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

that's just isolating substitution effect stuff; you don't want to use the tax to kill manufacturing, you want to shift within manufacturing to lower carbon intensity... idk, from an outside pov it was a shitty thing for the enviro left to do..

(xp to Silby)

The backstory on the initiative seemed to be, a coalition of orgs were working on an initiative, it went slowly, because progressive coalitions lol, some other policy shop went it alone to put something on the ballot, everyone in the coalition working on the other bill opposed 732.

here's the story I read before voting

http://grist.org/election-2016/washington-carbon-tax-732/

i'm pretty much resigned to global warming being inevitable. see you in 100,000 years

yeah I mean I also assume that people who don't yet exist would prefer not to so their never coming into existence is the silver lining of the everybody now alive dies cloud

Has anybody encountered any thinkpieces on why the Left is more prone to "perfect enemy of the good" factionalism than the Right?

On the Right, they can pursue more restrictions on reproductive rights at late-term, then 20 weeks, then closer to conception, etc. They're willing to accept the grind towards achieving whatever dystopia they're after.

On the Left, if a climate crisis solution doesn't perfectly meet everyone's needs, some environmental groups will actively oppose it rather than seek to correct its faults at a later date.

i'm pretty much resigned to global warming being inevitable. see you in 100,000 years

― 龜, Sunday, November 20, 2016 6:44 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^this

get real yall

better to focus on poverty/civil liberties, planet earth about to be recycled

one reason i find the 'russians hacking the election' theories not that believable is what happened in my parents county in south NJ

it's a pretty white, middle-class county - not upper middle class/upper class like cherry hill - the house next to theirs flies a blue lives matter flag, a cop lives in the neighborhood, there's not really any markers of upper middle class in the area (closest apple store, whole foods, nordstroms, ll bean, etc. are all half an hour away by car)...

the county went for obama 55% / 44% for romney in 2012

however, in 2016, trump is winning by .5% so far http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NJ/Gloucester/64655/181484/Web01/en/summary.html

to my mind, definitely fits in with the narrative that white middle class voters flipped for trump this election

Pretty much all social justice goes out the window when the poor are outbid for food. It's happening between nations, but I hope it doesn't become a huge issue withing the U.S. in my lifetime. It's probably inevitable.

also: thinking if the line of attack for dems this election shouldn't have been 'trump is racist/sexist/misogynistic/xenophobic/islamophobic' - all qualities that immediately offend us educated city slickers but code very different depending on which side of the culture wars you find yourself on

instead, should have focused on trump as a con man - trump U allegations, but also as someone who doesn't pay his workers, takes advantage of tax loopholes, etc. - seems like this is a much more 'universal' message - if there's one thing all americans hate, it's getting conned / fits into a 'fight fire with fire' strategy vis a vis hillary's 'corruption' charges re: emails and clinton foundation

otm

otm x2

caveat that her strategy did work for the majority of voters (brutal to win pop vote by 1.5 million, which was the tally last I saw) but to eke out rust-belt swing states def agree

the more I think about it the less I think any given way of attacking trump would have done much. I mean his whole thing was 'of course I cheat, now I'm cheating 4 u'

what I do think could have helped was attacking him in ways that built clinton's own character / made her come across as more of a human being. e.g. had she taken control of her own twitter account and gone off script more in the debates. they were playing it safe and that seemed like a pretty sensible strategy at the time, let donald trump be the one who goes off script and non-donald trumps who go off script and say something like 'deplorables' get disproportionately punished for it.

trump got hit with plenty of that stuff in both the primaries and in the general and it just didn't stick

I read someone on her campaign compare it to an athletic competition where the other guy gets to be on steroids, which seemed like a pretty apt comparison.

caveat that her strategy did work for the majority of voters (brutal to win pop vote by 1.5 million, which was the tally last I saw) but to eke out rust-belt swing states def agree

― flopson, Sunday, November 20, 2016 10:54 PM (twenty-six minutes ago

the strategy "didn't work" because the election isn't decided by the popular vote. the reason the lost the electoral college is precisely because her strategy failed to appeal to the voters she most needed to reach

there was no precedent, really, in facing a candidate like this. it still makes absolutely no sense to me why people were willing to vote for a known liar who doesn't honor his contracts and has shady ties to russia -- among his other, many faults. in the future i think democrats should strive to seem less strategic, if possible: just try to be clear about their agenda in a way that connects with the concerns of average people. polls show that most people lean progressive on the issues, anyway, even if they don't think they do

like, trump was literally going to these states and talking to people, often doing two stops per day. clinton didn't do anything like that.

or find a reality tv star

xp

Going into the election I rated the chances of the respective candidates doing anything whatsoever about global warming at about 0% for Trump vs 0.5% for Clinton

Clinton also couldn't draw when she did rallies. She should have gone to those states more anyway, but I'm just saying she was never going to be Trump.

