Trump Sold Grievance and America Liked What He Was Selling
Once Trump got everyone hooked on his grievance drug, Merrick Garland was never going to make a difference.
I have tried, over and over, to explain how the investigation into Trump and his co-conspirators proceeded. More recently, I’ve explained how you couldn’t have charged Trump with insurrection — the only thing that would have disqualified him from running — until after May 2023, and had Jack Smith done so, it would have ended up exactly where we are here, with John Roberts delaying everything until after the election.
No effort to explain the process — the two years of exploiting phones, the months of January 6 Committee delay, the ten months of privilege fights, the month Elon Musk stole, or the eight months John Roberts bought Trump — none of that has mattered, of course. People needed an explanation for their own helplessness and Merrick Garland was the sparkle pony they hoped would save them.
But nothing Merrick Garland would have done would have mattered anyway.
That’s because since January 2017, since Trump learned that Mike Flynn had been caught undermining sanctions on the phone with Sergey Kislyak, Trump has used every effort to hold him accountable as a vehicle to sell grievance.
This is the core premise of the Ball of Thread podcast I’ve been doing with LOLGOP.
Rather than being grateful when learning that FBI was investigating four of his close campaign advisors had monetized their access to him — rather than imagining himself as the victim of the men who snuck off and met with Russian spies — Trump made himself the victim of the FBI. He invented a claim he was wiretapped, and then kept inventing more and more such false claims. And then he (possibly on the advice of Paul Manafort, whose associate Oleg Deripaska funded HUMINT before the Democrats did) used the dossier as stand-in for the real Russian investigation. It wasn’t the Coffee Boy yapping him mouth that led to the investigation into those trying to monetize access, this false story tells, it was the dossier Russia filled with disinformation, a guaranteed way to discredit the investigation. Once you convince people of the lie that the FBI really did investigate a candidate based off such a flimsy dossier, it becomes easy to target all those involved, along the way gutting the Russian expertise at FBI.
Then Bill Barr came in and used the authority of the Attorney General to lie about what the investigation found; almost no media outlets have revisited the findings once it became clear that Barr didn’t even bother learning what the report said. While trying to kill Zombie Mueller — the parts of the investigation that remained after Mueller finished — Barr’s DOJ literally altered documents in an attempt to put Joe Biden at the genesis of the investigation into Donald Trump, yet another attempt to replace the actual investigation, the Coffee Boy and campaign manager and National Security Advisor and personal lawyer and rat-fucker who were found to have lied to cover up the 2016 Russian operation, with a storytale in which Democrats are the villains.
John Durham never bothered to learn what the report actually said either. Had he done so, it would have been far harder to criminalize Hillary Clinton for being a victim of a hack-and-leak operation, along the way taking out still more expertise on Russia.
And while Barr was criminalizing people, he followed Rudy’s chase for dick pics in an effort to criminalize Hunter Biden and his father.
Do you see the genius of this con, Donald Trump’s most successful reality TV show ever?
Vast swaths of America, including at least half the Supreme Court, and millions of working class voters, really believe that he — the guy who asked Russia to hack his opponent some more — was the victim.
And that’s how a billionaire grifter earns the trust of the working guy.
For the most part, the press just played along, repeating Trump’s claims of victimhood as if they were true.
It’s also the problem in thinking that if only Trump faces legal consequences, he’ll go away, he’ll be neutralized.
We saw this every time he faced justice. The first impeachment. The second one. The New York trials. Each time, his grievance became a loyalty oath. Each time, he sucked more and more Republicans into the con. Each time he made them complicit.
The hatred of and for Trump by Rule of Law is what made him strong, because he used it to — ridiculously!! — place himself into the role of the little guy, the target of those mean elites.
We’ll have decades, maybe, to understand why Trump resoundingly won yesterday. Some of it is inflation (and the unrebutted claims it is bigger than it is), which makes working people angry at the elites, people they might imagine are the same people persecuting Trump.
For many, though, it’s the appeal of vengeance.
Trump has spent nine years spinning a tale that he has reason to wreak vengeance on Rule of Law. The greatest con he ever pulled.
So even if DOJ had charged Trump, two months before Merrick Garland was confirmed (though all three of the charges people imagine would be easy — incitement, the call to Brad Raffensperger, and the fake electors plot — have been unsuccessful in other legal venues), even if DOJ had convicted Trump along with the earliest crime scene defendant in March 2022, even if Trump hadn’t used the very same means of delay he used successfully, which would have still stalled the case past yesterday’s election, it still wouldn’t have disqualified him from running.
It still would be the centerpiece of his manufactured tale of grievance.
It still would be one of the elements he uses to make working people think he’s just like them.
You will only defeat Trumpism by destroying that facade of victimhood. And you will not achieve meaningful legal victories until you do that first.
I know we all need an easy way to explain this — an easy culprit for why this happened.
But it’s not Merrick Garland, because years before he came on the scene, Trump had already convinced everyone that any attempt to hold him accountable was just another attempt by corrupt powers to take him down.
Trump sold the country on grievance and victimhood. And in the process he made half the country hate Rule of Law.
Update: This is a good summary of how Trump lures in people attracted to grievance.
The Republican Party has been the party of the Low-Trust voter for a very long time. It’s the party that wants to get rid of institutions, of any of the bonds that connect us all together. The Democratic Party is the party of institutions, the party of Good Governance. It’s the party of trusting other Americans to make good choices for you. There is very little that the Democrats can do to appeal to the Low-Trust voter, and you saw what that means for the future of our politics last night. I would go so far as to say that we’re seeing the effects of a realignment of what partisanship is. The GOP is the party of the perpetual outsider and the Low-Trust voter, the people calling for things to be torn down. The Democrats are the insiders, the institutionalists. That’s why you saw realignment of people like Liz Cheney and Vermont Governor Phil Scott, people who still think the government matters even if they disagree on how it should be doing things.
I don’t know what you can do to win back the Low-Trust voters.
