The Day After Election Day 2016
Well. I don’t know that I have adequate words for this ‘day after’ experience. I didn’t in 2000 or in 2004; why should this be any different? As I write this and schedule for publishing, I don’t know the final outcome of the big race — but the entire day has been bad and it looks grim at 2:00 a.m. the day after.
Watching this evening’s coverage by major TV/cable news networks has been an appalling joke. They even appeared to realize they were flailing, producing occasional weird spots of dead air when one of the talking heads couldn’t articulate what’s going on.
It’s rather pathetic that the only person who went there and touched on the difficult topics of voter suppression, racism, and sexism, did so on a comedy program. The rest of the mainstream media muddled on blithely as if these things don’t exist and didn’t affect this race. They are doing exactly what they’ve done for decades, pretending everything is fine, this is fine, it’s all fine.
Speaking of fine, here are a few bright spots:
— Boston voted down Question 2, rejecting more charter schools;
— Nevada elected Catherine Cortez Masto, its first Latina Senator, filling Harry Reid’s seat;
— California elected Kamala Harris to fill the seat vacated by retiring Senator Barbara Boxer;
— New York elected Adriano Espaillat, the first Dominican-American member of Congress and formerly undocumented immigrant;
— Washington state’s Pramila Jayapal elected, first Indian-American woman to Congress to serve for WA-7 [need link];
— Oregon elected Kate Brown, first openly LGBT governor.
If I missed another bright spot, leave a note in comments.
This is an open thread, but it is dedicated to post-election discussion.
__________
[graphic: KC Green, c. 2013]
Rapidly googling inhabitable planets. Time to relocate.
There is not a single bright spot worth a lick. You now live in a de facto one party, fascist state. Accept the fact.
Is this what you would have told German Jews 78 years ago? Because thanks. Thanks a bunch.
Now I know what the Italian population must have felt in 1939. One thing’s for sure. Whoever penned “..it can’t happen here” must be rolling in their grave.
“I feel betrayed” by Trump voters… a friend’s sentiment. I do not recall seeing this much post election energy ever before.
Speaking of relocation, the Canadian Immigration website crashed last night.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/how-to-move-to-canada-immigration-website-crash-donald-trump-president-a7406106.html
Fortunately, Mars is welcoming all new immigrants. I’ve left a message for Elon Musk, volunteering for the first flight. Meanwhile, I need to visit my local liqueur store.
Fifteen year old nephew in tears–afraid.
Yes, many children are terrified right now. Reading many anecdotes of kids saying goodbye to each other because some feel they will be deported any time now.
Have them stop watching news. Explain to them that elections are only part of politics, that passive submission to electoral is M is the enemy of democracy and progress. Tell them that life itself is a struggle, and teach them the importance of learning, even learning from defeat. It won’t be the last time. Avoid hysteria and catastrophism, which is promoted by the elite-owned media.
Thanks, Jeff. Good to hear from you again here.
Aftermath: Feeling REALLY big knot in stomach now, as well as big empty feeling. Vision blurred. Shaking. Bruised brain. As if I were just run over by an ice cream truck being driven by a Killer Clown.
The worse part… gloating by my sister. goddamn her.
Maybe a tiny bright spot:
We may never again have to hear some politician or member of the commentariat say the nonsensical and cringe-worthy
“We are better than that”
If they copy Turkey’s president, they will find a reason to eliminate any critical press anyhow, labeling them “terrorist organizations” and using the still-open AUMF against Terrorists to backstop their efforts while Supreme Court weak — or with a new Justice who favors unilateral executive power.
Cudgels: FBI, NSA, CIA, The Federal Reserve; Congress, Senate; Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Supreme Court, police, National Guard
Targets: “those people”, “the lying press”, EPA, NIH, NASA, FAA, Voting Rights Act, every Amendment except #2, “regulations”, “government bureaucrats”…
Trump and his backers have been pretty open about what they want to do.
We can hope for Congressional gridlock.
Add to the “those people list” the FCC and its support for net neutrality. AT&T and Verizon could turn quite a profit blocking undesirable content on the Internet. I’m pretty sure EW would rank pretty high on the undesirability scale for the new administration.
Perhaps we’re about to uncover an even more important truth…
On Jan 20, when the folks who really run the country sit Donald down and mansplain to him that POTUS is a figurehead position, and that he actually doesn’t get to pull the levers of power, or really do anything other than fly around and give speeches. Just like Obama, they’ll let The Donald know that he can go along and be a good president, or he can get dead.
I’ve wondered for the last 8 years why it was that Obama flipped on so many of his promises, why so much of what was wrong under GW kept going under Obama too. There were just too many times when I shook my head in wonder. Take the immediate immunity for the telecoms after Obama’s election as an example. Why there wasn’t even a single conviction in the banking meltdown…
Perhaps we’ll find out now.
