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

^most half-full aspect of it

(xp) You mean the fact that the entire rest of the world is pointing and laughing?

Feeling all Morbs about this, because this seems like the way to get the Big Brother machine going. Trump tweets something stupid/insane every early morning, everyone reports on it, gets us into the habit of tuning in to Radio Trump first thing every morning for our daily missive.

I guess, rather than engage with the insane things he's saying, I can start every morning by reiterating my sincere wish that tonight is the night that Trump passes away in his sleep.

Maybe he'll pull a Python and pass away in his tweet.

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 4h4 hours ago
"@JoeBowman12: @jeffzeleny I am so mad, I could just blow something up! I just can't ... agh, my heart! My heart! It's the big one! Oh ...."

Jesus Christ, flag burning? Are we doomed to relive all of the '90s culture wars?

Flag burning's been a fairly constant hum of outrage.

Not that it changes the results of Ohio, but after final counting, Lorain County (just to the west of Cuyahoga County, which contains Cleveland) went for Clinton by a mere 131 votes. It had originally been counted for Trump, but the final vote count after provisionals and absentees were accounted for flipped it.

http://www.chroniclet.com/Local-News/2016/11/29/Official-results-switch-county-to-Clinton.html

xpost It's not like we have anything more important to focus on.

In a sane and rational world, anyone who voted for Trump would be asking WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU TWEETING ABOUT THE FLAG INSTEAD OF PREPARING TO BE OUR FUCKING PRESIDENT? I wonder sometimes how things are going in that world.

Remember, the bit of the job that he didn't want to hive off to the Vice President was "Making America Great Again" - I suspect whatever pointless culture war bullshit lets him punch hippies will be a fairly important part of his presidency, he's preparing as well as he can for that.

meanwhile this Obamacare hating guy could be at HHS:

http://www.vox.com/2016/11/28/13772342/trump-tom-price-obamacare

It would replace the law with a plan that does more to benefit the young, healthy, and rich — and disadvantages the sick, old, and poor. Price’s plan provides significantly less help to those with preexisting conditions than other Republican proposals, particularly the replacement plan offered by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI).

The biggest cut to the poor in Price’s plan is the full repeal of the Medicaid expansion, a program that currently covers millions of low-income Americans, which Price replaces with, well, nothing.

Not that it changes the results of Ohio, but after final counting, Lorain County (just to the west of Cuyahoga County, which contains Cleveland) went for Clinton by a mere 131 votes. It had originally been counted for Trump, but the final vote count after provisionals and absentees were accounted for flipped it.

http://www.chroniclet.com/Local-News/2016/11/29/Official-results-switch-county-to-Clinton.html🔗

131 Oberlin professors.

dancing on the end of a tenure committee

Does flipping a county really matter other than making a new tiny blue spot on the map? I mean Ohio doesn't award electors by county right?

Not that it changes the results of Ohio,

coming out of self-imposed ilxretirement to post something insightful i read on another message board. bye again!

Nothing like whiny winners...or folks absolutely terrified that they may actually have to deliver on the sh*t that they've been promising that they KNOW in their heart of hearts isn't just bad for the country, but bad for their posterity. It's a yawning chasm that WE the voters were supposed to snatch them away from.

The GOP just did a huge trust fall, and America didn't catch them. This was supposed to be ginned up drama, it was supposed to be Hillary's election, they had their scripts ready, they had their talking points queued up, they had the ads ready to roll out, and then...Trump won. They lost some seats in Congress, but overall, thing are technically looking rosy. And they weren't ready for that. The public was supposed to stop this, because intrinsically, the GOP fears the Presidency. They fear the results of having to actually make the hard decisions. They fear the responsibility that can't be diluted amongst Senators and Representatives. They absolutely fear the consequences of the trainwreck that they've been promoting, because they've seen first hand the damage that Reagan's economic plan ACTUALLY created. And it cost George Bush a second term when someone had to mitigate that mess, and then it cost them the White House for two terms with Bubba, and it was THERE that the modern GOP found its groove. As the opposition party. As the party that says "NO!" to the President. And these are NOT young men in office, and these are NOT mentally flexible humans, so trying to switch gears is not pretty. GW was supposed to be a triumph, and the intransigence to listen to the previous President, and ignoring the Clarke report was very much partly responsible for 9/11. And THAT level of fumbling...terrifies the GOP. They managed to get into crisis mode, and turn and blunt things, but in the end, every member of Congress and every member of the leadership that was attached to GW's team KNOWS that they screwed up, not just a little, and the lashing out and the less than focused approach AFTER 9/11 was nothing but trying to compensate for that.

But for all that, they were happy as heck to hand the whole mess to a Democrat. Because it let them off the hook. And the Congresscritters who are deep in halls today? They loved having a President to blame for their mistakes. They loved having an axiomatic bad guy to pin all their own mistakes on, every policy kerfuffle, every misstep, everything that ever went wrong, Obama was the man to blame it on. And that was supposed to continue.

