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

i don't think trump is invincible or "teflon" even though he won, he has very loyal supporters obv and many struggling people were willing to give him a chance bc he is "different" and a "change" candidate but as we work to undermine & resist him over the next four years we should not forget that he is still wildly unpopular and even many people who voted for him are skeptical. some poll i remember seeing recently (i have to dig it up) had like a sizable portion of his own voters who think he is going to be a terrible president

Everything flusters him, which is fairly similar to nothing.

Sorry you're right, I meant nothing flusters him out of his alpha posturing. When he is flustered he maintains that at least.

Trump pissed off a lot of his "culture-war/Merry Christmas" base when he referred to same-sex marriage as "settled law." But surely AG Sessions and Shadow President Pence would like a crack at reversing it; is Trump going to forbid it?

Not sure what you mean by AG/VP taking a "crack at reversing it." That's not something they can do, it would be the Supreme Court.

and we know that could become a distinct possibility

Even all of the 80s bullies that have perfectly mirrored him had that moment where the hero sends them away with their tail between their legs and it seems impossible to do that to Trump. When he's cornered he employs some fifth grade "no puppet no puppet YOU'RE the puppet" shit but does not ever allow himself to appear defeated.

xpost to self

i'm not sure if that list of SC candidates he put out last summer had any anti-abortion/pro-gay-marriage advocates. xp

I don't know if it was something inherent to him that made him weather these controversies and succeed in manipulating the media to present a false equivalency picture, at least to un-discerning citizens. I think it was things he did. I think he said things that seemed horrible, but which had the effect of reframing issues to his benefit. I think he was involved in the false news disinformation campaign. The idea that he just won because "45 percent of the electorate always goes Republican" would only make sense if he didn't also win the Republican primary.

He seems to know the down the line ripple effect of certain words, actions and postures. I don't think he is a pure id or whatever.

I promise that all it takes (or, y'know, would have taken before he became the most powerful person in the country) to chip away at Trump's alpha shit is standing up to him. Having been raised by someone not terribly dissimilar in temperament (feel free to armchair psychoanalyze to your heart's content), I can tell you that refusing to be cowed and learning to tell people like Trump to just shut the fuck up goes a long way towards taking the bluster out of their sails. But everyone has been mystifyingly deferential to him for decades so he'll continue to throw his weight around.

Hillary Clinton treated him like the contemptible toad he is during the debates, I thought

xxp - Primary was a different phenomenon, and one I think he genuinely had some (accidental) political skill at - he got four times as much media coverage as every other candidate combined, and his "platform" was more extreme in a way that pandered hard to the GOP base - "it's not politically correct to say this, but...". Kinda similar to how Bernie was really far left, but Trump benefitted in that there was no Hillary on the GOP side - most all of his GOP competitors were awful in their own way and they all split votes, and the ones who were decent (like say Kasich or Rubio) couldn't compete because the media and the debate moderators let Trump dictate the rules, all the time

There have been disinformation campaigns in every election in history. I really don't think "fake news" is this new thing Trump discovered and that's why he won.

and I hate to say it but Trump's strategy of revoking credentials or refusing to do debates when he felt attacked absolutely worked. the media softballed him all the way to the presidency in part because they were hurting and Trump was nearly singlehandedly saving the industry.

Great for Ratings

This disinformation campaign seemed more insidious than ones in the past. Also Trump's penchant for lying straight to people's faces while knowing they know he is lying felt new to me.

OK so at what point do I print our findings here and fax (for obvious reasons) this thread to Podesta?

maybe y'all can meet for pizza

It's worth noting that, since 1900, up until yesterday, there had been a total of five faithless Democratic electors. There were six yesterday. Six Democratic electors thought it terribly important to cast their votes against their party's candidate, who had already lost the election on paper. More than in the previous 116 years combined.

http://www.panoramicbusinesssolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Dollarphotoclub_61989268-e1419519550495.jpg

nothing about the EC charade is "terribly important"

i bet Bill Clinton loved making the trip to Albany for the losing cause

(yes, that's right, Bubba was a fuckin' elector)

trump's good fortune in november has much less to do with his supposed 'strengths' (however we define them) and more to do with the fact that roughly half the voting public in america is human garbage.

xxposts

holy fuck you guys isn't it possible for something to have a long list of causes that can't be pithily summarized

sure. but in this case i'll stand by my assertion.

Great. I'm glad y'all have solved our problems.

Lock thread

It's worth noting that, since 1900, up until yesterday, there had been a total of five faithless Democratic electors. There were six yesterday. Six Democratic electors thought it terribly important to cast their votes against their party's candidate, who had already lost the election on paper. More than in the previous 116 years combined.