[snip]
I don’t know how you build back trust in the government. Things like FEMA in disasters are supposed to be able to do that, but the post-hurricane situation in North Carolina, where outside agitators went in to try to destroy that trust, and people on the Internet went out of their way to spread lies about how the Federal government had abandoned Asheville, are just examples of how everything can be used to pop out more Low-Trust voters.
Thank you. I imagine your work will become even more essential as we move into these dark days. Take care of each other, friends.
He won an election. Someone had to lose and Harris lost. We go from there.
That’s what privilege sounds like.
Reality. I took my dose when Bernie got flamed.
When Bernie “got flamed,” millions of Americans and residents didn’t suddenly worry about their continued existence.
It’s a luxury to think tomorrow’s another day. Last night I watched friends and acquaintances begin to panic about what to do to stay alive after Inauguration Day; to them there may be no tomorrow, and they just watched proof that more than half the country is determined to make them suffer until there is no tomorrow.
Delusional.
The Enabling Act of 1933 passed and we went from there.
That’s what scares me.
JFC
There’s no req for SCOTUS members to be born in the USA or be citizens. If Don the Con wanted to really “own the libs” (all his non millionaire/billionaire supporters care about), he should appoint Vlad Putin to SCOTUS.
I’d at least like my horrific fascist BS to have a sense of humor.
The USA broke my heart again. I really wanted to believe the worst man wouldn’t be elevated over a very smart, talented, hard-working, experienced decent woman.
It’s the same lesson as 2016: misogyny is woven into the fabric of our society.
America has not felt uncomfortable enough to change for the good. We will soon enough, the next 4 years will be rough. Real rough.
I’ve also said this before. things evidently have to get much worse before people wake up.
There are no shortage of examples around the world where people are largely awake and also largely helpless due the entrenched power structure. That outcome is 100% on the table here as well.
What if there were even more purges of legal voters than thought as voter numbers so low.
Greg Palast ( http://www.gregpalast.com) tried to warn everyone about purges (before, on, & even after election) of legal voters affecting outcomes. He thought maybe 2 Million legal voters might be purged.
How can we find out how many were finally purged? What if purges were much more massive than thought in swing states, and the purges account for unusually low voter numbers ( https://www.dailykos.com/story/2024/11/6/2283328/-Trump-received-less-votes-than-2020-and-he-still-won ).
Does Marc Elias know about this? Does Kamala Harris?
https://www.gregpalast.com/will-vigilantes-or-voters-choose-our-president/
Will Vigilantes or Voters Choose our President?
In 2020 there were 88 vigilante votes challengers, almost all in Georgia. But the group that provided the hit list of voters to challenge, True the Vote of Texas, has proudly proclaimed it has, this year, signed up an astonishing 40,000 vigilantes. True the Vote crows that, as of the beginning of August, they had already challenged over 851,000 voters across the nation.
https://www.watchvigilantesinc.com
Voters, not vigilantes, should choose our President.
If not, we have no right to call ourselves a democracy.
Jesse L. Jackson Sr. is the Founder of the RainbowPUSH Coalition, sponsor of the film, Vigilantes Inc., America’s New Vote Suppression Hitmen, which you can stream without charge at WatchVigilantesInc.com
>>>>> [Moderator’s note: something in this comment triggered auto-moderation – it may be the links. I have freed it, but I am deleting your second attempt to post this. /~Rayne]
Authoritarian followers don’t need to wake up. They perceive their purpose as following their leader. If things get worse, because their leader made it so, it merely explains why their leader is needed more than ever, It cements the relationship between the two. It’s a heads I win, tails you lose proposition that Trump is a master at manipulating. Non-authoritarian followers don’t think that way.
Not sure how America is going to survive a Trump 2.0 Presidency that will be heavy with retribution and grievance, with John Roberts giving the president nearly absolute immunity and the ability to talk with the USAG office, and a R-House and R-Senate.
I’m not sure we won’t just get worse. And I don’t expect a free and fair election in 28.
During COVID I took a deep dive into genealogy and history on both sides of my family, both from the area of Europe formerly known as Bavaria and surrounding regions.
The matriarchal side were Jewish scholars and rabbi, and they saw early in the 30’s what was happening. They emigrated in ‘33, via Palestine to Spain and then America, a journey of several years. It was only one small part of the family, my grandmothers father and his immediate family that got out, the rest were lost during the following horrors.
The patriarchal side of my family were Prussian, and eventually became firmly aligned with Hitler and his movement.
My mother’s side of the family is near extinct, down to two matriarchal family lines. The patriarchal side represents dominion over one of the largest, richest companies in all of Europe.
All the previous to say this; we are having a family meeting tonight to discuss emigrating as well.
This isn’t beanbag, it’s going to get very, very ugly for a lot of innocent people, I’m not sure I want to remain in a country that is so grievance filled and so uninformed, that they would elect this abomination at all.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the SAME USERNAME and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You attempted to publish this comment as “J.Publicus” triggering auto-moderation; it has been edited this one time to reflect your established username. Please check your browser’s cache and autofill; future comments may not publish if username does not match. /~Rayne]
How fortunate for you.
If only the tens of millions of Americans who are vulnerable under Project 2025 had the same ability to pick up and leave and find work abroad.
Yes, we’re about to see the many authors of Project 2025 come out of the woodwork, to take credit for their genius. Trump and Vance will suddenly discover their deep affinity for them.
As much as I agree with this, I think inflation doomed Harris. Every visit to the grocery store was a reminder that basic living cost substantially more than it did four years ago. The “why” part doesn’t matter when Fox News exists to blame Biden & Harris.
No. Inflation did not doom Harris.
You could point to official inflation statistics, or just look around. I do a lot of driving, and my gas prices are way down from a year ago. My local grocery store chain has had a huge sign on the front of their building for months saying “1000s of lower prices!” My own spending patterns tell me inflation is under control, and has been for a while.
But the perception of inflation, stoked by the lies of Trump, certainly were effective.