Obama voted for telecom immunity [despite saying he would not] in the Senate after the primary and before the general election.
For better or worse, it will be interesting to see what Trump can get done once in office. A lot of promises to “do something” about the MIC, yet also somehow making the military “stronger” somehow, just don’t make much sense to me. Trump wants out of all wars but wants a “stronger” military than what we have now?? Well let’s just see how that works.
Not sure that Trump can do more or less than what Obama or anyone else does in the office of POTUS. Of course, there is the fact that all branches of fed govt – and many state govts – are now all in the hands of the R party. It’s their wet dream come true. One party rule. Let’s see how the citizens like this.
I’ve wondered about that too.
With the U.S Senate and House of Representatives in Republican hands, I also wonder if the whole country will now get to experience Brownback’s Kansas “miracle.”
Yes, the real powers act behind the scenes, though sometimes you can get to see their names or actions. Kissinger comes to mind. Or the Koch brothers.
I wonder if Clinton will say something like:
” this [was] the greatest waste of time, money and energy in my lifetime, by a factor of 100″
Obama also promised to expand the Afghan war, a promise he kept.
Orange County California finally votes for a Democrat for President and the rest of the country pulls up the ladder? WTF?
Lots of commentary out there. I can’t add much personally, so I’ll quote our old pal Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept:
“Put simply, Democrats knowingly chose to nominate a deeply unpopular, extremely vulnerable, scandal-plagued candidate, who — for very good reason — was widely perceived to be a protector and beneficiary of all the worst components of status quo elite corruption. … Far more significant is what this shows about the mentality of the Democratic Party. Just think about who they nominated: someone who — when she wasn’t dining with Saudi monarchs and being feted in Davos by tyrants who gave million-dollar checks — spent the last several years piggishly running around to Wall Street banks and major corporations cashing in with $250,000 fees for 45-minute secret speeches even though she had already become unimaginably rich with book advances while her husband already made tens of millions playing these same games. She did all that without the slightest apparent concern for how that would feed into all the perceptions and resentments of her and the Democratic Party as corrupt, status-quo-protecting, aristocratic tools of the rich and powerful: exactly the worst possible behavior for this post-2008-economic-crisis era of globalism and destroyed industries.
“People often talk about “racism/sexism/xenophobia” v. “economic suffering” as if they are totally distinct dichotomies. Of course there are substantial elements of both in Trump’s voting base, but the two categories are inextricably linked: the more economic suffering people endure, the angrier and more bitter they get, the easier it is to direct their anger to scapegoats. Economic suffering often fuels ugly bigotry. It is true that many Trump voters are relatively well-off and that many of the nation’s poorest voted for Clinton, but, as Michael Moore quite presciently warned, those portions of the country that have been most ravaged by free trade orgies and globalism — Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa — were filled with rage and “see [Trump] as a chance to be the human Molotov cocktail that they’d like to throw into the system to blow it up.” Those are the places that were decisive in Trump’s victory. As the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney put it: “Low-income rural white voters in Pa. voted for Obama in 2008 and then Trump in 2016, and your explanation is white supremacy?”
“For many years, the U.S. — like the U.K. and other western nations — has embarked on a course that virtually guaranteed a collapse of elite authority and internal implosion. From the invasion of Iraq to the 2008 financial crisis to the all-consuming framework of prisons and endless wars, societal benefits have been directed almost exclusively to the very elite institutions most responsible for failure at the expense of everyone else. It was only a matter of time before instability, backlash and disruption resulted. Both Brexit and Trump unmistakably signal its arrival.
Trump ran to the left of Hillary on several issues, trade, SS/Medicare and foreign policy among them, so it ain’t all bad, just mostly. He’s way out of step with the right wingers like Ryan, and has lots of scores to settle with Repubs who rejected him. His vindictiveness, learned at Roy Cohn’s knee, is scary in a president, but it will at least be fun to watch him exercise it within the party.
Dems have been on an 8 year slide from a President with veto proof majorities in Congress to holding nothing. Maybe this will reignite the revolt in the party to ditch the right wing, DLC, Clinton, corporate, repub wanna be, neolib/neocon elites and get back to roots. Roots are the New Deal and being the party of everyday Americans. Dems gotta believe in something more than sucking up to wall street. 90% of the country has not had a real raise since 1978, saw their homes and family equity used as foam for the runway for the banks by Obama after 2008, has watched their jobs disappear, and has just said enough of this shit.
Stand for something Dems, run the corrupt, greedy, blindly ambitious neolib/neocon elites out of control of the party and build a real party with a heart, a conscience and a brain that is rededicated to helping the people of America. That is the road back to a majority, don’t cede the working people of America to Trump by denigrating them and sailing ever further into nowhere land.
