Now What?
I’ve had lots of feelings about that miserable election: anger, hostility, fear, worry, and more. But life goes on. Now what?
Self-Care
I practiced bankruptcy law for 25 years, mostly representing middle-class people who got hammered by one of the four most common causes of financial distress — divorce, illness/injury, job loss, and financial crashes. Almost all of my clients were shocked and horrified that things had come to the place where they needed to consult a lawyer. I had one piece of advice: take care of yourself. You can’t help anyone else if you’re totally stressed out.
It’s good advice. I took it myself, in fact, I’m still taking it. I did a media cleanse: no billionaire media, quit reading newsletters and Substacks, got off Xitter, and limited my screen time. I watched movies, read novels, talked to my friends over dinner and drinks. I cleaned out closets and drawers, took a close look at expenditures, and talked to my stock broker.
I’ve read this site, and the comments. I moved to Bluesky (@edwalker.bsky.social) and used the starter packs to replace my curated list of follows on Xitter. I’m exercising and eating mindfully. It’s helping.
The Blame Game
I’ve been thinking about why the election turned out so badly. Of course there are many reasons for a huge loss, but these seem make me angriest.
1. Voters. Democracy only works if voters can discriminate among candidates. Donald Trump is a law-breaker, a sexually abusive creep, and a business and governmental failure. People who think this repulsive demented jerk is a plausible candidate and voted for him and people who refused to vote failed the basic test of democracy. There is no excuse for this. With the exception of Muslims who refused to support genocide, discussed below, those people failed as citizens.
2. Billionaire media. The billionaire-owned and controlled media (the “BM”) rehabilitated and enabled Trump. When Trump was impeached for inciting a riot to hold on to power after getting whipped n the 2020 election, the BM announced that the impeachment was futile. Then when the coward Mitch McConnell protected him the BM patted itself on the back and announced that Trump was the leading candidate for 2024. Then he was discovered to have stolen critical national security documents from the government and refused to return them. The BM treated this as spectacle, thrilled by his contempt of law, and continued to treat Trump as the leading Repub candidate.
Meanwhile, the BM’s political reporters decided that inflation was Biden’s fault because of all the government spending on COVID relief, infrastructure and bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US. This was a lie. The primary cause of inflation was supply chain blockages brought on by corporate just-in-time practices. Prices rose as supply dropped, just as predicted by Econ 101 textbooks.
But when supply chain problems eased, prices didn’t come down as predicted by those textbooks. The largest US corporations have oligopolistic market power, and were able to keep prices rising. This was a replay of the mid-1970s when right-wing economists pretended inflation was caused by Keynesian spending instead of the ripple effects of OPEC price hikes. Sadly, BM political reporters lack the capacity to learn from the experience of being bamboozled.
By mid-2023 it was obvious that Biden’s policies were bringing our economy to a soft landing, and many economists (not the right-wing toads) began calling for the Fed to reduce interest rates. The Fed, led by a Republican, refused. That helped keep inflation from falling. BM political reporters blamed Biden for all it.
It doesn’t matter why. They failed. They are to blame.
3. The Democratic Party. Famous Will Rogers quote: “I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”
The election was a massive failure of Democratic “leadership,” the timid politicians, the know-it-all rich donors with their hands out, and the incompetent consultants. They all failed. They all should head to a monastery or convent and spend the rest of their days in shame and prayers for forgiveness on account al the people Trump will hurt physically and psychologically.
There is no Democratic Party. There are a bunch of politicians who claim the label, and their supporters and apparatchiks. They won’t help a single person now. For years lefties have begged them to do things that will help people directly — things like raising the minimum wage, protecting voting rights, strengthening labor laws, and reducing student debt, legislating abortion rights, and much more. Zippo.
We begged them to attack the policies and the politicians of the stupid party. We begged them to defend against the Ratfuckers’ ugly attacks on teachers, librarians, liberal clerics, college students, intellectuals, scientists, not-White people, asylum-seekers, LGBTQ+ people, and anyone with a brain capable of telling right from wrong. We begged them to communicate forcefully their successes. We begged them to use the power we gave them to help all of us flourish. They refused. They took our money and our time and then punched the dirty fucking hippies for funsies.
Time to clean House and Senate.
All right, big mouth, now whatcha gonna do?
1. There are a couple of things I can do locally, and I’m going to try to do them, hopefully in the company of people better equipped than I to accomplish them.
2. I’m going to continue with my current project of examining what it means to be an individual in current US society. But instead of treating it as a personal project, I’m going to try to make it more useful. More on that later.
3. I think the Democratic Party as currently constituted is purely transactional. It has no center, no reason for existing. There is nothing to bind us to the party. Instead, we are expected to support people who have claimed the label, regardless of whether or not they are furthering our goals.
As an example, Muslims who voted for Biden were asked to vote for the party’s chosen successor, Kamala Harris, despite her apparent support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its attacks on Lebanon and Hezbollah, its evident attempts to stir up war with Iran, and the close connection between the Israel’s odious warmonger Netanyahu and Trump.
Compare this to the 2012 election. We were asked to support Obama and his team despite their flat refusal to hold Wall Street accountable for causing the Great Crash. We were asked to support Obama’s choice to “foam the runway”, to allow the perps keep all the money they stole and use it to buy up all the houses that went into foreclosure. We were told to ignore the fate of millions of our fellow citizens who suffered loss of homes and savings. I didn’t vote for him. I couldn’t. How could I demand that Muslims support Harris in the face of genocide? How could anyone? Maybe other people felt similarly about other failures to deliver on promises.
The Democratic Party is not our friend, and it’s not going to help. We all have to figure out how to fix the mess that crowd of failures created. The shell of the party remains. I might be able to help with one obvious problem the lack of a governing theory.
4. I’m going to continue to attack the MAGAts on SCOTUS. I know how to read their bullshit opinions, and I know what plausible jurisprudence is, and I can and will show my contempt.
5, I think another serious problem is that we have no way to communicate with a large audience. By we, I mean thoughtful left-leaning writers and thinkers. We have no mass media presence, and we aren’t likely to develop one under a Trump administration.
At the Democratic Convention the Harris team centered a group of what it called “content creators,” people with podcasts. TikTok followers, Instagram accounts, and other ways of communicating. Those reach some of our target audience and could reach more.
Maybe that’s a way forward? Some kind of grouping of these content creators? Some sensible organization that stretches across all these forums? A coherence based on common goals and maybe even a theory? Maybe some way to make a little money?
Conclusion
We’re all going to have to find a way forward. Any thoughts?
_________
Front page photo: Detail of The Last Judgment by Giovanni da Modena, a fresco at the Cathedral of Bologna, Italy. Photo by Artemisia.
I’m picturing my friends who belong to religious orders, and the leaders of their communities that I have met, and I’m trying to imagine their reactions to such folks showing up on their doorsteps.
Some would laugh, and others would shake their heads sadly. All of them, though, would then say something like this: “You know that this isn’t just a place to run away from the world and wallow in your failures and sins, right? After your prayers have helped you get some clarity about the sins for which you are responsible and the damage they have caused others, perhaps you might want to pray for the wisdom to address the problems you’ve caused, then pray for the strength to actually do something that makes things right, or at least makes them better.”
Opinion piece from the Daily Beast
Dear Trump voters,
“Four years from now, when we look around at a remade America, what are you hoping to see? How do you expect your life to improve? How do you expect your nation to improve? How are you going to judge this second, riskier presidency?”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-question-all-trump-voters-will-have-to-answer/
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things and I can,
and for fuck’s sake already, the wisdom to know the difference.
I think there are themes in history (a concept Jacques Barzun focused on his book From Dawn to Decadence) that go in cycles. One of those themes is inclusion and exclusion. I think the world currently is in an ascending exclusion cycle and the US is part of that. Trump is riding the exclusion wave.
The Declaration of Independence is our national raison d’etre. It is an inclusive statement. Everyone’s created equal, everyone’s got unalienable rights, government is created to guard those rights and if it won’t it should be replaced. I think in very simple terms Democrats believe in inclusion and the concept of the Declaration of Independence. I think Republicans believe in exclusion and do not believe in the concepts of the Declaration, most notably everyone’s not created equal. The recent rulings of the Supreme Court are designed to exclude various groups from rights and societal protection and to institutionalize exclusion forever legally throughout the country.
For this election, when Democratic management (I hesitate to say leadership) turned away from perceived inclusion and/or demonstrated an inability to implement it, they suffered a decadence (a falling away by Barzun’s definition) from its membership. The Gaza slaughter partnering is the most notable example. Inflation is also notable because inflation is exclusive by its very nature and Democrats mismanaged the perception of their ability to manage it.
The country’s major internal problem from day one has been the battle between exclusionists and inclusionists. We fought a Civil War over it. The Civil War ended but the there was no accepted legitimacy for the winner’s position as there was, e.g., by Germany and Japan after WWII. We have an accepted, fixated, entrenched exclusionist belief system. In a sort of melding of Marcy’s education post and this one. I think the key to moving forward is education about the cancerous application of exclusion in our society, how it never allows to get where we want to be. I don’t have answer for how to best do that. I imagine Peterr is best qualifed for a viable suggestion.
People like me have educated (in my case) thousands about exclusion over decades. In my case, almost half a century. There are untold numbers of formal and informal teachers who have devoted themselves to this work, sometimes at great personal expense.
My life’s work went nowhere in the end.
In any case, it is a bit late to call for education when the wheels have fallen off the democratic cart.
We need heavy lifting.
This is an insightful comment, thanks. As we saw in The Second Founding and The Nation that Never Was, the original constitution was heavily exclusionary, while the Declaration is inclusive. The original Constitution excluded women, favored some states over others, and of course accepted slavery.
MAGA SCOTUS believes in exclusion, as you say. It’s emphasis on reverting to the original intent insures that any change by legislation is just as difficult as amending the Constitution.
“the original constitution was heavily exclusionary, while the Declaration is inclusive”
Historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote about that in her November 19
“Letters from an American” about the consecration of Gettysburg in 1863:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-19-2024-tuesday
LINCOLN: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”
The Preamble or as I say the intent of the law is always “aspirational” while the law making is where the deals get made. While there was no other country like the US, it took pretty ugly deals to go from the Declaration to the Constitution. Lincoln held the idea together and guided America toward the aspirations of the Declaration, but we lost the peace due to overlooking virulent and persistent racism*.
* “….there was no accepted legitimacy for the winner’s position…” Ugh.
They seem to confuse the Constitution with the Articles of Confederation, which is replaced in its entirety.
Very well said.
Inclusion, exclusion, control, prerogative, belief, delusion. To my mind, these all are entwined in the web of circumstance. Today’s world is one where bad actors are relentlessly promoting an environment of delusion to dominate, control and take advantage of others, for what they perceive is to their personal benefit.
