Donald Trump Will Become America’s Dictator on Day One
Fox News has called Wisconsin, and with it, the race for Trump.
Trump sold the country on a narrative of grievance.
The press showed no interest in checking him — much less explaining the governance successes of the Biden Administration.
What a catastrophic outcome for vulnerable people, the country, and the world.
AP has not called Wisconsin or any of the Blue Wall States yet. There is still hope!
How did we not work hard enough?
I feel like it’s been Stollen. They knew It was in the bag…..
danke sehr, Marcy Wheeler, for all you’ve done to hold them to account. i’m broken.
It’s beginning to feel like Sally Bowles has just started her first number at the Kit Kat Klub. Or was it the Cabaret de L’Enfer?
I don’t care about Trump the man. But that millions of Americans value him more than you or me or any of the people we care about? That our lives and our minds mean nothing to them? That is what I cannot forgive.
There is always the MAGA cohort which checked in at 74 million last time to Biden’s 81 million. I’ve been following the Guardian for updates and while Convict-1 appears to be tracking along to the same number, he also leads Harris by 51-47 %.
That last part doesn’t make sense to me, because one thing that the courtier press has been reporting for weeks now is how turnout has been well above 2020 levels so where are all those popular votes? I know it’s a huge dose of hopium, but we may not be done yet. Harris rallies were also better attended and more energetic all the way to the end. We’ll see, but I would not be terribly surprised to find out post election hinkiness occurred. After all, it was Stalin who said to let the people vote as long as he counted the ballots.
How long will Vance wait after inauguration to depose Convict-1 via the 25th Amendment process? If it is more than 3 months I will be surprised as well but perhaps all the pardons have to go out first. Speaking of which, the judge in NYC needs to sentence on time on the 14th (IIRC) if for no other reason than to force the attempt to use federal pardons for state convictions. That rule / precedent has never been tested.
As a last note, the courtier press will never acknowledge how much their sanewashing and tilted coverage of Biden and his administration to preserve their horse race created this fiasco. Their goal to preserve ‘access’ above all else (including truth-telling) will make it hard to get the facts now.
I agree with you on Vance taking control, it might not be as soon as three months, but there is no way Trump will be there for 4 years, he is going to screw too many in the 1% and they will not allow it. He will definitely see the 25th used on him, and Vance will be worse than Trump.
“Speaking of which, the judge in NYC needs to sentence on time on the 14th (IIRC) if for no other reason than to force the attempt to use federal pardons for state convictions. That rule / precedent has never been tested.”
Sentencing is scheduled for November 26
November 14 is set to decide the Immunity impact on this Case.
I think Trump has 18 months (+/-) because he is needed to do the dirty work.
Trump will do the deportations and the savaging of the government workers and putting in place the Project 2025 approved department heads. He will do all the really shitty things.
Then JD Vance and the 2025 approved Cabinet will invoke the 25th A, and put Vance in as the savior of the country.
Numb. I feel nauseous and numb.
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It’s also worth noting that there has been a massive increase in hospitalization rates for suicides in the US.
Trump winning: Here’s my ultra-simpleminded conclusion: “he won twice, against women, and lost once, against a man.” A white man, mind you. Wait, but as I typed that “simpleminded” conclusion, it makes me think deeper: is it possible that America is still a country that’s not “grown up” yet, wherein the men of this country just can’t vote for a female president?
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If this outcome is real, I am afraid you’re right that American males as a group still love their patriarchy.
It’s real.
I knew we were in serious trouble last week. Many people I considered friends voted for him. My personal analysis is that anyone who got their news from SM voted for him. The divisions among the people I know is pretty stark. If they got their main news from SM they voted for Trump or didn’t vote at all.
I don’t think regular people understand how much SM has influenced people’s opinion of Trump in a positive light.
Looks like we have a lot of work a head of us.
Sigh.
I am so tired of this shit, but I won’t give up. We can’t give up.
I think you are right about social media.
We rightly rail against the traditional media for focusing on balance at the expense of truth. But if people aren’t paying attention to them, then their impact is, perhaps, becoming negligible.
Of course. Something like 6 in 10 Americans belong to churches (evangelical Protestant and Catholic) that teach that only men can lead. Not all, or even many of the adherents of those churches take that doctrine seriously, but if it’s only 10% that would account for trump’s spread.
According to exit polls, 62% of non-college educated white women are revoltingly eager to submit to the patriarchy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/exit-polls-2024-election
heartbroken.
Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they’ve done
They damn well ought to, by now.
No they don’t. They may hear and read about it but many do not believe he plans to do anything to them. Its always the other people. It is not that common for people to understand terrible things can happen to you even if you are white, rich, etc.
During WW II when the Nazi’s rolled into your country not only were Jews rounded up but any one the Nazi’s thought would cause problems. Now there were Jews who did not believe it would happen to them. Some lived in France and went to a lovely little place and stayed there thinking they would be exempt, they were rich, had lived in France for various periods of time. They still were rounded up and sent to the concentration camps and that included a couple of members of the Rothschild family. There are others who thought they would be exempt, but no. they went to the concentration camps. Only those who saw what it would be and got out, lived. People don’t want to think bad things could happen to them if they think they are following the rules, etc. Having heard the story’s when the adults were talking and I was eaves dropping, in the 1950s and early 1960s I clearly have understood what can and does happen.
If you look at history you can see any one can be murdered or have their lives destroyed by their political enemies.
Americans might want to look at their own history. Two Presidents were murdered MLK-murdered, R.K.-murdered. No one is exempt from being murdered or having their lives destroyed by their opponents. It is beyond me why people don’t understand that.
Why people voted for Trump in the numbers they did, who knows. He is a criminal, couldn’t manage his own businesses, etc. Still they voted for him. Had Harris been male perhaps they would have won.
That old saying, “if some one tells you who they are, believe them”, its true. Unfortunately people just don’t get it. They think they won’t be impacted.
We will all be impacted. trump is innately reckless and is completely unbridled now. Assets are priced to perfection and his sky high import duties and roundups of dark skinned entry level workers will create labor shortages and economic chaos. Foreign investors will start backing away from the trump risk and asset values will crater. He will respond by taking direct control of the Fed and making things much worse. Soc Sec, medicare, GI benefits, affordable health care are all on the chopping block when people will need them the most. There won’t be any option to end it in a free & fair 2028 vote.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will spill into neighboring NATO countries after trump yanks our troops out of NATO
I’ll just leave this here.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Edvard_Munch%2C_1893%2C_The_Scream%2C_oil%2C_tempera_and_pastel_on_cardboard%2C_91_x_73_cm%2C_National_Gallery_of_Norway.jpg
The world will be a less safe place as Trump is embraced by “leaders” of a similar mindset.
I fear for Ukraine, and pray that Europe and some other countries can fill in some of the gap. But that will come at a price as “Great Again” is found to be an untrustworthy partner. In line with that, I’m concerned that Five Eyes will effectively become Four when the U.S. has a president who can’t be trusted with sensitive information of any kind.
But we do have some hope: On January 28th, Trump, as he has promised, will have ended the war in Ukraine (giving him seven full days after his inauguration to accomplish this).
Putin must be rejoicing this morning.
Are you out of your mind? Trump’s promised end to the war in Ukraine will be the same as what happens next with Trump’s blessing in Gaza. Your hope is death to Ukraine and her people.
Come now, the snark is obvious. And I agree with RE, some black humour helps with the despair.
Take your laughs where you find them. The morning after all the pollsters were wrong, and badly wrong, NPR announces: In a moment we’ll examine where Harris went wrong with a Democratic pollster.
Trump keeps claiming that he can end the war in Ukraine, but he’s never once given any vague concept of a plan.
