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

i'm currently terrified that trump is going to mobilize his people to vote in trump surrogates in the midterms, and we'll get repeats of events like david brat taking down eric cantor

― 龜, Wednesday, November 16, 2016 10:23 AM (six minutes ago) Bookmark

in conjunction with

https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/the-far-right-is-a-meme

People need to be less terrified by that prospect and be more active in mobilizing their own folks. Like now. I keep walking by the empty Dem office in my city and thinking, do they need me to take this shit over?

Low-information voters, an example, via digby:

There are a ton of numbers floating around right now about everything but this one actually made me laugh out loud. From Gallup:

Just 16% of Republicans said the economy was getting better in the week before the election, while 81% said it was getting worse. Since the election, 49% say it is getting better and 44% worse.

It's a miracle! He's not even in office and it's already getting better! 33% better!

Keith Ellison just endorsed by Elizabeth Warren for DNC chair!

i thought he was running himself?

seriously god bless anybody who has the fortitude and the patience for incrementalism. i don't. there's no polite way for me to say the things i feel like i need to say.

I think "deep canvassing" is increasingly going to become an established thing. It works here and there, but it does work.

if the Dem's response to this is to install Dean and Schumer, i think it's reasonable to abandon hope

Read more carefully: Ellison is running!

2018 looks p bad for Dems iirc. it'd be nice to have a comprehensive list of at-risk seats, as well as seats that *could* potentially flip our way, given an adequate infusion of cash & volunteering.

can someone give me the summary on why ppl are so excited by keith ellison? everything i've read about him is either identity politics or controversial statements (comparing gwb to hitler or being pro nation of islam). does he have bonafide left-wing economic acheivements that i can read about somewhere?

My fave quote of the week may be from the otherwise polite Trump supporter in the Times article about this election tearing families apart, cancelling Thanksgiving/weddings etc.:

As for racism and Mr. Trump, she said, “I don’t think there’s any proof of that.” She added: “I will say that, in his generation, those old guys, most of them kind of lean towards,” and then she paused. “It was a white world.”

I don't think he's racist, it's just that he comes from a generation when everyone was totally racist, so it's not really racism, it's just how it was, I mean come on.

Phil D., a lot of that change can be attributed to that question being a stand in for just whether you think things in general are going well or not. The answer probably swings because they feel more optimistic now that their candidate won. The disturbing part about this is that the economy is continuing to improve and is looking quite good at the moment, and probably Trump will get all the credit for that.

Maybe getting Trump elected was just all it took.

xp re: Josh's Thanksgiving comment

my 85-year old Trump-supporting father-in-law is seriously considering moving out of the house after I lost it on Sunday night when he said people "don't have the right to protest" :(

of course, the person this hurts most is my wife, so fucked. Thanksgiving is gonna be rough, if I even go.

I know Ellison is running, but i'm conditioned to expect the worst right now, aren't we all?

Don't waste your time expecting the worst, because there's always the possibility of something much worse than you'd expect happening instead.

Phil D., a lot of that change can be attributed to that question being a stand in for just whether you think things in general are going well or not. The answer probably swings because they feel more optimistic now that their candidate won. The disturbing part about this is that the economy is continuing to improve and is looking quite good at the moment, and probably Trump will get all the credit for that.

chances of unemployment being lower than it is now in a few years are very very low

That will be the next guy's fault

Maybe getting Trump elected was just all it took.

we should not be at all surprised when this becomes the official story

That will be the next guy's fault

it will still be Obama's fault, just like 9/11 and the 2008 economic collapse were both Clinton's fault. (but also time traveling Obama's fault)

xpost Seriously, unemployment is so relatively low that there literally is not much room for improvement. Trump is fucked on that front, especially, because lack of employment was not the driving election force, it was lack of good jobs, which is another matter and even harder to fix, especially when lack of movement on that front is compounded by lack of health, retirement, union benefits. And people will be all, huh, things have gotten markedly worse, where is my socialized everything that I hated because it was socialism but now want back because it was still not socialism but it definitely made my life better.

Been having some really good conversations with this secretary in my office who got involved in her local dem party and became a county legislator in a majority republican NY county. Dominican from the Bronx originally and I think maybe lesbian and in any case just really knows what's going on on the ground in the local and state party, good insights. She supported Sanders and def thinks the party needs to go in a more progressive direction but also thinks full-time chair is better for DNC and that the party might not be "ready" for Ellison being a Muslim, and I sincerely don't think she meant that out of any personal mistrust.

She also said some disheartening things about the NY State party (though not totally surprising) and says that they pretty much just rely on NYC and don't do much else, and that the Working Families Party does much more at the grass roots level to actually develop local candidates, train legislators etc.

Anyway, inspiring to talk to someone who just got the fuck in there and started working on things from the ground level. Made me want to do a lot more.

Awesome

2018 looks p bad for Dems iirc. it'd be nice to have a comprehensive list of at-risk seats, as well as seats that *could* potentially flip our way, given an adequate infusion of cash & volunteering.

― acerbic (sic)s (will), 16. november 2016 16:46 (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I began this upthread. Seems to me only Nevada could be flipped to Dems, most at-risk seats are in the Midwest. But really, to everyone on here, if you want something really easily doable to do to help, do this: Begin with the list of elections in 2012: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2012 Check out the close ones, check which incumbents are old and might want to step down. Really, there's only 33 races to watch, and many of them are decided already, it's not that hard for anyone to educate yourself, even if vox and 538 won't do it yet.

