U.S. Politics, November 2024: GARBAGE DAY!!

Minor in the scope of things of course, but remembering that we're going to have to watch in real time as Musk and his other cabinet members blatantly grift their way to billions and billions.

I'm guessing Shapiro vs. Vance

I can’t imagine a 2028 federal election at this point.

it's easy if you try

the internet was the worst invention.

but then again, it brought me you all. so maybe not

it’s much easier to make an elections fait accompli than to cancel one entirely

this isn't such a new phenom. Most of the teenage boys I went to school were loved Reagan because he looked tough and dropped bombs on Libya and they watched Rambo and Red Dawn and stuff

were= with

Trump is going to have 40% job approval out of the gate and the economy isn't going to get miraculously better (though the Fed that was trying to tank Biden might keep slipping the noose more than they have been).

I’m kinda done looking at election news but the front pages of major publications making clear just how dark this is in their headlines now, NOW, after years of softening things….

Whew.

I never really posted on politics threads here; mostly stuck to ILM, and gave up on even that after 2016 as I grew increasingly paranoid about my federal employment and the potential for AI harvesting of my (admittedly banal) posts. But I still lurk. And I just want to say to you all that I really appreciate everyone here for keeping this space thoughtful and humane. Even the occasional/inevitable bouts of smugness/aggression are met with a level of empathy and humor that is a rarity and a balm.

Obviously incredibly disappointed and worried today but also feeling grateful for this space, and for the fact that my city just planted a new tree on my street, and for so many other things. Corny as shit but what else we got.

fuck them. 3 weeks of this election was dedicated solely to the "is Biden too old?" thing while ignoring every insane thing Trump did over that span. they tried real real hard to make "apostrophegate" a thing. they are absolutely complicit in this.

maybe it's time to create our own press.

alternative press w/ phone cam recordings are gonna do a lot more at this point than the bigs, who carried water for him now twice

Keep wondering if Biden actually set it up with the chip act/infrastructure/green jobs/etc so that Trump's economy is actually REALLY good for a couple of years and Trump ends up looking like a genius. Much like Trump's first two years in office was just a carryover of Obama's economy. Or that's Obama's story anyway...

i wonder if any of his former cabinet members/staff members/appointees/etc that came out against him are actually going to be willing to put in the work to fight him rather than just appear as a soundbyte in a political ad

not to mention generals!

They’re probably all going into hiding

good luck with the audits!

But first, Harris will have to certify the next president

DOJ officials are evaluating how to wind down the two federal criminal cases against Donald Trump before he takes office to comply with longstanding department policy that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted, two people familiar with the matter tell NBC News - @KenDilanianNBC

— Gary Grumbach (@GaryGrumbach) November 6, 2024

it is frustrating me a bit how many articles/thinkpieces etc already saying Kamala's at fault for not running a better campaign, and it's like, you were the same people praising how she was running it up until yesterday evening.

obviously these things are messy and yeah of course there are errors she made but ffs Trump basically GG Allined his campaign and won.

I am wondering whether Harris will use her concession speech to say "fuck this guy, fight him however you can, he doesn't care about the rules so neither should you" but no, she isn't going to do that is she?

xpost what if it....were no longer longstanding policy.

obviously SCOTUS would undo anything DoJ would do but hey, who the fuck cares, rules don't matter anymore, anything to make life harder for him.

the cop candidate isn't going to tell people to take to the streets and riot, sadly

so many things she (and Biden) could do, which they are not going to do.

unless it wasn't clear that it was they who did them. but pipe dream obv

I mean...Hinckley's out amirite

Texted a friend in Georgia who is on social security disability and she's scared shitless to lose it and fearful for her safety now when going out. Def reach out to your most vulnerable friends and loved ones. Wish I could give her a hug and pull her out of there somehow.

xxxxpost She is going to use it as a lesson on how you are supposed to accept democratic results

maybe it's time to create our own press.

This is true imo. I think there's serious asymmetry between the right-wing media — which is huge and includes Fox and Rogan and now much of Twitter, plus hours of daily talk radio in every city in America — and anything that could be called progressive or left-wing media. Liberals have I think tended to buy into the right-wing framing that the MSM is left-wing media, but we all know that's not true. The MSM is its own thing, it's more establishmentarian than anything else — they have been aggressive with Trump plenty of times, but not from an ideological standpoint as much as "This guy is breaking the RULES!"

