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

And I love the idea that this, which constitutes the cast's statement IN ITS ENTIRETY, constitutes a "lecture."

“We, sir, we are the diverse America, who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”

WOW SUCH LECTURE SO STRIDENT WOW

I ain't gonna hear about "bad optics" re: people who spent the last six months yelling TRUMP THAT BITCH and LOCK HER UP.

is flappy bird Chuck Todd?

the deeper the left delves into its bubble and panics and prepares for the Trump admin like it'll be an autocracy is so ridiculous.

worked for the right, may as well try it. sure, there were two terms of obama, but 8 years later they control everything

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/800454155693387776/qp1zXwQA.jpg

OOF alfred that hurts... Chuck Todd has the worst hair i've ever seen on any human. i can't stand him, BUT it has helped me in the past week and a half to anesthetize my morality & beliefs and focus entirely on strategy, just to stay sane...

being half facetious of course, but the thing that has shocked me the most about the last 8 years is the total lack of punishment for wanton obstructionism, and i think the left should probably learn that lesson.

"What did you do in the war, dad?"

"Well son, I certainly didn't delve into my bubble - bad optics"

OOF alfred that hurts... Chuck Todd has the worst hair i've ever seen on any human. i can't stand him, BUT it has helped me in the past week and a half to anesthetize my morality & beliefs and focus entirely on strategy, just to stay sane...

― flappy bird,

worse than Hewitt's?

hugh hewitt? never noticed his hair... Chuck Todd looks like he had a Prince Valiant going on then went to Super Cuts and now it's growing back in.

Wait, Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the speech?

according to the Times

Can we please stop pretending that 59 words constitutes a speech?

it's not clear to me what "good optics" or strategy would be. i guess the dems should strengthen the economic parts of their message, show some of that bernie sanders outrage at inequality. (i've always felt that way). but all this talk about how clinton's campaign lost due to "identity politics" makes me uncomfortable. if identity politics is clinton talking about her own glass ceiling then fine, ditch it. but if it means protecting abortion rights, marriage equality, and fighting for criminal justice reform and equal pay then i am not ready to abandon identity politics.

i say this as someone who complains, all the time, about stuff like the yale halloween controversy.

there are definitely illiberal tendencies among portions of the identitarian left, especially on campus. but there is still such a thing as institutional racism and sexism, which manifest in ways that require policy solutions. we still need the democrats for that.

When the cast of "Hamilton" is making policy for the DNC somebody send me a telegram plz

The Hamilton statement cheered me up a little, that someone was saying that to Mike Pence to his face. I assume many other people felt the same. It was worth doing even if that was the only effect.

xp phil D., well, they are an avatar of multiculturalism and so the right will assimilate them into its "culture war" narrative. i disagree with flappy bird in that i don't think we can win that one way or the other because they're not playing fair. any overture the left makes toward white rural america needs to be on its own terms. you need to wrench them away from the propaganda with a vigorous economic message... there is no benefit to the dems in forsaking the cultural/identity side of their platform, which the right misrepresents anyway

The story would have still been news. The crowd was booing at Pence, and the musical itself is pretty fucking political. The audience was laughing at Pence during What Comes Next:

What comes next?
You’ve been freed
Do you know how hard it is to lead?

You’re on your own
Awesome. Wow
Do you have a clue what happens now?

Oceans rise
Empires fall
It’s much harder when it’s all your call

All alone, across the sea
When your people say they hate you
Don’t come crawling back to me

Or rather, it could very possibly have become a story. Trump turned it into one when he started harassing the cast and producers for using their first amendment protected free speech. You can't 'strategize' around an irrational lying scumbag racist sexist homophobe with thin skin and no self-control. Not having that turn into yet another clusterfuck would entail everyone just shutting up about what's happening all the time, and, not to sound all Westworld, but Pence isn't normal. He is a gay-conversion loving extremist who became vice-president elect on a campaign of hatred against hispanics in particular, and who now thinks he can go to a play made by a hispanic man about the benefits of Caribbean immigrants, acted by many gay actors, as if nothing has happened. That's not normal.

yeah, mike pence is a fuckface. i wish they threw cabbages at him honestly.

there are definitely illiberal tendencies among portions of the identitarian left, especially on campus. but there is still such a thing as institutional racism and sexism, which manifest in ways that require policy solutions. we still need the democrats for that.

― Treeship, Sunday, November 20, 2016 5:04 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's a way to address those without falling into the methodological trap of identitarianism: point out that they're systemic injustices that ruin individual lives. i'll never fully understand why so much time is spent on 'how' to combat these things.

i know lewis lapham is a contrarian self-promoter, but: "The universities chose to amuse themselves with the crossword puzzles of French literary theory, and in the New York media salons the standard-bearers of America's political conscience were content to rest upon what they took to be their laurels ... and the messengers bringing the good news of conservative reaction moved their gospel-singing tent show into an all but deserted public square," is a quote that always amused me.

you need to wrench them away from the propaganda with a vigorous economic message...

otm, i don't think the dems should ditch social progress & equality by any means, but the approach this time was unbalanced and probably abrasive to a lot of moderate/rust belt voters... and the smug condescension & arrogance of clinton's campaign cannot be overstated as a factor in making ppl stay home and others switch sides... check this out for the latter: http://thefederalist.com/2016/11/18/liberals-should-stop-ranting-and-seek-out-silent-trump-voters-like-me/#.WC8XB7tr5Ht.twitter i mean i think she's a fucking idiot but this is what we're dealing with

also who gives a fuck about the optics, do we think the right won through laser-focused discipline on messaging? iirc they spent the last 8 years focused on sideshows of a far more noxious variety