Inflation is tamed, gas prices are in a better place, but the prices in the grocery store haven’t declined. The pocket book damage is ongoing, as two bags of groceries can push $75 real quick, and that’s with coupon shopping and buying the store brands.
The perception is absolutely key. For instance, egg prices are up substantially right now. It’s because of bird flu, not any economic policy. “We can’t afford 4 more years of Bidenomics” on Fox News fixes the blame on Biden and Harris, and their low information voters absolutely lap up tariffs as Trump’s beautiful solution.
Perceptions across a broad range of voter concerns led to an across-the-board (3-5%?) swing and, apparently, led a lot of previous Biden voters to sit the election out.
It will be necessary to unpack the mood of the voter, even if what we find is rough, and not very logical, and, evidence of successful and also failed efforts to ‘paint various pictures.’ We will also learn that what is concrete to some is abstract to others, and visa-versa.
But certain questions transcend perceptions such as what will be the political mechanics of the GOP protecting their political gains in 2026 mid-terms? How much will we move as a nation from the rule of law to the law of rulers?
You get it. Inflation has been going down, but RW media has been lying about it for 4 years, like they do about everything else.
True that. They absolutely come unglued if you ask them how the markets collapsed, and how worldwide inflation began during Trump’s term. They have no understanding of anything political except for us vs them.
It’s not the inflation itself. It’s the way each camp used the inflation as a campaign issue.
Inflation was caused because of COVID. Because the huge amount of money that was printed by the feds (to save the market), most of it during Trump’s administration. And to a lesser degree because of supply chain issues, also caused by COVID (and to an even lesser degree because of the war with Ukraine and other reasons). The democrats did a lousy job in explaining this. Biden also did a lousy job in showing that he cares about it and prioritize it. He did sign the “Inflation Prevention Act”, but he didn’t manage to convince the public he really cares about inflation, and his campaign kept talking about how the economy is doing GREAT even though lot of people didn’t feel great. Harris did changed the democratic narrative, but it was too little, and too late.
In the meanwhile, the republicans effectively convinced people it was all Biden’s fault. That somehow, his policy brought inflation. And that Trump, who is a “businessman”, is better at fixing it. It was all a load of b/s, but the democrats failed at countering those messages, and for the most part, it felt as if (at least before Harris) they don’t really care.
Tariffs played a role in causing inflation too but I have yet to ever see any serious discussion of that.
Which makes the impending tariffs on all imports all that much scarier.
If you’re explaining, you’re losing. The Democratic party has much bigger issues than the nuances in their message, principally how to get people to hear their message at all.
This analysis of communication and what communication was received especially needs to evaluate the transformed media ecology and its various modalities and nodes and affordances.
We can lay inflation at the feet of corporate greed.
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/10/greedflation-inflation-grocery-prices-corporate-greed/680432/
Absolutely. This never got the attention (hammering home) it needed.
To some extent, this is a misdirection. Of course corporations are greedy. They are greedy by definition. Any corporation have “greed” in their mission statement (usually, using some weasel words such as “maximize shareholder value”). The thing is, corporations are greedy all the time. Inflation only happened this one time.
Inflation happens, in my lifetime at least 3 periods plus 2 recessions.
The latest period was global, and it followed a new unknown virus,
measures to protect public health, and not allowing people to end up on the street begging to house and feed themselves.
Yes, this period was unique – did the media explain that while Trump et al blamed Biden?
Nope, and then they were off to the races hounding Biden for weeks on end, rather than praising his accomplishments in bringing America out of the pandemic AND taking care of it’s fallout.
The USA tackled inflation down, brought “the economy” back faster than anywhere.
America in this respect at least, is the envy of the world.
Today, the world is stunned. Why?
It’s because they probably aren’t being sucked in by Trump, and US media AND Elon Musk. Yes, we can consider him and his dead bird no different than legacy media, in fact worse than FOX.
Alarm bells are going off. Can you hear them over the noise? The rule of law has been kneecapped and that’s gonna mess over way more people than the traditional “others.” That’s my takeaway.
I’ll add that Trump was successful in making many Americans believe they would soon face the same persecution that he did, from an unjust and over-reaching Justice department. IMO, that was a real motivator for many fence sitters.
TRANSCRIPT of TRUMP Post Arraignment REMARKS at BEDMINSTER 6/13/23
https://www.c-span.org/video/?528671-1/president-trump-remarks-court-appearance []
Dictator’s playbook.
I agree inflation was the single critical factor, as viscerally experienced by every visit to the grocery store. Everyone is sensitized to it, so it begs the question how Trump and Vance are going to implement his economic proposals and their apparent detrimental effect on inflation. Mass deportation makes no economic sense. I sense Trump won’t care, but Vance will have some big challenges to explain any initiatives that are pro-inflationary.
Inflation was the stupidest reason to vote for Trump. The people who did so want more socialized government in order to regulate pricing.
They went and voted for a opportunistic capitalistic grifter to deliver this.
I guess this is what happens after the GOP systematically defunded and suppressed education for the last 2-3 decades.
They voted for a landlord because rents were high.
I am as surprised as anyone. I would be surprised if there are mass deportations. If there are, and a trade war, inflation will likely result. I cannot see otherwise.
People voted as they did because they were pissed, and Trump offered the lightning rod. JD will be more a ferret than Trump. Trump will pardon. He will appoint. He will bless Project 2025 now, and might impact the Administrative State. He will want to use the military as a domestic police force, with Generals like Hitler.
It will be bad for those and other reasons. People were pissed, and had their hate-in. The traditional GOP seems to be on the ropes. There is great uncertainty. But the election was held and in large part racism raged. It is ugly. But it has to be faced. There has to be a learning curve about what actual electorate we have, and what people raged against.
I don’t pretend to have an answer, other than we have to accept the vote, and does that mean the Democratic Party needs to take a look at itself and change?
Just stop. Blaming the Democratic Party is like blaming someone for being mugged.
No, leaning further to the right as Clinton did is not the answer. Did the US get anything like the ACA under Clinton? How many African Americans were fed into the for profit prison system under Clinton? Many more examples.
