Wow. Whoa. That is some group of people. Thousands. - US Election Day 2016

He might make the Republican brand toxic within those four years.

The most I am hoping for is that he just turns out to be a massive embarrassment and not an actual menace... and he's in prison before the next election... or possibly an asylum.

I'm not sure I understand what a toxic brand in politics is these days.

In search of good news to cheer me up, I thought I'd look at the NC gubernatorial results.

SHITFUCK McCrory is only down by less than 5k votes statewide. For people in NC who might know, does that trigger a recount? Or is his Dem opponent the winner and in the clear?

And I'm a white man, so what the fuck do I have to complain about...

It’s certainly an advantage, but I woke up today wondering whether the United States will withdraw from NATO (!!!).

Xpost I'm hoping that Trump realises in the next two months what a job he's got coming up and decides that he wants an easy life instead.

― Jill, Wednesday, November 9, 2016 12:45 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

part of me is clinging to this, but I think it's probably just the next stage of denial after "OK, he's polling ahead of the other republican candidates, but there's no way that will last when we get to the primaries", "OK he's winning primaries, but there's no way the republicans will let him be the nominee", "OK, he's the nominee but there's no way he'll win the election" etc

Klonopin is the greatest
― blonde redheads have more fun (upper mississippi sh@kedown),
ask Stevie Nicks
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, November 9, 2016 8:13 AM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Honestly, I know there are dangers but my doc is very conservative in dose and also will not do refills more than every 3 months. I was kind of kidding but it has really helped me.

I have a feeling that as far as legislation goes, Trump will just stamp his cloven hoof on whatever the congressional GOP sends him, but when it comes to big events that the media finds important he will be out making clown moves.

The NATO thing is definitely the one that hits closest to home, my baltic friends could conceivably see their countries lose the freedom they gained just 25 years ago. But Russia won't threaten Denmark. I could quite honestly just curl up on a couch, never ever look into politics again, stop caring about populism in Denmark or abroad, sexism, racism, any of the things that has pretty much only brought me cyber-harassment and former friends yelling in my face. Even though I despair right now, I could just stop. Can't imagine what other people feel right now.

trying to bury myself in work right now but it's not so easy

I do think Trump tapped into the rich vein of Americans not giving a fuck about the Baltics

People crying at my place of work today.

my boss told everyone to take the day off

Klonopin is the greatest

― blonde redheads have more fun (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

I was trying to work out which righteous liberal commentator this was lol

When Trump attacked Curiel, he fell in the polls, when he attacked the Khans, he fell in the polls, when the access tapes came forth, he fell in the polls. When absolute, uncontested proof of his hatred was in the news, people turned his back to him. A week later they returned. It's fucking everyday and every hour and every minute, and everytime any other story comes up - yeah, but Clinton sent emails! - you have to start all over again.

polls don't mean anything

And disapproval doesn't mean much unless you're prepared to go out and vote for the other person.

when i woke up this morning at like 4am, like barely awake, and reached for my phone, i couldn't sleep for an hour or so after, heart racing etc like people here described. i remember actually thinking, like as a genuine form of desire "i wish i was my parents' age, then i wouldn't have to live through this"...

cold light of day i obviously don't feel that way, but it did feel like some type of rationalising that wasn't so outlandish.

i was woken up by the sound of my nextdoor neighbor crying

A coworker was on the bus with me and when we got off to walk into the building I couldn't front just started crying openly. She gave me a Kleenex.

i barely slept last night. maybe got a half-hour or an hour

WHAT THE FUCK

What is with the heart pounding thing everyone is describing? I honestly thought I was going to have some sort of cardiac event last night because mine was pounding so hard and fast literally all night. I've never experienced anything like that before. Like sheer animal terror.

The polls weren't that inaccurate. Again, Clinton won the popular vote, the miss in the general election is just a few points. If she hadn't lost three points since Comey intervened, she would have won. Late breaking undecideds decided in a mediascape that was already forgetting the Trump tapes, and instead playing 'both sides' and talking bullshit Clinton scandals. White people are willfully blind, unless the evidence is right there in front of them, at the time they make up their mind, they will rationalize it away.

I think I'm going to focus my energies on some sort of critical thinking educational initiative, particularly wrt the media. I have no idea what form that's going to take but the time has fucking come and I'll do whatever is within my individual power to do in that regard.

The heart pounding thing only happened as I scrolled down this thread upon waking. Since then it's been Pynchonian despair

There were repeated polls forecasting her winning several states she failed to win. In the UK election, the US election and the Brexit referendum have all significantly underestimated the strength of the right-wing vote.

Can we just take a moment to appreciate that both Russia and the FBI meddled semi-openly in a presidential election and got their way? I need to channel my inner Shostakovich pronto.

I figured it was meaningless, and perhaps it was, but what was stressing me out last week was the here in Philly I barely saw any Clinton signs, as opposed to the thousands of Obama ones seen in the last two elections--and in the burbs I saw about ten times the number of Trump signs as I saw Romney ones four years ago. I guess PA shouldn't have been a surprise.

I had that heart pounding thing too, though not to that degree.

I am not sure how to proceed-I don't know what to do.

I feel guilty.

Need to take a rest from the socials while everyone gets their hacky WW3/apocalypse jokes out of their system. Being scared shitless by cheap sarcastic nihilism is another one of my nightmares being fulfilled today.

going over what else i could have myself idk

could have done*

Hillary better not end up in prison for this email nonsense.