It really comes down to three possibilities:
One: he persuades Putin to pull out and surrender. This is fantasy, as Putin wouldn’t accept the massive loss of face, and would never accept instruction from a leader (Trump) he sees as a puppet.
Two: he starves Ukraine of funding and aid such that they are forced to surrender. This is the likliest option, but Europe and others would certainly step up and plug the gap at enormous expense, because we here can see the threat on our borders.
Three: he does nothing, becuase he’s full of shit.
Trump is the world’s worst negotiator and poker player. There’s only one thing he means by peace for Ukraine. Full and complete capitulation to Putin. Unlike Trump, Ukraine is unlikely to agree. There’s only so much it can do, but it will do every bit of it. No one will be sleeping in European foreign offices for quite some time.
He won the office. Still respect the office. The power. Hope the world is resilient. We learn now who JD Vance is. If Trump holds healthy for four years, his two term will be up.
We wait and see. It would surprise me if Biden does not pardon his son before the transfer of power. He his time for it.
Why should anyone “respect the office” (a ridiculous aphorism to begin with) when THE MAN ABOUT TO RE-OCCUPY IT DOES NOT?!?!?
Biden wanted to set an example by not pardoning Hunter, but I could hardly blame him for reconsidering that. Who knows what will happen to those closely associated with President Biden.
It’s hard to say what pardons Trump will issue, but I’d bet one or more teams have been working on lists for months.
Half seriously, Biden could grant a few selective pardons for Trump and a few MAGA luminaries…Just a sampling of charges for Trump and a few individuals facing multiple charges. The pardons could document explicitly detailed narratives of those specific activities which lead to indictments.
I shudder to think what Trump will have his new AG do to erase the record of Trump’s criminality.
The idea Trump (still alive) will leave after two terms is based on what, exactly?
It would surprise me if any of your prediction comes to pass. For starters, Trump will never voluntarily leave office.
The, “as Trump promised,” might suggest a bit of snark, in that forecast about how soon it will happen and what Trump means by peace for Ukraine.
Right now, I’m missing virtually all the snark tags myself. I feel like a character in a Raymond Chandler novel: “A dark pool opened in front of me. I dove right in. It had no bottom.”
As for Ukraine, this is extraordinarily bad news because the MAGAs will hold the Senate and as of now flipped a House seat (many more to call, but I do not like the trend). So we have the quadrilla of House,, Senate, WH, SCOTUS that will shut off US funding for Ukraine. I think the EU will step up in spite of Scholz’s current appeasement tour because they also can read the 2022 peace terms that were leaked this week.
As for the ME, MBS financing will preclude any real effort to rein him in on items like oil prices or nuclear weapons or the occasional hit on an Iranian that MBS doesn’t like. Jared’s corruption will continue unabated and uninvestigated.
For those who made Gaza their litmus test to vote for Convict-1, let’s remember who Bibi’s pal is here in the USA, and it wasn’t Biden or Harris. Bibi now knows he has free rein to inflict genocide, and he will do his best to do so now that he refers to the Palestinians in Amalekite terms (IIRC it’s in the book of Kings, regarding Saul). We don’t know the cross-tabs yet for MI but if Rep. Tlaib’s refusal to back Harris / Walz in the last week of the campaign is any indication, the Gaza protest clan may have just committed a huge political blunder and they should own it.
“…Bibi now knows he has free rein to inflict genocide…”
Especially since he fired Gallant yesterday.
Resonates with this:
“Global leaders congratulate Trump, but his victory looks set to roil the world — again
His return to the White House has huge consequences for everything from global trade to climate change to multiple crises and conflicts around the world.
By Associated Press
PUBLISHED: November 6, 2024 at 6:06 AM EST
“ISRAEL’S PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: ‘Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback! Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America. This is a huge victory!’”
The good news is that in the next ten weeks Old Joe has a lot of Presidential draw down authority $$$ to give Zelensky the long range Saint Javs. This before trump and his pal putin solve the whole situation.
Hopefully Britain and Europe go 1st (get that it’s looking a bit like 1933) and they no longer look for guidance from the shining city on the hill.
It’s so hard to figure that trump also won the popular vote — still trying to wrap my head around that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA_2m4n-wjE
“I feel like a character in a Raymond Chandler novel: “A dark pool opened in front of me. I dove right in. It had no bottom.””
This has encapsulated my reaction to Trump’s victory.
I have nothing useful to contribute to this blog and comments at this time beyond acknowledging a shared sense of shock bewilderment and grief.
I don’t even know if that is at all helpful or meaningful, but I wanted to say something to all the members of the community, whom I have come to think of as friends:
even though I don’t know how what to say or how to help, I wanted to hear your voices. and absorb whatever you say, and let you know that, FWIW, small comfort though it may be.
Steve Bev, I needed your words.
I thought I had faced the prospect of a Trump win and the huge jumble of raw emotion, anger and disbelief it would unleash.
Well, let me say that at this hour, despite my mental exercises to prepare for the moment, I am undone by an unrelenting stream of tears since I woke up. My sides seize up at the thought that taking away my right to control my body is a priority for Trump team. All the stories I’ve told myself to survive abuse, being demeaned and the butt of a sexist jokes just to get along, they all fail me right now.
These tears have to at least slow before I can even consider resistance.
I really wasn’t prepared for reality, try as I did. Bu I could have never imagined it would devastate me like this.
Big warm virtual hugs to everyone here, my bastion of sanity.
This is an unbelievably tragic disaster
Yes, yes it is.
It has the same feeling as the 2004 election where the rest of the world was saying to America: “what were you thinking?!?” and we had shenanigans in OH (where the SoS destroyed all the ballots to prevent auditing his work).
I quit looking at the polls and put all my faith in the people who were looking at the data. I am sick. The insanity is beyond my imagination. I thought we were good people, would be proven to be good. Misogyny and racism have risen. Musk, Shady, and RFK Jr. OMG. It is insane. All my hope is gone.
As I type this, Trump sits on 266 EC votes and isn’t – technically – the victor. But I’ve just seem statements from world leaders, including our own PM Keir Starmer, congratulating him. I feel sick, 3000 miles away and insulated from the worst. I can only imagine how you feel over there, knowing that you’re about to enter four years of chaos.
The climate is is very real danger, Ukraine and Gaza are effectively for sale, public health is is peril if RFK gets anywhere near it, women’s health in particular hangs on the brink as a national abortion ban looms, the state will be dismantled by Musk in favour of lucrative contracts. Democracy is for sale to the highest bidder.
Will Trump actually serve a full term? His health is visibly declining rapidly, and Vance waits in the wings ready to enact the billionaires’ agenda.
When the dust settles, the USA needs to have a serious conversation about its journalism, media and polling. It also needs to understand how, although we rightly find Trump and his message repulsive, it appeals to such a huge chunk of the population. Trumpism will live on long after the man himself shuffles off, and that’s a bigger problem than the next four years.
I wish you luck. You’re going to need it.
The dust that’s about to rise in America and all over the world won’t be settling for quite some time. A “serious conversation about America’s journalism” will be among the least of worries long before it does.
You might need to rethink who’s going to need the luck. “Fog in Channel, Continent Cut Off” is no longer a credible headline.
“You might need to rethink who’s going to need the luck. “Fog in Channel, Continent Cut Off” is no longer a credible headline.”
That headline was a classic example of British exeptionalism, we believed we were SO superior to our continental neighbours. I use the past tense incorrectly there – we still believe it now otherwise we wouldn’t have taken the catastrophic decision to leave the EU, or as one person put it, “the only time a country has ever imposed sanctions upon itself”.
