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

Democrats should've locked Trump and his lot after Jan 6th, and simply never allowed him to run. But 'democracy is at stake' was always for show; they simply never took Trump seriously as a fascist threat, for all the miles of discourse around that.

sad

I think some of them took the threat seriously but simply lacked courage and hoped it would just go away

I suspect more broadly there was a sense in 2016/2017 that people did not realise what they had voted for, and that it just needed to be pointed out to them explicitly and repeatedly.

This time, whether or not any particular Trump-voter was intending to endorse Trump's worst qualities by voting for him, it would be difficult to argue they weren't "on notice" of them.

Neither of the two possible explanations - being either that they liked those qualities, or that they considered them less important than the perceived failures of the Biden administration or democrats generally - seem like phenomena to which a 2016/2017 "Resistance" stance would be an effective response (at least before the second Trump administration turns into an absolute dumpster-fire, as the nominations portend).

I feel like a hakathon could work

Democrats should've locked Trump and his lot after Jan 6th, and simply never allowed him to run. But 'democracy is at stake' was always for show; they simply never took Trump seriously as a fascist threat, for all the miles of discourse around that.

― xyzzzz__, Monday, November 18, 2024 7:09 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

sad

― sparkling hebroic couplet (Hunt3r), Monday, November 18, 2024 7:14 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think some of them took the threat seriously but simply lacked courage and hoped it would just go away

― jaymc, Monday, November 18, 2024 7:21 PM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

"I am going to take this hurricane seriously by hoping it goes away."
"I am taking my taxes seriously by hoping they go away."
"I am taking this cancer seriously by hoping it goes away."

Democrats should've locked Trump and his lot after Jan 6th, and simply never allowed him to run. But 'democracy is at stake' was always for show; they simply never took Trump seriously as a fascist threat, for all the miles of discourse around that.

― xyzzzz__, Monday, November 18, 2024 7:09 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Interested in people's theories as to how this could have played out in a way that would not have caused social meltdown (unless we just mean "the prosecution should have started earlier").

The prosecution should’ve totally started earlier.

Unrest would’ve been inevitable, but in the long run…

They could have just banned teleprompters

On one hand, yeah, I think a lot of people after the 2020 election assumed that Trump at least was neutralized. I thought he would be too, because obviously he should have been, but I revised my thinking by late 2021 when I saw what was happening at state and local levels around me, the ongoing force of Trumpification.

But as for why people aren't visibly, vocally freaking out more, I think it's a combination of factors. A lot fewer people were shocked this time than in 2016, because no matter how much hope you put in the polls they were always close enough to signal that he could obviously win. We know more what to expect, too — and even though it's worse than what we faced in 2016, a lot of anxiety is about the unknown. When you feel like you have a handle on a looming threat, at least it's easier to think through and prepare for.

I don't think any of that means there won't be protests and activism against deportation or some of the other abuses to come. I think it means more that the groups that will be leading that are getting ready and not spending a lot of time spinning out on social media. I'm seeing things from immigrant advocacy groups to that effect. Likewise reproductive rights groups, who were already in full battle mode before the election anyway.

And then on top of that there's just a level of outrage exhaustion. I think it'll come back to some degree once he's actually president and doing/saying insane shit every day. OTOH there will also probably be a higher level of accommodation by some people — especially mainstream media people — based on the idea that "Well, this is what people voted for." Him winning the popular vote does to some degree diffuse the sense that he's an illegitimate leader.

remember when the airlines almost shut down because of the Muslim ban, and there was almost a general strike?

bring it, motherfuckers

Him winning the popular vote does to some degree diffuse the sense that he's an illegitimate leader.

this is actually good imo

xxxpost - I agree that the prosecution should have started earlier, but that doesn't seem like the kind of critique that lends itself to the conclusion "they don't take democracy seriously" rather than "they don't seem particularly good at executing their defence of democracy".

You could as easily argue (to temporarily adopt two different forms of anti-anti-Trump reasoning, from Jason Willick and George Will respectively) "Smith should have opted for a narrower case less likely to prompt a successful interlocutory appeal on the scope of presidential immunity" or "if they'd just not prosecuted him at all the republican candidate would have been DeSantis, but Democrats couldn't help themselves."

Clearly, the "prosecute Trump" strategy failed, but I don't think it's clear that a more aggressive version of that strategy would have succeeded.

Also, if Smith had managed to get Trump in jail, the GOP nominee likely still would have won the election and pardoned him. Of course Trump would not be President at least.

It's fine two weeks after the election to admit that you don't know what to do yet. I will soon enough.

and there was almost a general strike

When was this?

Honestly, I think a lot of people in the wake of this election are just sick of the whole fucking thing, A lot of people I know are just completely now over national politics and want to focus on what they can do locally and just on a more micro level. Or more cynically they’re just like OK fine you want him, let him run the show and see how you like it after another four years.

Chicago Cook County Jail Precinct

2024 Results:
🔴 Trump 49% (+2)
🔵 Harris 47%

2020 Results:
🔵 Biden 96% (+94)
🔴 Trump 2%

— OSZ (@OpenSourceZone) November 17, 2024

cmon lol

Was trying to see if I could find more info about why that happened, and I found a blog post that concluded:

"Trump carried the precinct in which Cook County Jail is located... but most of the votes counted there were not cast by detainees."