Hold firm – you are not asking for anything other than what most developed have had for decades.
My prediction: Trumpers will forget all about prices when Fox/Trump stop harping on it and/or start reporting (true or not) that prices are lower.
Newsflash: with tariffs on imports, ain’t a damn price going lower.
Tariffs will also be used by non-importers as cover to raise their own prices, for no reason related to their own higher costs. That is, because they can.
Indeed, just as we shrugged and blamed “inflation” so too will we shrug and blame “tariffs”? Whether or not it’s in fact the case?
I’m in Canada, and prices are coming down because of the ongoing and sustained uproar here with regards to our very few grocers and what we’ve come to know as price gouging. Monopolies here because this country is for all intents and purposes, mostly unpopulated. You’ve 10 times our population, can support a whole lot of choices, competition. People stopped buying into the “inflation” BS here.
I was in Buffalo NY Monday, perused the prices of things at Wegmans, Target, and had to chuckle.
You’re being ripped off big time. Same grocery items here in a whole lot of cases are now cheaper. I wasn’t there to shop, just grab whatever – I didn’t buy a lot of things, they’re cheaper here.
Hard to square that with imagining that a serial liar, six-time bankrupt, convicted financial fraudster, and visibly demented 78-year-old man would be a great steward of the large complex American economy. Trump’s degree is purportedly in economics from Penn, FFS, but he can’t spell tariff, let alone accurately describe one.
This result was much more likely a tribal vote, based on irrational fears and attachments, than anything related to factual cause-and-effect. The latter is just the framing inept and normalizing press and pollsters use.
This. But you won’t hear the press reflect on their own conduct.
This. But that’s no easy task. You have to make the distinction between victimhood and responsibility.
The CEO of a business is responsible for the company they run. Bring in customers, orders, and profits, and you get rewarded. Don’t do that, and you get bounced. That’s not victimhood; that’s responsibility.
Trump himself has made a life of accepting the cheers and avoiding responsibility. He sold that to his followers, encouraging them to live and vote in much the same way. Bringing responsibility back into the conversation is an essential first step.
Was the Democratic Party responsible? I voted for Biden. Again. Only after the primaries was there the switch. Harris was an okay candidate and I would have favored her over Newsom or some other candidates in an actual primary contest, but the Democratic Party acted as it did.
And Medicare for All is still off agenda. Big banks too big to fail. Or put differently, too failed to be big. Is it responsible?
I am so goddamned tired of this monolithic “Democratic Party” bullshit. The Democratic Party is Democratic voters, and the party apparatus are voters who show up to do the work of organizing Democratic voters. Been there, done that. Became a party delegate after attending a couple months’ meetings, meeting local party members, investing some time in work like newsletters. I’ve cleaned toilets at the local party office, cooked meals for call banks, licked a metric fuckton of envelopes. I’ve drafted, submitted, and advocated for resolutions passed by the local party, then the local municipality, then the state party, to work its way up to the national platform.
I know from experience about 25-50 people in every county in this state are the backbone of this fucking monolithic entity you want to accuse as responsible for failing. The same people do the same scut work year after year only to have to deal with this crap when the truth is entirely different.
The truth is that the overwhelming majority of Americans are fucking stupid about how politics work in this country. That includes you who so easily blames an entity which never really has enough engaged people to achieve its goals; they’re constantly patching things together with chewing gum and baling wire and hope. The reasons why your wish list of items didn’t make it onto the platform may have been YOU didn’t show up to ensure they were on the list, YOU didn’t advocate for them, and those who did show up may have believed a Black Asian woman would have had a fucking impossible time trying to sell single-payer public health care when a Black man couldn’t even with a massive popular vote.
You don’t like what happened? How much effort did you personally put into showing up to do the work? Voting is the very least effort.
Believe me, doing more than voting would have mattered. You might have realized after showing up at party meetings that Harris was the best qualified and gifted candidate the Democratic Party had with broad appeal to the entire party.
Goddamn it I am exhausted and sick of this circular firing squad by people who couldn’t be arsed to do the work. Why do you think there is no viable third party like Democratic Socialists with your beloved Bernie at the helm? Because no one will do the work necessary to organize one.
And this goes for Magbeth4, too, who’s dumped similar whining about the monolithic Democratic Party.
Never underestimate the stupidity of the American electorate.
Word, Rayne.
Guilty as charged, Rayne, I don’t join the ranks of the party and do what you do. I did play a minor role in the Dodd-Frank legislation (worked on the clause establishing the Office of Financial Research)
I agree that Harris put together an amazing campaign, and that she is a very compelling candidate. The best Dem candidate in my memory (going back to 1968). If she is willing to run in 2028, I will definitely find ways to support her team.
As for the whining: laying blame is not helpful. No points for that. Points for supporting candidates and helping out where you can.
While this is a Rant-from-Rayne (TM), it is 100% spot-on. There is a truth (reality) about America that the vast majority of its population does not want to admit (it just ain’t polite to admit one’s venality, animus, and/or ignorance in ‘polite’ company). So our collective lack of self-awareness is a tidal force pushing us towards a doom, that many are still, faithfully, trying to prevent.
The Rethug party loves their victimization, and Trump was all too happy to accommodate them.
We are at heart a very racist country. It is really just that simple.
Really racist, or really stupid?
I think lack of education and critical thinking is what will be our downfall. Racism has certainly been stoked by agitators, but people are too stupid to realize they are being played.
I am absolutely floored at my state AZ’s numbers. They said no to Lake, and yes to Trump. It doesn’t even make sense.
Once again I feel like the little girl in the Old El Paso ad who says, “Why not both?”
Carve it on my tombstone.
Racism is stupid. It breeds stupidity. IE, Florida and North Carolina felt a hint of the climate change reality which is in store for the planet, yet voted for those who deny it is happening.
We’ve had 400+ years of stupid in this country, and getting that out of the system is not a simple task — especially when a non-trivial segment of the country sees it as a feature, not a bug.