So, I think we need to find a way to enlarge belief systems to enable people to understand how inclusion serves everyone better than exclusion. Education would play an important role in that. But understanding the cognitive nature of belief may be just as important. If we understood that better, maybe we could find ways to protect ourselves from the corrosive outcomes of propaganda.
The article below has some useful insights into the nature of beliefs:
“What delusions can tell us about the cognitive nature of belief” – 11/19/24
https://theconversation.com/what-delusions-can-tell-us-about-the-cognitive-nature-of-belief-243627
Thank you Ed. I appreciate you.
Utterly brilliant.
I have a huge day in front of me, so I cannot comment further this morning. Back to you tomorrow.
p.s. billionaire media — has a ring to it that legacy media, MMM, etc. never did. stealing it now.
And the “BM” acronym fits to a T.
Smile
“All the turds that are fit to shit.”
DNC and ActBlue are firing people. It is unclear if it is failed folks let go, or releasing the best and brightest. Unclear from reporting, and as a non-Insider that is what I have to look at. Of interest, beyond the fact reported but how media in general are reacting, Breitbart [no link given] reports:
“The Washington Post‘s senior politics editor claims the newspaper removed him on Monday, and it remains unknown if he will stay with the publication.”
“In a reported email, Dan Eggen said he was “crushed” by the news, the New York Post reported Thursday.”
Only the ghouls are noting this. Or that is how it looks. I admit to knowing nothing about Dan Eggen, as I am not a WaPo followler of long standing.But the timing, and what seems other media blind eyes say bad things.
Other news, Trump Treasury pick has market cred. From reporting. Again, how else can I tell? Whatever else Trump touches, he wants Treasury to function.
Reporting is Harris ran through a billion bucks and the campaign is now empty of cash. WTF happened?
Last, your post image art choice is bleak, even if apt. And I for one do not blame Joe Biden for Trump winning. There are other things, and I will not throw stones, but Joe was the primary winner, and had that authority to act as he thought best.
That fresco is behind a paywall as it were, so the kids can’t see it, I’d guess. I’ve seen a number of Last Judgments, and this is among the most terrible. We were shocked by it.
Whatever else went wrong, the problems wasn’t workers at ACT Blue, and it wasn’t workers at the DNC.
Yes, that. When the ship founders, don’t blame the galley rowers in the lower decks. Blame the captain and his navigator.
I simplify the blame. It is Dick Durbin — as symbol of everything wrong with the Democratic leadership. Old, timid, mired in short sighted understanding of how things were 40 years ago and clue less about how they are now, and unwilling to use power and authority to accomplish anything for most of the people or for the country. He is CHAIR of THE FRIGGING JUDICIARY committee and he failed to make the most corrupt SC in history (and there is competition for this) accountable. Where are the hearings on Alito, Thomas, Roberts and his grifter wife? He had the platform. He had the power. He had the ability to put the SC on the front page for months. And he did nothing but whatever feckless activity Democratic leadership uses to excuse their lack of effectiveness.
They should in fact all be heading for that monastery and be hanging their heads in shame — but they are probably drinking single malt with the perpetually useless grifter democratic consultants whose interests are served although they fail to produce.
Maybe ActBlue can be either a seed for a new (third?) party or a means to redo the D party.
I am a legit independent and want more than two viable parties to choose from. But, as all know, the D and R have it rigged from the bottom up (states). Maybe start there. The payoff would likely be past my lifetime, but you have to start somewhere.
The other more frightening thought is that war has a way of changing things. No, I do not advocate a war – the war – just saying. And no way to really ensure that the changes go the “right” way. Maybe it’s not a war – the war – it’s a societal revolution of sorts. Ah but that pesky education and engagement hurdle. Tech Bros media indeed.
In order to have viable third parties the entire US political system would have to be changed.
We have winner take all system as opposed to proportional representation which exists in most European countries, Canada etc
Joe Biden laid some of the foundations of the current debacle. He was a shill for the credit card industry and largely responsible for the decision to make student loans ineligible for discharge in bankruptcy. He also prevented Clarence Thomas’s behavior being fully scrutinized in his confirmation hearing. I voted for him, but my nose is really sore from the pressure required to hold it.
I agree with this. The student loan crisis is on him. The Dems refused to deal with it by blaming Rs and SCOTUS and then hammering publicly on legislation.
The failure of Democrats to pass an increase in the minimum wage has as much to do with the debacle as anything. And the failure to go after price gouging; Democrats in congress had well developed information on price gouging and suppressed it instead of publicizing it. Corporate shills and it cost them the election.
“suppressed it instead of publicizing it”
Second time inside 12 hours I have to point out this site has written metric tons about media bias against Biden admin and Democrats and yet somehow Democrats are supposed to have overcome this to publicize a topic.
Go search “democratic senators corporate price gouging -ai” and note how much senators have said about price gouging in addition to bills submitted over the last two years by Congress and how little the media did to report and follow-up on this.
Compare to a search for “record profits -ai.”
The public itself could have deduced corporate gouging was going on given the sustained record profits reported in the same news media which didn’t cover Democrats. But no — the same public has incorrectly believed there’s been a recession even when Biden says the economy is fine and a media outlet bothers to report this.
Face it: it’s easy to ignore or dismiss media bias when you’ve been conditioned to do so.
Student loans were mostly/first excluded from bankruptcy in 1978, again in 1990, and completely in 2003 — Biden didn’t reverse this, but he didn’t create or extend it either….
and lets not forget bilious H.L Mencken:
“As democracy is perfected, the office of the presidency represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron.”
Not in complete agreement with Mencken, who is dissing the common people, but but but — the prediction seems to have come true.
I agree with very most of your comments and recommendations.
As mankind progressed through the stone age, bronze age, iron age, etc., to modern times, we first have to understand that American citizenry currently has entered into the Age of Stupidity, by electing a vile, lying, rapist, convicted felon as its president. The Founding Fathers would never have allowed this to happen if they knew this would have been possible.
Of the 244,666,890 voting-eligible population in 2024, Trumpchencho received just over 31%, hardly a mandate, with Harris representing just over 30%. Nonvoters, just over 36% didn’t even bother to vote; the largest majority. This age of Stupidity also includes these non-voters. In reality, American democracy is in peril and is close to extinction, and in the next 2 years, our country will not look like anything it once stood for. That’s where opportunity exists.
The first thing I would do, is to develop a Project 2026 from the democratic or non-conservative perspective in response to the corporate fascist white Psuedo-Christian nationalist Project 2025, that Trumpchencho and his ilk will be working fast on, to incorporate into the American government and private lives at all levels. Non-conservatives and non-fascists have to have something to rally around, that the vast majority of us can stand by. When many Trumpchencho voters realize how they’ve been bamboozled, in the next year or two, they need something to rally around. Therefore, in the next national election, we can turn things around.
Great.
Let’s start by never calling them midterms. The Congressional Election.
Great insight, if depressing — the popular vote was won by Didn’t Vote, and by a decisive plurality at that.
One suggestion though: if you want to tack a Russian suffix onto DT’s name, you should probably call him Trumpov or something — pretty sure that -chenko characteristically indicates Ukrainian ethnicity, but I must disclose that I’m not entirely sure.
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A thought from abroad… In the UK we lack a credible left-wing alternative to the right wing drift of political parties over the years. Could this be the same in the US? Our Labour Party didn’t win the last General Election. Its proportion of the vote was around 36%, The Conservatives (Tories) and Scottish Nationalists (SNP) gave Labour the election by their respective collapses. The Labour Party had no passion or left-wing policies – they were elected by default. Did the Democrats, having no passion and no alternative policies, fail principally, and simply because the GOP did not collapse?
In the UK, The drift to the right under successive Labour Party leaderships Is all too apparent.
A movement to more right-wing positions have become the norm since 1945. Can one imagine a current Labour Party in the UK fighting for, and succeed in setting up, a National Health Service, as the post-war Labour government did?
We now have a Labour Government which is simply the better of two evils; opinion polls show profound disappointment in its Leader Keir Starmer and its policies.
Is it possible that voters in the US perceived the lack of a similar real meaningful alternative to a further term for President Trump?
How do we reverse this drift to the normalisation of right-wing positions? That requires more wisdom than I possess, but at least I can broadcast the need.
Two things come to mind immediately:
1 — the last three GOP vs Democratic Party presidential election results suggest it’s not the lack of a “credible left-wing alternative” which is the problem:
2024 — 50.0% vs 48.4% GOP win
2020 — 51.3% vs 46.4% Dem win
2016 — 46.4% vs 48.2% GOP win (Trump did not win the popular vote but took the electoral college)
This is very unlike Labour’s 2024 win over Conservatives, 33.7% to 23.7% with a voter turnout under 60%; that’s a ~9% drop in turnout since 2017. The US has not had a drop below 60%.
(Comparing 2024 UK to US elections based solely on numbers and not the other underlying tectonics also disregards each country’s racism and in the case of the US, misogyny. Could Harris and Sunak have done better at the polls if they were white and in Harris’s case, a man? Probably.)
The US numbers suggest it is evenly divided where the UK doesn’t. However the US’s division means each party is playing for the margins.
2 — The UK’s media ecosystem shares one common problematic media company, News Corp, which has a far larger reach in the US than in the UK. News Corp is skewed toward GOP and Conservatives. The BBC likewise biased toward Conservatives though by its own charter it is supposed to mirror current UK government. There is little media biased toward the left in either country.
How much of the US Democratic Party’s inability to win stronger margins has been due to the toxic effects of national media which has been biased toward the GOP? If Democrats are losing by margins under 5% this can’t be disregarded.
At margins of 10% with a win based on less than 35% of the vote, the UK’s situation is very different though its media has been biased toward Conservatives.
(I have to wonder what the UK election results would have been if David Lammy had helmed Labour’s ticket instead of Keir Starmer — Starmer appearing as Tory-Lite, and Lammy being more strongly left of Starmer even within the same party. Would UK media attack Lammy?)
Lastly, if there was a demand for a US party further to the left, it would organize a presence across all 50 states. Green Party in particular could have been doing that; ditto for Democratic Socialists. They can’t mount enough interest to do that. Keep in mind this is a wholly different proposition compared to the UK, which based on population is roughly the size of California. Imagine having to build out Liberal Dems’ apparatus 49 more times.
Then I guess this means you disagree with recent posting here about KH running a near perfect campaign?
“near-perfect campaign” doesn’t mean that there were no mistakes, but some of the advisors were definitely old-school.
James Carville, who? Not to mention the corporate and billionaire patrons that didn’t really want their boat rocked.
I think she did everything that could have been done given her starting place.
You posted a brilliant piece, and the discussion is also great, but I gotta disagree on that point.