Basically, 1) the precinct's boundaries include more than just the jail, and 2) many of the detainees were registered at their home address and were thus voting absentee from the jail, so their votes were not counted in that precinct.

(Not to mention that Chicago's precincts were redrawn in 2022, so the geographic boundaries are slightly different between 2020 and 2024.)

I have some real, hard questions about what is causing the scale of suffering in Gaza and the West Bank.

They are not abstract questions but stem from what I've seen and heard during my trip to Jordan to assess the state of humanitarian assistance efforts.

What I saw was this: pic.twitter.com/MNiBqeu9tZ

— Senator George Helmy (@ghelmy) November 18, 2024

Man’s got another 6 weeks in office and decided to go for it.

xp Waitaminute -- Cook County Jail wasn't even in the same precinct in 2020. The precinct it was in back then (Ward 24, Precinct 16) went for Biden over Trump, but it was 70%-26% (not 96%-2%).

Twitter is a garbage source.

lol what did you expect from the platform owned by the garbage billionaire that swung the election in favor of the Garbage Old Party.

Well, the day after the election, Axios Chicago ran a headline that read "GOP makes gains in niche areas, including jail."

And apparently David Axelrod is going around talking about it on his podcast:

David Axelrod, on Hacks on Tap:

“There’s a precinct in the city of Chicago that represents only the Cook County jail. Joe Biden won 96% of the vote there in 2020… Donald Trump won that precinct, 49-47%.”

— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) November 17, 2024

(btw that was to the OP not to you, jaymc)

Twitter is really so prone to bad-faith clip chimpery and misleading PDFs that get viralized and are very tiresome to undo.

Thank you for running that down though. I was like, eh, that doesn't sound right, and clicked a few places before deciding the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.

I agree that twitter isn't reliable, but thats only really part of the picture. People are predisposed to take things at face value and not check anything out if it the story feels good, and that part isn't really a platform problem

This has generally been more prevalent in Conservative circles but I think its much more generalized than that

Which really circles back round to the idea of a figurative truth being much more important than a literal truth. And figurative truths are much more flexible and resilient. Even if the literal truth turns out to not be the case, then it can just be an outlier, it doesn't change the underlying picture

I propose we get into magick to modify these figurative truths.

Twitter is pretty reliable in many ways. Happy to keep quoting even if we dispute things here.

---

There were several posters here who were like "surely we can't elect this guy again (1000s of words about fascism, Hitler)", but people on my twitter TL provided a very rounded view. Many hated the campaign and where it was going while not saying this would lose it wasn't a shock when the results came in.

we had an entire thread dedicated to worrying that Trump was gonna win, tons of posters expressed they hated the campaign here too, the people who were like "surely we can't elect this guy" were also like that on twitter, at any rate you absolutely did not need to go on twitter to think that, the dread was everywhere

xxxpost - I agree that the prosecution should have started earlier, but that doesn't seem like the kind of critique that lends itself to the conclusion "they don't take democracy seriously" rather than "they don't seem particularly good at executing their defence of democracy".

You could as easily argue (to temporarily adopt two different forms of anti-anti-Trump reasoning, from Jason Willick and George Will respectively) "Smith should have opted for a narrower case less likely to prompt a successful interlocutory appeal on the scope of presidential immunity" or "if they'd just not prosecuted him at all the republican candidate would have been DeSantis, but Democrats couldn't help themselves."

Clearly, the "prosecute Trump" strategy failed, but I don't think it's clear that a more aggressive version of that strategy would have succeeded.

― Tim F, Tuesday, 19 November 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Sorry Tim, this is lawyering. Its not about succeeding, its about doing.

So if you feel "this person is a danger for show our country" then act like it. But Democrats weren't doing that.

So it was left to the campaign to say "Democracy is in peril, here is a couple of high profile Republicans we are going to campaign with who agree with us, please vote for competent professional politicians". We see that people weren't moved enough by this.

Its excusing Democrat failings, who let a cognitively impaired man be on the centre stage for far too long.

xp

lol what did you expect from the platform owned by the garbage billionaire that swung the election in favor of the Garbage Old Party.

― felicity, Tuesday, 19 November 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Hilarious, now we get a twitter has swung it.

The one other poster here who floated that idea was pushed on it to say 'we need some research' lol

we had an entire thread dedicated to worrying that Trump was gonna win, tons of posters expressed they hated the campaign here too, the people who were like "surely we can't elect this guy" were also like that on twitter, at any rate you absolutely did not need to go on twitter to think that, the dread was everywhere

― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 19 November 2024 bookmarkflaglink

On here I saw feelings of dread either way. On twitter I got arguments either way. They have different values. Maybe some of what's on twitter will move to Bluesky now but I hadn't refined the timeline enough too see it.

Also on here the effect (moral, if not electoral) of Gaza on the election was shut down pretty quickly for 'pragmatism'. In the minds of many posters I follow on the fascist owned app there was a constant reminder.