Grievance generally gets aimed/blamed at females. Harris would have won if she was a male. Ds can’t run female candidates for President if we want to win. The dislike/distrust of women in this country is still at over half the population. Which I think is an improvement overall but still not enough to win Presidential elections.
What is also worrisome is neutering the Department of Education which will lead to a greater population of Americans lacking critical thinking skills.
[Welcome to emptywheel. SECOND REQUEST: Please choose and use a unique username with a minimum of 8 letters. We have adopted this minimum standard to support community security. You attempted to publish this comment as “NanC65” which does still not meet the site’s standard minimum. Because your username is far too short it will be temporarily changed to match the date/time of your first known comment until you have a new compliant username. /~Rayne]
New username. Thank you.
[Thanks for updating your username to meet the 8 letter minimum. /~Rayne]
Racist, stupid, and misogynist. All three, and a lot of each.
Here is a statistic for you, 64% of Native Americans voted for Trump.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DCCZSlavLXb/?hl=en&img_index=2
I don’t use I stagram can you provide a link to the actual document
Misogyny. We elected Obama twice. No women yet though.
Women voted for him as well.stupidity is without gender.
Women can be misogynist as well.
There was still an element of racism, else Trump wouldn’t have attempted his bullshit about Harris’s mixed race identity.
And no one of the darker skinned was going to be allowed to get certain things done, thanks to Mitch McConnell.
Are you trying to say “Racism: solved” because Obama won twice?
I haven’t quite put this into a coherent theory. But I keep thinking about the repeal of slavery, and Reconstruction. African American men were voted into office around the country, including 16 to Congress. It lasted about a decade before White anger gave rise to disenfranchisement and worse. African Americans were shut out of Congress for decades.
Barack Obama broke through to become our first African American president, and it seemed like our country might be ready to confront its original sin. But instead here we are again, apparently ready to break the whole the damn system rather than allow everyone to have a place at the table.
Again, half-baked thoughts right now, from a fully-baked brain, but White grievance is a powerful animating force in this country.
When Obama was elected, and again a 2nd time, I really felt America was moving forward. Now I feel like America is dead.
If Obama were to run today he could not be elected. This is one of the collateral damage after just 4 years of Trump presidency.
Sexist too.
AOC did her heavy lifting and one hopes she got noticed for it.
Bernie probably could have been more strongly supportive, but made his choice. But Trump won. What he and Vance pitched got a majority.
We had other beliefs and faiths in the electorate, the electoral process, but Trump read things and did what he did to win. Vance conformed chapter and verse. Demon Haitians. Immigtant AND black. French speakers too, although that part was not as apparent. It is disheartening. It is as hard to understand as crypto mining in an energy crisis. People set their priorities in ways I admit I do not understand. People with boats, ATVs, snowmobiles, motorcycles and cottages on lakes felt dispossessed?
Once you have a cult, there’s no amount of reason will make a difference. If Trump urged them to drink the poisoned Kool-Aid, many of them wouldn’t flinch. (And which may yet come, in one form or another.) That pic of all those fawning heretical religionists with their hands on The Messiah at the centre. The exact same perverted phenomenon as in 1930’s Germany with their manufactured hero. As before, it won’t end well.
I know that The People was supposed to be the last and surest guardrail, but like any disasters, there was a chain of failures. Not least to my mind a Supreme Court packed with partisans who, by an egregious delay of justice, denied it. A deliberate betrayal of the Rule of Law they swore to uphold and protect, leaving the door open for a felon to resume the infamy where he last left off.
That pic of all those fawning heretical religionists with their hands on The Messiah at the centre was one of the most revolting things I’ve ever seen.
Republicans in the trump cult were already invited to drink the poisoned Kool-Aid. Throughout 2020 trump released a blizzard of lies about covid and spurious remedies.
As a direct result: “In this cohort study evaluating 538 159 deaths in individuals aged 25 years and older in Florida and Ohio between March 2020 and December 2021, excess mortality was significantly higher for Republican voters than Democratic voters after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults, but not before.”
https://jamanetwork.comFOO/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2807617
(note inserted “FOO” – remove to visit site).
I suppose you could accurately say that “trump is poisoning the blood of America”.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. SECOND REQUEST: Please use the SAME USERNAME each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You have commented here as RationalAgent, Region Manager Antifa, and this time as RationalAgent19. Pick a name and stick with it as sockpuppeting is not acceptable here. If this is your name going forward, please confirm by reply to this comment. /~Rayne]
This is my handle.
[Moderator’s note. Thanks, noted. /~Rayne]
Marcy, ( Blue Suede Shoes),
What is the new hat for the Nov 9 2016 Pussy-hat march sequel?
The Merrick Garland haters always conveniently forget that Trump was impeached twice & both times Mitch McConnell refused to let him be convicted. Which could have prohibited Trump from running again.
[Moderator’s note: This comment should not have cleared for publication. This user has been Blacklisted for ignoring +4 moderator requests to change their name. /~Rayne ]
I’ll buy all that about using the courts but the rot set in with Iran-Contra, in which senators chose to protect the establishment. None more culpable that that open crook and woman abuser Dan Inouye.
On a longer view, when trump was elected I started reading on McCarthyism. I already knew that the government stopped being anti-fascist at noon on April 12, 1945. It didn’t become actively pro-fascist in foreign affairs — which it has remained till today — until after June 1950. It was insane to think that the United States could support fascism around the world but never have it come here.
somewhere i have VHS tapes of the Iran/Contra hearings… so i could watch after work. i was in my early 20s and fascinated by the sausage-making…
A salient point. I suppose, additionally, the seeds of our current rot were planted long ago. The failure of ‘contemporary capitalism’ has been a long time coming.
We will have the president the press wanted.
I noticed Jeff Bezos was front-and-center to congratulate Trump.
