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

xp - if you bleeve this WaPo guy:

@gregpmiller
Reports that Mike Rogers pushed off Trump transition team in purge of Christie allies. Intel officials see Rogers as voice of reason.

not much to do re calling my congressman, he's about as liberal as they come:

https://twitter.com/RepJerryNadler

It was just dawning on me today how many undocumented immigrants there likely are all around me and how insane it would be if they were all deported. Queens would be a ghost borough. My wife's school would empty out. It's really horrifying.

Mike Rogers stepping down is one more post they don't have a name for, that's it.

This is going to be the longest transition ever.

hopefully this means his org will be a headless chicken and unable to coordinate with congress on anything

also looking forward to all the conflicts of interests stories that these next four years will bring http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/us/politics/donald-trump-holdings-conflict-of-interest.html

i mean:

The labor dispute in Nevada represents another potential complication. The president appoints all five members of the National Labor Relations Board. But over the past year, the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas has been in a battle with the culinary workers union, at first challenging an effort by hotel employees to unionize. The labor board ruled against him in July. Then the hotel, which Mr. Trump co-owns, refused to begin negotiations with the new union, and the labor board again ruled against it, in November. Other labor disputes with employees are pending.

“Will he as president of the United States of America use the power he has to interfere — given that he has a financial interest in the outcome of these matters?” said Bethany Khan, a spokeswoman for the 57,000-member Culinary Workers Union Local 226 of Nevada.

I briefly took some comfort in thinking that his cabinet was going to resemble the unorganized and constantly rotating clusterfuck of his campaign team but then I remembered the part where the unorganized and constantly rotating clusterfuck carried him to victory.

“Will he as president of the United States of America use the power he has to interfere — given that he has a financial interest in the outcome of these matters?” said Bethany Khan, a spokeswoman for the 57,000-member Culinary Workers Union Local 226 of Nevada.

Yes. Yes, of course he will.

He will do nothing that runs counter to his own interests and he will do as much as possible that favors his own interests. This is reflective of the first 70 years of his life and we have no reason to believe the next four years will be any different.

guys i'm starting to think trump might not make for a good president

https://newrepublic.com/article/138757/obama-warning-america-trumps-presidency-listening

some close reading of obama's comments yesterday

Even if none of the rest of our worst fears are realized over the next four years, I don't see how the US can possibly avoid a recession or worse at the absolute bare minimum.

this sums up the vibe right now

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/anti-trump-protester-knocked-down-flight-stairs-ohio-state-university

circling back to the filibuster question, I read the links posted above and yet I still can't shake the feeling that GOP senators are absolutely going to use the nuclear option. nothing they've done over the past eight years gives me any reason to strongly think otherwise. and learning that the Dems deployed the option for appointments means they already have a convenient "both sides do it" defense. obviously appointments and legislation are two different things, but the GOP knows its voters won't split those hairs (and the media will perhaps only do it half-heartedly). I see the argument that McConnell et. al wouldn't want to open this box because of what will happen when they're deposed, but I'm still not buying it. from their perspective, how often do you get a chance like this, to really have no roadblocks to passing whatever insane shit you can dream up? I hope I'm wrong but I'm just not very confident right now.

"I have a friend who is a psychotherapist and is offering low-cost post-election counseling."

My therapist hates banks and wants to move to Finland.

Cass Sunstein, ladies and germs

https://twitter.com/tinyrevolution/status/798542032016998400

also
@tinyrevolution
History & science show victory turns men into giddy testosterone monsters capable of anything. Watch for this with Trump & his personnel.

Pelosi and Reid (who won't be around much longer) don't give much cop to cooperation, thankfully.

Schumer though

for the filibuster, one consideration Republicans have to make is that they will not have a majority forever. The filibuster was their favorite tool when they were in the minority. They may not want to completely give that away.

Wouldn't getting rid of the filibuster would just clear the path to making sure they're never in the minority again.

Minus would, and it's a question

They probably imagine they can voter suppress their way to remaining a majority for the forseeable.

getting rid of the filibuster would make the next few years a real nightmare but also allows for progressive legislation that we could never dream about otherwise

which is my guess why it prob will not happen

It would be high-risk - I can't seem them winning the next presidential election, if there is a next presidential election (I am normally quite sneery about that level of alarm, but Steve Bannon is not normally the chief strategist at the White House).

what are the chances of trump mobilizing enough voters to vote in trump surrogate and trump-friendly republicans in 2018?

I think we have no idea, the most you can say is that midterms tend to go poorly for the party in charge

Obama repeatedly touted the fact that Trump will be inheriting many advantages: low unemployment, rising incomes and wages, a historically low uninsurance rate, stable financial systems, a high stock market, strong international alliances, and cheap gasoline.
Is this true? Cheap gasoline isn't a good long term goal or really short term either.

the other thing to consider is that Republicans may be less incentivized to get rid of the filibuster because Democrats are less likely to abuse it. There's no reason to assume that Democrats will take up the policy of filibustering every single bill.

I think we have no idea, the most you can say is that midterms tend to go poorly for the party in charge

― iatee, Tuesday, November 15, 2016 11:14 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark

guess i'm thinking back to the tea party voting in a bunch of house reps a few years ago

Well:

After exchange w Trump transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away. They’re angry, arrogant, screaming “you LOST!” Will be ugly,’’ tweeted Cohen, who served from 2007 to 2009 as counselor to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He was a driving force behind an open letter last spring — eventually signed by 122 Republican national security leaders — who opposed Trump’s candidacy.

Cohen, who last week had urged career officials to serve in Trump’s administration, said in an interview that a longtime friend and senior transition team official had asked him to submit names of possible national security appointees. After he suggested several people, Cohen said, his friend emailed him back in terms he described as “very weird, very disturbing.”

