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

Excellent first line of a novel.

Social media is for jokes and shitposting. And puppies.

Xp in orbit : thanks for posting that. Running a small nonprofit is a real exercise in figuring out the stuff in that journaling exercise … not saying that’s what everyone should do lol. The journaling exercise seems way easier. …

tabes you're good people it's fine. :).

I agree in general that it's not particularly helpful to make people feel there's a 'right' way to feel either because everybody has different ways of processing. otherwise you have people who interfere with their own grieving to make it like someone else's, but their grief isn't yours and vice versa. it goes both ways too. don't make people feel their despair is invalid but don't suggest someone's take that is more optimistic is callous either.

even despite preparing myself that it was a coinflip, Tuesday was brutal due to believing in the hope of a vibe shift. I'm a rational dude, I've been told before by people much smarter than I ignore EV stats, ignore anecdotal data on turnout, crowd sizes, etc, but I embraced them all anyway because it was a coping mechanism, I had to believe. two-three weeks prior to the election, I pretty much thought we were toast, and I doubled down on enjoying myself before what was going to be

both my friend and I were somewhat catatonic, even before the bad news really began coming in. it's funny because 2016 prepared us for what to look for - those early returns, who is overperforming their metrics? even before the needle, I started to have a bad feeling, and at the moment I first realized that it would probably take a miracle, I began hyperventilating and sweating heavily. but acceptance replaced it very fast. it was a 'heavy' acceptance, and once that set in, I decided to go to bed shortly after because I knew in that state I could sleep, but when that passed and anxiety took over, I wouldn't be able to. whereas in 2016 I could not sleep at all.

People who insist that silence=death on social media are people who've never had a friend request from their boss.

― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, November 7, 2024 2:00 PM bookmarkflaglink

I have a ton of co-workers on FB, but I have a hyper-curated friends list with different groups of friends sorted into buckets and everyone of my co-workers is part of a group who is restricted from seeing anything I actually post. it looks like I've been dormant for years.

as long as I don't make a dick pic my Cover photo I'm good

My employer sent out a memo after a certain thing in Oct 2023 that said it's okay to have your own opinion but if you express it in your social media, there will be consequences. Can they find that if your account is private? Idk but the concern is relatable.

Quite literally the only person I know from a current workplace context (almost ten years now) that I'm friends with on FB is a supervisor I got along well with, and who only sent the request some months after he retired. A coworker and I follow each other on IG but that's it there too. Basically I shunt all my actual professional contacts on the library side straight into my 'I have never really actively used it for anything at all but it's there' LinkedIn profile, should the need arise.

even though the senate is lost, i'm taking a little bit of comfort know that all of the centrist dems that were enamored with keeping the filibuster are out.

The challenge is cover photos, those are always public and if you write FUCK THE POLICE there and your boss is a copaholic...yeah

The other thing I've stopped doing is angry bantz with strangers. Not just because it's pointless, but cos if yr boss lives in the same city as you, perchance he might be reading the comments of whatever local publication you commented on..not to mention FB often shows things you responded to to your friends

Four 65-year old golfers are loudly talking about Trump and Giuliani at the burger place where I’m having lunch. I can’t imagine having to deal with these people every day in a work context.

They could also be in their 50s and it’s just been rough going.

In orbit thanks for posting that - In my nonprofit/activism days I read some of the psychology work done with activists and burnout and compassion fatigue.

How can I go to a movie when the warbler frogs are dying?

xpost I reflect on the perverse fact that I moved to SF a month before Trump announced his initial candidacy, because my overheard encounters with such types down in OC would have been much higher than here (here being none at all all this time, thankfully).

even though the senate is lost, i'm taking a little bit of comfort know that all of the centrist dems that were enamored with keeping the filibuster are out.

the ones we know about at least

in orbit THANK YOU for posting that....

I had been searching for something that outlined this for the last two days and this hit every topic. it was challenging and exactly what I needed and and I have shared with friends

i have a smattering of former coworkers who I trust on FB, people that I now regard as friends, and don't care if they see me occasionally go off on FB (which I used to do all the time, and now I almost never ever do because I got sick of FB). I used to tell Trump to go fuck off and die under my legal name on Twitter on a regular basis; I've deleted my account since then but wonder if those will be found and I'll be arrested some day.

the "omg Google for Die Trump and Find akm" act

Hey if they don't arrest Vance you'll probably also be okay

hold me closer tiny fascist

lol my bro just met John Fetterman because he came to R@ptor 3ncount3r at Un!vers@l Studios

sad I didn't know, I could have fed him a message to give him from us

From a roundtable here's Chuck Rocha, former Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign adviser:

If the Democratic Party is going to win elections moving into the future, we have to return to the values that made me join this party in 1990 as a 20-year-old factory worker in East Texas. I joined the Democratic Party to fight back against the NAFTA trade deal which was going to send my tire manufacturing job overseas. I also wanted to drain the D.C. swamp of rich elite people who thought they were better than me even though my tax dollars paid many of their salaries. I also want to stop wasting money, killing people overseas and invest that into factory towns like I grew up in where people were struggling. Who does that sound like? This may help as we lose men at such a dramatic rate.

We have become way too reliant on polling modeling and ad testing, and we have stopped talking to a wide swathe of people with low voter scores who get up every day and take a shower after they are done with work not before. This correlates a lot with the Latino performance because the fastest growing segment of the working class are Latino voters and one in four Latino men are tied to the construction industry. These voters aligned with the Democratic Party. They just don’t trust the brand anymore because Fox News and the podcast brosphere tell them we are weak.