And blanket demonization of the progressive left – another form anti-wokeism – has already begun on MSNBC this morning: Donny Deutsch, Chris Matthews and John Kasich (no surprise there) all calling for a “return to centrism” in order to make the Democratic party relevant again, ignoring the ever-changing definition of what used to be “center”, what is “center” now, and the now-inevitable further lurch to the right of today’s “center”. They’ve already done day-after interviews of Byron Donnells and RFK Jr. – suddenly “relevant” and “newsworthy”.
The sun still did rise this morning, but it feels colder…
Oh the chorus of fucking white male scolds. Amazing how they’ve completely forgotten the effect of the pandemic on the population.
Producers use guests as their voice to push the through line they’ve already decided on. There seems to be no other explanation for giving Kasich, a former investment banker and hard right governor of Ohio, any air time.
He has a vested interest in having Democrats fail. In this case, he’s paid to offer faux explanations for it. They are tailored to fit his interests, not explain reality. MSNBC’s producers know that.
Why would anyone think that MSNBC was any different than the NYT or WAPO.
Because, for the non-reductionist, they have individual track records one could follow, were one so inclined.
i spit in his general direction. hopefully spattering Chris Sununu as well.
I’m seeing people saying that the Dems have to move to the right to get more votes. They haven’t been doing that, and being a coalition party I can’t see them doing it – they’d lose a lot of their base, while not gaining anything at all.
WE live in oligarchy now with the oligarchs goal of control of all governments. The insane person would not have won without the insane amounts of unknown money from an insane richest person on earth.
More important is a heartfelt Thank You Marcy & Rayne for this incredible website. The work you’ve done has been stellar and hopefully someday recognized.
WE all recognized the oligarch owned MSM attack on Biden. Unfortunately IMO, rather than wait for Biden to have won then retired early and passed the Presidency we now will have chaos in a climate gone berserk.
I just want to reiterate so many of us on this site saw the oligarch owned MSM attack on Biden and intellectually understood what was going on. The Democratic Party when it makes mistakes, the mistakes are HUGE. An example: Just my theory; Obama not shutting down the government until he got to rightfully appoint a Supreme Court Justice after Antonin Scalia’s death. The thinking IMO was that Hillary was promised to run for backing off so Obama could win his original primary. Biden being a super good person acquiesced to the promise. That people would vote for Hillary because a Supreme Court appointment was on the line.
I just have to add that North Carolina would not vote for Democrats and the help they need after the hurricane ???
One vs. the many. Who will win eventually? Sadness and resolve until WE accomplish the good.
NC voters elected a Dem gov/AG
That’s what makes the split ticket so confoundingly awful.
Even here in Kentucky with no statewide office elections this year, voters overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional amendment to provide public funding for private schools — a big Republican policy priority — at about the same percentage that they overwhelmingly voted for Trump.
At this point I’m going with the analysis that, let’s face it, most voters are dumb as hell. And have no understanding of either how personalities they vote for enact policies they dislike, or how government works on any level. It’s not a fun conclusion to arrive at, but there’s nothing else that remotely makes any sense. And I don’t really see a solution, either.
I remember going with my family as a kid to Jimmy Carter’s inauguration party in Plains, GA. I’ve been a Democrat my whole life. You’ll read a lot of comments about how disappointed “right thinking” Democrats are with the country. They’re right to be disappointed, to see an openly fascist, criminal like Trump elected President in full knowledge. It’s in full knowledge of the people, the Will of the People that the law doesn’t matter, to self-immolate, to burn down the Constitution, to tacitly agree to return to racism and dehumanize ourselves. The tokens Democrats hold up, the Soul of America, Civil Rights, human dignity turn out like the lanterns Nietzsche’s madman has long pointed out were gone out. Gaza showed that was true, Iraq, the War on Terror, so does this election. Democrats will be disgusted with their fellow Americans. Trump’s politics of grievance acts out the nihilistic rebellion of a society without a future where everything has gotten lost.
H. L. Mencken said it:
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
Judge Merchan, (half of) America turns its lonely eyes to you.
Who am I kidding. His lawyers will get it pushed off until next year
and/or the Supremes will wipe the slate clean.
Marcy, (blue suede shoes),
Trump’s grievance 2016 win was met Nov 9th 2016 by Women’s pussy-hat national protest. What will 2024’s grievance hat shape be?
Women’s March on Washington was January 21, 2017.
Ms JennyMD,
Thank you for the correction. I mistakenly referred to the publishing on Facebook Nov 9 2016 planning begins for Women’s march as the event itself.
This is privilege, to worry about hats when many Americans and residents are now worried for their lives, not just their rights.
Worry less about hats and more about what we do to shelter the targets of hate. Think Anne Frank’s family as an example; what could have been done to keep them alive.
It’s pretty obvious to me that Yogarhythms is a troll.
[Moderator’s note: No. Don’t do this; it’s ad hominem. Yogarhythms has been a member of the community since at least 2017 and contributed more than 300 comments to date. Best to assume their comment today was a reflexive response to shock. Believe me, there are far worse comments which have been binned. /~Rayne]
Thank you Rayne! Yes, I’m thinking about what I can do to help, even if in small ways. So many things to think about, but one that’s top of mind for me, given how many young men follow the Rogans of the world, is that my soon-to-be-9-year-old son needs to learn that masculinity doesn’t have to be toxic, or aggrieved, that he’s not a victim for being a white male. I’m very worried about what’s in the culture for pre-teen and teen boys.
Been there with my son. He’s now 27; he’s butted heads with friends since his tween years about their toxic masculinity a number of times. In hindsight I think the videogaming world hasn’t helped — not because of the games because many are just fine, but because there’s an ecosystem of interaction which encourages hypercompetitive behavior which is often out of sight of parents if they aren’t engaged. There’s confusion between the sense of belonging gaming communities can create and the hyper-competitiveness which too often rewards the wrong elements in those communities.
Increasing use of AI which draws on a wealth of toxically masculine content across the internet will only make things more challenging.
Thank you Dr Wheeler, the culture of grievance and victimhood has spread everywhere. I see it, and it’s so ironic, with some of the richest and most powerful people, who think of themselves as victims not winners.
