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

god, absolutely. it's so alarming how many people out there were so willing to believe stories that had no factual basis whatsoever - as much as everyone blasts the MSM these days they at least have editorial standards

I was talking about this with a (similarly gutted) friend the other day; it's not so much the rise of bigotry that bothers me, it's that people apparently have no standards for fact checking whatsoever, that the snarky "I reject your reality and replace it with my own!" comeback is now apparently a legitimate worldview. cuz one leads to the other, when you follow a site like Breitbart which details every single violent crime committed by a black person or a refugee but stays silent when white people do it, it leads to people holding some pretty internalized racist views. simple really.

― frogbs, Wednesday, 30 November 2016 14:59 (seven minutes ago) Permalink

Sure, but the left is susceptible to believing things contradicted by facts too. Politics is emotional. People go to Breitbart because it taps into something they already feel. Maybe those feelings can be redirected differently, but we have to understand that.

otm man alive.

this shit being so emotional and viscerally tribal is why trompe "betraying" the constituencies that electing him is unlikely to make a bit of difference. They got their emotional release from his election; they're not going to turn on him now because they have already gotten the cookie they sought. The middle-finger rush of validation from that giant cosmic "fuck you" is beyond policy and appointments.

I mean democratic politics is emotional too. For a lot of Hillary's she represented something beyond just policy as well -- breaking the glass ceiling, being empowered, etc. Trump's campaign was based on anger, frustration, resentment at feeling left behind and condescended to, fear of rapid cultural change. I do sort of get it, there's something about both Obama and Clinton that can read as aloof to people who are really struggling, Clinton moreso than Obama. This was a vessel for people's anger vs a very closed, walled-off kind of person.

Everyone remembers Bill Clinton for "I feel your pain" -- it's the butt of jokes but everyone who met him at the time said that he made them feel important.

Meanwhile: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a51099/trump-romney-dinner/

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, November 30, 2016 10:06 AM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this was good. and depressing

That's also why I think Bernie was underestimated as a candidate btw -- people focused on "facts -- he uses the word socialist, he's jewish, etc. But he came across as a tough, sincere and caring guy who voiced people's anger and wanted to make things better, and people responded to that. Counterfactuals are dumb but it would have been interesting to see what he could have done with the party behind him.

the fact that he brought up climate change unprompted over and over again was what made me like him

I was won over to him even though I was almost sure he could never accomplish what he said he wanted to - free college, single-payer healthcare, etc.

Even the appeal to "facts" has an emotional component -- security, familiarity, etc. Professionals are used to dealing with "facts" and "statistics" in certain ways and feel comfortable with people who seem to do the same, even when there is manipulation going on.

"WHEN! WE'RE! under attack! what do we do! / STAND UP! FIGHT BACK!"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/29/fight-for-15-protest-minimum-wage-fast-food-airport-workers

this is an example of how you keep the pressure on

Fight for 15 is a great development

An excellent essay on the electoral college by Scott Lemieux.

people called FF15 crazy but look where they've gotten. 15 is actually less than the average min. wage in the 1960s adjusted for inflation iirc

It's beautifully simple too. Fight for 15, sounds awesome. That's why I had such a problem with Clinton on "I also support a $15 [um REGIONAL] national minimum wage [except some places will have $12]" Wonkily overcomplicating things and sounding two-faced when even $15/hr isn't much, and why not campaign on a pure and simple $15/hr min wage and negotiate later?

it's almost as if she were a centrist technocrat with no idea how to connect w voters

BUT I'M JUST AN UNFROZEN CAVEMAN WITH PIN-SHARP HINDSIGHT

https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/803964275756830721

"If Trump did a Carrier-style deal every week for the next 4 years, he could bring back 4% of the manufacturing jobs lost since 2000."

yeah but it would be almost 20% of the jobs obama saved singlehandedly by bailing out the auto industry

there's no greater free market principle than having the president intervene to incentivize specific market decisions

the invisible hand vs trump's tiny baby hands

Oh I don't think he ever campaigned as being free market. He espoused a lot of protectionist policies that go against GOP orthodoxy -- probably moreso than he'll actually back them. I expect a lot of symbolic acts like this with more of the same underneath the surface.

oh for sure, it's just another in a long series of acts by a nominally republican law maker that further confirms the chiefest platform position is "whatever is most politically expedient"

gop platform*

good news everybody:
http://www.wral.com/federal-court-orders-new-nc-legislative-elections-in-2017/16289906/

it's a booming opinion

On Thursday, Mr. Trump and Mike Pence, Indiana’s governor and the vice president-elect, plan to appear at Carrier’s Indianapolis factory to announce a deal with the company to keep roughly 1,000 jobs in the state, according to officials with the transition team as well as Carrier.

Mr. Trump will be hard-pressed to alter the economic forces that have hammered the Rust Belt for decades, but forcing Carrier and its parent company, United Technologies, to reverse course is a powerful tactical strike that will hearten his followers even before he takes office.

“I’m ready for him to come,” said Robin Maynard, a 24-year veteran of Carrier who builds high-efficiency furnaces and earns almost $24 an hour. “Now I can put my daughter through college without having to look for another job.”

It also signals that Mr. Trump is a different kind of Republican, willing to take on big business, at least in individual cases.