― Lauren Schumer Donor (Phil D.)

it's almost as if the left's spending the past month and a half saying that people in the electoral college ought to vote their conscience instead of listening to their party had some effect

"German officials haven't even released details about this yet, right? So we don't even know for certain that this was ISIS or any other Islamist group?"
it is not even sure that it was a terrorist attack in berlin. the suspect the police has arrested does not seem to be the driver of the truck.

it's almost as if the left's spending the past month and a half saying that people in the electoral college ought to vote their conscience instead of listening to their party had some effect

― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Tuesday, December 20, 2016 11:32 AM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

How is this "the left"? The people I know pushing the faithless elector thing are all mainstream democrats. The lefties I know are rolling their eyes at people for seeking deus ex machina solutions.

the left's spending the past month and a half saying that people in the electoral college ought to vote their conscience instead of listening to their party

this was the center, just like it's the center that's now screaming that the election was scripted in the kremlin. in their grief they seem determined to stamp out the last embers of public faith in democratic institutions at the precise moment all of them have been seized by fascists. i don't know what they think they doing. xp.

they don't, and it fills me with SUCH confidence about the coming Resistance.

a nation turns its lonely eyes to HOOS

second "they" supposed to be "they're" xp

afaict HOOS is unceasingly cultivating disciples

How is this "the left"? The people I know pushing the faithless elector thing are all mainstream democrats. The lefties I know are rolling their eyes at people for seeking deus ex machina solutions.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive)

ok, if it's important for you to draw sharp distinctions between the democratic party and the left, substitute "mainstream democrats" if you like. my experience is that the differences on this issue aren't necessarily drawn around how far left you are, and i was using "left" as a big tent term. it wasn't the main point in any event. i'm profoundly disinterested in assigning blame for perceived "failures" that in reality make no difference to anyone.

this was the center, just like it's the center that's now screaming that the election was scripted in the kremlin. in their grief they seem determined to stamp out the last embers of public faith in democratic institutions at the precise moment all of them have been seized by fascists. i don't know what they think they doing. xp.

― difficult listening hour

well, it's either that or spend a great deal of effort trying to salvage basically unsalvageable institutions. come on, people, are we really going to spend the next four years doing nothing but complaining about the rump of the democratic party while trump gets to do whatever the fuck he wants?

who has said that?

most of us are saying that subverting the anachronistic but constitutionally empowered Electoral College plays into the general decay of institutions that would delight the Grover Norquists and Koch Brothers.

The people I know pushing the faithless elector thing are all mainstream democrats.

the people i know pushing the faithless elector thing are all people who have been (understandably) tremendously psychically damaged by this election, they aren't necessarily "mainstream democrats"

Our institutions are not "unsalvageable" at all, that's silly. I mean Trump may damage them a lot further, maybe they'll get there, but acting like they're already there is pathetic defeatism.

most of us are saying that subverting the anachronistic but constitutionally empowered Electoral College plays into the general decay of institutions that would delight the Grover Norquists and Koch Brothers.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, December 20, 2016 11:50 AM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is also extremely silly. Hillary lost the states she needed to win the electoral college by very small margins. There is really no reason why Democrats can't win in the electoral college. The system is irretrievably broken because we don't like the result.

i'm profoundly disinterested in assigning blame for perceived "failures" that in reality make no difference to anyone.

i don't know what to tell you. there are different political factions in this country and they have different ideas about what is happening and what to do about it. in my own experience the people who spent the last couple weeks crossing their fingers republicans would inexplicably vote themselves out of power have not been marxists. i think the next four years look worse for us if those are the sorts of schemes we can expect from our leaders.

spend a great deal of effort trying to salvage basically unsalvageable institutions

the creepingly general idea that america's institutions are "unsalvagable" is terrifying in this climate.

This is also extremely silly. Hillary lost the states she needed to win the electoral college by very small margins. There is really no reason why Democrats can't win in the electoral college. The system is irretrievably broken because we don't like the result.

Yes yes yes

I agree with that! 2016 was not 1984 or 1988.

OMB Director is an anti-Fed Bircher. Should go well.

If we want to eliminate the electoral college, then work to generate enthusiasm for an amendment. People still too psychically damaged by the election should get a hobby if they don't intend to help .

don't think abolishing the EC is going to do much, but enforcing the actual Constitution might. we're about to bestow the highest office in the land to a known con man who has disclosed nothing about his many businesses, investments, or debts, who has no real plan to divest himself of any of it, and who is already using the office for self-enrichment.

Our institutions are not "unsalvageable" at all, that's silly. I mean Trump may damage them a lot further, maybe they'll get there, but acting like they're already there is pathetic defeatism.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive)

defeatism! i'm proposing the opposite of defeatism. i'm proposing that we let go of the delusion that our institutions are going to save us. i'm proposing that we look at what happened in north carolina, look at the fact that we live in a country where a police officer can shoot a black man in the back anywhere, at any time, for any reason, and not have to answer to the law for it.

the american system was designed, in large part, to prevent a fascist demagogue from taking office. that system hasn't failed since 1828, and the last time it failed it led to civil war. fixing the problems requiring acknowledging the full extent of those problems.

Has the imperial presidency (and its attendant undeclared wars of the last 70 years, with the Forever War bill of Sept 2001 as the cherry on top) officially ascended to "institution"?