I can’t help but notice this: in 2020, Trump got 74m votes and Biden 81m. In 2024, fewer people voted for Trump (71m) but WAY fewer people voted for Harris at 66m. Obviously, the population shifted during these 4 years, with people dying and others turning 18, etc. So it’s not just that his grievance story worked to get him votes, it worked to make people less willing to vote for Harris. And, as my wife said to me last night, I’m sure some of those missing 15m votes that didn’t show up this time just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a woman of color.
I agree with your wife.
Don’t underestimate voter suppression efforts.
And also some may have decided to punish Biden/Harris for the Gaza-Israeli mayhem by not voting or voting 3rd party.
We don’t KNOW how many people voted in 2024 yet- a lot of the votes on the West Coast haven’t been counted.
On the missing votes, one possibility that may take months or years to sort out is a multi-state replay of Florida 2000, with Katherine Harris, Choice Point, and a much reduced electorate. A definite possibility in Virginia, maybe several more states.
As of now – noon PST – it’s up to 71.9m and 67m. Still lots of votes to count, but clearly she will fall well short of 81m.
is 81M some magic number? Does it change anything?
appreciate your thoughts. I will never, ever understand how people will overwhelmingly vote against their best interests.
I feel empty
Republicans have been very good at convincing voters that Democrats are to blame for everything, including things that Republicans caused. And they are also quite adept at marketing policies that will end up hurting people. And they lie unabashedly.
Anger, Fear and Victimhood won.
Stupidity won. Racism and misogyny won.
The U.S. corporate media ecosphere relies on these to continue its existing business models.
Agree. And social media can be toxic.
WTF, America?
From the son of a good friend, still reeling after losing his wife in childbirth a few months ago:
“This is just who we are. Proud bigots and oblivious fools “
There was one Canadian idjit who was telling me that third parties got less than one percent of the vote so they couldn’t possibly have had an effect. I eventually found a breakdown that included the third parties, and in some states it was much more than that. (It was 1.7% in California.)
I found this page:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-us-election-results/
where you can get a breakdown by state as well as nationally.
One of your pithiest; sadly, so simple, yet so true.
After Trump’s inauguration in 2017 I turned to my husband and said, “He just won a presidential election and he’s spewing grievance”….that’s always been his political calling card. And it resonates with a sizable portion of the population. In truth I think most people are afraid. I know a Polish woman, whose husband hardly speaks any English, who likes Trump (I live in a blue state). She (a hard working immigrant) wants “other” immigrants deported. Go figure.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the SAME USERNAME and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You attempted to publish your last two comments as “hester” which doesn’t meet the site’s standard; I have edited them to match your established standard compliant name. Please make a note of this and check your browser’s cache and autofill. /~Rayne]
My apologies about the name issue. I’ll do it right from now on. Sorry.
I think this Polish immigrant means that she wants those immigrants who can’t be considered White to be deported.
Yep, always the ‘other’ guy. When we talk about deportations to come under whatever titles Miller and Homan hold, it will not be the Russian birth tourists but the ones who don’t look like them.
As I noted in the last post, some of the conservative-minded males considered voting for a woman worse than the risk of deportation.
My brother is married to a dreamer. She came to the U.S. from Mexico at age six with her family – illegally.
Now she wants “immigrants” deported. I can’t wrap my head around that. I can only see this as “ladder-pulling.”
That, and people who have less money or are darker in skin color.
Being a widower to a Chicana the irony of arbitrary borders and classifications of race is very clear….from Wikipedia…
“Genetic studies have found that most Mexicans are of partial indigenous heritage”…Most Mexicans are Native Americans!!? Why the hell is there even a border?
Hey…we’re all one people no matter what the knuckle draggers say.
National borders are destined to and are becoming as relevant as State or Provincial borders are today.
Thank you for all the great articles you’ve all done here, I don’t comment often but I’ve always read your articles, I worry about the ripple effects it’ll have world wide with all the right wing fascists popping up in here in Europe:/ Plus Elon gutting all the protections will have massive ramifications on the weather systems going forward
The one constructive thought I’ve had thus far is this:
At this point, Trump will have lost votes from 2020, but Harris will have lost 5x as many votes from Biden’s total.
Who stayed home? What are the demographics, and why did they stay away from the race?
Anyone with a link to hard numbers (a stretch right now, granted), I would appreciate it.
Crosstab analysis will be extremely useful to the Ds post-mortem. The question would be how the obvious enthusiasm gap was flipped for actual voting.
Yes you are thinking in the direction of how we arrived at this outcome.
Very eager to see lotsa data.
A big tell to me is N Carolina where they turned down Lt. Robinson but went for the orange version for prez.
Lotsa people not thinking clearly enough to act in their own interests up at the fed executive level.
NC voters were okay with a Nazi, just not a Black Nazi.
That is the obvious simple immediate conclusion that popped up to me.
There were probably other factors too, like how much power each office has.
Trumthp now has waaaayyyy more power to screw those voters over now than Lt R. And its way more obvious how shitty and drained their lives will be for that.
So yeah, their cognitive dissonance for their fail. And other bad tendencies like the weakling choice to be racist and simpleminded, when they were clearly headed in a more resilient and better direction at state level.
And I suspect their was also media manipulation that we hadn’t thought of. Yesterday as I was streaming some of Prime’s election coverage, it was periodically interrupted by advertising because it was freevee.
There was a particularly alarming ad by a young black woman who was enthusiastically urging people to sign up for free government money. I believe it was designed to anger and motivate racists. I wondered if LaCivita had a hand in it. Or Russia. Or Bibi. Or Bezos. Or Musk.
Hmm. Quite possible. I’ve wondered about the content in gaming environments which never seems to be discussed outside of gaming.
my friggin country voted for tRump by almost 70%, Robinson got almost 80%. i think people felt good saying they voted for a black guy, making themselves not racist.
fools. tool.s or both.
A particular thanks on this day for your continuing work.