It is going to take years to rebuild the Congressional, State and Local branches of the Democratic Party that were abandoned 24 years ago. Time’s a wastin’ and the task gets bigger and harder with each election cycle that passes.
Lefty,
Doesn’t Ryan want to privatize Medicare?
What happens if Trump makes a deal with Ryan?
Vindictiveness is fun?
Trump has no obligation to honor Ryan’s agenda, and there have not been many signs he will. Ryan was not a Trump supporter, so he’ll get his paybacks. I repeat, Trump ran to the left of right wing, DLC, triangulating Clinton in several areas. That’s where some of the heartburn came from on both the Repub and Dem sides. Once a Goldwater girl, always a Goldwater girl.
Schadenfreude watching Trump pay back Repubs who did not support him as he consolidates power in his party will be, well schadenfreude. Watching real Dems run elite supporters of right wing, triangulating, corrupt, greedy, blindly ambitious, wall st sycophant, warmongering Hillary and her ilk out of power on the Dem side will be more enjoyable.
Popcorn futures might be a good investment. Have a nice day.
We asked the audience: How many people want Hillary as President? (no other factors involved, no competition, just an abstract question). I’ll bet “Survey says, very few.”
1.
Re: terrified, post-election kids. If they’re terrified, it’s because of the way Democrat grown-ups around them have painted DTDuck. It’s called “fear-mongering.” And for what possible reason does any adult engage a child in a political discussion that would leave the child terrified – just to instill fear-mongering, hate values in the kids? Adults can think like that themselves if they’re that stupid, but they should keep the kids out of it.
And please take note that for all of the fear-mongering about alt-righters rioting if DTDuck lost, who was it that was rioting in the wee hours this morning? The fear-mongering Democrats themselves – Oakland, Portland, Seattle, D.C., NYC.
2.
I am frustrated, annoyed, and amused all at the same time that Democrats in Mich. still don’t understand WTF just hit them.
On Oct31 I put up a link to an excerpt from Michael Moore’s “Trumpland.” It was an impressive analysis of why this election was blowing up in the Democrats’ face and in retrospect it was the most prescient political analysis I have ever seen in my life. All of the disaffected people Moore was talking about – who should have been strongly Democratic and who would have been behind Sanders – got on board the Trump Train: PA, MI, OH, WI.
It was the Democrat machine that fucked Sanders and brought this entire debacle down on the whole county. It will turn out to be a more disastrous turning point in American history than Reagan’s election. For one thing, even when they are adults, babies born today will be living in the shadow of DTDuck’s Supreme Court.
Pre-primaries, Sanders consistently polled as beating DTDuck by 10-15 points, while Hilton rarely polled as beating him at all. Democrats were too stupid and/or too crooked to use that important information for the good of the party. Somebody from the Trump campaign should send Debbie Schultz a thank-you card.
3.
The perennial truth about democracy is that you get exactly what you deserve. Apparently Americans didn’t deserve to be ruled by the basket of incompetents behind Hilton’s campaign – the same incompetents who would have run the country if she had won: Mills, Abedin, Sullivan, Podesta, Schultz, Palmeri, . . . Neera Tanden was probably the only competent person within arm’s length of Hilton, and they pretty much shut her up.
I mean, the outcome speaks entirely for itself: Any group of political operatives who are too incompetent to beat a buffoon like DTDuck certainly is too incompetent to run America. Just consider the significance of the discovery of 650k Dept of State emails on that Weiner wanker’s laptop. Irrespective of whether or not any were classified or whether they were duplicates of previously disclosed emails, the mere fact that such a pervert – and an unauthorized, non-governmental pervert – could be in possession of even one DoS communication is utterly appalling. If any of my clients’ confidential correspondence ever ended up on my wife’s computer, I would well and truly be sacked immediately and would probably face proceedings to suspend my law license. I would also be very confused because I don’t have a wife. This is a hypothetical, IOW, bringing to mind (for some reason) the immortal lyric: “I don’t even have a garage; you can call home and ask my wife.”
And even if Hilton did not put the emails on Weiner’s laptop and did not know they were there, the only way they could have gotten there was as a result of Hilton’s catastrophically poor judgement in demanding to run the homebrew server, and Abedin’s ponderous stupidity and outrageous carelessness in handling the emails.
The further all of these people are from the machinery of government, the safer Americans will be. And like I have said many times in the last 9 months: No matter who loses this election it will be someone most Americans despise. That was a 100% sure-to-come-true prediction, so I ain’t pattin’ myself on the back for it.