And now, the ball's firmly on their side of the court, and for all their trash talk, now they have to actually put the damn ball in the bucket, and even Paulie Ryan isn't exactly up to the task. Not for a three pointer, not even from the foul line. They've got Donnie to "lead" them, and YEAH they're going to whine, because now they have a job to do, and NONE of them was expecting to actually be required to deliver on ANYTHING that they've been talking about for the last 8 years. Hells, they're terrified of where that might lead, and they have only themselves to blame for it, because when you base your policy platform AGAINST whatever the OTHER side is doing, and the OTHER side is making policy decisions based on actual issues, and you are just shouting NUH-UNH! it makes it somewhat difficult to actually deliver on that. Because you KNOW that there is a nuanced and balanced position to lay out, that might achieve similar goals, but you've bet the farm on STIGGINIT!

So, yeah. It's gonna be a whiny f*cking Christmas and miserable New Year, because these jackanapes got what they wanted, good and hard. And now it's time for them to figure out how to ride this damn tiger...

I don't buy this. I think it's much easier to see this as both political parties being more interested in consolidating their own power than in governing the country, with the side-effects being that the Democrats' power grabs tend toward the direction of helping more people and the Republicans' power grabs tend toward the direction of hurting more people, with neither being 100% good or bad. (Current Republican policy is probably 90% bad, however.)

I was thinking a lot during the election about whether the Democrats have a clear idea of what they'd do if they ever actually took the presidency and both houses again, not sure they do.

If people actually pay attention, the spectacle of the GOP completely fucking up their opportunity at total control will effectively sink the party. It's a big if that will never transpire, but it's lovely to dream.

That's a weird equivalency. I'm not sure that a broad enough Democratic coalition to win both houses could pass the basic agenda (bc it would likely be composed of blue dog types) but I think it's pretty clear what the party would like to accomplish. Raising the minimum wage? Expanding social programming? Increasing funding to alternative energy? Law enforcement and prison reform? I'm sure there are like 2 dozen issues that have broad consensus in the party. xp

the spectacle of the GOP completely fucking up their opportunity at total control will effectively sink the party. I

We saw this spectacle in 2001-2008. We're watching another spectacle now. As usual the obits are premature.

That's a weird equivalency. I'm not sure that a broad enough Democratic coalition to win both houses could pass the basic agenda (bc it would likely be composed of blue dog types) but I think it's pretty clear what the party would like to accomplish. Raising the minimum wage? Expanding social programming? Increasing funding to alternative energy? Law enforcement and prison reform? I'm sure there are like 2 dozen issues that have broad consensus in the party. xp

― Mordy, Tuesday, November 29, 2016 10:50 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean that I'm less than convinced of the current party leadership's commitments to these things.

xpost It's the paying attention which is key and won't happen.

You mean the fact that the entire rest of the world is pointing and laughing?

as someone in the rest of the world, who has many friends in further flung out places – no one seems to be laughing about this. this is a tragedy on an international level for many reasons.

I mean that I'm less than convinced of the current party leadership's commitments to these things.

you know who is convinced of their commitment though? GOP voters. and who can blame them - the last time the Dems controlled both houses and the Presidency they passed a brand new healthcare entitlement.

I don't see any reason to believe that the GOP is scared of leading or of the consequences of their policies. They seem to be pretty eager to tear things up as much as possible.

moodles otm, i get the feeling that whatever reservations they have about trump they are still seeing this as a golden ticket, i mean within days of the election happening they started talking about phasing out medicare

I was thinking a lot during the election about whether the Democrats have a clear idea of what they'd do if they ever actually took the presidency and both houses again, not sure they do.

eh that's crazy. there was tons of unfinished business after obama's first 2 years. and those 2 years were very productive.

I don't buy that they 'fear the consequences of the trainwreck that they've been promoting' but I think if congressional republicans could all press a button to replace trump w/ clinton, the vast majority would. a clinton in office would make their future elections go a lot smoother + it is better to both hold power and have a way to deflect all responsibility.

The cause for hope, in so much as there is one, is that the GOP is (like the Democrats) a coalition of different interests and several of them are very activist in very different directions. AND they're now yoked to someone who talks an activist game in directions that lie largely outside of the generally agreed common ground, and who is supposed to be repulsive to some of those coalitions.

Just a few weeks ago, pretty much every smart smartypants person who thought they knew stuff about politics (myself included) turned out to be heartbreakingly, tragically wrong. All the smart people who spoke smartly about ground game and advertising and endorsements and poll aggregation... it was all wrong. Wrong in the only way that matters: who wins and who gets power. The people who we thought were dumb deluded hick-ass cousin-fucker dummies turned out to be glowingly, gloat-worthily right.