Yes, she was hampered by time, and also by association with Biden who was patently unfit to run again. That latter fetter, unlike the temporal one, could have been ameliorated if she’d pushed back on the Blinkenization of our FP — because FP was Biden’s weakest and most off-putting area of “accomplishment,” by far. And I’m not just referring to the US part played in the desecration of life, society, and human rights that is Gaza (and which was, and is now, expanding in Gaza and throughout the region), but also the failure to put the light and heat on Netanyahu for the “security lapse” that allowed his 10/7 political-windfall to happen – added to the failure to rapidly undo two Trump shit-piles: the (violated) “Treaty with the Taliban” that Biden fecklessly blamed for the Afghan withdrawal catastrophe (as if he wasn’t the fucking CiC at the time); and the failure to *rapidly* undo the US abrogation of the Iran nuclear deal (which of course desecrated Obama’s historic achievement, so “meh,” I guess) that gave John Fucking Bolton his one triumph from working for Trump.
I’m not saying Kamala needed to bring all that shit up, and in fact doing so would have been stupid. I’m saying that such was the politically crippling FP backdrop she was saddled with, that she needed to create some FP image repair (i.e. distance from Joe) on her part, that addressed at least the most catastrophic aspects of Biden’s FP legacy.
When I was in MT last month, helping my son’s family re-side their house, I had a conversation with him about possible outcomes of the election. I told him I thought the polls were wrong, citing Selzer of course, and that the youth vote would blow Trump out of the water. Son is 38yo and very connected to the local culture in liberal Bozeman/Livingston. He just shook his head and said Gaza had fucked up Harris’ chances with young folks. He understood the folly of voting for Trump or abstaining as a protest of that, but his predictive opinion was firm, as if he were telling me, “Check out the clouds in the Western sky, a storm is coming.” That was ~3-4 weeks before the 5th.
“I feel bad about the women and children in Gaza” doesn’t clear the bar in that regard. But embedded in this dynamic is one possible reason so few VPs are elected POTUS: being an on the job subordinate who can’t buck the boss isn’t a great look for a Leader of the Free World job applicant. Bush 1 bucked the trend because his boss still had an afterglow goin’.
BC: 11:37
I don’t exactly disagree with this. I wish she had discussed her own ideas about foreign policy. I’m not sure how that would look, though. Her only experience with it was as a part of a a party that has stuck by Israel repeatedly in the face of rejection of its policies by the rest of the world as shown by UN actions vetoed by the US.
Finding and vetting people who could credibly create new policies would have been a big reach.
EW 12:50:
Your comment, “I’m not sure how that would look, though,” drills right down the the crux of the problem.
the anniversary of the assassination yesterday made more abundantly clear to me something i have probably voiced here at EW previously —
it (and RFK and MLK) was beginning of the end of the “America of good possibilities,” for me and for many of my generation. Many turned numb.
foreign policy became a nightmare, a contradiction of the values we had been so earnestly schooled in, in the postwar era. LBJ, and then Nixon grotesquely took us to places our country should never have gone.
and on and on, mired in devastating decisions, and deeper and deeper into the big muddy.
if you believe in the prophecy of Revelation, looks like we are being carried there.
earthworm 6:33:
Well it certainly doesn’t get any more Revelation-y than nominating SB Pastor Huckabee, a firm believer in the Rapture of Fundie Xians (that will conveniently precede the obliteration of human civilization), as ambassador to Israel.
The “Left Behind” crowd, that Huckabee belongs to, have been yearning for this for decades. I know because in a former life I ran a Xian bookstore back in the ’70s, before coming to my senses. Tim LaHaye was our most lucrative author.
Here’s a YouTube clip from David Pakman, posted during the Obama administration, where he comments on a Huckabee/LaHaye conversation about the End Times:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uG_f9TObsQ
If you go to 1:20 in that post you’ll hear Pakman himself actually predicting (albeit tongue-in-cheek) what his happening now, 14 years after that recording:
“It’s gonna take Republicans getting back in power to successfully execute the coming of the Apocalypse.”
And here we are!
Huckabee yearns for the end of the world, and he’s now in the catbird seat in that regard, to make it happen. I don’t believe in “the prophesy of Revelation” (which is actually a tortured modern interpretation of the cryptic, hallucinatory ramblings of a 1st century hermit), but I do believe in the capacity of human beings to conjure catastrophe out of their fevered, grandiose delusions. History is replete with that kind of shit.
Oh, and I believe that attacking the Xian Nationalist aspect of Trump’s re-ascendancy is the key to turning the tide.
“We’re all going to have to find a way forward. Any thoughts?” Take care to establish a political destination for when climate change becomes ungovernable.
Before the election, progressives urged the BM to focus on “not the odds, but the stakes.” That message fell on deaf ears. But we can’t give up. After the election, I would urge us to push the media to focus on not the promises, but the consequences. For example, before, after, and during the coming efforts to impose tariffs the media needs to flesh out for its audiences what research and experience says the CONSEQUENCES will be (before and during) and are (after their implementation). What are actually the effects of this policy? Tell us in detail. Tell us how it will/is affect(ing) our daily lives.
That brings me to my second suggestion. Ed’s question in #5 above is an excellent one: How to reach all the different audiences? I am going to repeat a suggestion I made before the election that is probably a bit naive. I would like to see the leading progressive voices, like those here at Emptywheel, join each other in a COORDINATED, systematic effort to push the media to clearly communicate the consequences. The BM has failed miserably at explaining why the Trump tax cuts have been a failure and have not accomplished what was promised. I would like to see the progressive leaders target specific promises (e.g., tax cuts, tariffs, deportation) and coordinate their efforts to continuously push the media to lay out the consequences of a targeted promise. And, as Ed says above, find ways to do that through alternative forms of media as well.
Thank you for this. Brilliant. As for a way forward, read the writings of black disabled activists. The most marginalized folks know the way. The comment above by Epicurus is also very insightful. As the parent of a disabled child (who is otherwise quite privileged) I can say that excluding people who aren’t perceived as capable of “contributing” to society starts as soon as age 3 in our educational systems. And even left leaning “progressive” folks seem to think that is okay. That kind of thinking has helped get us where we are today, I believe.
Ed,
I’ve been semi-active in the Democratic party most of my adult life, since 1968. It has ALWAYS been a shell, a tribal label, with fluctuating tribes and evolving positions, against something as often as for something else. We became a minority party in the South when the Dixiecrats moved to the Nixon tent. That included my father, who attended Roosevelt’s 3rd inaugual. Among his deathbed last words were “I hope that s.o.b. McGovern isn’t elected.”
So the party remains in existence. We can use it to enlarge and reinforce our tribe, or abandon the fight to the MAGAs. Speaking for myself, I’ll do what I can to help our better angels prevail next time.
“I hope that s.o.b. McGovern isn’t elected.”
My first vote for president was for McGovern. I couldn’t vote absentee as a combat grunt in Vietnam at 19 tears old. I wasn’t voting for Tricky Dick under any circumstances after he gamed the Paris Peace Talks in 1968 via Madame Chenault.
We need to spend time meditating and being mindful of the dichotomy in our history. All men are created equal only meant white men. Our cognitive distortion creates suffering today.
Thought experiment: let’s imagine how it might have been if we had rejected power and control paradigm in word and deed as a matter of life style. Instead of just lip service?
What might have been the valid solution to sharing the land with indigenous people. What could we have become? Do we even have an intention or recognition of that pathway? Who would we have been as a nation if we had been able to shed our imperialism cognitive distortion that some people (the wealthy, the royal, the healthy, the educated) are better and should have more power or are more worthy than others? What does that look like? Do we even have role models for this? No. We tend to kill them all. Just like Jesus. We killed the idea.
We have lived this judgment as if it were true and we are all living it as we continue to use power and control as an intrapersonal, interpersonal and intercultural style. Imagine if understanding serial killers (people who kill compulsively) was as important as punishing them? How much more would we know?
Who would American have become had we not believed that some people are better than others? Who would we have become had we lived in the truth that diversity creates knowledge, truth and therefore power. What would our brains have become had we taken that challenge? How much closer to truth would we be? How much less suffering we might be living with had we taken that challenge? What if we understood that the moment we engaged in genocide we closed off a pathway to the truth? And we began a pathway of distorted reality that causes suffering now.
Every one of us uses power and control as parents, animal owners, spouses and teachers. We, like the early settlers use it and disparage it from others. Are we willing like Jesus, mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr, to explore this concept? Would we be willing to die for the truth in it?
The answer lies in seeing how this paradigm obscures our own personal relationship with love. How it obstructs our love and compassion for ourselves and others. How it affects our connection to others and the universe. We must do the personal work to challenge this paradigm in our own lives first. We don’t need to attack, hurt, or punish in order to teach. Our primary directive as humans can become instead “to understand” instead of control.
It all stems from the belief that some people deserve to have it better than others. And that if we have it better than someone else we deserve it. Can we explore how much truth, knowledge and understanding is truncated by that thought?
The “other” is wired into animal brains as an essential survival mechanism against not only predators, but also competitors for scarce resources.
Advanced economies are beyond scarcity, and global human survival now depends on cooperation. But brain evolution hasn’t budged, and won’t anytime soon.
Of course “other” means conflict, which puts a survival value on some in the tribe being domineering assholes who can lead and protect the others. But in a diverse society, they’re a divisive force that exploits otherness and undermines cohesion and unity.
History suggests we’re stuck with them, meaning we’re forever required to maintain and strengthen a legal system to protect ourselves. And build a strong no-bullshit education system so our kids won’t join asshole gangs and cults when they grow up.
We won’t always win. And with exponential change, social stresses will be increasingly acute. But for our kids’ sake, we can’t quit fighting.
This guy would feel at home in Trump’s cabinet:
https://www.wishtv.com/news/community-connection/county-commissioners-daughter-steps-forward-as-the-woman-he-sexually-assaulted-in-las-vegas/
That individual is beyond appalling. Of course he is a conservative and would fit nicely with the Cabinet and other Administration picks.
Luckily that clown could/likely will be behind bars for the foreseeable future. I have absolutely no wish for him to be abused while serving his time however I have read accounts of how other inmates approach men who abuse children – I truly hope he has steeled himself for what he may have brought down upon himself.
The fact that his daughter is a young adult may not make a difference.
Typical MAGAt – “At the time of his arrest, Jessup reportedly told police there was “nothing criminal” about what he’d done while describing the incident as a “f***ed up, drunk night.”
Unknown if he can be rehabilitated – but given the current direction I see this country moving it is likely there will be more sick individuals popping up with some regularity.
MAGAt’s indeed.
When I married last month in Brazil to a Brazilian, I kept saying (to anyone who would listen), “there is no way that decent Americans will vote for that guy.”
My error was over estimating the “decent American” population.
Those voting for Trump WANT the U.S. government dismantled and redone. Why? Because they feel America is no longer for them – only for new arrivals, and people not white, not heterosexual, and not Christian.
Apparently, nearly 235 years of these white, straight Christians rule wasn’t long enough for them.