Another big mistake I thought was the shying away from attacking the entire GOP and refusing to conflate Trump with their agenda (indeed, even trying and failing to peel off "moderate republicans" as a focus). How hard is it to campaign on "these people are going to take your fucking medicaid/medicare away"?

But anyway I was already so pessimistic about what the future looked like under a CLINTON presidency -- no action on global warming, a continued slow march toward privatizing everything, a terrible political landscape for the Democrats going forward, likelihood of one term, etc. And now this is so much worse. Every day is like a fever of nightmare scenarios racing through my head before the fever finally breaks at some point in the evening.

Today my mind was playing out these, for example:

GOP holds up federal funding for sanctuary cities. NYC and other cities litigate. In most cases they probably win, but it takes time, GOP appeals, continues to hold up federal funding pending appeal even if court orders otherwise. Existing SCOTUS precedent favors the cities, but the GOP doesn't care, cities struggle to meet funding gaps for key programs with federal funding, many of which affect the poorest. Meanwhile GOP gets impatient, mass-hires fed immigration police, starts raiding the cities, whole neighborhoods of the boroughs lose 10%, 20%, 30% of their population.

I went further with it too: fed funding loss forces either large budget cuts or tax increases, city services suffer, homelessness on streets increases, track pickup reduced, things start to look more like the 80s, etc. The only reason I think this might not really happen to NYC is that Trump and his family are so invested here.

Every day is like a fever of nightmare scenarios racing through my head before the fever finally breaks at some point in the evening.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Sunday, November 20, 2016 11:32 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha otm

I feel like the Pences of the world would love to fuck NYC and either don't grasp or don't care about the larger consequences.

i also don't think trump wants to disturb the status quo, despite screaming the exact opposite every day for the past 18 months. he likes his life. becoming president is a severe step down for him - white house, air force one, no more android phone, no more women on the side. i just don't see mass deportations happening under him. too much of a hassle.

(trying to be optimistic here)

Ok if I had to place a bet on most likely scenario, I'd say he does some kind of showy but statistically underwhelming "mass" deportation and acts like it's the biggest deportation of criminal illegals ever.

the fact that a man who led such a life of privilege, a man who found great success in the world's most diverse city, is now going to "go after" helpless immigrants for no reason except they were a convenient scapegoat in his campaign is so nauseating it's hard to contemplate

trump has very few real beliefs of any sort but he obviously loves nyc more than most people who live here

I'm mostly just concerned about 4 years of 5th avenue being a circus / constant midtown street closures etc.

I mean I honestly haven't noticed anything yet, though I don't spend much time north of 42nd st

i went to trump tower out of curiosity a few days ago. only 1 block was closed off but there was police everywhere. the protesters were marching somewhere else.

*there were police everywhere

the sad little downstairs food court at trump tower used to be my go to bathroom in the area. can't imagine I'll ever step foot in that building again.

you could just poop in the lobby

good optics

can't believe the president lives in a tower named after himself btw. it's like a wookiepedia entry.

yeah, all of this is really stupid

*in unison* I DIDN'T RE-A-LIZE ID-I-OC-RA-CY WAS A DOC-U-MEN-TAR-Y!

just grim, feudal

Rev. Barber taking the long view:

http://inthesetimes.com/article/19656/donald-trump-election-reconstruction-william-barber

this thread is worth it just for the links

otm xp (+ not xp)

America must not waste time asking ourselves how this could have happened. It happened because it is a habit written deep in our public memory. If we are willing to see ourselves as we are and have been, we will also see our potential for prophetic resistance, even in times like these.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/11/teaching-1984-in-2016/508226/

I'm mostly just concerned about 4 years of 5th avenue being a circus / constant midtown street closures etc.

who are you and what have you done with iatee

the fact that a man who led such a life of privilege, a man who found great success in the world's most diverse city, is now going to "go after" helpless immigrants for no reason except they were a convenient scapegoat in his campaign is so nauseating it's hard to contemplate

iatee = Tiffanys regular

im fine w/ staying out of midtown except for MoMA (which is 4 blocks from TT but is better approached from the west anyway)