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

And I do want to be really circumspect here. I was absolutely a Bernie supporter, but I don't want to fall into a trap of just thinking "Oh since they lost it means doing things my way is right." I'm not convinced throwing everything away and starting over gets us closer to winning elections. Just because their mealy-mouthed centrist candidate didn't win doesn't mean any left candidate would win. Bernie might have under these unique circumstances, but I don't know if he'd beat a reasonably likeable, moderate Republican tbqh.

i was bummed that people like david plouffe and axelrod didn't join her campaign in an official capacity but then i guess plouffe was wrong like everybody else

Were they asked to? I sometimes get the feeling there's still beef there, at least with Axelrod.

I occasionally listen to Axelrod's podcast, and I thought he sounded a little smug about Clinton's loss, although he always sounds so smug it's hard to tell.

Axelrod brought up Hillary being a cold public figure in every episode of his podcast

https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/15/the-government-body-that-oversees-the-security-of-voting-systems-was-itself-hacked/

cool

wapo now saying that the fbi and the cia agree that the hacks were intended to benefit trump

It's also so classically Vox to be like "Her loss clearly didn't relate to economic issues, she said the word economy a lot!"

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, December 16, 2016 12:55 PM (forty-nine minutes ago)

data journalism, baby!

lol

also is anyone watching the press conference, I am sitting in a doctor's office

With every day this Russia stuff just gets worse and worse. It is hard to comprehend the FBI and CIA agreeing that Russia intervened to assist Donald Trump, and nothing coming of that. This seems major. It seems paramount that team Trump be investigated to see if they had any connections to the leak or leaker. Cooperate in any way with the Russians to hack the DNC is akin to Watergate.

"well actually, according to this ngram..."

It would be much worse than Watergate imo

still i feel like not much is going to come of this..... if it benefits the GOP and they are the dominant party then what the fuck is gonna happen?

yeah nothing will come of this

I'm less inclined to blame Clinton herself than the Democratic Party as a whole. The had 4/6 Presidencies and a lot of Congressional control and real wages/inequality/etc. have not been strongly combatted. "But Republicans obstruct" is a lousy slogan and difficult for people to comprehend, particularly when your own party has played a part in killing things that would help.

Democrats have not shown themselves inclined to support even vaguely radical solutions, the kind of things on which they might get beaten but can point to real ideas - die on the hill of a public option/single-payer, living wage fights, minimum basic incomes, fighting for unionization. Bernie's low level social democracy struck a chord and seemed wild because our 'left' party hasn't been on board with things even right-wing European parties generally accept.

'dying on the hill' of public option/single-payer not actually so useful for people who couldn't get health care. what people seem to forget is that passing obamacare was a die on the hill moment - and most of his presidency was us dealing with the fallout after 2 fairly progressive and productive years of american government.

also is anyone watching the press conference, I am sitting in a doctor's office

― jason waterfalls (gbx), Friday, December 16, 2016 2:44 PM (six minutes ago

aren't you always sitting in a doctor's office

today I am a patient!!

Did someone just faint? Why are they calling for a doctor?

Nevermind. Sorted.

(Even with stuff like that I can't help but think Trump would turn this into a disaster).

still i feel like not much is going to come of this..... if it benefits the GOP and they are the dominant party then what the fuck is gonna happen?

― marcos

you mean beyond the collapse of democracy as a viable political system?

like he said: if it benefits the gop,

didn't watch obama's address but the reaction from liberal twitter is not good

Obama being the wrong kind of don't give a fuck.

guess he doesn't care about his legacy after all

he does come across a tad defeatist, but I can't really blame him tbh. All these q's of journalists basically begging him to tell this and that to Trump in the transition. He can say it, but no chance in hell Trump is gonna listen.

O hay I see Hannity (and surely many others) are calling out a mythical 'alt-left' now. These fuckers play the 'rubber, meet glue' game like they've been eight-years-old forever.

I assume this 'alt left' is BLM and their legions of inspired cop killing followers

good for obama for not helping anyone pretend this isn't happening.

i was pretty let down by his press conference. he just seemed... low. defeated.

Per Corey Robin, reactionary assholes have had no problem in parroting & perverting reformer or progressive language for like 4+ decades now.

I'm watching it now. He's being extra careful, more "uhs" than usual

But he was firm about Putin's involvement and condemning the right for propagating fake news and for loving Putin

Given the context and the weight of this transition, I'm somewhat impressed that Obama is able to hold a press conference at all without going full Budd Dwyer.

He sounded very much done with all this shit, and maybe a little resentful that people are abandoning him for literally the worst alternative.

Kinda curious what Joe Biden's last press conference would sound like

Just a long sigh.

Still watching this btw, press q's now. Earlier he said something about how it's wrong to see democrats as 'latte sipping pc people'. Just now he took a sip of what I think was... a latte.

He should've very pointedly and exaggeratedly sipped his latte while making a jerking off motion with the other hand.

Lol.

Suppose this moment had to come to throw out the cliche that despite this lackluster appearance, I too will miss this great Kenian.

according to lester holt there at the end, that was the longest obama press conference

I went to the loo twice during it. Presidential bladder tbh.

Haven't seen the press conference to judge the tone for myself, but if I had to guess why he seems defeated, I would assume that a month of trying to ease his successor's transition and ultimately coming to the same conclusion as everyone else who's dealt with the douche that he doesn't give a fuck about learning or understanding anything probably has a little something to do with it.

He sounded very much done with all this shit, and maybe a little resentful that people are abandoning him for literally the worst alternative.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, December 16, 2016 8:54 PM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

imagine dealing with the cognitive dissonance between what trump ran and won on and the current state of the economy and obama's approval rating. I would want to get out and move the fuck on too.

Old Lunch otm

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/us/politics/donald-trump-david-friedman-israel-ambassador.html?smid=tw-bna

― 龜, Friday, December 16, 2016 7:58 AM (five hours ago)

uh have we discussed the fact that this dude is literally Trump's bankruptcy lawyer (or at least one of them)?

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/16/505805411/trumps-pick-for-ambassador-to-israel-end-the-2-state-narrative

photo:
Attorney David Friedman (left) exits U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, N.J., with Donald Trump and Trump's daughter Ivanka in a 2010 case involving Atlantic City casinos. The president-elect plans to nominate Friedman as U.S. ambassador to Israel.

I don't get what people were expecting Obama to do. He doesn't have a magical lever that can stop Trump from being president. I'd love a deus ex machina now as much as anyone, but I really doubt it's coming, whether in the form of the electoral college, Russia investigation, etc., so best prepare for a long, drawn out fight. And if one does come, it will be due to GOP-infighting and leave us with some other marginally more tolerable GOP shitbag and the same GOP shitbag congress, in which case we will still have to prepare for a long, drawn out fight.

i don't know anything about friedman, but josh marshall isn't a fan:

Friedman represents the extremes of the most vicious and destructive elements of rightist Zionism and the indeed the most radical elements of American Jewry.

Chemi Shalev captures the essence here.
By Israeli standards, Donald Trump’s designated Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, is an extreme right-winger. He might find a place in the settler movement or with Naftali Bennett’s Habayit Hayehudi Party, but only on its right-wing fringes. He makes Benjamin Netanyahu seem like a left-wing defeatist. From where Friedman stands, most Israelis, never mind most American Jews, are more or less traitors.

Friedman has repeatedly attacked J Street, the pro-Israel, pro-Peace group, and its members as worse than the Jewish collaborators who served the Nazis during the Holocaust.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-worst-of-the-worst

I wasn't expecting a deus ex machina, just more... spirit? it was his energy that threw me off.