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

i'm having a hard time turning my focus away from this shit and toward the things i want to accomplish in my personal life, which range in seriousness from finishing this health insurance application to finding a new career

Just thinking that things act on precedents and the parameter shifts current activity may allow are horifying.
Also that human rights fought for for decades aren't static.
& the idea of alt-right nominations for national security at a time when there's still need for Black Lives Matter protest can only lead to negative places.

If human rights for those that need them reinforced are deemed negligible are the next 4 years going to be filled with Cointelpro like attempts to undermine protest?

Has the Bannon Hollywood Reporter article been discussed?

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/steve-bannon-trump-tower-interview-trumps-strategist-plots-new-political-movement-948747

right. healthcare.

IUD bookings up 900% from October:

http://www.vocativ.com/376404/iuds-reproductive-rights-trump-pence/

The juxtaposition with the collapse in gun sales is ...not funny

are the next 4 years going to be filled with Cointelpro like attempts to undermine protest?

yes

Maybe trump can get sharpton to help out

https://twitter.com/bostonsboy87/status/800024575551696896

Wow. Maybe he should have told the guy earlier not to wear the t-shirts and talk about politics.

Bannon in that Hollywood Reporter insane article, which was discussed upthread, never did address how he rationalizes Trump's tax plans as being populist. He doesn't mention them at all.

haha oh man beautiful.

http://wkrg.com/2016/11/18/make-america-great-again-billboard-features-bloody-sunday-in-mississippi/

^these dudes are getting a nice fat fucking check from me this year.

white people in mississippi are still gonna think it's an official Trump ad though. probably brings a smile to their face as they drive by.

Drank way too much last night & ended up of course in a huge circular discussion abou US politics. My guests - bless em - had to endure me basically interrogating them about their perceptions. 2 white guys fwiw (British & Canadian, I'm a Canadian white guy myself). It fascinated me that they in principle supported Trump over Clinton precisely because he was 100% untrustworthy "so at least you know where you stand - with her you don't know if you can trust her or not!" In terms of results orientation this makes absolutely no sense - you'd rather know you're throwing your bet away with no chance of winning than to take a gamble on a perceived random outcome with some chance of success? - but in their mindset, the honest liar is preferable to the potentially dishonest person who claims to be telling the truth. Bizarre. Parsing it further, they acknowledged that with Clinton you'd get "more of the same" whereas with Trump, outcomes were unclear... and this was also a selling point! They preferred perfect certainty of a known crook with an unpredictable outcome over someone who was unpredictably crooked but who would produce a predictable outcome. This topsy-turvy-world thinking is what got him elected. Heaven help us all.

Pricks.

So this basically

http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Trump-wolf-and-sheep.jpg

^OTMFM

"Sheeple" is what I call people like that, it's actually a word I made up

It's the egotism of it I think - ha, smart guy me, I know what's going on, I'm not gonna be fooled by how one of them is a politician and the other one is a racist politician that rapes people

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 7h7 hours ago
I settled the Trump University lawsuit for a small fraction of the potential award because as President I have to focus on our country.

This is an interesting attempt at saving face, insisting that he actually got off easy compared to what he might have had to pay. It's like he's more worried about being perceived as a loser over having settled a lawsuit than he is about being perceived as a fraudster and swindler.

The Hamilton "Apologize!" tweet horrified me at first, then I realized it was a cunning political move to bury the Trump University settlement, which was already dumped on a Friday afternoon. The tweet itself is perfectly formulated for max outrage- hypocrisy of "safe spaces," harassment, elementary school level language, threatening freedom of expression.

I really don't think anything Trump does is 'cunning'. Even now, nothing he has done seems particularly smart. The great masterstroke of the campaign was to confiscate his iPhone for the last two weeks...

The man who publically and repeatedly abused and disrespected a Gold Star family just a couple of months ago is shocked that his VP-elect was not given the full measure of respect he thought he deserved. Yup.

His hypocrisy is perfectly consistent - when he does something, its ok. When someone else does something, its wrong. Principles dont come into it.