Put Klonopin in our vodka?

xpost

booming posts from Old Lunch

otm about FBI and Kremlin unapologetic open-air meddling, absolutely without precedent afaik

i'm in France. everyone everywhere is talking about this, every shop i go into today, every cafe. literally every conversation is about this.

I haven't cried in years - since my best friend died!! But I was too overwhelmed when I picked my son out of his crib this morning. He was in a strangely good mood and I couldn't help but feel like I failed him. I could not stop thinking about that comment..."cute anchor baby!" Couldn't stop thinking about the "Chinese hoax" that is climate change.

My only consolation is the knowledge that Trump cares deeply about his approval rating, and therefore probably knows not to spend his term getting even with everyone who's wronged him. Also that he's bound by the Constitution. Feeling much less optimistic now that the GOP has control of all three branches and are almost certainly about to roll back decades of progress.

Again, I'm genuinely mystified as to how the polls could have missed this so badly. I'm looking at the PEC page - Trump winning 280+ EVs isn't even a viable scenario on their model. They seemed to be so accurate the last two elections, and the 'unknowns' like GOTV and the difficult-to-poll Hispanic vote seemed to all favor Clinton. Even stranger given that Trump, actually underperformed his poll numbers in the primaries, despite not changing since then in the slightest. A lot of people will be losing their jobs this week.

And yeah, the polls weren't *too* far off in the vote total, but in Wisconsin (my state), the lowest ones had her at +4 - and Trump won by 3! That's way outside the margin of error.

i'm in France. everyone everywhere is talking about this, every shop i go into today, every cafe. literally every conversation is about this.

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), woensdag 9 november 2016 16:02 (twenty-two seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Same here. All my completely unrelated phone calls at work started out the same, both with people I know and complete strangers: 'What a weird/sad/fucked up morning right?'

i just woke up and i am still sick and devastated and all i can put myself into is being pedantic: the "democrats stayed home" narrative is not provable based on romney vs. trump totals. first of all it's entirely possible - and indeed seems likely - that those 'dems' didn't stay home - they switched to trump! which is terrifying and hard to comprehend but possible. you also have to allow that gary johnson got four million votes, nearly all of whom i'm guessing are anti-trump republicans who probably voted for romney last time.

Is there any way to measure first-time voters or voters who sat out the 2008 and 2012 elections?

I work in academia and everybody is freaking out because of H-1B visas. 50% of my lab is on an H-1B. NIH funding for 2017 is a major concern too.

I'm at least glad some of you shared in the pure heart-pounding terror last night. I think I slept about 15 minutes, if that. We live in a world where Bill Mitchell and Scott Adams were the most accurate pundits of the election. Where the "winners" are the KKK, the Neo-Nazis, and the Flat Earthers. I don't know where we go from here.

DC if that were true then Clinton's supposedly massively sophisticated GOTV operation would have captured that, or part of it. and all indications are that they were totally blindsided.

So heartened that a 'hope you're okay' text to my gf was met with a response mirroring my own feelings about seeking out volunteer opportunities and getting involved ASAP. And the tears are finally hitting while I sit here at work. There's a lot of good in the world, folks. Let's harness that shit and push back.

xxxp Thought there was a different visa for academics? I was an H-1B and couldn't work (although didn't try proper academic jobs)

I lived through a deja vu of Brexit morning- woken up by kid making a noise on the baby monitor, thought 'I'll just check on my phone' and then wide awake refreshing and reading shit for 2 hours straight

I went to the zoo this morning and the gorilla house was closed, THANKS TRUMP

As far as the basic "how can we make it through" stuff, I just keep coming back to the tiny hyperhuman answer: hold the people close to you, only closer. See what you can do in your community. Focus on stuff you can control.

More near-term, I think I personally need to embargo my eyeballs from anything like news and politics for a while - delete the bookmarks, clear the history, only turn on the television for escapist entertainment.

Not just because the news sucks and I don't want to be reminded. But because why on earth would I want to hear wisdom and analysis and sage opinions and thoughtful commentary from a group of people who have been so gravely, tragically WRONG about everything up to this point? Why should I now turn to the SAME PEOPLE for their morning-after "what went wrong?" analysis?

It's not just that I don't want to hear from Sam Wang or Larry Sabato. I'm also wondering why I should be interested in what Chuck Todd or Chris Matthews or whoever has to say to me this morning. I don't exactly blame any of them, individually, for calling it like they saw it (I'm a former journalist myself, and I can't get mad at someone for reporting on what was in front of them).

But the whole edifice of political forecasting and reportage is now in ruins. Ground game, volunteers, ads, polling, poll aggregation, analysis, interviews, panels of experts, consultants, op-ed writers.... pretty much all of them caught completely flat-footed and utterly, horribly wrong. Like, never-to-be-taken-seriously-again wrong.

And the people who turned out to have been right - those who believed (and stated publicly) that there is a huge, uncounted, and uncountable groundswell of voters who are simply Fed Up and wish to vote with their middle fingers - those people were laughed off the set of Morning Joe etc. Ha, what deluded rubes. Scott Adams. Kellyanne Conway. Bannon. Etc.

The above is NOT intended to diminish my grief and horror about the racism, misogyny, and sheer deplorableness of the people who won last night.

Rather, just to point out: where should one turn right now for a voice that's even remotely helpful and clear? Ordinarily I would be going a bunch of places online, turning on the TV, or walking out to pick up the Washington Post from my driveway. Today I don't want to do any of those things. What purpose would it serve?

what is closest analogue to Trump? Berlusconi? a megalomaniacal pig with a media empire and no public service history?