Ruben Gallego’s Senate race showed us a path to win these groups back if we follow his lead and his campaign strategy, which helped deliver over 60 percent of Latino male voters to him while at the same time having historical performance with women.

It's great to hear some positive words and ways in which y'all are dealing with this river of pain.

As for me, I'm still in the depressed/devastated/angry-AF phase, caught in the doom loop of these two items:
a) intense frustration at voters for claiming to be against Project 2025 and pro-choice, yet electing a rapist plutocrat that aims at packing the courts with judicial activists that will nullify any past or future progressive legislation, or at worst, use the bench to force Project 2025 upon us
("How did you fall for this bullshit?")

b) equally intense anger at Dem campaign operatives - if the voters are so easy to manipulate, then where was our version of this manipulation? Why did we run a national campaign primarily aimed to please the aesthetic preferences and media diets of those who already own a Prius, rather than those who cannot yet afford, let alone might not want one? (And why did I reject my own doubts of this strategy?) In the future, I want a presidential candidate who, when standing on the debate stage with a rapist who dehumanizes fellow americans, will fucking call him a rapist and rip into him for demonizing Americans, directly to his fucking face. I want a campaign willing to get dirty, unmerciful, and ruthless.

(I realize this glosses over several items like third-way Clintonista failures of the '90s and '00s, mainstream media 'both-sides'ism on Trump, Joe Lieberman holding the Public Option hostage, Manchinema, AIPAC, Biden's unwillingness to spread the word about legislative victories in '21 and '22, Biden's unwillingness (or inability) to say anything at all about anything, etc...)

Worth a read:

“Blaming the outcome of this election on the Hispanic electorate is simply not supported by the electoral math in the Blue Wall states. To say otherwise is not only irresponsible, it is bad political analysis,” say Equis’s co-founders @stephanievalenc and @carlosodio pic.twitter.com/meMEAuRrUF

— María Luisa Paúl (@marialuisapaulr) November 6, 2024

kinda wonder what's in store for Harris after January... once you've been VP, it's not like you go back to the Senate or something... and it doesn't seem like she'd win a primary to have another go at the WF. Retirement, I guess? Start a foundation or something

Harris ultimately had the support she
needed with Latinos to win, if all else held according to plan.

xpost She'll follow the Nixon playbook and run for CA governor, lose, and then be elected President in 2032.

Boards of Directors, Chancellorship at a UC school

Well, I can't tell if "had the support she needed with Latinos to win" means "to win the election" and "to win Latinos."

She can be the one greenlighting kinetic action against student protesters when we start drone striking climate refugees.

andor xpost

walmart greeter maybe

look we can talk about the Dems' failings all we want but at the end of the day 73 million people decided they wanted more Donald Trump in their lives, something I cannot process at all given that he embodies every single negative trait that a man could possibly have...the only conclusion is people like him because he makes folks like me upset. and that's sort of difficult to process right now. what did I ever do to you, asshole?

I think it's more that he makes the ladies on the View upset

Nah, it's definitely knowing they piss off people in their orbit. Hence my asshole coworker bringing in Trump cookies to "share" when he knows damn well he was the only Trump voter in the office.

There is so much literal insanity out there. I just saw a post from a former co-worker who married a Libertarian and became a trad-wife about how having RFK in the administration is "a miracle of epic proportions."

it's ok Kennedys don't live long

Rose was around for awhile

The brain worms and China white granted RFK immortality.

RFK, FDA. What else do I have to say?

I had a friend who was the most radical and effective anti-nuke activist in Oregon. One of his favorite sayings was "If you keep doing was you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always got."

I suspect this embodies what a lot of 'independent' US voters have been feeling strongly. They don't like what the system has been delivering. This has been especially true since the Bush II administration, with the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, the Financial Crisis, and now the Fentanyl Crisis. They're tired of servicing the needs of the empire. They feel no obligation to globalism or to refugees. They see Ukraine as just one more Iraq. They want the US government to serve them and nobody else. To them Trump looks like he also doesn't care about "the US Role in the World" and wants to toss "World Leadership and Responsibility to Our Allies" in the trash bin.

There is definitely some portion of Trump supporters that is doing it to own the libs.

There is also a huge portion of Trump supporters who vote for him in spite of his act. How often do we see interviews with supporters saying, "I don't like how he acts, but I'm going to vote for him anyway."

The bottom line for democrats is that it is now obvious that running on how awful Trump and Trumpism is is a losing strategy. So what else do they have?

(posted this on bluesky yesterday but guess it's relevant here)

Listening to 1930s US radio vs 1949 US radio has been quite a thing. Before the war socialists and communists were welcome on discussion shows, by 1949 they are just The Enemy and their voices aren't heard. Despite the end of the cold war, that's still the case today, though fascism is now just fine now

xpost She'll follow the Nixon playbook and run for CA governor, lose, and then be elected President in 2032.

yeah, nixon didn't look like a proper californian - she's got the look

na na na na na

xpost - while some might appreciate the candor, I was once again reminded that billionaires should not exist when I read about the ones supporting Trump. a couple of them pretty much straight up said, "I can't stand him and he's going to do a lot of damage but, hey, he's going to make me significantly richer so I am supporting him"

Also, GTFO Schumer with your begging texts these past two days.

I JUST GOT TWO OF THE DAMN THINGS

"now that we failed to win, give us more money to fight"