So I personally am still mentally downvoting every statement of the form "here's what I think is going to happen" said by a smartypants leftyperson, myself included.

But I do think the Democratic Party is the a better direction, if only because they still tend to believe in government as a potential force for good and have less desire to tear it down.

most deluded hick-ass cousin-fucker dummies also did not think trump would win the election. they did turn out to vote in high numbers however.

^^^

Lots of GOP voters told friends/family/pollsters they were going to skip the presidential vote and just vote down-ticket but when it came to it, they voted for the top of the ticket as well.

Alas, that is so. Personally I think that the base was already plenty Deplorable before trompe showed up, because I believe an anti-government politics (as practiced by Gingrich/Contract crowd, Tea Party doodz, militia/prepper doodz, and the obstructionist Ryan crowd) is already implicitly racist. Trompe added the explicit racists and it turned out to be a winning coalition.

it feels useless/pointless but it is kind of weird that we now live in a world where you can directly, personally insult the president via the internet

The only thing I can say with any certainty re: going forward is that we desperately need to GOTV and to do everything we can to ease that process for as many people as possible.

Hear hear on voter access, OL.

Otherwise I'm coming down to an opinion voiced above by man alive/lord Alfred: the buffoonish and cartoonish aspects of trump are now like fiftieth through seventieth on my list of objections.

I've been as guilty as anyone of mocking the man's hair and hands and taste. His brazen lying and shit personality. But RN I'm a lot more concerned about the societal shitstorms the campaign's already unleashed, and the policy shitstorms his administration are likely to unleash.

is likely, gah

most deluded hick-ass cousin-fucker dummies also did not think trump would win the election. they did turn out to vote in high numbers however.

― iatee, Tuesday, November 29, 2016 11:34 AM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, November 29, 2016 11:43 AM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lots of GOP voters told friends/family/pollsters they were going to skip the presidential vote and just vote down-ticket but when it came to it, they voted for the top of the ticket as well.

― jane burkini (suzy), Tuesday, November 29, 2016 11:43 AM (seven minutes ago)

this seems like bubble talk to me. lots of trump voters genuinely believed he would win/that the polls were wrong. and they were right!

idk if Suzy's otm but iatee is - it was clear Trump didn't even expect to win. GOP pollsters didn't expect to win. But turnout carried the day.

see Bill Mitchell tweeting stuff like "I 100% GUARANTEE Trump will win!!" with his comic book looking visage grinning back @ you

xp

trump voters didn't think he would lose the popular vote by 2% but win because he managed to swing a few midwestern states by 1%. trump voters thought he would win big, which was not even close to being true. final polls weren't off by much, they were just off by a little bit + in a unfortunate way geographically. this was a close election that was won on what most people consider a technicality, the only one bringing up that possibility was nate silver.

...and nate silver was regarded as a wackily overcautious outlier, here and elsewhere. The nyt upshot showed other aggregators at 99% certainty.

Has Sam Wang eaten a bug yet?

xp - my thoughts exactly. everyone patting themselves on the back right now for "predicting" Trump are not quite understanding the reality - outside of Nate I don't think any of them predicted a result like this. not that they care, Scott Adams is still braying "landslide" over and over (even though his EC victory is only 42nd out of 52 historically), but for us rational folk, it's the same as predicting the Cubs were gonna win it for sure even when they were down 3-1...sure, it happened, but it was so damn close, and so many factors had to fall their way for it to happen

It's a landslide only in the sense that it's a disaster.

idk if Suzy's otm but iatee is - it was clear Trump didn't even expect to win. GOP pollsters didn't expect to win. But turnout carried the day.

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, November 29, 2016 11:56 AM (nineteen minutes ago)

you're right about the trump campaign's honest assessment of its chances, but trump publicly questioned the polls numerous times and i don't doubt that many of his supporters bought it

Silver's issue is that his readership was almost unanimously terrified of a Trump presidency (as I imagine anyone visiting a website big on statistical analysis would be) and didn't understand why his model seemed to inject so much uncertainty into it, especially when all the "intangibles" seemed to favor Clinton.

If the world ended around the same time some homeless guys happened to have been predicting, it doesn't mean that we should have listened to them. I feel like the confidence of the Trump voters was independent of any inside knowledge they had, they are just very loyal. Trump won due to how energized his supporters were for whatever reasons they had to vote for him. Hillary supporters were not energized enough in the places that mattered to offset it. But we don't have to treat all of his surrogates like "they were right" the whole time in hindsight... it's still true that they were talking out of their asses and navigating Trump's messes with unprecedented levels of spin, delusion and defensive aggression.

Has Sam Wang eaten a bug yet?

Takes him forever, but:

http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/11/12/pollster-eats-bug-after-trump-win-smerconish.cnn

On the subject of landslides, from last night--ludicrous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YcZtzVvI-0