He literally can't think about anything besides himself. It's almost impressive.

JUst wondering how widely what is seen to be acceptable when he gets away with it feeds into the next attempted outrage and if it is going to continually mark out wider territory. & if it's gotten away with now to the extent it is, if taht will show in time to come that you can get away with this much, so why not try to get away with more.
Scary shit.
& the whole idea of a 'norm' as something that is fixed not an archetype that things are based around in a shifting field.
So the idea that something thought of as normal is in any way concrete is false.
Beacons become normative and you don't want Trump a person apparently without morals to be seen as a normative beacon.

But wonder how much elasticity there si in how far things can be stretched and what happens when the limits of that elasticity are transcended.

I'm also just thinking that a lot of marginalised people are just arriving at a point of apparent liberty that has taken them ages to get to and that there is going to be a concerted effort to roll back the rights that have been so hard fought for.
Also just wondering if that is possible. & hoping that the limits of power are reached before anything can be lastingly undone.

He literally can't think about anything besides himself. It's almost impressive.

I honestly barely consider him a human being, like he just seems like a zombie incapable of shame or self-reflection. because of that, I find it hard to feel anger towards him on a personal level. how mad can you be at someone w/ a genuine mental disorder?

but the people around him - his extended family, the leftover garbage politicians who are going to make up his admin, even mike pence - these people are still humans and I feel like they all know deep down that they're participating in something deeply wrong.

would need gbx to back me up on this but he seems textbook NPD to me

Yeah, his family all made the decision a long time ago to put up with him and stand by him for the money. At least one of his kids didn't even talk to him when he was bankrupt, right? Pence saw a way to get out of his failing governorship in Indiana, where he is reviled. They all know exactly what they're doing.

I mean if trump isn't textbook narcissistic personality disorder then...who would be?

and now someone who already doesn't have a soul because he's been sucked into a narcissistic black hole is *literally the most important human being in the world*. things can only get worse!

Oh, smart place to spend time and money organizing: For the governor post in Indinana. Or is it out of reach?

Dems should compete everywhere imo

should? sure. but all the dems have right now in red states is motivation.

within two years I think the dems might have the ability to win races in places we could never dream of. trump admin is gonna be a disaster on a level not comparable to anything in recent history.

Seems likely yes

progressives thought GW bush was a dumbo who would quickly fail, but it wasn't until he'd served a full eight years of disasters that he was finally repudiated by the broader public.

GW had a team of ppl way more experienced w the levers of federal power supporting him. Trump does not.

Painse to say this but Dubya also marginally more humane

Pains me

damning with faint praise but George W. Bush has a likability and moral authority and thoughtfulness that Trump lacks, which is how he got a full eight years.

Trump beyond mere dumbo, way way beyond

it's easy to look back and compare but look at how Bush dealt w/american muslims in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, at least publicly, and compare his speech at the memorial service for the Dallas PD officers a few months ago, vs anything Trump would say in any situation.

If Pence is already loathed, and the Trump transition continues to be a clusterfuck, with the media no longer compelled by fake objectivity to focus half of their intention on fake Clinton controversies out for blood, perhaps it could be pushed as an indictment of the administration. The Indiana election, that is.

W. also was not vindictive in the least

Except when it came to guys that tried to kill his dad amirite

he is a totally different type of figure in all ways.

with the media no longer compelled by fake objectivity

This is cloud cuckooland stuff. The NYT and WaPo are already rolling over like the compliant little bootlickers they are, going out of their way to avoid using the word "racist" to describe Bannon and Sessions, just like they wouldn't use "torture" to describe waterboarding and fake executions. These outlets -- all mainstream media outlets -- in the long run, care only about continued access to the corridors of power and will do what's necessary to maintain it. Trump showed himself more than willing as a primary candidate, then as the nominee, to deny them that access and they will not risk losing it now that he's President.

Hopefully he cuts them off then, incurs their ire.

Trump somehow more incompetent and more of a schemer than W the incompetent schemer

oh no are we normalizing Bush too

The 'Mission Accomplished' moment on the aircraft carrier was very Trump