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

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I think we should look to Brazil as instructive -- when corruption is endemic, it's very easy for a corrupt party in power to use it against a corrupt party not in power. I don't think democrats are exactly free of corruption, and it will make them vulnerable.

the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 18 November 2016 15:05 (seven years ago) link

btw if you follow him on Twitter he's been talking about "saving" a Ford plant which uh...wasn't going anywhere

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/us/politics/donald-trump-takes-credit-for-helping-to-save-a-ford-plant-that-wasnt-closing.html?_r=0

This is one of his strangest and most disgusting qualities - how many times during the debates did he say "nobody talked about this before I brought it up"? Same mentality which sees the birther crusade as a favor to Barack Obama. Dude is nuts.

frogbs, Friday, 18 November 2016 15:06 (seven years ago) link

he's just shameless. his supporters are certifiable though.

cucky ramen-o (will), Friday, 18 November 2016 15:10 (seven years ago) link

A useful thing in general that I'm trying to remind myself: Trump, his campaign and his supporters rely heavily on trolling. They may or may not believe what they/he says at all times. But they definitely want to rile us up to the point of paralysis and unclear thinking, and I'm trying to avoid that.

the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 18 November 2016 15:19 (seven years ago) link

kanye is so fucking dumb

k3vin k., Friday, 18 November 2016 15:20 (seven years ago) link

Like when Trump just said RBG should resign, my first reaction was fear, but once I got a grip I felt the right response is more "eat a dick."

the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 18 November 2016 15:20 (seven years ago) link

the ford plant lie is infuriating. he's been the "PEOTUS" for a week and a half. we're going to have to learn to marshal our stores of disgust.

Jeff Sessions is AG.

I don't really understand why people take these cabinet positions. is being AG a better gig than being a senator? it's not more prestigious, it doesn't make it easier to run for another office and it's a job with a fixed end date. being a senator in a safe state seems like a pretty good job.

― iatee, Friday, November 18, 2016 8:36 AM (forty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

congresspeople, even senators, i'm given to understand, spend the majority of their time fundraising. the rest of the time is listening to people beg you for a line item in a bill somewhere. a cabinet post is like, you get to actually command something, have a budget, hire and fire.

goole, Friday, 18 November 2016 15:22 (seven years ago) link

A useful thing in general that I'm trying to remind myself: Trump, his campaign and his supporters rely heavily on trolling. They may or may not believe what they/he says at all times. But they definitely want to rile us up to the point of paralysis and unclear thinking, and I'm trying to avoid that.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, November 18, 2016 9:19 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, they want to provoke a particular response (fear, despair, resignation, capitulation) and it's incumbent upon us to not respond according to their wishes. But beyond even that, I'm trying to remind myself and others to more generally not allow a handful of elected officials and appointees dictate the tone of an entire country.

i need microsoft installed on my desktop, can you help (Old Lunch), Friday, 18 November 2016 15:24 (seven years ago) link

A useful thing in general that I'm trying to remind myself: Trump, his campaign and his supporters rely heavily on trolling. They may or may not believe what they/he says at all times.

yeah something I'm hearing a lot from Trump supporters in response to all the "he's not doing what he said he was gonna do" stories - "lol we knew he didn't mean any of that". feels a lot like Scott Adams-style "everything that happens fits my narrative because I'm on a different level than you" garbage.

frogbs, Friday, 18 November 2016 15:27 (seven years ago) link

"PEOTUS" - some people call him Maurice

marzipandemonium (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 18 November 2016 15:50 (seven years ago) link

remnick piece on obama was incredible

marcos, Friday, 18 November 2016 16:10 (seven years ago) link

I really would like everyone saying "this is not normal" would go back and actually read through the history of the United States and what this country has done to practically every marginalized group it has ever encountered.

It's helpful to say that the path we are currently on is dangerous; saying it's not "normal" is to glibly ignore all of the horrendous things that have happened in this country's history and to falsely conflate "normal" with "good" and "desireable". The problem is much deeper and much more insidious than that. This is, after all, the same country that lynched members of my family less than 100 years ago; in the global scale of history, that was yesterday.

¶ (DJP), Friday, 18 November 2016 16:19 (seven years ago) link

DJP otm history is always instructive

altho tbf having a totally unqualified/unprepared moron as chief executive is def not normal

Οὖτις, Friday, 18 November 2016 16:23 (seven years ago) link

re: that Kendizor link "The days of Free Speech may soon end." I'm getting kinda sick of proclamations like this. We're basically building such a bogeyman that if Trump doesn't end up actually having journalists gunned down in the street he'll look moderate against expectations.

duped and used by my worst Miss U (President Keyes), Friday, 18 November 2016 16:24 (seven years ago) link

Trump’s appointees need to get confirmed. Attorney General-designee Jeff Sessions, whose nomination to a federal judgeship was blocked in the 1980s by a bipartisan group of senators because of alleged racist comments he had made as U.S. attorney, will not be able to coast through the Judiciary Committee, despite the fact he is a member. (In fact, that actually hurts his prospects – because he cannot vote for himself.)