Keir Starmer’s message to Trump mentioned that the USA are our closest friends, which must have come as a bit of a surprise to our mates in the remaining EU. We love the USA, always will, even though you flew the nest a couple of hundred years ago. But the EU were (still are) our closest neighbour, our biggest trading partner, and our strategic allies. Now more than ever we need to be part of a bloc that can stand up to the worst excesses of Trumpism.
Maybe it’ll work in our favour. Who knows? If a tarrif-happy Trump starts slapping import duty on EU goods, maybe the UK will escape this. Right now all bets are off, because… well.. he’s unpredicable and unstable.
This morning, my son was saying how Trump’s victory isn’t our problem. I speculated how, in a few years, a polio carrier might step off a plane at Heathrow thanks to RFK, and infect our population. Or how an emboldened Putin might start pushing westwards. Literally anything could happen.
Which is a very long-winded (sorry Rayne) way of agreeing with earlofhuntington: the EU and the UK are not safe from Trump by a long shot. I feel your pain.
“Now more than ever we need to be part of a bloc that can stand up to the worst excesses of Trumpism.”
Good luck with that Brexit thing.
The world is not safe from Trump, for a host of reasons. A big one is the Climate Crisis that Trump will make far worse. But you could substitute any number of things for Climate Crisis and be correct.
Ukraine, Gaza, and Taiwan.
As I noted above, I give Vance three months to depose Convict-1 but it is also possible that Vance will wait until the pardons are issued to dodge personal responsibility in 2028. No way in my view Convict-1 serves his full term.
I made my notes about Ukraine and Gaza above, but Taiwan is probably in a better place in some ways starting with being across the water. Their new leadership is committed to independence and a very capable Japanese military is also close by, using USA-compatible gear and will be also very motivated to keep the PRC out. If they are pragmatic, Taipei will assess that USA support will not be forthcoming with the GOP in office and will plan accordingly.
Don’t forget Alaska
I feel pain for my failure to broadcast the facts brought forth in this blog by EW and others.
The oligarchs’ economics of destruction and chaos will accelerate.
Will immmigration actions see some 10th amendment decisions that were side stepped
in Oregon in 2020 when states refuse to enforce upcoming executive orders?
Trump is going to make sure the billionaire’s tax cuts don’t expire.
I suppose the MAGA movement was really worried about them billionaires having to part from their money.
The only hope is that the Dems take the House. But who knows how the Project 2025 will play out.
Can’t wait for the new currency with his picture on it, you know, the one where he’s red with the vest by the garbage truck.
Crushed, disgusted. You get the government you deserve.
At least 50% of the US population.
But what about the other 50%.
This is not like, well, we lost this time, another 4 years and we are back.
Trump did a lot of damage to institutions first term. Another 4 years of Trump, US is not going to be recognizable.
The forces at play in Hungary are taking hold in the US. Not going to be pretty.
Will Rudy say f you judge tomorrow?Will Bannon same next month?
As far as money goes, I’ve a coworker who voted for Trump because he felt his taxes would be better if he and his wife decided to sell their home in the next few years.
Bus driver I talk to wanted Trump because he made and kept more money during that administration. I’m thinking your union contract only gives you a 2% annual increase, you were lucky in last Trump administration but deflation only lasts so long and your next contract is still going to give you another 2% if you’re lucky enough that the Administration doesn’t kill transit.
I just woke up here on the Left Coast. I’m sad for America. How could this have happened?!? I thought there WAS NO WAY he’d set foot into the WH again. WTF?!?
Go figure. Could any rational person have believed that the American people, who turned out in droves to elect Biden, would not turn out even more votes to hold Trump accountable for his incitement of a violent insurrection and his constant lying after his loss in hopes of defrauding Americans of their vote? People must not understand what is at stake.
Yes, it’s downright perverse. The worse he’s become, the better he’s liked. Or at least tolerated, for the bounty these poor suckers believe he’s bringing their way. Trump has the grifting genius to convince people they will somehow benefit from his actions when he’s actually only ever interested in helping himself and his rich donors.
Too many people bought the line that the economy went downhill with Biden/Harris when the exact opposite is true. But it’s very hard to convince people of something once a misdirection has taken hold. For which we can certainly thank the utterly lame fourth estate, who with their silence and their relentless false equivalencing let everyone down. They won’t benefit from Trump either.
I just can’t understand the vote count. 66m for Kamala and 71m for Trump – 2020 was 81m Biden & 74m Trump. 136m votes? I thought this was a high turnout election. We are short 18 million votes to equal 2020.
I had the same question. How was this called record turnout coming in so short on dem and gop votes?
Thanks for pointing out this 17 million vote shortfall from 2020 to 2024. What would explain that roughly 15% of the voters failed to make the effort to vote at all? Voter suppression? Misogyny? Even trump lost 8 million votes (75 million down to 67 million).
Wait until all the votes are counted before drawing too many conclusions about turnout. In California, for example, mail in ballots are counted as long as they are mailed on or before election day, and are delivered by the Post Office within seven days of the election. That means that California probably hasn’t received all of the ballots yet, much less counted them.
People had different stakes. Every trans athlete story, every drag queen reading to toddlers cost the Democrats tens of thousands of votes.
Don’t blame trans people for existing.
And every anti-immigrant speech got immigrants to vote for him? Same with every anti-abortion speech got…?
I could be completely off base here, but I take some comfort from the fact that when Democratic policies are explained to voters without referencing party affiliation, the policies are favored over Republican policies (again, when being explained without referencing party affiliation). This says to me that something other than policy affects how voters make up their minds to vote, and I think that something is those traditional unconscious narratives we’ve been taught about authority figures, and charisma, also by several decades of Fox News grievance-training people to hate the “other” and also to wish for retribution for that “other”. I think that structure and that influence are so pervasive and profound (as is the vast ignorance most regular folks have about what government really does), that all this couldn’t possibly have been countered, and voters won over, in just a few months of campaign messaging.
That so many of us seem so surprised (me for sure) that Trump did so much better than we expected among Latinos and non-college women, for instance, tells me we don’t really know what would move these people, and that possibly their unconscious pulls them to pull the lever for Trump and ignore logic, their own self-interest, and Trump’s Everest levels of hypocrisy (not to mention the wholesale looting of our government that will shortly commence, which our media whores will keep them ignorant of), in favor of a “strong leader” who’ll punish the people they’ve been taught to hate.
If all that’s true, the question I can’t answer is, how did WE not know it was going to happen this way?
WE knew. When WE normalize the monkey in the zoo nonstop in front of US throwing its shit at US,…
It’s probably simpler than that and I’m quite willing to be corrected. It’s about women and whether certain classes of guys will accept women in leadership roles. Techbros, conservative men (including most non-white cultures), incels, young men (as groups) especially the low-education ones all are unwilling to have a woman in charge unless they have to. It’s one reason why letting the GOP have unanswered lying ads on college football last weekend was IMHO stupid. These ads should have been immediately followed by Harris rebuttals, point by point but instead were left to fester in the male minds.
I don’t agree… after all, Hillary easily won the popular vote in 2016, despite two decades of Republican attacks that in any other context would have been slanderous.
It was the “Democrats are cheaters, they are cheating (you) out of your votes and stealing the election from you!” which got out the Republican vote. Two Democrat-led impeachments, four Democrat-led trials, and endless “they cheated! We must overwhelm them with votes so they can’t steal the election again!” got out the vote. Truth isn’t important when that’s all that’s on Fox for four years.
I was born on the cusp of Boomer/GenX, grew up rurally and worked a blue collar manufacturing type job most of my life, in places dominated by men.
I know these men. They hate being “bossed around” by women. Harris could have granted their every material wish, kissed their asses and bought them a beer and they still would have voted for any man over her.