“It was accusations that ‘you guys are trying to insinuate yourselves into the administration…all of YOU LOST.’…it became clear to me that they view jobs as lollipops, things you give out to good boys and girls,” said Cohen, who would not identify his friend.

Cohen also said the transition official was “completely dismissive” of concerns raised about Trump’s appointment of former Breitbart News head Stephen K. Bannon as chief White House strategist. Bannon has been denounced by advocacy groups, commentators and congressional Democrats as a proponent of racist, anti-Semitic and misogynistic views, though Trump advisers have strongly defended him.

Midterms normally go badly for the party in charge, but the senate map looks incredibly bad for democrats, and they would also have to deal with lower turnout. There's 23 dem seats, two independent seats (hi Bernie!) and only 8 republicans. Democrats in the entire midwest is up for reelection...

Dean Heller (R) in Nevada could be defeated, perhaps. The dem machine in Nevada seems like a model to follow. Other than that, it looks bleak, though.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-transition-shake-part-stalinesque-purge-christie-loyalists-n684081

"stalinesque purge"

They’re angry, arrogant, screaming “you LOST!”

finally, common ground

and they would also have to deal with lower turnout

we have to work to ensure this is not the case

It would be lovely if Trump's cabinet of deporables convinced him not to work with anyone outside of their little hateful circle. Seal yourself up in a little bunker for four years, fuckers. We'll break off the handle.

Like a lot of folks I'm pretty depressed and fearful about this, but I am also concerned that some of the rhetoric coming out of this mood is a potential tactical error. Lots of talk of Hitler and Stalin and nuclear war and never having an election again: I get it, I get where it's coming from. But it does sort of hand rhetorical ammunition to the Trump reelection campaign, in that all he has to do to prove it false is not be actual Hitler. Then his side has the talking point "they said we were Hitler, and look, we're not herding millions of people into gas chambers, so they lie and they suck and why should you trust their dire predictions any more."

worked for obama

agree that there's some OTT shit happening right now but the left is essentially traumatized/going through the grief cycle right now.

I do think this level of terror can be leveraged into motivating voter turnout in the midterms - as Karl's post implies, this worked for the GOP, there's no reason it shouldn't work for us.

hey look our next attorney general

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jeff-sessions-racist-comments-derailed-federal-judgeship

Sessions denied being racist, the New Republic reported, and defended himself by citing his children's attendance at integrated schools as well as multiple occasions when he shared a hotel room with a black lawyer.

slashfic waiting to happen tbh

Just sayin, there's plenty to be said about the actual horrible words and actions of these garbage people. And I'm sure they'll keep giving us more to say.

I'm wary (and weary) of the Hitler analogies too. I understand its therapeutic value, but we can't fall into the trap of OMIGOD GUESS WHAT TRUMP SAID TODAY like we did when Bush was president. Two-term presidents have no problem being underrated (Ike, Reagan, Bush II), no problem having their syntax corrected because the press can follow only one story at a time, and a malapropism will get more hits than Trump eliminating COBRA.

I do think this level of terror can be leveraged into motivating voter turnout in the midterms - as Karl's post implies, this worked for the GOP, there's no reason it shouldn't work for us.

oh, i didn't mean to imply that. it was a poorly formed post but i was just noting that the rightwing apocalyptic fantasies were NOT enough to take down obama, at least not in 2012. i suppose there's an argument to be made that they were the beginnings of trumpism and that they paralyzed obama's administration and led to this current moment. one key difference though is that the amount of complete bullshit on the right seems to overwhelm the what is produced on the left, and that from 2008-16 the right developed an alternate universe of media to take advantage of that. there's no doubt there's a bubble that exists on both the left and right, but the rightwing one, at least in my lifetime, has always been the much bigger and terrifying one.

the trump lines people can't believe are not "malapropisms"

agree that facebook liberalism doesn't work

agree the nuclear war stuff (the chosen and already almost-shed fear of srs media adults) is an error because to me it seems the least likely of the various utterly bleak forecasts which range imo up to the actually certain

hitler has never been a good comparison but trump and his circle are a genuine and aggressive threat to american democracy in a way not at all mitigated by remembering that nixon or jackson were too (to incarnations of american democracy with sturdier bones)

all this stuff about how the presidency's gonna be brought to a halt when trump realizes how hard the job is and how much reading it requires is written by people who have apparently forgotten not only reagan but dubya

I'm wary (and weary) of the Hitler analogies too. I understand its therapeutic value, but we can't fall into the trap of OMIGOD GUESS WHAT TRUMP SAID TODAY like we did when Bush was president. Two-term presidents have no problem being underrated (Ike, Reagan, Bush II), no problem having their syntax corrected because the press can follow only one story at a time, and a malapropism will get more hits than Trump eliminating COBRA.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 15 November 2016 16:47 (eighteen minutes ago) Permalink

Think I said almost exactly this upthread. Hi five

agreed on all that. Trump's general disengagement and incompetence will be terrible because it will enable those within his party who actually know how to write bills/pass legislation

also in the admittedly sprawling and unexclusive pantheon of objects of overreaching hitler analogies trump can at least boast the enthusiastic endorsement of the world's nazis

A new horrifying thought every hour. The latest: will James O'Keefe have a role in the White House?

at this point i've gone through full preemptive kubler-ross over every potential appointee -- except milo

all this stuff about how the presidency's gonna be brought to a halt when trump realizes how hard the job is and how much reading it requires is written by people who have apparently forgotten not only reagan but dubya

― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, November 15, 2016 12:04 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark

i guess my hope here is that having the anti-GOP bannon in his ear constantly may help foment discord

One fleeting pleasure is seeing Trump fuck over Chris Christie.