White, heterosexual Christian rule meant “America first” to them
Well, maybe. My own particular take is that since the days of Reagan, Republicans have steadily deprived American school kids of even a whiff of a civics education, censoring anything suggesting that collective action (New Dealism) has achieved what it has, or that we all have an individual, and also mutual, responsibility for our own communities, which we exercise via our vote. Consequently, Americans are never educated as to what government is, or what it does, or why it matters. Nor are they educated on their civic responsibility to do a minimal amount of due diligence on the candidates and the issues.
Some, maybe a majority, of Trump’s supporters may well be monsters, but as exit interviews have shown, a substantial number of other Trump voters didn’t have the faintest idea who they voted for, or what his actual positions are. It’s my opinion that we have to reach THOSE voters, but I haven’t yet got a clue how. If I could wave a wand and re-institute some form of mandatory, uniform civics instruction in our schools, I’d do that. That option may not be doable for another generation or so (if ever!) with Republicans running things nationally, but more blue-state locally, some sort of organized “teach-in” network might be–starting in blue states, and dependent on local organizations for funding, venue, and so on, running over a period of years (it has to be YEARS)… I obviously haven’t thought this out, but to ME there’s an enormous need to bring ignorant Americans up to the task of assuming their heretofore overlooked civic responsibility–and if it’s not an urgent, present necessity, it’s certainly not far off from there.
I taught government to HS seniors in the late 60s which was a required course in my district and most others along with a couple of years of American history — one in middle school and one in high school.
In the 80s that requirement was dropped in my district and in many others.
My entire career has been devoted to citizenship education, and research on development of critical thinking capacity in students — and we do know how to build thoughtful citizens. My life has obviously been an utter waste.
Not so fast; the students you would have been teaching in the late 60s would have been … well, ME. And some of my peers that I’m still in touch with. So you got to some of us, and those teachings would have been part of our worldview all these years since. So…glass half empty, or half full?
I firmly believe this. Many MAGA voters voted against their own self-interests just for the opportunity to hurt others.
When Trump implements his most hair-brained ideas, economically disadvantaged MAGA voters will suffer the most. They will be victims of their own cruelty and ignorance and deservedly so.
To your point dimmsdale, analysis shows that twenty-nine percent of adults in the U.S. voted for Trump, and most of that percentage were uneducated. Public education has been underfunded by Republicans for many years and many reasons, none of them altruistic – as you point out. Voters with a college degree, voted for Harris in large numbers.
These MAGA voters may never realize that the deepest pockets in the country (The 1%, Elmo, Fox News Opinion Hosts) are behind Trump due to his recurring promise to make them richer at MAGA voters’ expense. MAGA and Trump’s hatred and lust for retribution will rid the country of many, many undocumented immigrants – but not all, resulting in higher costs for factories, restaurant chains, corporate farms, and construction companies. (Higher tariffs will be the second blow of Trump’s cruel one, two punch on America.)
When Trump announces higher numbers deported than actually deported, insinuating success at ridding America of ALL undocumented immigrants. I am certain that many MAGA will see that many undocuments remain, but not see they are left holding the bag with higher prices for food, goods, and services. I am also certain that MAGA will never understand their cruelty was for naught, as understanding cause and effect is not a MAGA forte in life, as evident by their voting pattern.
It’s unfortunate these MAGA voters do not understand that the U..S. has THE BEST ECONOMY in the world today, BECAUSE OF immigrants doing the work Americans will not. I doubt disadvantaged MAGA will ever realize what they voted for, but they will reap what they sowed, economically.
On deportations, I believe there will be many in labor camps in agriculture areas, etc. The workers will be ‘leased’ to those who are favored by the administration, which will also keep food costs down.
The excuse for instituting this wide scale use of slave labor will be their ‘illegal’ status/ costs of enforcement. Many states have already rid themselves of pesky child labor laws, expanding the pool of slaves available.
I imagine the large agricultural corporations will be the ones to profit, along with the prison for profit crowd.
It’s a win/ win for Trump this way- maybe he can even get some free help maintaining his golf courses.
I had a kind of a personal epiphany, realizing that a major faultline was between those who support and those who want to fight what I would call (for lack of better term), the “rulekeeper class”. The rulekeepers are everyone who is in charge of keeping and adhering to the rules in public, including administrators, agencies such as the FBI, and in peoples minds DEI departments etc. all grouped into one blob.
Harris doubled down on her role as a Rulekeeper. Trump managed to convince large part of the population that the Rulekeepers are the enemey, a dangerous elite who is controlled by foreign interests, the “deep state”. Even people who do not believe in deep-state conspiracies believe enough to see those who keep the rules as an elite who is incompatible with their interests, and who is out to get Trump.
This concept was so ingrained in this elections that no amount of convincing and facts could change peoples minds. All of Trumps trials, the people who warned that Trump is a Fascist, Jan 6th etc. It was all part of the same war between Trump and rulekeepers, in peoples minds.
Excellent analysis. Explains why Trump made inroads with Latino men — some portion of that population is fed up with rules and gatekeepers.
Looking at early colonial and nationhood times, I have often thought that we talk too much about the Declaration, the Revolution and the Constitution and not enough about the Whiskey Rebellion. The roads suck, and you’re taxing us unevenly, unfairly. We have real grievances. And the balance of power had the rebellion duly put down by Washington and authorities with weapons who Washington commanded. There is a tension and people are people for whom rules and gatekeepers are a challenge.
The biggest single problem in my experience is that the average citizen thinks showing up and voting once in a while should result in outcomes which benefit them.
The average citizen never really thinks about the Declaration, the Revolution and the Constitution let alone the Whiskey Rebellion, let alone talk with others about them. The average citizen has not a fucking clue how much good roads actually cost let alone what does into establishing roads and maintaining them from both political and economic perspective, because they can’t be arsed to research the topics before bitching about taxes and they can’t be bothered to attend or watch state and municipal meetings where topics like roads are negotiated.
The grievances are their own damned fault for failing to be engaged citizens and expecting some sparkle pony to address all their ills. But some oligarchs have ensured this dynamic doesn’t change because it’s not in their interest for the voting public to awaken to reality.
The oligarchs literally don’t want the public to get woke and the public goes along with it.
What I have noticed is that Rs will fund something half-assed, then not maintain that half-assed thing they build. Then point to government’s failure of building something half-assed and not keeping their half-assed thing maintained. It’s all a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Agreed, most do not know how much it costs to maintain roads, etc. Supposedly, American ingenuity and capitalism (building a better mousetrap) improve things and make things less expensive.
@Rayne: My fixed-income uncle said exactly that. He hoped for better from politicians he voted for. Inflation has hurt.
Cost of food is not included in the inflation calculation. No Dems campaigned against the unfairness of the CPI.
First off, no Democratic candidates ran against the “unfairness of the CPI” because that’s not what voters complained about.
They did, however, run against inflation which they have been trying to tackle (you’d know about the bills submitted if you’d actually been on top of this issue).
Example 1: https://pennsylvaniaindependent.com/economy/bob-casey-elizabeth-warren-corporate-price-gouging/
Example 2: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harris-detail-plans-cut-costs-key-policy-speech-north-carolina-2024-08-13/
I really thought our commenters were better read and better informed, but the last 24 hours have disabused me of this notion.
-___-
…and another significant portion of that population are Fundamentalist Xians, as well as traditional Catholics, both cohorts for whom abortion and gender nonconformity (including women just being in charge) are deal breakers.
You have put into words what I have been struggling to express.
People often see Trump as ‘anti-authority’, but fail to realize it is only when he is not the one in charge/ or authorities don’t grant him special favor.
Marketing/ Media could focus this message. I still just see Cartman from SouthPark whenever I see Trump (respect my authoritay!).
Democrats acting overly authoritarian on social issues has contributed to this. My prime example comes from my old home town, San Luis Obispo, Ca, where they outlawed smoking cigarettes outdoors in public places. In NYC, attempting to ban Big Gulps.
On larger issues, the ACA set up that ends up with people owing taxes at the end of the year is a big mistake. The majority are paying for Insurance with little immediate benefit, and then owe taxes because they earned too much and didn’t pay enough. People resent it, it is a confusing system, and it is expensive. (Allowing for health insurance payments by individuals to be deductible like they are for employer provided benefits would be an easy offset of the costs to people, and an easy win, that we should have pushed through.)
I also believe the messaging on illicit drugs could be better, and less authoritarian. Don’t prosecute for possession or under the influence of- just prosecute for the things that cause harms to others, like most alcohol related crimes. You can add drugs/ alcohol as a factor that requires some rehab- but, leave it at that. Sales of illegal substances should just be treated the same as any other illegal sales/ imports of anything else (along with the tax evasion). You can’t import and sell a tiger, for example.
Charge a deposit on single use plastics- like we did with glass bottles and aluminum cans (and do that again too).
Overall, I think we should be concentrating on more avenues that aren’t authoritarian whenever possible to achieve goals for the public good.
Make libraries important again! Quit with the ‘quiet’ idea, and have booths/ separate areas for ‘quiet’ with the majority being social/ interactive with Game tables, book clubs, classes, magic the gathering, etc.
Then hit the big corporations over and over again, on labor, price fixing, on pollution, profit above all. We created the laws that allow corporations to exist, and we can change those.
The outcome is simple.
A rejection of the party that continues to ignore the working class because it “knows best”.
We got wrecked with inflation this time around.
While money is used to write off student loans = a tax on the rest of us who effectively subsidize it with no say in the matter? So a select few gained a free education from it at our expense. Will it have a net positive effect? Will those with their fancy pants college degrees continue to look down on us with distain and silly catch phrases like “learn to code”.
Money is wasted away allowing illegal immigration in the door, that again the tax payer foots the bill for to shelter and feed them, while legal citizens are left to rot when they lose their jobs, their homes, their lives, and are left with no choice live on the streets in many cases. Sure allow those displaced from far worse places to apply through whatever mechanisms are available, but please wait at the door until you’re approved to legally enter.
Just like I did. Rather lucky to get a green card, arrived with some hard earned savings (and dumped everything else I owned except for what fits into a suitcase). Got a job and started working my a$$ off, got a place, paid my bills and taxes on time, had children, stayed out of trouble. Most importantly, integrated into American society and the way things work here.
Became a citizen, and was able to vote for the first time. Then felt completely ripped off by the party that blew $1.5bn on memes and lost. I will never ever vote for them again unless they completely self destruct and rise anew from the smoking pile of rubble that is left over.
Then we get to look back at COVID and all the questionable science that was rammed down our throats by bureaucratic federal government departments, and blue state governments that “know best”. They know best how to justify their existence with paperwork. Masks, jabs, closed and ruined small businesses (WA is a great example). Some European countries (one of the more socialist ones in-fact) said no to that, and ?!?! Everything worked out fine for them. Or am I missing a key detail here? Maybe I am.
The expert bureaucrats let us down, again (the country I come from does nothing but do this over and over again). Now it is time to clean house, trim the federal govt back to what it was intended, and put the power back into states where it has always belonged as designed. And return the right to be free and self determined back to the individual – the original intention of the system, free of tyranny – which is what got the British and their out of touch King kicked out in the first place.