Even though I knew both this, and that the right wing propaganda machine is vast and long-standing, I still really thought the majority of Americans would finally make a break with white man superiority.
I feel really let down, disillusioned with my countrymen and experiencing a feeling of unreality.
am in 7th decade and am in deep despair for all of the vulnerable here & globally.
What will Jack Smith do or be able to do at this point.
—————–
Add on: So Alan Lictman was wrong?
“What will Jack Smith do?”
Run for his life.
Get some thumb drives into a bank vault in Switzerland?
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
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I am sitting here in the dark with my laptop at 4:30 a.m. CST, trying to make sense of how such a wholly unqualified and, in fact, impaired man with so little intellectual heft and a criminal record could possibly win back the presidency of the United States after all the lunatic things he said over the past year? My first thoughts are that the U.S. is, at its core, a racist and sexist country. White, angry males have hijacked the political enviroment and react violently to minor moves toward equality and equity. Early analysis suggests Hispanic men went heavily for Trump this time. To be rude, the chickens went for Colonel Sanders. I honestly don’t know how we recover from this as a nation. Expect extreme resistance.
Very depressing.
What’s going to happen at the sentencing with Merchan?
It’s irrelevant, becuase whatever happens will be quashed the moment Trump assumes office, and doesn’t matter in any case to his supporters.
In fact, incarcerating Trump would be seen as a badge of honour.
It’s all so grim.
Trump has no authority to quash a state court criminal conviction, the case before Juan Merchan. He has even less authority to obstruct the state civil fraud trial before Judge Engoron.
He can delay their consequences, but that won’t be enough for him. He is likely to try extra-legal means to avoid liability. He might withhold billions in federal grants or aid to NY state, for example, to force the state’s cooperation. He’ll delegate finding a rationale to his underlings, and fire them if they’re not successful.
Trump will just ignore any order from the Judge. After all, who can enforce it?
If he has assets or appeals bond in NY state, the state can seize or take them.
time for Trumpy to take a lil post-election vacation somewhere non-extraditable for the holidays, St. Petersburg might be nice for Christmas, returning around Jan 19.
I am 95% hollow inside. I have no words on the Presidential race.
The remaining 5% would be feelings of elation that we here in NC have managed to elect both a sane, qualified Governor and Attorney General. -both Dems in the middle of this Presidential insanity.-
How does that even happen?
The federal judiciary has been a complete and utter failure to hold him to account. A waste of time and expensive salaries to useless government lawyers. They have degraded the law in our country and enabled a despot.
Agreed. Special shout-out to one “quirky” federal judge and six utterly mendacious Supreme Court justices in particular. And by shout out I mean, “fuck all y’all.”
Although this yukky election is causing me a less-than-restful night and the news is undoubtedly terrible for most of the free world, I’m still am optimist by nature and 71 years of life experience. The key for me is to take a long view even though, (because of the Supreme Court implications) that may be a very long time.
Points to note:
“States rights” is a two-way sword — and the US federation is not monolithic. The most populous States where economic power remains concentrated are still on the other side.
Presidential term limits are baked into the US constitution. While presumably Trump could name his heir Apparent, he won’t serve another term.
The US is, well, weird, when you look at it from its long political history. Plenty of grifters and less-than-ideal presidents and political and social violence (a civil war) have characterized its history. The country goes through ebbs and flows and right now is obviously on a nasty “flow” — but the tide will turn again.
It is unfair to blame the news media for the vote results: The trouble is a very large percentage of the population chooses to ignore conventional media or lives within the right/far right ecosystem.
Back in 1987, I managed to game the US immigration system when the country introduced its “Non-Preference” visa lottery. I set up a micro-business to exploit the initial lottery’s rules, that led me to Washington DC at age 34 with about 500 visa applications and a serious camp-out at the Brentwood Postal Station. I ended up with a $5,000 profit and a Green Card for myself. Never fully exercised it, in part because of my discovery that racism in the US goes far beyond Black and White — not much love is lost between many Blacks and Latinos. (A Black immigration officer in Central Los Angeles ‘saved’ my Green Card by allowing me to jump the queue of hundreds of Hispanics when I needed to visit that office to confirm my status.)
I wish the results were different, of course. However, I think many of us will be surprised by how well things turn out in the end.
Rather reminds me of the saying that Americans can be trusted to do the right thing, but only after they’ve exhausted every other possibility first.
However, I doubt that very many in Ukraine – as just one example – share your sunny optimism. The trouble with the longer view is that with corrupt incompetents at the helm, a lot of people, both at home and in the wider world, can go under in the meantime.
“I think many of us will be surprised by how well things turn out in the end.”
You are referring to Trump and Republicans, I take it.
I read your “points to note.” All I can say is that the line for sparkle ponies starts on the right.
If Fox News doesn’t report “it”, “it” doesn’t exist.
If Fox News creates a “fear”, the “fear” is reality.
Inflation, inflation, inflation.
The American justice system structurally failed to hold Trump accountable for January 6, stolen secrets, and general disregard for the rule of law. I blame the SC and their immunity decision for most of this, but I also blame Merrik Garland for choosing a traditional bottom’s up approach that in hindsight guaranteed a slow walk, and the Congressional J6 committee for being more show than substance.
Not one good thing happened in Florida yesterday. The abortion and marijuana amendments failed, even though both had well over 50-percent of the vote (the threshold for amendments is 60-percent). And Republicans swept virtually every meaningful race in what used to be a swing state.
The federal cases against Trump will be gone before the end of January.
This is who we are, I guess.
15M voters didn’t show up for Kamala Harris.
Apparently all you need to win an election is name recognition and the ability to drown out your opponent in the news cycles.
That or America doesn’t like a woman as a leader.
15m undervotes? Or 15m not voted? This is what I can’t wrap my brain around. I live in a deeply red rural north central PA county where support for Trump had been steadily draining. TFG won my county in 2016 80-20. But by 2020 had lost 5% of his support here, winning 75-25.
This cycle, there was widespread display of support for Harris with many MANY more yard signs and billboards that just weren’t there for Biden in 2020. How did all of this rural support for Harris disappear overnight? I fully expected TFG to win my county, but I expected 65-35 or 70-30. Instead it was 81-19 for TFG. With the amount of visible support for Harris so exceeding that which we saw for Biden in 2020, these results make no sense.
15 million less votes for Harris than Biden appears to be a Fox news / GOP lie.
Only 54 percent of votes counted in California right now.
It’s the 2nd part of my post that causes me grave concern.
I will never ever trust computerized vote collection or tabulation.
And as long as the software is proprietary and unavailable for review and affirmation of it’s routines, then neither should you.
I’m confounded that, as of right now, Harris somehow got 15 million less votes than Biden.
This is not the America I thought it was, or maybe I’m naïve to think that misogyny and racism aren’t still so prevalent.
Mysogyny and racism played a non-decisive role here. Don’t forget the last four elections – a black man won the popular vote twice, a white woman won the popular vote once, and a white man with a black woman running mate won the popular vote once.
Repeating what I wrote above:
It was the “Democrats are cheaters, they are cheating (you) out of your votes and stealing the election from you!” which got out the Republican vote. Two Democrat-led impeachments, four Democrat-led trials, and endless “they cheated! We must overwhelm them with votes so they can’t steal the election again!” got out the vote. Truth isn’t important when that’s all that’s on Fox for four years.
The “purity pony” people didn’t help – the ones who stayed home because Biden wasn’t good enough on Gaza, etc., but I doubt they added up to enough votes to make a difference overall.
Given that the last two months he explicitly ran on mysogyny and racism (or patriarchy and white supremacy, if you prefer) I think they likely were decisive.