I know everyone is sick of elections, but perhaps a new thread for organizing before 2018? Perhaps it won't seems so shitty if everyone is ahead of the curve?

Perhaps Jeff Flake could be defeated in Arizona as well?

I'm for that, even if it means I have to keep reading Frederik B posts xp

I sort of like the idea of surprise attacking someone just slightly within the margin of "safe," like an unexpected flood of resources into the race. Don't know if that's possible in practice, but it seems like it might be a good addition to just grinding it out in the close races and hoping for the best. Also have to shore up anyone close to that "safe" margin on our side, because they can do the same.

I'm for that, even if it means I have to keep reading Frederik B posts

^

also interested in House races as well.

Problem with house races is there's a shitton of them... I mean, you all know this, but I have no idea where to even begin in getting a grasp on these, not until the field starts narrowing down, candidates are chosen in primaries, etc. But a senate thread, that should be doable, and I'd wager conversations on there could help with figuring out a bunch of stuff about state organizations, local elections, etc, a lot of stuff that influences every election as well.

Tried to copy-paste the list from wikipedia to a new question, but nope, looked awful, lol. Somebody will have to make a list themselves, of incumbents and winning margins I guess. Clean it up. I can't do it today, have to review a Danish film on the murder of Kitty Genovese.

What is this about Mike Pence going to court to seal some private emails? The irony is disgusting.

I think there's going to need to be a lot of independent GOTV mobilization in the lead up to 2018, and a lot of emphasis on how important midterm voting in particular will be.

Ugh, the map is just brutal. How do you defend a dem incumbent in Montana, North Dakota or West Virginia?

Might be easy if the economy shits the bed or the Trump Administration is underwater with scandals or if the Republicans actually try to murder Medicare - all of which are somewhere between likely and certain

we definitely do not need a thread about the 2018 elections yet. wait until 2018

can someone give me the summary on why ppl are so excited by keith ellison?

not sure if ppl missed this or the answer is just no - no one here knows

xpost I kind of disagree. Maybe we don't need a thread about 2018 specifically but I have been thinking that a separate thread specifically about strategies for going forward (leaving the grousing and grieving and despairing itt) would be useful. And the earlier the better.

the clip of him saying Trump might win the primary and the white tv news hosts cackling at him is pretty funny

i hope i'm wrong, but if/when paul ryan slips in a medicare phaseout into the budget, i think it might pass. the phaseout has been part of the ryan budget which has been proposed in the house every year since 2011. last year, the house passed it, 219-208. it'll surely be in there again this year, as ryan is already indicating. this time, it's not just a symbolic gesture because obama won't be there to veto.

the most important counterweight to privatizing medicare/social security has always been the fact that republican constituents don't support doing so. medicare/social security are very popular programs, everyone knows that. "but this year is different" (<<blllleggggh, already a cliche to say that but it's true). half of the voters are ok with anything trump does, as long as he does it in an entertaining way. all he has to do is say that he's going to change medicare for the better, obamacare bankrupted the country and this is the only way to fix it, and that the replacement is going to be so much better, it will be beautiful, etc. it's complete bullshit, but it might just work during the first two months of his administration when he can get away with just about ANYTHING with his supporters.

i agree with that karl. it blows. media has already indicated that it's going to normalize all this shit

K3v, you can just not read it?

xp I think you're overestimating the percentage of Trump voters and red-staters who'd be okay with anything. It was still a close election, the only people buying into the idea of a mandate are partisans, and a significant percentage (say 5-8%) of Trump's coalition weren't that far off from voting against him

if fred isnt going to save america who will

fred i don't mean harm by this but you are so weird (have to admit though i gave you a bunch of FPs last wednesday bc i felt powerless and flagging a middling dane was the best i could do). can you direct me to a post you've made in the past about why you are so fascinated by US politics to this level?

tbf it's not unusual for someone from outside the US to be interested in the politics of the world superpower since it'll likely impact them much more than say danish politics will impact US citizens

xpost I kind of disagree. Maybe we don't need a thread about 2018 specifically but I have been thinking that a separate thread specifically about strategies for going forward (leaving the grousing and grieving and despairing itt) would be useful. And the earlier the better.

― i need microsoft installed on my desktop, can you help (Old Lunch), Wednesday, November 16, 2016 11:47 AM (eight minutes ago)

what are we going to do, brainstorm and send our best ideas to the DCCC? it's just going to be a bunch of us posting articles about the elections that we could do in any other politics thread. but go ahead, knock yourselves out

marcos: US is the most important country in the world, I've lived in the US for a year, my co-worker is from the US, most of the culture I consume is from the US, I've a degree in history and most history today is decided in the US. Like, what's weird about it? And it's not as if I want to start a thread on the 2018 elections, it would be extremely weird, but sic asked if anyone knew, and apparently I'm the only one willing to copy-paste and clean up the information from wikipedia...

Ugh, I really need to not do get drawn into US history and research Kitty Genovese instead.

sorry fred i realize my comment was dickish

Ugh, I really need to not do get drawn into US history and research Kitty Genovese instead.

yeah best not to get involved