lol totally forgot about this. confirmation hearings will be fun (I bet he gets in tho)

Οὖτις, Friday, 18 November 2016 16:26 (seven years ago) link

I'm getting kinda sick of proclamations like this.

agreed that hysteria is not a good look. basically the flipside of "they're comin for our guns!"/FEMA camps/we're at WAR WITH ISLAM stuff

Οὖτις, Friday, 18 November 2016 16:27 (seven years ago) link

xpost Senators voting down another Senator is not going to happen

duped and used by my worst Miss U (President Keyes), Friday, 18 November 2016 16:29 (seven years ago) link

true, but imagine the grandstanding

Οὖτις, Friday, 18 November 2016 16:30 (seven years ago) link

the thrilling empty threats, the blatant lies, the partisan bickering

Οὖτις, Friday, 18 November 2016 16:30 (seven years ago) link

agreed that hysteria is not a good look. basically the flipside of "they're comin for our guns!"/FEMA camps/we're at WAR WITH ISLAM stuff

^alas, that hysteria proved to be effective

never have i been a blue calm sea (collardio gelatinous), Friday, 18 November 2016 16:33 (seven years ago) link

on the subject of leftist steps moving forward, just wanted to take a moment to note the two middle-aged glassy-eyed crank socialist white guys who spent their evening last night outside of a town hall for columbia grad workers contemplating our upcoming union election, trying to berate students (who are already being swayed by an aggressive anti-union campaign from their bosses) into voting 'no' because the UAW ''supports trump'' and anyway because unions are a reformist tool of capitalism and only revolutionary politics represent true solidarity with other workers. not the actual workers in front of them, telling them that they personally, desperately, needed this union in order to get paid on time and secure protections against the depradations of trump as well as columbia, but some other workers somewhere else. to be fair they spent most of this argument convinced they were talking to barnard contingent faculty at a barnard event, so maybe those are the workers they were thinking of. suggestions that they leave and find the people they were actually looking for were viewed with evident suspicion --- a classic reformist trick of the economic nationalists at UAW headquarters, no doubt!

mostly i focused on trying to shepherd students up the stairs in good cheer, and making it clear that the intensive loud men shoving flyers at them were not affiliated with our union. i would have rather been helping set up the refreshment tables but so it goes.

at one point, after they switched to calling us the ''columbia faculty'' and waxing on about how it took the bolsheviks (he struggled to get the name right) to bring revolution in russia, i pointed out that i don't stand outside their meetings telling people the communists or some other group that is not the World Socialist Web (or whatever their flyers said they were) are inside, and they accused me of red-baiting. a student felt so harassed by them that she went to get campus security; they said ''the UAW is calling the police on protesters!'' and started filming her (and her six-month-old baby) on their cellphones. solidarity!

dustalo springsteen (Doctor Casino), Friday, 18 November 2016 16:34 (seven years ago) link

Er ''intense'' not ''intensive''

dustalo springsteen (Doctor Casino), Friday, 18 November 2016 16:35 (seven years ago) link

re: that Kendizor link "The days of Free Speech may soon end." I'm getting kinda sick of proclamations like this. We're basically building such a bogeyman that if Trump doesn't end up actually having journalists gunned down in the street he'll look moderate against expectations.

exactly, not trying to underestimate the awfulness here but we're going to slip into this same pattern where Trump gets praised for any little baby steps he takes towards being "presidential"

frogbs, Friday, 18 November 2016 16:37 (seven years ago) link

^alas, that hysteria proved to be effective

yeah but I would prefer our side to be somewhat fact-based

Οὖτις, Friday, 18 November 2016 16:40 (seven years ago) link

things are gonna be bad enough, no need to go full-blown makin-shit-up-to-be-scary

Οὖτις, Friday, 18 November 2016 16:40 (seven years ago) link

i completely agree shakey. just making a minor "btw" point.

never have i been a blue calm sea (collardio gelatinous), Friday, 18 November 2016 16:43 (seven years ago) link

Things will be bad, things will probably not be as bad as the worst predictions, and the worst predictions would ideally be framed in terms of 'this is how bad it COULD get and why, and here's what you can do to help forestall the malignity' rather than 'TRUMP WILL LITERALLY EAT YOUR CHILDREN IN FRONT OF YOU, BE VERY AFRAID' (which is not at all what I'm suggesting Kendzior's piece does).

i need microsoft installed on my desktop, can you help (Old Lunch), Friday, 18 November 2016 16:57 (seven years ago) link

The emphasis should be on skepticism, pragmatism, vigilance, and practical positive action.

i need microsoft installed on my desktop, can you help (Old Lunch), Friday, 18 November 2016 16:59 (seven years ago) link

otm

never have i been a blue calm sea (collardio gelatinous), Friday, 18 November 2016 17:03 (seven years ago) link

I really would like everyone saying "this is not normal" would go back and actually read through the history of the United States and what this country has done to practically every marginalized group it has ever encountered.