I don't think the dems should ditch social progress & equality by any means, but the approach this time was unbalanced and probably abrasive to a lot of moderate/rust belt voters...

the approach was offering those voters Hillary Rodham Clinton

yeah, shit like hamilton has fuck-all to do with it. being a punching bag for edgy socialists is not the same thing as being a real factor

did anyone research why half of eligible voters didn't vote?

were at musical

also who gives a fuck about the optics, do we think the right won through laser-focused discipline on messaging? iirc they spent the last 8 years focused on sideshows of a far more noxious variety

― intheblanks, Sunday, November 20, 2016 5:20 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i just want everyone to be able to get along well enough that they can have a conversation. i understand it but it really makes me sad that the left has started mirroring the right post-Obama's election. like i think anyone that abhors Trump should do their best to dispel with the fiction (lol) that all progressives are contemptuous of them and are intolerant of their beliefs (even if that it is the case...)

i emphatically *don't care* about the hamilton controversy or whatever but unless you're being dense for the sake of it it's not hard to see why a useless speech, whose sole purpose was to generate attention and controversy, at a freaking BROADWAY PLAY so exclusive and expensive that ordinary americans can't see it, might be poor tactics considering the anti-cosmopolitan sentiment that contributed to our losing the election

kev otm

also who gives a fuck about the optics, do we think the right won through laser-focused discipline on messaging? iirc they spent the last 8 years focused on sideshows of a far more noxious variety

they kinda did, actually. despite the mess of a campaign, donald trump hammered down his message pretty well.

From what i'm hearing about Hamilton it seems like a strange show for somebody like Pence to want to go and see apart from it being the current hit musical that everybody needs to see.
But the comments from the stage seem to be an articulate representation of how the cast felt and gibven the opportunityy to say something remaining silent might have been as strange.

xxp - no one on the left, even an actor in a play who is not a politician, should not do or say anything without considering the "tactical" implications? What a shit country.

yeah seriously, guys the cast of hamilton is not an arm of the democratic party

right answer but yr workings idk xp

xxp - no one on the left, even an actor in a play who is not a politician, should not do or say anything without considering the "tactical" implications? What a shit country.

― sarahell, Sunday, November 20, 2016 3:29 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

exactly the type of overly cautious thinking that led to such electoral success for the clinton campaign

Flappy Bird, wouldn't that woman agree with the Hamilton cast? She says this: Let people say what they will. Shame them publicly for cruel, offensive statements that are inconsistent with American values.

if yr still pretending that it matters whether or not the liberals being scoffed at amongst the majority of american voters are official dem cru or not well

not calling you out, sarahell, agreeing with your general in case it's unclear

i understand it but it really makes me sad that the left has started mirroring the right post-Obama's election.

This shit is driving me nuts. The right's post-Obama antics were based entirely on fantasy and fiction.

xp sarahel like i said i don't care, say whatever you want, more power to you. but if you're going to do a publicity stunt, which this was, that's probably something to consider

but hey who knows maybe when the trump administration is debating whether to privatize medicare or deport a million undocumented immigrants mike pence will remember when he saw that guy at the play call him "sir" twice and rethink denying people their inalienable rights

they kinda did, actually. despite the mess of a campaign, donald trump hammered down his message pretty well.

― iatee, Sunday, November 20, 2016 3:26 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i totally agree with that, i just mean the whole "this is why 'real america' hates us, the dems are dropping the ball again" narrative around a pointless weekend sideshow has nothing to do with electoral politics.

kev emphatically not otm, and his baseless speculation about why a group of black and hispanic actors, some of them lgbt, might want to say something to Mike Pence, is really nagl.

nobody talking about how trump endorsed schumer? lol https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/800339165829283840

did anyone research why half of eligible voters didn't vote?

― sarahell, Sunday, November 20, 2016 5:24 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark

they need to make election day a national holiday

also voter suppression

the idea of letting people say what they will and then shaming them, whoever said it originally, seems like the issue. people should argue with each other, back and forth, even if they might not reach common ground in the end. clinton wasn't frank enough and so the phantasm of her the right had created had more substantive reality to voters than the actual person

I suspect that 'donald trump declares war on snobby cast of hamilton' won't play as well when donald trump has actual responsibilities / shitty rural towns continue to be shitty rural towns in 2 years etc. etc.

hamilton doesn't matter and what the hamilton people say doesn't matter, the speech was fine

don't worry about broadway musicals, worry abt whether or not the opposition party plans to pick up any weapons anytime soon

i haven't read a single actual leftist suggesting that in reminding themselves they are allegedly a workers' party the dems should decide racism's not so bad, but i sure have read a lot of clintonites insisting that's what the left wants and that the party is totally fine and noble

obviously no left deserving of the name is anything less than militantly antiracist

obviously a genuine class politics in the u.s. requires militant antiracism at its center just to make any sense

half the country couldn't bring itself to vote; if you think the evil in america's bosom means the only way anyone can do better than hillary is by snarling about muslims you might as well start rehearsing your heils right now

only socialism kills fascism; anyone who says otherwise is selling something

anyone got a good thing I can read on the awfulness of Schumes?

I think, at this point, it's like Florence Reece asked:

Which side are you on?