I don't think it was shut down, it was consistently discussed and the one poster who most wanted it shut down got SBed. The discussion was admitidely circular because we all know each other at this rate and can kinda anticipate what everyone else is going to say, that was true on twitter too tho when I used it.

I certainly got used to being shut down and simply stopped contributing as much to these threads in the weeks before the election, and then of course it turned out that many of the arguments that I had been making got taken up by people here after the election. I still care for the lot of you but I do remember this stuff. Hell, one of my favorite posters said I was using fascist talking points!

If ya’ll had been on Gab you’d have known the Harris campaign was in trouble.

I’m a bit hesitant to share Substacks (or whatever) here now - that the writers will instantly be torn to shreds and I’ll feel like a moron! But maybe that’s just what the internet and our politicalthreads are now.

I don’t know if I fully agree on this one, but something about it resonated with me.

https://scottsoriano.substack.com/p/lets-drive?r=4ayb6p&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&fbclid=IwY2xjawGpbndleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHbBzmBGdvWR8esNuf6G3mjQ8nIozTnp4pecJ8_gKdxvHH-LqeYOxRUia3Q_aem_7gIHi32n06SDh6357kFB2Q&triedRedirect=true

that Twitter Cook County Jail nonsense is why I'm spending less and less time on social media anymore and deleted all my Twitter accounts, because literally everybody seems to be operating on vibes. any postmortem fact-checking doesn't matter, whatever the initial thing reported was becomes the narrative, which admittedly was true in the pre-social media age, but is kinda pathetic in the 24/7 news cycle era.

Also: I don't care about the Cook County vote tallies.

social media def drives OUTRAGE in the endless cycles of the hormones coursing through our systems, yesterdays DID YOU SEE JOE AND MIKA WENT TO MAR A LAGO to me is a good example of that. the stuff that sticks w me is the stuff to make fun of them with i.e. the McDonalds plane pic is a Zapruder level pic wherein you can psychoanalize the thing--Don Jr holding up his fries, Mike Johnson's leaning on the back of the chair like "hi guys I'm a doormat", RFK's expression as he wishes his Big Mac was made from a Cocaine Bear, etc etc

if you want to see the most unhinged wing of Twitter, it's amateur/hobbyist meteorology Twitter. a demographic that skews heavily Trump too, which is kinda funny as you'd expect that crowd to be more of the "government made hurricanes" ilk

now see that stuff i can just laugh at too the HAARP peeps

Yeah I don't think it's unique to Twitter specifically, but social media in general plays a role in spreading information like that.

I was particularly interested in the Cook County Jail thing because I live in Chicago. And when it was originally posted in this thread (earlier in the day yesterday), my initial reaction was to say "yeah I heard something about that" -- because I'd read about it in a legitimate news source (Axios) the day after the election. But what Axios reported was simply that the precinct that contains the jail turned red this year. Anyone could see on a Chicago precinct map comparing 2020 and 2024 that there was a new red dot on the South Side. Granted, it's not exactly the same precinct as it was in 2020, but the point is still more or less true.

But the specific percentages are what made me dig further. And now what I'm realizing is that this "fact" likely went viral this week because David Axelrod, who is not an anonymous crank but a respected Democratic strategist, cited it on his podcast, and a political reporter tweeted the quote. Axelrod in turn may have gotten it from Capitol Fax, a decades-old Illinois politics newsletter. All of these sources not only make the major blunder of citing 2020 results for a precinct that the jail wasn't even in, but they also get the 2024 results slightly wrong (it wasn't 49%-47%, it was 48.3%-47.9%). Then the numbersnended up in a tweet formatted in a way to make them look official, but without attribution.

So this misinformation did not originate with grifters or conspiracy theorists, but it spread because social media is designed to quickly spread information, regardless of its truth content.

(Of course, I put up a thread on Bsky to debunk it, but I have 0 followers, so it didn't go anywhere lol.)

That Substack raises some interesting points, but relies too heavily on “caravans,” which imo are dumb and a phenomenon unique to Trump and his cult of personality. (I don’t recall caravans for McCain or Romney.) Anecdotal evidence within my very lefty social circle/neighborhood though showed more people with Kamala shirts and hats than I remember even for Obama. Whether they were voting for her policies or against Trump’s, they were enthused and energized and advertising that, even if they didn’t drive down Main Street in a caravan to prove it.

I was a part of a Harris caravan and saw three the weekend before the election.

(Of course, I put up a thread on Bsky to debunk it, but I have 0 followers, so it didn't go anywhere lol.)

do we hav an ilx starter-pack yet? would follow

huh i didnt know at all about caravans.

wrt to “xhitter is mostly reliable,” i’d think yr safety relies on yr follows and a yr higher level of knowledge and discretion. like the real world.

still if the rest of the environment is a cesspit, working for cesspit’s destruction seems the right path.

it’s like— i am p good with my water filter and aquatabs in the sidecountry near a cattle zone, but motivated dipshits sending their first trip without guidance or real care are gonna get giardia. let’s mark a good water source.

and that’s my terrible analogy.