Heartily disagree. A Black “man” won the presidency twice. A white “woman” lost her bid to be president. A white “man” won the presidency, a dog chases car example, but his VP’s role, like all VP’s, is to do what she’s told.
WHAT THE ACTUAL FVCK, AMERICA!
I am thinking of my Mom, and actually thankful,
because today would have been very difficult for her.
I am thinking of Jimmy Carter.
Has Kamala conceded and I missed it? If not why not?
Few things actually shock me anymore but this has. Something is very wrong in America. I’m more glad than ever that I live on this side of the pond. Unfortunately when America sneezes Europe catches a cold
Living on this side of the pond is alright right here.
Here’s my story:
Grandma escaped Russia at 14 years of age and arrived at Ellis Island ALONE. Settled in NYC. Her children mostly remained nearby, and when we grandchildren visited she’d announce that “I LOVE America”. We’d reply: “Grandma, you’ve never been out of NYC, so you love NYC!”
I remain in the bubble that she loved so much.
There’s still much to love “living on this side of the pond”. LOTS of decent people who will fight our best to protect the more vulnerable.
Seriously considering becoming an expat. First order of business is getting passport renewed while we still *have* a government. I regard this election as the defenestration of reason. I like reason and the things that came out of the Enlightenment, even if my countrymen don’t. European countries are no utopia but have solved many of the problems we can’t — and won’t in the short term — here in the USA.
^^ privileged ^^
Tbh, Rayne, I’m torn between fight or flight. I am just so, so exhausted at the moment. As the child of a German, everything looks like Weimar Republic 1933.
Privileged? Maybe.
Then my great great grandfather was as well when he decided to remove his family from Germany in ‘34.
The other parts of the family were lost to the horror that followed.
Everyone is hurt and angry, accusing those that are fearful enough to contemplate emigrating isn’t fair to them, nor does it look good on you, or anyone else.
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How do you think it felt to those who couldn’t leave Germany in the 1930s? If you’re going to lecture me then you know well the left beind included not only poor Jews but Roma, Blacks, LGBTQ+, disabled, elderly.
Were they just supposed to suck it up while people with money and contacts told them, “We’re planning to leave this mess” and say, “Have a Nice Life Abroad!”
Why are you wasting your time here anyhow? You’ve got less than a half dozen comments under your belt since July and you’ve disregarded moderation.
We’ve been living in Mexico for ten years and love our lives hear. Thankfully we have no kids back in the US. Of course I still love the USA and wish for the best, but they have brought this on themselves. Within 18 months to two years a large percentage of those who voted for Trump will be regretting it. Tariffs will have prices soaring, especially food costs without migrant workers. Construction will also be stalled by a lack of workers so the housing markets will be dismal. There could be a lot of violence if 10-15 million people are targeted for camps and deportation.
I just hope the Mexican people don’t hold it against the ex-pats living here.
I’m been living in Baja for two years and before the election I was about 90% sure that Mexico would be my permanent home.
Yes I too hope that the Mexicans don’t hold it against us.
The fact that Mexico just elected their first woman President who is also Jewish in a supposedly macho Catholic culture and yet the US ?
There’s the minor problem of cartels and gangs murdering persons in office and journalists* and a busload of students, but sure, Mexico.
* my goddess, a fucking Wikipedia page worth
This is actually a reply to Rayne’s uninformed comment. since there is no reply button under his post. The killing of the students was about 5-6 years ago. How many mass murders of kids have there been in the good ol USA since then. You won’t get killed in a church, movie theater, concert, school or synagogue here. (95% of the violence is between cartels and police/federales. In ten years we have experienced virtually no violent crime in the Lake Chapa area. They leave gringos alone because it brings too much heat. Now and then a couple may be killed near resort on the coast. We walk the streets without fear anytime of night. How about you?
Okay, sure. Uninformed.
The Iguala murders were one symptom of a much larger problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Mexico
https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/criminal-violence-mexico
How nice for you you’re a gringo.
Authoritarian followers only regret it when their leader doesn’t go far enough. The hardships he makes them live with, they are a small price to pay for his god-ordained rule. However many followers he might at the edges, he makes up for in volume.
Since I lived in the US most of my life, but also in Belgium, Germany and now Mexico I believe I have a decent idea about violence in many places. No place I have lived comes close to the everyday violence that takes place in the US. Iguala is a symptom of a larger problem? Give me a break. I don’t have the time to list the mass murders, mostly of children in the US in the past 10 years. You think it’s going to get better now with Trump, a Republican congress and Supreme Court? Mexico just elected a woman of partially Jewish heritage as President. Reading headlines and truly knowing about the facts are very different my friend. Yes there are problems in Mexico. Corruption, cartels, poverty. But, they have a national healthcare system, medical costs are a fraction of the US and the care is better and personal. We moved my wife’s elderly aunt here several years ago because of the incredible cost of elderly care in the US. She lives in lovely place here with gardens instead of a highrise for les than half the cost. The Mexican people respect their elders and care for them in their families. The climate where we live is rated as top five in the world. I can only hope most people in the US are as uninformed as you and do not decide to move here to avoid the disaster that is looming up north.
Is gringo supposed to be a slur?
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“You think it’s going to get better now with Trump, a Republican congress and Supreme Court?”
As I noted a bit ago, 500,000 to one million Americans died thanks to Trump’s crappy governance in his first term. I expect he and his collection of “the best people” will try to exceed that number this next term. No gun violence required on their part the first time around.
Your use of the term “gringo” was your own acknowledgment of privilege. Is it a slur? It was your word choice.
I hope everyone here takes a minute to let it all out and then gets back to the work. This fight is with us for the rest of our lives, at least.
Trump said he’ll be dictator on Day One. John Roberts gave him nearly complete immunity while POTUS.
Trump suggests he’ll use the military on ‘the enemy from within’ the U.S. if he’s reelected
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-suggests-hell-use-the-military-on-the-enemy-from-within-the-u-s-if-hes-reelected
What fight? He’ll use the military against us.
I cited this to my republican husband & when he said something to the effect that I had believed a lie from trump I threw something at him & got angrier than I ever have at another human being. I then left the room telling him to never say such a thing to me again. Later he came to me actually pulling that republican crap about me misinterpreting his statement. I chose to be resigned to his ignorance. Then he noted that all morning I had seemed to feel wronged. I decided that I have to just take all of this one day/hour/minute at a time.
Majority of Americans voted for bigotry. From the beginning, a hate filled campaign and one has to be taught to hate.
A constant barrage of insulting hateful remarks, misogynistic rhetoric, crude sexual simulation with a microphone, demeaning immigrants, devaluing countries and blaming everyone else for the problems of this country.
How do you explain hateful words and crass behavior to your children? How do you explain to your children this exploiter of humanity is again president?
Obviously, moral character doesn’t matter to many Americans.
I wanted to post about possible scenarios that would justify Biden doing something – extraordinary – with his (same as Trump) Superpowers.
But I like it here and since I just left Xitter for good…
I’ll let saner minds complete the scenario gaming and conclude why it can’t – and with Biden – would never play out.
On a personal note…I think hunkering down and saving – virtually eliminating – any and all discretionary spending. After all Musk said….pain is a coming.
I think Musk was alluding to cutting gov expenses like Soc Sec, Medicare, VA benefits to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. trump’s trailer parkers asked for it and they’re going to get it. trump is going to put us in a power dive greater depression that will bring the Dems back in 28. That’s the pattern, GOP makes a mess and Dems clean it up. Forever R SCOTUS is the complicating factor.