Ultimately the outcome is a rejection of wonky left drifting ideas that will lead to a monarchy, or far worse.
The cost back to that path will not come cheap or nicely since it has been allowed to run unchecked for far too long.
The debt is now due.
What a lot of right-wing bullshit from a first-time commenter. There’s so much in this overlong 529-word screed I need a backhoe.
This bit for example — “a tax on the rest of us who effectively subsidize it with no say in the matter” — is absolutely wrong. What taxpayers didn’t get was a PROFIT on the federal money loaned to students who had already been paying off the principle. What didn’t happen was students getting mired in decades of debt to pay multiple times over the principle of the loan.
Voters *did* have say in this because their representatives could have legislated different terms but didn’t.
Furthermore, you’ve gotten the benefit of the world’s best economy, envied by the rest of the world because the US continued to grow and didn’t suffer a recession in spite of recovering from a pandemic. One of the reasons the US economy is doing well is student loan forgiveness, which acted like economic stimulus for the segment of the population most likely to buy larger ticket items. If this economy wasn’t doing so well you and your green card would have been booted out the door.
You whine about inflation. Are you expecting the US government to regulate pricing because you think the inflation here in the US is too high? That’d be asking this country to satisfy your dissatisfaction with socialism — ask any of your right-wing kind how they feel about socialism.
Now let’s go back to that green card: you never had any say in taxation here because you’re not a citizen. You’re free to leave any time if you’re so damned unhappy here.
For starters you can use your browser to find the exit.
As a mishmash of ignorance, delusion, and thoughtlessness, it is not a bad post. Otherwise…
Starting at the bottom: what specific “wonky left drifting ideas that will lead to a monarchy” are the Democrats running on? Leftists aren’t monarchists; it’s the right that says Presidents are immune to prosecution etc., not the left. Didn’t you notice? Do you know that by European standards, the Democratic party is a center-to-center-right party? If not, you might want to recalibrate your angst a little.
“Expert bureaucrats”? WTF? Bureaucrats aren’t the experts; they are the ones who keep the government gears running. And what does this nonsensical babble about “return the right to be free… free of tyranny” mean? What first-world country is more free than America? (I can name three, perhaps four, can you?) America is a tyranny that lets the opposition party win elections? Are you for real?
“… questionable science that was rammed down our throats…” You are aware that, although COVID-19 began in the blue states (first two cases in CA, then Washington and NY), the overall death rate in blue states was substantially lower than in the red states, I assume. Maybe blue state government policies had something to do with that, ya think? Maybe listening to the party that you “will never vote for” instead of the alternative, the one that promoted ivermectin, and Mr. “inject bleach”, and “vaccines are bad”, would have saved a couple hundred thousand lives, eh, compadre?
“Allowing illegal immigration in the door?” Huh? You are aware that the Republican party is the one that sank the (bi-partisan) border control funding bill because Donald Trump explicitly told them to, so it would remain a campaign issue that fools like you would fall for, aren’t you? If the Republican congress doesn’t give the gov’t the money it needs (and asks for) to keep the border clear, that’s on them, one would think.
I’ll leave you with that, while noting that I could go on and on, but this is a comment section, after all.
Feel free to find a website more receptive to your views.
I think your comment is uninformed and stupid. You need to learn how the real world works, and don’t bother us with some distorted image of reality you picked up reading the Daily Caller.
If you do that again on one of my threads, I will personally delete it.
On the upside: the ignorant comment provided an excellent example of why Education is so crucial.
Key details you’re missing:
1. Vaccines save lives. Just ask Trump.
2. Covid caused inflation. Or did you forget all those cargo ships unable to unload?
3. Trump approved $2.2 trillion CARES Act aka Covid socialism? That reminds me: did you repay yours or is that Biden’s fault, too?
Your comment has been thoroughly debunked. It got off easy. Nothing like pulling up the ladder after you’ve climbed it. One startling bit of misreading still needs emphasizing.
Kamala Harris did not ignore the working class – or any other class. Her policies would have measurably benefited it. Trump, otoh, massaged it with oil and spices, and wrapped it in new linen. What he will do, though, is gut it like a fish.
He will punish, not benefit, the working and middle classes, a forecast supported by over half a century of behavior. He would no more enhance its prospects than wear a string bikini, give up McD’s, and get a crewcut.
Well said. Excellent last line.
Highly recommend purchasing the educational, historical and insightful book:
Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America
Heather Cox Richardson
On December 16, 2020, the King of Sweden apologized to his subjects for the failed, (so-called) ‘relaxed,’ COVID response.
This was widely reported.
Trump played both sides by selectively acknowledging the lives saved by the vaccine while downplaying the avoidable loss of life by not getting vaccinated because “personal choice.”
During the pandemic MAGAs were insisting they’d rather have liberty over safety. (Funny how they flipflopped during the election.) I like to remind MAGA pro lifers that covid deaths here equaled our 5 deadliest wars. Or equaled 4000 9-11s. But they’re more concerned about 13 in Afghanistan or Laken Riley.
That’s MAGA pro life for ya.
Not to pile on, but what the hell:
The wonky ideas from the Biden camp were *right*-drifting: Trump-lite border control; backhandedly enabling Bibi’s genocidal, theocratically driven apartheid; giving undo deference to war criminal Putin; feeding the climate disaster with record US oil output, etc..\
But props, for sure, for teeing up the go-to excuse your team will be making for the Trump Depression in your last two sentences.
Oh, by all means, pile on. I left up this gem by this first-time commenter (read: troll) for just such a reason.
Every single regular at this site should be able to recognize their crap for what it is. If they can’t they need to check themselves.
Just stop.
Show the great Trump / Republican policies for the ‘working man’. Why do Democrats have to be the only ones with actual policy?
Infrastructure, manufacturing, support for unions- yep, we did that.
What did Trump Republicans do for the working man? Tax cuts for the ultra rich, and a fucking plague- while speed running climate change and decimating international relations and agreements.
Biden didn’t shut down the country for Covid- that was fucking Trump. I know, because I live in Florida. There was no Democrat here that shut down my business- it was Trump and DeSantis.
Let’s also look at the typical short sightedness of shutting down pandemic awareness programs under Trump. Does no one remember “Ebola!!!” Just in time for the midterms, under Obama, where Republican Governors were forcibly quarantining people for no real reason?! Does anyone think that if Covid occurred under a Democratic President that Democrats would not be blamed? Why does Trump get a fucking pass on our first air borne pandemic in a 100 years- after gutting our early warning systems?!
National debt- fucking Republicans over and over again creating it, and then complaining about it- while shifting the burden to the ‘working man’ over and over again.
Trump has literally discussed profiting from recessions, because it’s an opportunity for the wealthy to buy distressed properties at lower costs. Our last recession resulted in a huge transfer of wealth to the already wealthy- why not do it again? Just blame a liberal, like they did when Republicans crashed the economy last time. Remember? The problem was minorities buying property, DEI, not those who profited over and over from fraud. It was all the fault of the little people buying houses they couldn’t afford… because laws said you had to allow people, regardless of race or gender, to get loans that they Qualified for.
Biden has done so many amazing little things for all of us that are about to be trashed. Like going after auto renew subscriptions and bullshit fees, that is just ignored. I have honestly had to replace credit cards because I can’t stop a subscription without disputing the charge each time it appears. This is one of those small things that our government can do for us, but it’s ignored while we look at Hunters dick pics.
Our society and culture are just inundated with outright BS. Self esteem? Ayn Rands boy friend came up with it. It promotes narcissism. To esteem is to hold in high regard above others. Compare to traditional Christian “love thy neighbor as thyself’- see others, and yourself, as equal and worthy of love. How many of our icons in movies were actually ‘born to’ achieve in some way? That’s monarchism/ Ayn Rand philosophy. Some are just born to Greatness, you can tell by their genes… or, they were chosen by God … unless you don’t like the chosen, then, Obama/ Kamala were obviously pushed by Satan as a test by God. It is honestly so fucking stupid it’s hard for me to even talk to Trump clients.
After Trump was first elected, I had a gay white man explaining to me, a white woman, how white people need to breed more. I literally had two grown children at the time, and this older gay man was telling me about breeding. My instant response was “ You are racist and sexist. Get the fuck out of my store”. I have to give talks to our staff that no one is entitled to treat them badly. (Again, South Florida) My Employee, Haitian immigrant, was being called ‘Boy’ from across the store. I stepped in, and explained to the asshole that it was unacceptable. My employee felt embarassed by the attention from me as much as the bigot.
We have a lot of jokes at our small business, and make fun of each other- this employee we called ‘the Haitian Sensation’ because he was good looking and conscious of his appearance. But, everyone is paid equal with equal benefits (if full time). We joke because we are diverse, and appreciate that our differences add to our store, and it’s fun, and not meant to shit on anybody because of the circumstances of their birth.
Show me the Republican or Democratic policy that taxes people who inherit wealth the same as those of us who receive a paycheck. Thats all I want. No capital gains or inheritance lower rates- let’s just argue to tax everyone the same, and outlaw loans against stock holdings.
If I die tomorrow, my kids will get most my bank accounts tax free- until they cash out. I have them as beneficiaries to avoid probate. I am not rich, but I have also never received an inheritance from anyone at 56 years old. Death in my family has required me and others paying for funeral arrangements- I am most Americans. Our Aunt died, who I dearly loved, and me and my siblings paid the $1800, for cremation, so her kids wouldn’t have that obligation, after losing their mom. $1800 might not seem huge, but it is to the ‘working class’ (side note: government paid cremation services would be a great idea, take the same cost and give it to those whose religions prohibit cremation).
Back step to our media- I spent years in marketing. While in it, I was very uncomfortable about how ‘fraud’ was just a legal barrier to get around, rather than a general ‘ we don’t want to rip people off’. Any restitution of our Democratic Republic requires that fraud/ lies be prosecuted. Lying/ Misrepresentation needs to be at the forefront of any path forward.
Climate change already has significant daily consequences, and most people do know it, and they know it is real. The other reality is, it’s too late (remember, I am in Florida).
At the local level, we repeatedly vote for climate mitigation steps. Sea walls, pumps, public transportation, improved building codes… (in Broward), but a lot of stuff feels like a lost cause. We spend more in court defending feeding the homeless than actually feeding the homeless- and it feels dystopian/ hopeless. In Ft Lauderdale, waiting in line at a restaurant, other people start telling me how there aren’t homeless people in Florida, unlike California… and I literally ask ‘have you not stop at an intersection or looked under an overpass?’ They just try to ignore me because it doesn’t fit their story. Now, in Florida, we are going to pay around $30k a year to imprison people who don’t have homes, plus medical- at state tax expense. It just doesn’t make any sense at any level- a mom with a kid on full benefits cost around $19k, with state only benefits in Florida it is literally about $6k tax cost for a single mother and child. A foster parent of one child costs the state of Florida more than helping the same birth mother and child. Why? Because removing children is a punishment/ means of control.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. At 1170 words this comment is extremely long; please aim for less than 300. I’m letting this through this one time. /~Rayne]
I continue to be baffled why so many are unable to openly acknowledge this is a fight against white supremacy and those supremacists’ battle against the creation of a multiracial, multicultural democracy in the US. Every Trump voter is firm believer in the “replacement theory” coded as working class economic fears. The objective should be to call out all forms of bigotry, even when its carefully hidden in dog whistles, and make it socially unacceptable.