If you think about actual progressive media, you've got like Mother Jones, Dissent, maybe TNR these days (I don't have a subscription so don't have a clear bearing on where they're at). I guess MSNBC qualifies, but it's still part of NBC, it has its built-in limits. So anyway, yeah, I think especially there's room and a need for overtly/intentionally progressive media, in the digital arena.

independent media also needs to include independent social media, like there needs to be a youtube which isn't full of nazis

tbh the media sources that most often tell it like it is are...Jimmy Kimmel and Jon Oliver

x-post Garland and DOJ took too long to start the cases against him, and now they're in a hurry to end them. Make him end them after he's inaugurated

Hopefully Trump will expend most of his energy on going after his various enemies and not have the energy left to do other evil governing

I have to admit I'm looking forward to the inevitable Vance double-heel turn / "Hang Vance" narrative, whichever happens first.

it is frustrating me a bit how many articles/thinkpieces etc already saying Kamala's at fault for not running a better campaign, and it's like, you were the same people praising how she was running it up until yesterday evening.

obviously these things are messy and yeah of course there are errors she made but ffs Trump basically GG Allined his campaign and won.

― Kurt Dandruff (Neanderthal), Wednesday, November 6, 2024 1:10 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the take that makes the most sense to me is : the GOP knows what its voters want. they know exactly how stupid they are. they know how much they love the victim complex. they feed into their wants and desires and have conditioned them to not expect a damn thing in response. the Democrats do not. they fight against their voters, they scold them, they say things like "what are you gonna do, vote Trump?" they constantly tack to the middle as the other side calls us "sick people" and "enemies of the state". they never talk about unfucking the Supreme Court, abolishing the electoral college, PR and DC statehood, fighting gerrymandering, etc. because they don't think that plays well with both sides. they assume that people who care about an issue - Muslim voters, for instance, will say "yes, they're bad on Gaza, but Trump is much worse", and will vote for them anyway. turns out they didn't!

Speaking of media failings, I can't believe I'm STILL seeing headlines about how, "Florida rejects abortion protections". That is not at all true. Florida actually approved abortion projections by a significant margin, it's just that GOP fuckery erected an artificial barrier to prevent it. The truth matters.

Texted a friend in Georgia who is on social security disability and she's scared shitless to lose it and fearful for her safety now when going out. Def reach out to your most vulnerable friends and loved ones. Wish I could give her a hug and pull her out of there somehow.

― octobeard, Wednesday, November 6, 2024 2:13 PM bookmarkflaglink

agreed and thank yo ufor that reminder. I have a terminally ill friend with stomach cancer who lamented the future of his healthcare only for a shitheel MAGA friend to show up and act like an ass on his profile. im going to message him now.

sigh

independent media also needs to include independent social media, like there needs to be a youtube which isn't full of nazis

That's the kind of stuff I'd love to see Soros or other big funders on the left undertake — create nonprofit media platforms for the left to use to communicate, develop narratives, sharpen issues, create mini media stars, all of the stuff that the right has lots of outlets for.

Keep wondering if Biden actually set it up with the chip act/infrastructure/green jobs/etc so that Trump's economy is actually REALLY good for a couple of years and Trump ends up looking like a genius. Much like Trump's first two years in office was just a carryover of Obama's economy. Or that's Obama's story anyway...

am guessing trump's actions - tariffs, mass deportations - will fuck up any Biden-built uptick in the economy

And seconding dc's post above, am very grateful to have all of you to inform me and help me process all this

yeah, perception of the economy is magically gonna be great once Trump gets in, obviously he'll fuck it up but that's a problem for the next Democratic president

It's not going to be great, though! Economic perceptions are not a left/right/Dem/Rep issue - whomever is in office when things are bad eats it.

There might be short window where some of his voters this time give him room but by early summer 2025 Republicans will own the economy and rents and food prices aren't going to drop back to 2016 levels.

Entrenching Republican rule (outside of the courts) is less likely than a future where the two parties throw control back and forth every cycle as things generally get worse and no one even tries to make it not worse.

yeah the silver lining for me is that if inflation really was a driving force for this election, inflation is gonna be turbocharged under trump. houses are not gonna get more affordable, mcdonalds meals are not gonna get under $10.

DJIA likes it, up 3 percent today, currently sitting at another record high. (I know, stock market isn't the economy etc. But obviously Wall St guys see money to be made.)

Pretty much happening now. Governing class has never bothered after 2008 xxp