Can hardly wait for the next plague we’ll have to clean up with a hollowed-out FDA. *sigh*
There wont be a fair election in 2028. The democratic party will be outlawed as an enemy of the (fascist) state
I think that misunderestimates the breadth of Elon Musk’s ambitions. If given the chance, he would do much more than cut regulations.
I feel worse than I did when Russia and corporate media first helped Trump win in 2016 because I know by experience how bad a president he will be. And now he has a bunch of quasi-intellectual, fascist miscreants who are ready to destroy the systems that we have built over centuries and decades to protect the health and well being of not only Americans but also the world.
Does anyone know what percentage of eligible voters decided to sit this one out yet?
Joe Biden should order the release of the complete subpoenas without redactions in the January 6th and Mar-a-Lago documents case along with the supporting evidence. If it’s not released, it will all disappear the moment Donald Trump takes office and all of the guardrails are gone.
And that does not even require a SCOTUS bestowed POTUS Superpower. See above.
You must not read here much, if you think it works that way, or that Joe Biden would take that step anyway. Trump will make it work that way, but that’s part of his revolution-in-plain sight.
Yesterday a blunt hunch plays out in a sliver of the electorate not completely in the MAGA bubble: that the rapist/fraudster/insurrectionist is ‘old news;’ is a kitschy villain from past seasons. ‘He’s not THAT bad.”
Another hunch among the now decideds: CFTFG is the person who will serve one’s economic self-interest through a renewed application of ‘the business of America is business.’ Bannon, Elon, RFKJr roll up their sleeves. There is a Trumpist elite too. For them: to the winner go the spoils. After all, Putinism is the live model.
Implicit here is an unspecifiable degree of white supremacy/aggrieved patriarchy/apostolic eliminativism. We will eventually learn that for some voters democracy was the main issue and so CFTFG got their vote. This makes sense: the Fox/Newsmax/OANN/etc. bubble is now the gold standard of political hoodwinking.
Pogo, right again. What to do? Keep up the fight.
It was difficult watching Harris not being able to match Biden’s numbers in 2020 in certain areas.
And this leads me to wonder whether Harris made a mistake in not talking more about Trump’s mismanagement of the Pandemic and its effect on the economy. And also more about Trump’s tariffs and their inflationary impact. She fell into the trap laid by the media in its quest for gotcha moments. She talked more specifically and coherently about her economic plans than Trump did. But it was never enough. And the Trump voters obviously didn’t care that he was vague.
As I watched the returns with increasing concern, I also started thinking of what Biden can do in the next 2 months to safeguard democracy and the rule of law. The easiest step would be to issue pardons to all of those whom Trump has identified as Enemies of the People. But I don’t think you can pardon people before they have been indicted.
IMO, nothing Harris could have done differently would have made a difference.
re: “what Biden can do in the next 2 months to safeguard democracy and the rule of law.”
I’m pretty sure that Biden/Harris [maybe together with ALL of those National Security people who voiced their fears about Trump] must be thinking the same thing.
Agree – Trump won this, but Harris ran a near-perfect campaign. It’s not always the loser’s fault they lost.
Harpie
I agree with you.
I think that assessments prior to election day viz the Harris campaign was as good as it could have been was probably correct, give or take matters entirely at the margins.
That it was insufficient in the end to reach all the unreachables is down to forces beyond her and the campaign’s control.
That the media has evolved to a point where the propaganda of fascists and fascism is routinely normalised is beyond the scope of being rectified by one campaign.
In as much as the result has shown that the broad pro-democracy movement has organised in a way that has been too little to late, the fault lies with those who have spent years naysaying from the sidelines.
I fear for the future of the US and the world. But Harris has shown both the necessity of broad pro-democracy coalitions to resist fascism, and the possibility that it might be successful.
The imperative has only got greater with this setback. But let none of us undermine the necessity for renewed action and the possibility of success in the future, by self sabotaging by needless and erroneous finger pointing. We need to build on the clear successes, because only by organising the forces against fascism which clearly exist in substantial numbers can we defeat fascism and the delusions it depends on to reproduce itself.
Nixon was pardoned before he was indicted. I worry Trump would just ignore pardons and do whatever he wanted to do anyway.
Trump, as president, can do that with impunity, thanks to his pet Sup. Ct.
Everyone else needs a pardon, if they’re going to commit crimes for him. They can’t assume that Democrats will never retake the government before the statutes of limitation run.
What just happened?
The most informative info I’ve seen on whatever it was is this county-by-county analysis by WaPo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/11/05/compare-2020-2024-presidential-results/
The graphic compares county-level vote-tally percentages, 2024 (Harris v. Trump) to 2020 (Biden v.Trump).
On a county-by-county basis, literally the whole country shifted toward the red. There were a few regional shifts towards the blue including an area around Atlanta, a few counties Asheville NC, and a very slight shift in northern UT – western CO. Elsewhere, voting patterns shifted toward the Dems in isolated counties here and there. But the predominant and overwhelming pattern was red shift – sometimes strong by 10% or more, sometimes weak with Trump gaining just a few percentage points compared to 2020, but almost always shifting towards the red.
Why did that happen? I can’t figure it out, but it happened. I must live in a bubble, did not see it coming.
That’s one of the saddest graphics I’ve seen in a long time.
The campaigns are (supposedly) working block-by-block. Don’t be deceived by anything published by WaPo or NYT. Trump’s numbers – his actual voters – were not dramatically up. Biden/Harris numbers were dramatically down.
P.S. This was not true in my area – suburban blue midwest. Turnout was somewhat down for both, lots of 3rd party in the margins. Our Senator, Representative, State Supreme Court Chief Justice, County Commissioner, State Rep., County Park Commissioner, and City Council Member (1 of 2) will all be women who won roughly 60-70% of the votes in their contests. Only white guy – longtime Mayor – at 55%.
Don’t be deceived
I was thinking the same thingNYTt and wapo I wouldn’t trust their numbers anymore than FOX news
I have to wonder if the stock market would be up – as much or even just up – had Harris prevailed. Market does not like uncertainty? Or market likes Trump (more than Harris)?
We seem to be in upside down land.
My head must have been upside down relative to the actual upside down reaction of stock markets. As the election results became obvious last night, my note-to-self was to call my retirement fund first thing in the morning and withdraw funds for two must-do house projects. After seeing the markets, I decided to let things set for a little longer.
Read “The Dollars Rise Isn’t a Vote of Confidence in Trump”
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/11/05/opinion/thepoint#dollar-value-rise-trump
In case you can’t access the article:
“Here’s the chain: The dollar rose mainly because Trump has promised to raise tariffs sharply. Higher tariffs would raise the prices Americans pay for imported products. That would lift inflation. The Federal Reserve would then have to fight the inflation by raising interest rates, or at least cutting rates less than it would have to otherwise. And higher interest rates on U.S. debt would attract global investors, raising the demand for dollars. Because traders expect that to happen, they aren’t waiting. They’re buying dollars now.”
I hope that’s not too much to copy here. Sorry if it is.
“What, Me Worry?”
Mad MAGA-zine lives on.
-What exactly happens when your fresh fruits&veggies rot on the vine because white boys&girls won’t pick them?
I’ve thought that several times now. What exactly happens, indeed.
There have been claims inflation hurt Harris’s chances. Hah. You ain’t seen nothing yet when you can’t buy US-grown fruits and vegetables and all shipped in from overseas are burden by tariffs.
It’s just semantics, but do you think maybe we should start using a different word than “overseas”…just to show actual reality?
Canada[?] Mexico and points south will be included.
That’s a really good observation.
Mexico accounts for nearly a quarter of our agricultural imports as of 2023.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/international-markets-u-s-trade/countries-regions/usmca-canada-mexico/mexico-trade-fdi/
True. My fridge contains vegetables grown in Canada right now. Grapes this winter will come from Peru, among other places; they will likely have been trucked, not shipped on water or by air.