TH – 10:19 pm
How do you distinguish “socially unacceptable” from “politically correct” if you see a difference? How is one pursued vs. the other, again, if you see a difference? Do you envision any problems with freedom of speech in making one thing or another “socially unacceptable”? Could it become socially unacceptable to criticize white bigotry if those setting norms become different from those you envision doing it? Do you equate paycheck-to-paycheck with embrace of replacement theory, or are there differences and nuance?
“you envision any problems with freedom of speech in making one thing or another “socially unacceptable”? Could it become socially unacceptable to criticize white bigotry if those setting norms become different from those you envision doing it?”
This is an example of the worst sort of both-sides-ism.
Firstly, the form of the interrogatory is sealioning concern trolling, as such it reeks of condescension and bad faith.
Secondly, the unexplored premise of the interrogatory assumes the necessity of adherence to a rigid ethical principle (freedom of speech) and does so without reference to or apparent consideration of any relevant underlying moral reasoning.
An authentic appreciation of freedom recognises it is constituted not merely in ‘Freedom to .. (speak, assamble, own a gun) but also ‘Freedom from. . (hatred, violence, oppression) ‘
I suggest you give your head a wobble, then reconsider your asinine questionnaire.
SB – Criticize the questions, but what’s your answers?
Nice, politically correct answers.
Error Prone
November 24, 2024 at 7:45 pm
“SB – Criticize the questions, but what’s your answers?
Nice, politically correct answers.”
.
Out of its depth a sealion splashes about its shallows.
The term “politically incorrect” was invented by bullies in an attempt to justify the demeaning of marginalized people. You know full well what I mean.
You must be new here.
This assclown has run nationally three times in 8 years, and each time got roughly half the country who bothered to show up to vote for him. This despite everyone having seen the bullspit act over 4 years of chaos, and about twenty or so books from people on the inside telling the voter precisely what they were getting. After he shat the bed at the debate, and the numbers did not move, I assumed this race was over, and i think a lot of other people did too. Does no one on our side speak to Trumpies? How is that even possible? We’ve been told three times now what the people who vote are thinking and care about, and the fact that we disagree isn’t worth a damn; why did we not listen to them? All we did, over and over again, was to recount the atrocity stories, and demand “when is it going to be enough for you people?” and they have been shouting back “Never! Do you get it now?” Great tactics there; felt good though, didn’t it? Sure Vote Blue, here’s your $150 for those close Senate races in Texas and Montana. Hope it makes a difference. As for Harris, given the absurdly short amount of time she had to work with, its idiotic to blame her for this. She’s a conventional left of center politician; this required a transformation of the party, and more than 2 months or so. I’m not giving her any awards, but its a distraction from the huge task ahead. My gut is that the Dems do nothing, except to try to lure the billionaire class back, but I’d love to be pleasantly surprised for a change. The most likely scenario, in my view, is a financial meltdown in a year or so, a customary midterm victory for the party out of power, and Impeach-mania for another two years. But predictions are difficult, especially about the future, as the noted philosopher Lawrence Peter Berra observed.
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Please use line returns or paragraph breaks to bust up large blocks of text as they are difficult to read on smaller displays.
You have more than one idea in this comment. Your composition would be improved if you gave more thought to paragraphs instead of dumping.
I know several Trump voters, and broadly they fall into two categories. One is indeed the Christianist (they are not necessarily nationalist, though they are all white). The other though, I feel cannot be reached – they can’t process the information, nor the consequences. They know only that their grocery bill over the past four years has more than doubled (as mine has) but their income has not. They blame ‘the libruls’ – above, Rulekeepers – who in their mind sent their jobs to Mexico. They cannot comprehend anything that’s happening, how governments work, where money comes from, how to change careers because they thought the coal mill would always be there…and if Trump comes and makes everyone else’s life hell, too, well…
You can’t teach them. You can’t reach them.
This.
Here’s Axios’ report on the poll numbers shifting significantly for Harris after she got Trump to melt down at the debate:
https://www.axios.com/2024/09/17/harris-leads-trump-poll-after-debate-record
As I mentioned above, sitting VPs are handcuffed to their boss, just by virtue of their employment, so there is that, certainly. But she nonetheless did not define herself as “left of center” as you aver; from fracking (i.e. climate change), to immigration, to Gaza, to palling around with Cheney, she cast herself as Susan Collins.
If we want to understand why the Dem turnout was suppressed compared to 2020, those would be good places to start.
For us olds, remember Hubert Humphrey?
The Happy Warrior!
Wasn’t that the protagonist in a Nabokov novel? :-)
As leader of his party, the election loss is a direct response to Biden’s failure to connect with voters. Trump’s superpower is his ability to create perceptions- make it appear to be doing something especially when he’s not or can’t. That illusion makes him appear to understand people’s problems and to be actively fighting “the insiders”.
Trump would have viewed bird flu and high egg prices as an opportunity to get on camera and create another meaningless executive order. Biden never acknowledged the problem of working families in language and actions they could understand.
In this new technological world, it is perception that has the edge.
You do know that Biden wasn’t running for president, Kamala Harris was, don’t you?
I agree with OldTulsaDude.
Yeah, Biden didn’t ultimately run, but he set the stage for Harris’s failure with his shitty communication skills and his stuck-in-the-past idea that all he had to do was deliver for the American people and they would automatically notice and be grateful.
He made a giant miscalculation when he decided voters preferred a president who worked quietly behind the scenes and only came out for major events.
This may have worked pre-Trump, but after 4 years of Trump’s constant grandstanding, issuing EOs that ultimately did nothing, creating crises so it looked like he solved problems, calling into shows every day to propagandize, etc., Biden’s conspicuous absence from the media (along with negative headlines from the MSM) made it look like he was doing nothing.
Biden made it easy for the right wing media to paint him as doddering, incompetent and old because he gave them all the space to do so.
This was just one more big obstacle that it was hard for Harris to overcome, especially in the short time frame.
So basically Clinton likewise failed because she gave the media all the space to hammer “but her emails.”
I don’t know how much more we could have written here to explain how biased the media is against Democrats. Its biases clearly worked on you.
This is kind of a sore spot with me because I find it endlessly infuriating that both the WaPo and NYT always use the headlines to make a story appear negative or bad about Biden and Democrats, even when the content of the story is positive.
So (not meaning to cross swords with you) I’m curious as to how you “clearly” concluded from my comment that I was unaware of the negative bias the MSM has against Democrats.
First, I acknowledged the media negative bias when I said “Biden’s conspicuous absence from the media (along with negative headlines from the MSM) made it look like he was doing nothing.” Maybe that didn’t come across as I intended. Maybe I should have added “unfairly” negative?
Second, it is absolutely true that Biden ceded the bully pulpit way more than Trump, and he did it intentionally. During his 2020 campaign Biden spoke of bringing back normalcy, that he wouldn’t be in people’s face every day like Trump was with his chaos. He presented it as a benefit of electing him over Trump. I’m saying that was a mistake and that he should have been out all the time, talking about his agenda then how he met parts of it, instead of just doing it at official or notable events.
You responded to my comment by referencing the media’s negative bias on Clinton’s emails as if that made your point, then accused me of being…a dupe?
So (clear rube that I am) I’m left struggling to find the connection between Biden avoiding a lot of press and not tooting his own and Dems horn as much as he should have, and Hillary, who was out there every day defending herself on the campaign trail, talking to press all the time.
Since Hillary being omnipresent didn’t get her honest coverage, were you trying to say that it didn’t matter how much Biden got out, that the media would still slant it negatively like they did Hillary? So he shouldn’t even have tried? I don’t think that is what you are saying because you are always admonishing people to not give up or give in to despair.
Or maybe you disagree that Biden is a shitty communicator? Or disagree that he thought Americans would notice the good stuff he did without him saying it, and that was out of step thinking in today’s media environment? Or that he left obstacles for Harris? Are these the things the MSM has biased me about so I’m wrong about them?
I do read non-MSM stuff too, like Media Matters, Heather Cox-Richardson, Press Watch, Timothy Snyder, The Guardian, and more, so I’m well aware of the MSM quivering and bowing down to Republicans, both sides-ing everything and holding Democrats to higher standards. So I’m kind of puzzled here.
If you feel like it, could you connect the dots for me and tell me which MSM biases you believe I’ve fallen victim to? Then I can either be on guard or work on my written communication skills so I can better contribute.
“it is absolutely true that Biden ceded the bully pulpit way more than Trump”
Bring data. Biden saying he was ceding the “bully pulpit” is not the same as making no effort to communicate with the public.
The media did everything it could to drag Biden out and stake him in the sun over his son’s prosecution, but let’s just ignore the fact they did this instead of making efforts to discuss policy matters with him. Media coverage was skewed to avoid anything but scandal seeking, in the very same fashion it had covered Hillary Clinton. When it couldn’t find scandal, it made scandal with “But Biden’s old.”
Biden choosing not to put himself in a position to be staked out isn’t the same as no communication with the public.
Biden also had a considerable amount of sensitive issues on his plate, at least one of which may have been deliberately fomented to that end — I mean, why would Netanyahu make a point of meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago? The media struggled to notice the correlation between Biden’s actions and the issues; Marcy has noted that in more than one post. Again, not a matter of Biden not communicating but doing his job while the media fucked up.
Given the incredibly short timeline in which she had to campaign, Harris as candidate had to go to alternative media for the very reasons Biden couldn’t break out. Corporate media is stuck in its biases, most of which are linked to its business model. Those same biases may have tanked Harris with older white men and women who continue to consume those products rather than alternative media.
This is a brilliant explanation (imho, of course) of the election, by Tressie McMillan Cottom writing for the NYTimes. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/21/opinion/trump-trad-wives-podcasters-wellness.html
Thanks for sharing this article with it’s very on point and practical perspective. Here are the last 2 grafs:
“His [Trump’s] message may have sounded incoherent to a lot of liberals, but it managed to assemble a constituency of overlapping online communities that, in particular, are listening for archetypes and aesthetics, not policy. Trump gives them plenty. The sexist, racist notions about who belongs in the home, who should have a voice in public and who should be excluded from the state were ready-made to appeal to these communities.”
“The Trump coalition found people where they toil online. He built them a political home, one rambling speech at a time. Now, conservatives have a cultural advantage. Should liberals ever wish to regain power — or hope to keep it — they’ll have to find a way to beat disinformation while also meeting people where they are.”