It's helpful to say that the path we are currently on is dangerous; saying it's not "normal" is to glibly ignore all of the horrendous things that have happened in this country's history and to falsely conflate "normal" with "good" and "desireable". The problem is much deeper and much more insidious than that. This is, after all, the same country that lynched members of my family less than 100 years ago; in the global scale of history, that was yesterday.

― ¶ (DJP), Friday, 18 November 2016 16:19 (forty minutes ago) Permalink

Yes. This is why I hated the "normal" language during the campaign. "Normal" is not the goal here. "Normal" is a false security blanket. Liberal cocooning with grubhub and prestige television. Trump didn't make Jeff Sessions out of clay, he is in the fucking US Senate.

the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 18 November 2016 17:04 (seven years ago) link

he is made of clay tho

Οὖτις, Friday, 18 November 2016 17:16 (seven years ago) link

the "normal" language may not be accurate re: history but I think a lot of the intent is motivational - these people having power should not be just another administration, don't become indifferent to the consequences (esp if you don't face any yourself), stay pissed off rather than depressed and hopeless.

JoeStork, Friday, 18 November 2016 17:16 (seven years ago) link

isn't this also about the notion of "normalization"—of accepting false frameworks that do violence as inevitable or acceptable

obviously, lots of bullshit is already normalized—black lives matter was largely a push against the normalization of something terrifying & real & violent. I think the push against normalization is OK if it's done w/out acting as if its an exclusively new thing.

it's a bit of a fine needle to thread, to point out that trump is uniquely bad but also teh systems that have rewarded him are just one data point in a long line of structural violence

Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, 18 November 2016 17:19 (seven years ago) link

You can achieve the same effect with "This is not right".

¶ (DJP), Friday, 18 November 2016 17:20 (seven years ago) link

on npr this morning they interviewed a woman who worked with gen flynn in afghanistan.. she said some nice things but also said he was as organized as pigpen from the peanuts. when asked what her reaction to his appointment was, "my heart sank"

awesome!

carthago delenda est (mayor jingleberries), Friday, 18 November 2016 17:22 (seven years ago) link

I prefer that these ideologues be incompetent tbh. incompetence will wreak its own damage/havoc, but I'm inclined to say the situation would be worse if Trump had a team of people who really knew how to get shit done and had terrible ideas, rather than a team that doesn't know how to do a goddamn thing and has terrible ideas.

Οὖτις, Friday, 18 November 2016 17:30 (seven years ago) link

at the risk of bringing up the Nazi comparisons again, one of the things that made them so awful was that they were so competent and bureaucratic

Οὖτις, Friday, 18 November 2016 17:31 (seven years ago) link

srs question: was J Edgar Hoover competent?

the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, 18 November 2016 17:32 (seven years ago) link

with these clowns the worst crimes are going to be lack of oversight i.e., what they enable more competent ideologues (like Ryan, local law enforcement, intelligence operatives, etc.) to execute

Οὖτις, Friday, 18 November 2016 17:33 (seven years ago) link

dude Hoover was a master

Οὖτις, Friday, 18 November 2016 17:33 (seven years ago) link

at keeping his job for almost 50 years, at least. xxp

it's possible this 'team' will have a hard time eclipsing the batshit thuggery of the Reaganauts, but records were made to be broken

also, the stakes are higher now

Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Friday, 18 November 2016 17:33 (seven years ago) link

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-identity-liberalism.html
this is maybe the worst piece I've read since the election

Kiarostami bag (milo z), Friday, 18 November 2016 17:38 (seven years ago) link

he published that the day trump announced his third racist cabinet member...

Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, 18 November 2016 17:39 (seven years ago) link

"Liberal cocooning with grubhub and prestige television"

this is most of the country forever though. not just now and not just liberals. as a people just really good at not thinking about what the government does and what people in power do. or they just figure they can't do anything about it. i dunno. iraq is a distant memory to a lot of people here. they couldn't tell you what has happened there in the last however many years. how many people could?

scott seward, Friday, 18 November 2016 17:41 (seven years ago) link

You can achieve the same effect with "This is not right".

― ¶ (DJP), Friday, November 18, 2016 11:20 AM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i agree obv, i didn't mean to defend the specific phrase "this is not normal" so much as reflect on the notion of "normalization"—where we are worn down to accept what's wrong as the status quo, & the debilitating, traumatizing effects of that. I think there's value in talking about that effect, and fighting it by continually reminding yourself "this is not right."

Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, 18 November 2016 17:42 (seven years ago) link

it's never been right. but yeah i guess this is the new improved even worse now.

scott seward, Friday, 18 November 2016 17:44 (seven years ago) link

liberal cocooning with grubhub and prestige television is the modern day equivalent of middle class folk cocooning with their color tv and tract housing in the burbs

carthago delenda est (mayor jingleberries), Friday, 18 November 2016 17:46 (seven years ago) link

shit coming home, they think, to people who have been insulated from most forms of oppression heretofore

Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Friday, 18 November 2016 17:47 (seven years ago) link


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