Interesting how the “global food chain” has mirrored the global supply chain. Transportation nerds would probably tell us it’s been a parallel development for over a century, with inter-modal containerization giving both processes a booster shot.
Or how ‘bout when Bobby K Jr gets a hold of HHS budget and shuts-down evidence-based biomedical research efforts?
Why are you against freedom of choice?
/s
I remember when inflation was double digits and my mortgage rate was over 10%. In spite of the constant pounding of the courtier press, there is no ‘runaway inflation’ but actually a rate below the rest of the developed world.
This was and always will be a courtier press failure to truthfully describe Convict-1, his policies and his actual accomplishments. Faux and its ilk, as well as CNN did the heavy lifting for free.
My pet theory is that Trump is nothing more than the oligarchs’ useful idiot/front man. So they will not let him impose drastic tariffs across the board. They will let him do some tariffs for show – much like he did in his first term. And they will let him nibble at trade agreements and claim he did great reform, much like he did with NAFTA.
He will make a show of round ups and deportations. Like Bush did with the poultry processing plants in Mississippi. And to the extent that agriculture and the trades suffer from lack of cheap labor, Trump will institute a draconian version of workfare.
JD Vance is the oligarchs’ man. He has no reason to be loyal to Trump. If I were in Trump’s shoes, I’d be keeping Vance close. I give Trump two years before he retires to Mar a Lago. He’ll get his vengeance and then get bored or forced out.
That show with the unnecessary tariffs totally borked US soybean farmers, causing the market to shift to Brazilian soybeans, which in turn caused the destruction of even more carbon-sink rain forest for farmland.
Even the little gestures will have massive blowback.
What you suggest is quite possible. What he said and what he does maybe two different things, depending upon what the billionaire class wants.
trump has talked about “rounding up” 10 million undocumented people and deporting them. He has also said they might include people who were not “undocumented”. I’ve just always wondered how you “round up” 10- million people, many of whom own guns. I recall reading years ago, there were more guns than people in the U.S.A. Trump has said he will use National Guard people and possibly federal military people. What if they all resign or decide they aren’t going to do what he orders them to do?
If all those people were deported,, who would be left to do the work in the U.S.A.?
My take on trump and his threats is he is trying to compensate for his short comings.
Can’t disagree more. There will be no moderation in the second TFG term. Who would even be left to be a “moderate” in the next administration? And GOP “think”-tanks have already been at work identifying the non-politically-appointed government employees to be fired. We are in for some really bad shit come January.
Yup. In 2017 he waited a full week to ban Muslims. What does a less moderate approach look like in January 2025?
No takers on that prediction. It assumes Trump is a puppet, a passive vessel. Ask his campaign staff how easy it is to get him to take direction, even when it would avoid self-destruction.
Trump may be easily manipulated by the rich and powerful, especially by hard dictators in other countries, who would eat him as a snack, were he among their opposition. But he is an active agent. His whimsical demands are legion, as is his petty, vindictivr willingness to destroy those reluctant to pursue them with sufficient vigor.
Can’t wait to see how America begins to grow coffee
Hawaii already does. I imagine some grower is already eyeing up southern US locations.
Reply to Rayne
November 6, 2024 at 12:15 pm
https://fas.usda.gov/data/production/commodity/0711100
As of 2023 the US ranked 38th worldwide at coffee production, only 50k bags. For comparison, #1 Brazil produced 66.3 million bags that year.
US coffee imports were almost $9 billion in 2022.
Ain’t near enough cheap land in Hawaii, nor enough time elsewhere, for domestic coffee production to replace imports once tariffs begin. Coffee is going to be much, much more expensive, and soon.
Dude. I’m part Hawaiian; most of my family is in Kona district and some are involved in coffee. But the point is this: Americans with most expertise in coffee growing inside the US live in Hawaii.
I did say they’re probably looking at southern US, yes? Like Georgia? Frankly surprised there hasn’t been more focus already on increasing productivity in Puerto Rico.
Learn to appreciate chicory in the meantime.
Reply to Rayne
November 6, 2024 at 3:35 pm
I am not trying to besmirch your heritage; far from it! I am trying to illustrate how harmful the impending tariffs will be to Americans in one single easy-to-understand analogy for a commodity that a lot of Americans consume daily, myself included. Tariffs will harm more than just coffee consumers, but also importers, and yes even domestic growers! Not to mention roasters and coffeeshops.
The Hawaiian coffee growing season ends next month as you probably well know. Even if there had been some sort of crystal ball, there’s no way domestic production this year could have come close to replacing imports. And starting up new coffee ventures in places where the land costs less than Hawaii will still be prohibitively expensive, not to mention time and labor costs. If tariffs begin on “day one” (just like the promised fascism), there’s no way to replace that many beans, cheaply relative to imports, in 8-9 months. Plus where is anyone going to find farm laborers once deportations begin, presumably on the same timeline?
Chicory.
https://www.eattheweeds.com/cichorium-intybus-burned-to-a-crisp-2/
https://www.johnnyseeds.com/vegetables/chicory/
We’ll have a shortage of entry level workers when trump starts rounding up illegal looking people with dark skin. Business owners will convince him to stop ($$$ gifts) and it will become another hollow stunt like the Mexican paid wall, but inflation will be ignited by then. trump will take direct control of the Fed when things get bad and then they’ll get much worse.
I picture this deportation bullshit becoming a grift. “I’ll look the other way if you just happened to buy a golf membership…“
Imagine Trump doing that for every policy across the whole USG. Whatever grift he engaged in last time, move the decimal point to the right at least one space this time.
I’m thinking about Donnie’s hotel and golf course restaurants, and the imported ingredients they use.
Secretaries of State must take every care that no ballots are destroyed.
I’m predicting McConnell will end the filibuster in the next Congress to grease the skids for Trump’s appointees.
I suspect blue slips are done for also.
Gotta get the dictator dictatin’ ASAP. He has a mandate, don’cha know…
Interesting you bring up McConnell, given how he promised to leave the leadership role after the election. I doubt he will, so assess how worthwhile his promises are.
Potentially at risk? (Except in those cases where big business can find a way to feed at the public trough.)
— NPR and PBS
— Arts and cultural funding
— Amtrak and other passenger rail
— Rural transportation
— Efforts to reduce drug prices
— Oversight on Durable Medical Equipment costs
— Rural health care (prevention, treatment, etc.)
— Food Safety
— Pollution prevention, including “waters of the U.S.”
— Environmental regulation in any form
— Renewable energy
— Postal Service
— Consumer safety and fraud protection
— Transparency and accountability in the Executive Branch
— Worker rights (especially union rights)
— Worker safety, including child labor protections
— Privacy
— Women’s rights in almost any form
— Non-binary rights in almost any form
— Freedom of speech
— Any apparent conflict with or control of firearms “rights”
— Support for education
— And the list goes on…
I feel like crying. I am so afraid for our environment and parks. These MAGAssholes will destroy it all to make a buck, er, “create jobs and energy independence.”
Good point. To Trump and his buddies, the national parks are just real estate — real estate that is horribly under-utilized. Their obvious solution is to develop and sell.
The May 2021 cover story for The Atlantic was “Give the National Parks to the Tribes”. Given the choice between (1) commercialization, (2) the status quo, and (3) returning to the original stewards, I’d take #3. There would be strong opposition by moneyed interests, but I always remember S.I. Hayakawa’s comment on a similar issue: “We should keep the Panama Canal. After all, we stole it fair and square.”