This century has been generally dismal for this country, with brief respites from the gloom. A close election decided by hanging chads and the Supreme Ct., the 9/11 attack that revealed Bush as the weak link in our intelligence chain, the unjustified invasion of Iraq, the botched and graft-ridden occupation, the Great Recession, the lifeline extended to the financial institutions with no course-changing corrections required, an Affordable Care Act, weakened by a desire for bipartisanship, Trump, Covid, and now rinse and repeat Trump.
The Democratic Party has been sometimes brilliant, primarily when it has viewed itself as the party in opposition instead of just losers who are good sports . But how many opportunities for breakthroughs were lost due to desire for elusive bipartisanship or wanting to play by the rules for the sake of the institution when the other party was laughing at such naivete’?
I haven’t yet fully digested the loss. But I am deeply disappointed in the Democratic Party leadership for holding on to dreams of bipartisanship and playing by the old rules. And in the media. In retrospect, Harris might well have spent less time at star-studded mega-rallies and more time in midwestern diners and county fairs. But she did well given her short time as a candidate. Ah, but that is another failing of the Democratic Party – too afraid of hurting Biden’s feelings to hold him to his promise of being a bridge to the next generation. Instead he became a roadblock.
I have long viewed the modern Democratic Party as a united group of coalitions that must seek to rally around common ground and not let the disagreements destroy the coalition. Republicans aided by Putin and Netanyahu successfully fractured the coalition just enough.
I have no answers. I do believe, however, that business as usual is not the answer.
Yes of course business as usual is not the answer. But I fear there are no immediate answers at the national level at least to do anything constructive for a very long time if ever.
Just a shout out to my former state of residence Oregon. They flipped a red seat and their 5 members of Congress are all Dems and women.
I have uncovered an interesting “answer.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/progressives-begin-search-for-a-new-leader/ar-AA1uFjZi — AOC and Ro Khanna get mentioned, but what struck me was the ending several paragraphs, where Kentucky Gov., Andy Beshear was mentioned and touted. (MSN carried the item by The Hill, but I failed to find a link there).
I recall when Harris had not picked a VP, some here mentioned Beshear.
I found online, him speaking, and felt he’d have helped the ticket, (perhaps more than Walz, who is my MN governor). He seemed more emphatic than Walz, who signed what the MN legislature presented him. I.e., the legislature’s both houses were DFL, and made Walz look more progressive than not.
Beshear seemed to be very articulate, direct, and progressive, especially for KY.
yes, Beshear seemed to tick many of the boxes at the time.
i was disappointed he did not get the nod, although there seemed to be many positives for Walz, also at the time.
hindsight is so, so darn good!
[Democratic “leadership” and “timid politicians”] all failed. They all should head to a monastery or convent and spend the rest of their days in shame and prayers for forgiveness on account al the people Trump will hurt physically and psychologically.
I am SO finished with FAILED, FAILED, FAILED James CARVILLE.
Young Women Will Never Stop Talking About Sexism https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/opinion/trump-gender-women-sexism.html
Jessica Grose, Opinion Writer Nov. 20, 2024
AND… furthermore:
https://bsky.app/profile/thomaszimmer.bsky.social/post/3lbfkj2qxjk2c
November 20, 2024 at 1:14 PM
That there is such an appetite for this.
Is there really an appetite for Carville and his crap?
Has Carville opened his eyes in the last 50 years? Women are quite capable of running Fortune 500 companies, and doing it better than the men he sees, He’s a preachy guy, and we don’t need him.
From Carville’s point-of-view, any woman with an opinion is a “preachy female” who should be demure and know her place. How fucking quaint.
80-years old James Carville, that is. I’m not being ageist when I suggest that equally problematic to the Billionaire TechBros takeover of our political system is our Political Gerontocracy refusing to make way.
Rosalind @12:22
It’s not the age in years. Give me Bernie and Elizabeth any day. It’s the closed minds, the ideas that haven’t changed in 40 years. The eyes that haven’t read a book written after 2000.
The Dem gerontocracy is a nightmare.
Ms. Pelosi would like a word in your shell-like.
Greg SARGENT sitting in the pews of CARVILLE’s church, today:
https://bsky.app/profile/gregsargent.bsky.social/post/3lbu3vniqkc2m
November 26, 2024 at 8:02 AM
Can I get an AMEN? Halleluiah!
We start by acknowledging that our country is now governed by the rules of Idiocracy:
https://www.salon.com/2024/11/17/goodbye-to-all-that–once-again-and-for-the-last-time/
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I’m not going to get into the blame game. One group of voters in the Dem party understood the assignment and turned out with 90% of their voting block. So, I want to lean into not blaming the members of the party that did amazing organizing and got out the vote: “About 9 in 10 Black female voters supported Harris in 2024, according to AP VoteCast, similar to the share that backed Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. Trump received support from more than half of white voters, who made up the vast majority of his coalition in both years.”
https://apnews.com/article/trump-black-women-democrats-harris-base-votecast-0c646e888c999b03d1798e1aa1331937
The lies are winning. At some point the truth always emerges, but sometimes the damage has already been done and it can’t be fixed, it has to be replaced. I have no idea where we are on that option, but things are in a pickle for the next 2 years at least.
I appreciate the pov inclusion vs exclusion. That rings true. It feels like a solid place to stand and change happens one step at a time. I don’t need to know where I am going – I just need to know where to step next.
Another guide is follow the money. The rich are too rich. The reason we can’t have nice things is the rich won’t share – they choose lower taxes at every turn which is their step by step process that got them rich and the masses poor. I think the poor might already realize these are the steps that made them poor and the question is will they take little steps to fix it or take a sledgehammer to the whole thing.
I think Trumps appeal is to those eyeing sledgehammers. They want it now. The man is mentally ill for being such a narcissist and the mentally ill have a genius for hiding their illness with lies that feel true. I think this election is reflection of Trumps mental illness more than anything. If Trump were not running who else could pull things together? It really defies all logic, because the skill is in literally defying logic with bullshit.
The truth will come out and I fear for the sledgehammers. I think those will do untold damage and many people will get hurt. I am fearful of the next two years as we take the next step along this path we all must walk. Maybe the bureaucracies can curb the madness till an election gets here. Maybe that election will unfold with adequate fairness. Trump is merrily touting a sledgehammer of deportations and camps. And tariffs. God save us.
The Democratic party is no longer in the driver seat. I have no idea if they can fix this or whether they get replaced. I honestly thought the GOP would die and get replaced, but now I think we might need to replace the Democrats instead. But as a rallying cry I would suggest “the rich are too rich” and we need to use the tax system to ensure the poor put down the sledgehammers. Maybe we can offer them a set of knives instead. But it does need to be cohesive and coordinated. Humans hate chaos as much as they create it. They will even cling to a lie.
On a positive note – I do think the Democrats have some serious talent and intelligence in Congress. I can’t say they have the skills or they would not have been shellacked by a criminal, but I do think they understand the bureaucracy and know good steps to move forward. I do think they have the the goods, but they are really lacking in the ability to deliver. And yes – that BM is a real obstacle.
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You want to know what a sledgehammer is, watch the first few episodes of Designated Survivor.
And if it comes to that, pray Pete Buttigieg plays Kiefer.
Thank you for this post, but most of all for calling out the genocide funding. I couldn’t vote for Harris, or Biden, for that, though voting from the blue state it didn’t matter anyway. I told myself they were funding and supplying a genocide because of the election, but then they just kept sending bombs to Netanyahu after it didn’t matter anymore, just to fire them at terrorized, sick, and starving Palestinians. I am so, so done with the party I once worked for and supported.
I could make a list of things I think the Dems should do, but they lost me years ago. I will say this; everything I’ve seen and studied about the parties suggest that despite outside appearances, the GOP itself is fairly meritocratic and results oriented. *Not* in policy or identity, but when people come in with powerful ideas, like Red Map, they get a hearing. Dems never entirely got over Tammany Hall and patronage in the party structure. I watched as someone with new ideas and a public profile tried to get into a congressional race once, and was turfed out hard and told not to come back because the person picked to run that race had paid their dues and showed their loyalty. It was deeply depressing.
… and of course Trump would have immediately stopped supplying Israel with bombs etc.! (/s)
“The GOP itself is fairly meritocratic.”… that’s why Donald Trump is our next President, Lindsey Graham is still hanging around, and Lara Trump is head of the RNC… and look at those Cabinet picks! Meritocracy all the way down!
“When people come in with powerful ideas…” Like Project 2025 – the dismantling of American society and government? The “Second American Revolution?” And you don’t care who those “powerful ideas” will benefit and who will be the losers; you only care that they are powerful? Aren’t the ideas that led to the ACA, CHIPS Act, and the ARP powerful?
I’m sorry your friend got turfed out, but “paying your dues” happens everywhere – in business especially. It’s a human thing, not a Democratic thing, and it indeed happens in the Republican party, too. Read up on how Republican members of, for example, the Ohio House get selected – since they are all in safe districts, they are chosen by the party based on being good party members, not by the voters based on policy differences between candidates.
I completely care about what those powerful, and evil, ideas will do, and I am definitely one of the losers, along with my family and my people. I am a queer pacifist anarchist, I cannot stand the American right wing, and they have offered repeatedly to kill me. I know people I love are likely to suffer or die in the next few years. I’m not talking about the party and its goals or even personalities. I’m talking about their successful structure, which is hard to deny at this point. Despite being ghoulish idiots, they just swept the system, and it’s worthwhile to ask why and what we can learn from that. I know more about the inner working of the dems than the GOP for obvious reasons. I’ve been critical of that system for years, I’m far from the only one. I have less insight into the GOP, but looking at the way they’ve used software to figure out how to push gerrymandering explains why they often win seats that they should probably lose. The Dems have much more innovative ideas, and GOP have innovative methods and 18th century ideas. I’m not happy the GOP is good at winning elections, but I’m also not happy that their opposition so often seems to bring a knife to a gunfight, in terms of organization, technology, and learning new techniques. If the democrats have any chance of stopping this march to autocracy, it will take self reflection and learning from mistakes, cultural problems within the DNC, and techniques the other side is using effectively.
Trumps first impeachment was over failing to provide Ukraine with the funds/weapons that Congress allocated. Would you have liked Biden to also over rule Congress based on his opinion?
Why is our media failing to ask why the vaunted Israeli Intelligence community failed to anticipate Hezbollahs attack?
Why is Palestine such an issue now, when it was largely ignored for decades?
Why is ‘Genocide Joe’ even a fucking thing at all when Biden has expressed his opinions, worked to supply aid to Palestine, delayed providing weapons to Israel that Congress authorized?
IMO, the whole thing has been orchestrated to create a narrative to push Trumps election, so that Trump and Netanyahu can avoid their criminal liabilities.
Anyone who cares about the actual Palestinians effected would vote to limit Republicans Federal power.