Good points, Denis and I’m celebrating the humiliation and defeat of the Grifter Clintons and their gloating quislings. The Red Queen and some of her handlers may face the long arm of the law if Trump calls for a special prosecutor. Clinton is already trying to rub cheeks with Trump and act like a friend but the chant of ‘Lock Her Up’ still echoes in the background.
Sanders really doesn’t deserve discussion, his followers seemed sincere but he was and is a phony without enough support to win his own primary.
We’ll have plenty of time to judge what Trump does in the future but for now I’ll enjoy the destruction of Clinton and her party.
Interesting posting by Krystal Ball.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-democratic-party-deserves-to-die_us_58236ad5e4b0aac62488cde5
She was a congressional candidate in Virginia a half dozen years ago and has been writing since. She might occasionally be a good fit here EW.
Krystal Ball spells it out in pretty stark terms, talking about how her home town E. Liverpool, OH has collapsed. Here is a frightening stat:
If truck driving is the no. 1 job in your state, your state is in trouble.
But I don’t think Ball gets it. Sure, as she says MI, OH, PA, WI — Michael Moore’s “Brexit States” — are in economic collapse, and have been since the Reagan years, but, that’s not the point of American politics. The point of American politics is that folks in Yisreal are doing great. Their standard of living is higher than the US, their health care is free, Americans fight their wars and American taxpayers still send them $3bn/yr. No wonder E. Liverpool is a disaster.
When Obama signed an agreement w/ IRI that shut down virtually all of their centrifuges and opened their nuke facilities to inspection, Government of Yisrael (GoY) demanded that USG increase the annual donation to Yisrael. That’s right, Bibi had the balls to demand an increase in the already outrageous free money the American taxpayer spends to support a belligerent theocracy that is the ultimate source of the world’s most violent and intractable problems.
And Obama/Congress said “Sure.” Why? Because a chunk of that money USG sends GOY comes back to American politicians, most of whom are addicted to the AIPAC-directed influx of shekels to their campaign coffers. George Soros, Haim Saban, Shel Adelson are not “political donors” so much as they are conduits in a scam that is fleecing Americans of tax money that should be invested in jobs and infrastructure in America, not Yisrael.
There is a strong argument to be made that Yisrael and the iJews are doing more to destroy America than the Mexicans ever could. And yet the first person DTDuck invites to the WH is Bibi.
This does not bode well for E. Liverpool, OH.
Little late here, but you are the second person that has referred me to that Ball post. And, yeah, it is hard to argue with at this point. Would have been better, and even then, hard to argue with before the election. But just about impossible now.
Trump stated he was going to represent all Amerikans and 62% of them support Israel so that isn’t the question about this boding meeting. It is wise to address the difficult issued first and Trump came to power with little direct support of the Israeli lobby so he may have some bargaining power when he ‘deals’ with Bibi. Let’s wait and see how he handles his first major test in office, Israel can certainly afford to pay for more of their own defense.
Trying to tie our funding of Israeli defense to the decline of the rust belt is a stretch. Those lost jobs went to Mexico, China and elsewhere.
As I had noted before, the Russians were in on this: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/russia-confirms-direct-communications-with-trump-campaign-prior-to-election-day/
Understand that nothing happens in Putin’s Russia (especially in the ruling class) without Vlad’s approval. Nothing. My previous warnings on this were ignored and downplayed as alarmist. Well, now we know.
I did notice the idea that Trump may not be on board with Ryan’s agenda. I disagree. As compromised as Donaldus is between trials starting on 11/28 and now these confirmed connections with Putin, Ryan has a real threat of impeachment to hold over Trump’s head. So whether Donaldus signs (most of it is stuff he doesn’t care about anyway and would have no reason to reject it), or he is removed for a President Pence, Ryan gets what he wants either way.
TPP will be one thing likely to go. Others will be Obamacare, Social Security, Medicare (to block grants and Wall Street), the CFPB that just busted Wells Fargo’s fraudulent account scheme will be gone and we’ll back to the tender mercies of Dimon and the rest of the banksters. Forget Net Neutrality too, as everything goes to the pay to play paradigm. Nice going, Berniebros.
Whether war is started or is inflicted on us, Donaldus will crumble for certain. Bullies usually are not brave. I see either Putin (or more likely) the PRC testing to see what the new limits are very quickly (will Donaldus sell out Taiwan? I think he will) and what the price for selling out will be. Duterte will get his wish to split the PI away from the USA. Good luck with the PRC, Rodrigo.
I don’t see this mentioned either elsewhere in this thread nor in subsequent threads, so I mention it now: for the fifth time in U.S. history and for the *second* time in just this century, the Electoral College has screwed the candidate who won the popular vote. It is past time for the Electoral College system to be abolished..