Add “American innovation” to the list, if they’re serious about killing DOE and making major “efficiency” cuts in discretionary spending. Government funding powers university research in this country, and university research feeds private-sector innovation.
University’s? They’re a hotbed of wokeism. Turn every federally funded research program of a University into proving the Bible.
Philip Mirowski has some good stuff on the neoliberal program to reshape higher education and scientific research. Has nothing to do with wokeism, it’s actually about turning all knowledge into IP that can be exploited for profit.
They’ve also been turning politics into a “marketplace of ideas”, and since markets are all about money, money wins the discussion.
All the articles declaring neoliberalism dead in the face of Joe Biden were always laughably ignorant of the deeper game being played. Neoliberalism has set up a number of supranational institutions to govern trade and they continue unabated.
(This is not textbook neoliberalism, btw, it’s the perversion of neoliberalism wrought by capitalists that’s in effect; but it’s fairly close.)
So, no, they won’t be trying to prove the Bible. They have serious stakes in mind.
Mike Johnson already said he wants to kill the CHIPS Act.
He back pedaled last week.
https://apnews.com/article/mike-johnson-chips-act-d5504f76d3aa0d5b401216f3592c9a09
Reply to Rayne
November 6, 2024 at 3:37 pm
Undoubtedly a hedge on his part. I do not trust Johnson at all, nor has he given anyone reason for trust.
Speaking of Speaker Mike, now the suspense is building. Who is going to tell us their little secret? Mike Johnson, or Donald Trump?
My eyes may have missed one of the prized US gov’t organizations that several rich bastards have lusted after:
NWS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Weather_Service)
Add National Parks to that list
Yes. A big gap in my list. (See reply to Matt Foley.)
It was the Oligarchs who won this election. They put so much money into it on both sides that they were bound to win, either way. Except, with this “winner,” it will be a lot easier.
7 out of the 10 top billionaire donors supported Trump. The billionaires bought this election. Citizen United opened the door to all this money.
I’m giving two to one odds that Trump wouldn’t make it through this second term. He’ll die, be removed by 25th amendment or impeached.
That’s theft. That prediction is not new and its odds of coming true are much better than 2:1.
Can we at least establish a pool with different ways that tfg will be “disposed of”? And which domestic and/or foreign agent used which tools? Perhaps a new on-line, real-time version of Clue?
Turned on the t.v. last night at 9 p.m. and didn’t feel well after that. Needed ice cream and biscotti. Didn’t help either.
Harris ran a good campaign. There was no real reason to not vote for her, except she is a woman of colour and the U.S.A. still isn’t ready for that.
Trump and his gang told a lot of lies and people accepted it as truth, it was beyond me that people might even be sober if they believed people were eating the pets of others. Like how do you even make that up unless you aren’t playing with a full deck
It is now 8:19 a.m. on the west coast of Canada and I still haven’t managed to get to sleep. I’m still in shock, Trump was re elected and no one held a gun to the heads of Americans to force them to vote for him. Beyond me and its scary. Most of Canada’s population is quite close to the border, about 200-3o0 miles. If Trump goes ahead as he said he would Mexico and Canada will be negatively impacted. Trump has already talked about all that fresh water Canada has and all that needs to be done is “turn on the tap”. News flash for the idiot. We’re having droughts in B.C and forest fires in Alberta and B.C. start earlier each year. We won’t be sharing any water. Like hasn’t he heard of desalinization plants. Israel uses them. if any of Trump’s actions cause civil unrest in the U.S.A. I’m sure it will impact Canada and Mexico. We can hope Trump and Vance eat a bad burger or some such thing. In the meantime worrying will not help, but seems unavoidable.
I’m seeing anecdotal reports of people who were notified their ballots were received and processed, and now upon checking those ballots aren’t in the systems. Many state, the ones that should have been blue…
Ifor my personal situation I live outside the US but am a resident and vote in a red state so I checked my ballot was received but there is no way to know if my vote was actually counted
Anecdata on the hellsite under the tag “trumpcheated”. at least 15 million FEWER Dems than in 2020, but nearly the same number of Rs?
https://xcancel.com/TheSharkPunch/status/1854181577871577373#m
And someone whose ballot was rejected for a signature that they’ve had for 18 years, and someone else had theirs rejected *twice*, once for zip code.
Hinky. Very.
A hard rain’s gonna fall.
The Ds cannot run women Presidential candidates anymore. Most in this country dislike/distrust women to some degree no matter what your politics are. Much further in the future I hope a woman can be elected President but I even doubt that. I’m not despairing. It’s just reality and Ds should accept it and nurture the best future male candidates for President.
No. Flood the pipeline with women at all levels of leadership to make it obvious women can and do lead.
Ditto persons of color and disability and LGBTQ+ candidates and electeds. They are us and they should be an active part of our democracy.
It’s only a matter of time before a woman does succeed to the presidency, but it won’t happen without addressing the bottlenecks to this success.
As Rayne says, what you hope for in the future, you have to make today. That’s how it works.
Dems are 0-2 for female prez candidates and 1-2 for VP, that’s not winning.
We’ve got plenty of time to cogitate there, probably won’t be another free and fair presidential election for the foreseeable future. Somebody, maybe Don Jr, will be put in charge of decapitating opposition parties, maybe literally.
… ignoring the facts that a) Hillary beat Trump by a substantial number of votes in the popular vote, b) VPs usually don’t win (5 out of 15 who ran for president since 1933, not counting this election) and c) Republicans are the party of stupid people (to paraphrase J. S. Mill), or “followers” if you prefer, which gives them a big head start in every election.
Yeah, let’s cave to the misogynists. Great solution.
Come on.
No. I disagree in stating “most in this country dislike/distrust women.” It is the lack of respect for women. Our country is steeped in a patriarchal society. The constant misogyny and sexist statements by Trump during the campaign were tolerated and ignored. Remember, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab’em by the pussy.”
Immature and insecure words disrespecting and devaluing women. He has given permission to be abusive from the moment he descended the escalator years ago. How do you explain the rudeness to your children? How do you explain crass behavior and nasty words directed at women to your children? What are we teaching our children when they hear and see disrespect of others?
Abusive behavior is toxic. Rewarding abusive behavior is toxic to our society. We as a society need to loudly shout, “Stop rewarding abusive behavior. Refuse to be abused.”
“If you cannot respect women, you cannot respect anybody else – because it is from women you come.” Osho
Old Donald Trump is an interesting specimen. I watched a few minutes of video of him recently, mildly exerting, taking a few golf swings. Right after this he was being interviewed and appeared quite short of breath. He was noticeably gasping and this interfered with his ability to say more than a couple of words at a time, without gasping for his next breath. Heart patients are often this way with exertion. When you factor in his age, obesity, diet, and sedentary lifestyle. He easily could be high risk for heart attack or stroke. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, and how long he is a Strongman is anyone’s guess.
Newly selected Senator Slotkin from MI states how she is going work with Trump.
Is she that clueless?
No. She’s not. She’s from a district here which is fairly conservative, squeaked by a conservative competitor in Mike Rogers, and a state which he has now won twice. She’s being realistic in how she presents herself given his attitude toward “that woman from Michigan.”
More or less placating a dementia patient and his MAGA audience in an acceptance speech for long-term benefits.
ADDER: You do realize the race had been projected for Rogers, yes, and there may be butt hurt here in MI that it didn’t turn out that way?
From Heather Cox Richardson, November 7, 2024 – Letters from an American [email protected]
White nationalist Nick Fuentes posted, “Your body, my choice. Forever,” and gloated that men will now legally control women’s bodies. His post got at least 22,000 “likes.” Right-wing influencer Benny Johnson, previously funded by Russia, posted: “It is my honor to inform you that Project 2025 was real the whole time.”