh."

"voter suppression for Republicans" = "actual democracy"

Pelosi is in the House flopson