And just as only a confirmed anti-Communist like Richard Nixon could go to China, so only a businessman like Mr. Trump could take on corporate America without being called a Bernie Sanders-style socialist. If Barack Obama had tried the same maneuver, he’d probably have drawn criticism for intervening in the free market.

jfc http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/business/trump-to-announce-carrier-plant-will-keep-jobs-in-us.html

I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out Obama called up Mitt and more or less told him to go all in for the State job.

hey lets all subscribe to the nytimes right

'only this billionaire can help correct the system that enriched him!' xxp

there is going to be 100,000 "mission accomplished" moments aren't there

how do you even write this article without any specifics of the deal in question. especially given that Trump technically has no power to do anything yet. this is so strange.

for sure, and undoubtedly they'll be every bit as truthful as the original xp

this kind of shit scares me. they will gut medicare, affordable care act, public schools, all of our social programs but a saving a fucking factory w/ a relatively minuscule amount of jobs will have people saying he is helping struggling americans

I wrote to the NYTimes after that article, pasted the link, and basically said "Enjoy being part of the Trump propaganda arm with no remaining readers and the right wing continuing to bash you anyway."

xp how do you write this article and describe "giving taxpayer money to corporations to entice them to keep a few jobs around" as "taking on big business?!?!?!?!"

good news everybody:
http://www.wral.com/federal-court-orders-new-nc-legislative-elections-in-2017/16289906/

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, November 30, 2016 11:32 AM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's a booming opinion

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, November 30, 2016 11:35 AM (six minutes ago)

yeah can we get 49 more of those?

fuck the NYT btw

OTOH (just tweeted by hoos): http://www.eclectablog.com/2016/11/lame-duck-alert-michigan-gop-rushing-through-voter-suppression-legislation-requiring-photo-id-to-vote.html

based off of this:

While the standoff loomed large in the lives of its employees in Indiana, for United Technologies the forgone savings is tiny — equivalent to about 2 cents per share in earnings.

...While Carrier will forfeit some $65 million a year in savings the move was supposed to generate, that’s a small price to pay to avoid the public relations damage from moving the jobs as well as a possible threat to United Technologies’ far-larger military contracting business.

Roughly 10 percent of United Technologies’ $56 billion in revenue comes from the federal government; the Pentagon is its single largest customer. With $4 billion in profit last year, the company has the flexibility to find the savings elsewhere.

i think carrier will be just fine. 10% of their revenue is from contracting with the federal government, or $5.6 billion. if they wiggle their tongues just the right way as trump twitches his asshole, even increasing their fed contracting revenue by 1-2% will overtake the savings they would have gotten from moving to Mexico.

if we want to keep carrier in the US we should just threaten their federal contracts

It also signals that Mr. Trump is a different kind of Republican

in case we weren't sure yet

It also signals that Mr. Trump is a different kind of Republican

you mean a racist demagogue who apparently has no problem with socialism, as long as the only beneficiaries are corporations and white rural "christians"?

FWIW i get the argument that focusing on kooky fox-inspired Trump tweets is taking our eyes of the ball, but the thing about the flag-burning tweet that genuinely turns my blood to ice water is the very very casual tossing-around the idea of stripping people of citizenship and turning them into stateless persons. IIRC this has come up before but it is arguably the strongest case of all for Is Donald Trump A Fascist. like not even that he's proposing it but that he treats it so fucking lightly just like he's at a bar and saying "they should lock those graffiti guys up for life, that's what I think!"

it's a fucking terrifying thing and IMHO very very close on the authoritarian continuum to "flag-burning should be punishable by death" or "flag burning should be punishable by deportation to a forced labor camp." i don't mean for that to sound hyperbolic but i guess a couple readings of arendt and agamben on statelessness and 'bare life' have really sharpened the meaning of this concept to me.

meant to scare quote "socialism"

xpost

https://twitter.com/nymag/status/803982668153110528

FWIW i get the argument that focusing on kooky fox-inspired Trump tweets is taking our eyes of the ball, but the thing about the flag-burning tweet that genuinely turns my blood to ice water is the very very casual tossing-around the idea of stripping people of citizenship and turning them into stateless persons. IIRC this has come up before but it is arguably the strongest case of all for Is Donald Trump A Fascist. like not even that he's proposing it but that he treats it so fucking lightly just like he's at a bar and saying "they should lock those graffiti guys up for life, that's what I think!"

it's a fucking terrifying thing and IMHO very very close on the authoritarian continuum to "flag-burning should be punishable by death" or "flag burning should be punishable by deportation to a forced labor camp." i don't mean for that to sound hyperbolic but i guess a couple readings of arendt and agamben on statelessness and 'bare life' have really sharpened the meaning of this concept to me.

― walk back to the halftime long, billy lynn, billy lynn (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, November 30, 2016 12:05 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea this is how i feel too. it is fucking awful. we've been so used to trump saying stupid crazy shit but he's going to be the president of the united states. it is supremely fucked up.

i agree dr casino.

i'm assuming those are the kinds of "tell it like it is" things that his supporters like. he's already able to get away with casually threatening 1st amendment rights and decades of legal rulings in the weeks after he "won" the election by negative 2.3 million votes. it does frighten me to think of what he will be able to do if the country is perceived to be directly threatened by ISIS or other terrorists.

Michael Sebastian ‏@msebastian 6m6 minutes ago

9 years ago Obama was mocked for eating arugula. Today our populist president enjoys "young garlic soup with thyme"

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a8383120/heres-everything-trump-and-romney-ate-during-their-very-fancy-dinner/

Xpost DC Yeah, Agamben definitely has things to say about the current state of affairs -- DACA recipients, for one.