Opinion piece from the Daily Beast
Dear Trump voters,
“Four years from now, when we look around at a remade America, what are you hoping to see? How do you expect your life to improve? How do you expect your nation to improve? How are you going to judge this second, riskier presidency?”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-question-all-trump-voters-will-have-to-answer/
Someone somewhere gave the most damning analysis I have heard – I paraphrase:
The blame lies in the American electoral system, which worked precisely as it was intended to work.
Thank you Ed.
Harris/Walz represented care, compassion and consciousness. The other side doom and gloom and grievance.
Harris/Walz ran a superb campaign. They lost for many reasons, however injected “joyful” energy needed to ignite a campaign in 107 days. The joy was infectious.
Moral and ethical qualities are the foundation of character. I did not and do not resonate with a man who descended the escalator years ago spewing hate. A steady diet of “hate” is detrimental to one’s health and one has to be taught to hate. Faithful followers reward and excuse abusive behavior having normalized an exploiter of humanity. It is not normal.
It is the children I am concerned about because abusive behavior is hurtful and harmful. We as a society need to teach respect, kindness, care and compassion to our children.
Positive rolls models are needed in leaders to help society, to help ALL children to feel respected, valued and loved for who they are unconditionally. Respect starts with the self.
“Now what?” More time with my grand nieces to play, laugh and be creative. To be joyful having fun, fun and more fun. Fun has been on hold for too long.
Re: Now What?
Post-election, I’m not quite ready to re-engage IRL yet—reading EW and posting a few snarky comments is about as close as I’ve gotten. Apart from my work and daily interactions with my wife & our cats, I’ve been in musical monk-mode.
Eventually I’ll choose a production course of action to fight the power, but first I’m gonna finish the 2 songs I’ve been working on and master the Hungarian Minor scale.
Priorities—gotta have ’em. Fun’s not just for kids!
I’ve been giving the “how do we deal with this shit” question a lot of thought. My conclusion is that we need to attack these fuckers where they’re attacking our Constitutional rights most directly: their already-underway establishment, against the First Amendment, of a US state religion. The realization that that’s how we should proceed actually came to me during a discussion on this site almost 3 months ago, around the criminalization of abortion issue: https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/09/01/there-are-no-backsies-on-dobbs/#comment-1068478
From that comment, I proceeded to draft a proposed speech, ostensibly about abortion, for Biden to deliver, since as a practicing Catholic; I thought he had some purchase on the subject and could offer a civic lesson on the First Amendment and its application to Dobbs. I posted it on dKos because it was a bit long for the format here: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/2/2267491/-A-Proposed-Speech-for-Joe-Biden
I actually tried to pitch it to Biden and to the Harris campaign via a dozen different avenues, to no effect obviously. I believe that it would have altered the race significantly, but it was Quixotic exercise, to put it mildly. Still, if you read that speech, you’ll get the germ of how I think we need to proceed in the next two years, starting right now with attacking the blatantly state-religion-nature of the current Trump project – and not just on the abortion front.
In a comment I just posted above in this comment section, I show how we should be dealing with the Huckabee appointment in this regard: https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/11/23/now-what/#comment-1080150
In that case, we’re actually looking at a fundamentalist pastor who will be putting the entire world at risk of annihilation because of his firm belief that the End of the World, via catastrophe in Israel, is upon us, and he’s being proposed as an agent in a theater where he can “facilitate” that cataclysm. This should be happening already, but I have yet to notice any commentary about Huckabee in that regard. This should be bullhorned all over the place right now. He’s the scariest appointment by far, and that’s saying something significant.
Similarly, we should be hammering the 1A-abrogation aspects of OK and TX bible teaching in schools, buying Trump bibles for crissake, and the OK DOE Superintendent’s manditory video being one of many such moves in red states right now. This is an assault on every American’s right to freedom of and from religion.
Then there’s Project 2025. https://kettering.org/project-2025-the-blueprint-for-christian-nationalist-regime-change/ Voight was just nominated as money-handler for the govt. This should be getting blared all over the place. We cannot let this stand.
I’ll leave it there, barely scratching the surface. It’s like the miasma we’re living in right now, such that it permeates so fully that we don’t even see it for what it is: a right wing religious coup in vigorous progess.
{*Voice-over* as Trump gives a mic and mic stand blow jobs and hand jobs:}
“Do you remember when Donald Trump told you there was no Project 2025? {clip of Trump saying that} He did that because it’s a blueprint for a right wing religious takeover of American government, and he didn’t want to scare you. Did you believe him when he said he had nothing to do with it? Did you know he just nominated one of its authors to run the Office of Management and Budget and to design a workaround so Trump doesn’t need the Senate to confirm his appointments? Yeah, he lied his ass off to you and he doesn’t want you to be able to do anything about it, like calling your Senator and telling him to stand against this coup.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/23/trump-project-2025-russell-vought-budget-director
If there was an actual soul in the DNC, that’s how they would be dealing with this shit. The Senate workaround is the actual, legally actionable execution of the coup. They had to lie and will have to neuter the people’s branch to do it. It’s all of a piece, and should be countered as such. But only legally, though with acerbic force befitting the scale of the outrage.
BTW – Vought, I believe it was, said that they could pull it off “bloodlessly” if the Dems roll over and don’t object. That’s the admission that it’s a coup, which will be attempted “bloodlessly,” but only if the victims don’t stand up for their rights. This is the time to stand up, iow, not post-fucking-facto. As for the blood, that will be on their hands if it comes to that; it’s their coup.
Not that it matters so much who said what, but the “bloodless” comment was made by Kevin Roberts, prez of Heritage, not Vought. Otherwise, these guys are interchangeable in their cookie-cutter ideologies.
All religious White guys look the same to me.
My baby brother, 61yo, had a conversation a week or so ago with our cousin, a former high ranking US military officer, about the election. Cuz is a very nice person, and very traditional Catholic. Brother asked Cuz how s/he could brook the level of acrimony, deception, and just hate spewing from Trump and his hordes; the source, it was acknowledged by Cuz, being the Trump-inspired GOP, sympathy was expressed for the country – that we have to go through this…in order to “save the babies from being murdered. Even 6 million this year!”
Gotta say I’m glad Cuz is retired now, though it wouldn’t surprise me if s/he were to jump back in just for the hallelujah glory of it.
This shit has to be made a thing of, yesterday.
Since the election, wealthy trump haters confide to me after trump won, “Our family will be fine, maybe it will shake things up, something has to be done about bad black and Hispanic people. Hate to say it but we have to control them.” They don’t say it directly but imply…”I hate to say it but…” These are people who were apoplectic and fearful as the election came.
But these privileged white men now surrender. They have no real fear of trump. In my personal life I noted the sexism of the obvious pattern that Harris needed to run with a white cis male. I expressed to my family that I was getting sick of “white cis men running things”. My brother a white cis male got angry putting me in my place. “I am offended you would make this comment on the family thread. That you would suggest that you would choose a candidate based on gender”. Which I did not say…Imagine if my poor white brother had to tolerate these comments about white cis men on a daily basis. Imagine his skin color was keeping him down. Putting words in my mouth and turning himself into victim despite his contemptuous vote for Harris who he says “would never win”.
White privilege, power and control. It’s the invisible net holding us frozen in fear and vulnerable to manipulation. There needs for shame about hurting people. Needs to shame for torture. Needs to be shamed for using rage to control others. Needs to be interest in developing fearless wise interventions for power and control. When you fight fire with fire there will always need to be more fire first before the fire goes out. When you use water, an opposite force, a cooling force, the fire is diminished with every application, only unsuccessful when there is not enough water to over power it. We can be fire. We can be water.
I do not believe fear of other is hard wired. We’ve had thousands of years of power and control, dynasty and monarchy, violent overthrow and command. There were plenty of indigenous people and tribes that were fearful and curious upon first interaction with power and control. We have too many examples to state that as invariant. Not immediately violent tribes, here in North America. No. Too many examples of other responses to “other”. Power and control causes and exaggerates fear of other. It feeds a paradigm of dichotomous thinking. Humans can choose to regulate impulsive thoughts and emotions but not unless they first recognize the damage to the brain caused by “obedience” and “power and control.”
We can debate how to define the other. But fear of asymmetry and difference does seem to be hardwired. We are attuned to minute differences in facial symmetry, for example. and in the torso. Humans tend toward the either/or, the in group or out.
We have a two party system
Republicans have the willingness to wreck anything, including America, in order to win
While Democrats do not
[Welcome to emptywheel. Please use a more differentiated username when you comment next as we have at least one other community member named “Motivated Seller.” Usernames should be unique and a minimum of 8 letters in length. Thanks. /~Rayne]
Off topic/note to the Blog Master: What if this is the same user, but I decided to get rid of my old BM email address?
[Moderator’s note: Then tell us that. Now that you’ve used the old address I can validate your future comments under a new email address. /~Rayne]
Since the comments are still open, I thought I’d drop this in here since this is an apropos post.
I posted this going on 4 years ago, as Trump was just wildly ramping up the J6 shit, his perfidy fully revealed and underway: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/12/9/1999910/-Wherein-I-rip-off-both-Dylan-and-Shakespeare-in-the-service-of-a-tawdry-but-timely-weather-report
It’s a riff on All Along the Watchtower, making it into a real world narrative and prediction. The time has come for its fruition, and it has to do with “Now what?” questions, so here it is:
*Watchtower Revisited*
(B. Cole, B. Dylan, B. Shakespeare)
{three voices, male and female with a narrator; third stanza is ensemble}
“Nobody knows the way outta here!”
Cried the Juggler to the Thief;
“We’re cornered by a cold collusion
In which there’s no belief:
Business* men, they taint my wine
While plowmen steal my soil
And none of them, who undertake their crime,
Would dare to quit their morbid toil…”
-—
“No need to get so excited,”
The Thief she finely spoke.
“Hell, there are those who hide among us
Who’d likely claim it’s all a joke.
But you and I, we won’t fake that —
We won’t be lightly played.
So let us both speak playingly now
For the hour is plainly late!”
-—
“All around us spins The Watchtower
Where the pundits brake their news:
Where Truth is burned and Time is turned
As if that’s what we’d choose…
And the Outside…it’s not so distant any more
Where the Rabid Gambler prowls:
The rivals, they are approaching as
A wild Nor’easter howls!”
{Outro}
* this word is to be spat, whether in recital or sung
So my work now is to get the message to Bob, suggesting he let Sony know about this so they can sue me (thus, this is the blog to post this), and then he can join me as a cowriter in the suit against them. (That’s the best way to get the prophetic message out, imo.) So if anyone reading this knows how that message might be transmitted, please let me know via kosmail, or make the pitch yourself, it’s pretty simple.
Universal, not Sony. Sony got the masters.
I can pin point the exact day it all went wrong for the Democrats; April 25, 2000. There was a riot in Miami, where were you?
Had Bill and Hillary left the Whitehouse and gone back to Arkansas, Albert Gore would have been President and the last 24 years would have been completely different. I get castigated for this analysis, but every day I have more faith in this take.