Few words seem more apt than what you wrote today about the effect of the ceaseless pumping of unchallenged false victimhood into today’s information realm — which then fed into the ever-primal and widespread appeal of vengence.
And indeed, in actuality it was vengence against the Rule of Law.
This geezer worries whether the significance of the latter is understood.
First things first. Thank you emptywheel esp. Dr. Wheeler for trying. I appreciate you.
I think we all here know the reasons people picked him. I’m just at a loss at what we could’ve done differently to flip a few million minds that those reasons are not worth the irreversible damage he’ll cause.
I am scared shitless.
If there was some part were we could blame Garland, it was his decision to appoint special counsels to investigate Biden’s documents and Hunter Biden. His attempts at appearing “impartial” just played into Trump’s hands and helped creating fake “whataboutism”. But this had effect only in the margin.
The more important factors are the big comeback of demagogy and lies due to social media on one hand, and the ineffectiveness of the democrats to counter those lies.
Many more faces will need to be eaten before this gets better; there’s no other way.
Mothers-to-be dying en route, or in the parking lot.
Hispanics who believed they weren’t the Hispanics Trump was going to deport, yet become collateral damage.
Who else?
You just described my hell.
This election probably killed the chances I will have grandkids. Why would either of my kids risk their lives or their partners’ lives to have a child?
I have family members who are brown — they have been mistaken for Hispanic. I have an in-law and niblings who are part-Hispanic. I worried throughout all of Trump’s first term they would be hurt in some way by Trump’s policies.
I’m sure I have counterparts who voted GOP and they just didn’t fucking care because inflation/Black Asian woman/taxes/pick any other stupid and selfish reason.
So sorry for you/friends/family, Rayne.
My daughter-in-law is from Taiwan; her father is a highly-placed government type. And I’m sure most of the rest of the folks here know someone else potentially in harm’s way; certainly anyone with friends/family in the Middle East or Ukraine.
I wasn’t particularly invested in becoming a grandmother, and have long known it wasn’t likely anyhow. Now I’m just glad that the chances of my daughter, who lives in the US, ever becoming pregnant, by choice or otherwise, are dwindling. And I’m reminded that I need to resume my monthly donations to Planned Parenthood (US), which I’d let slide during a long stretch of un- and underemployment. I just feel so helpless, sitting here Up Over.
Cousin who married a guy with Mexican ancestry – he was born in Texas.
Cousin whose husband is from India. Maybe not white enough.
Niece whose husband is from Ethiopia – he’s naturalized, but it took way too long, for someone who came in his early teens..
Two cousins in same-sex marriages. One is in California, so safer. The other is in a red state, and their spouse is Black.
And all the people living on Social Security with Medicare or Medicaid and prescriptions and special diets.
Too many didn’t want a woman President just my opinion because it wasn’t a landslide victory.
When I read about latino men going for Trump how ironic since they will most likely be part of his mass deportation
I’m not sure how to have any hope now. We tried so hard for nine years to fight this guy and it didn’t matter.
I can’t fully accept this message at the moment but I appreciate it. Thank you.
@Rayne
This^^
Thanks for your clear sightedness. It is especially important now.
I very much appreciate how you have contributed to and moderated the discussions as the community process the awful set back.
Democracy has come for the USA. We have done this to ourselves. I can’t listen to the news today. The audacity of hope can’t breathe.
Welcome to Hungary.
Harris ran a good campaign, and she did address the cost of living – corporate greed (price gouging), housing, daycare – so it’s not as if it was ignored. Seems millions of people have selective hearing. Not to mention amnesia, what did Trump ever do for the working class in his previous term? He’s a fake populist, but people believe what they want to, despite facts.
Cognitive dissonance.
Trump IS a fascist – it’s not something Democrats made up to stoke fear – it’s the conclusion of the very people who worked for him day to day for years.
It’s sad, I really thought she had an excellent chance of winning.
Americans who voted for have made their beds etc
The courtier press just as routinely ignored Harris’ policies to complain she was a) not offering any details and b) not sitting for interviews with them. Never mind that Convict-1 would only offer vague ‘concepts of a plan’ for ACA replacement(never released BTW) and no medical (or financial) records at all. No policies at all from Convict-1 outside of claims he’s going to ‘fix’ things.
He will, but not in the way and objective person would consider ‘fixed’, but the courtier press will sane-wash it anyhow.
Agree, and they were all too obvious. Which to me means they don’t give a fuck anymore.
They must be resisted as well, because that’s where the ‘other half’ of America is now. In every small way and big way, people can resist what Trump will do. That’s fighting too.
Given the short time to enter the fray, Harris ran a GREAT campaign. But she had to go from 0 to 60 in no time flat. If it had been her/their plan before July, Biden/Harris could have done more to ease her into the public spotlight; instead, boom! suddenly the understudy appears. Nobody has an impression of who she is or what she’s about. That’s a lot of ground to cover in a short time.
Whereas people (especially average people) went through one Trump administration, and made it through, so likely feel it can’t be that bad. And Trump lies all the time, so all this deportation stuff is just talk, right? Trump being Trump…
Most telling seems to be Trump lost 3M votes from 2020; but Biden 2020 got 81M and Harris 2024 is 66M – quite the drop. Harris said “when we vote, we win” and not enough voted. Due to purges in voter lists? Bomb threats that turned people away? A “Bradley Effect” about voting for a woman? All of the above? It will take time to parse all that.
But this doesn’t affect only the people who voted for Trump. If it did, then yes I’d agree that they must lie in the bed they made.
I’m incandescent with rage that I, a woman, and my transgender child also have to lie in this f*cking bed. We did not vote for this BS but here we are.
This. I’m a psychotherapist and my clients are terrified for themselves and their children.
I’m stunned myself and short on encouraging thoughts today. Harris ran a great campaign and I despair for what this election says about our fellow citizens
I might need therapy to process this. Similar to how I felt on 9-11. Disbelief that something I never thought could happen did in fact happen. Dread and anxiety for what is coming. Total gut punch.
‘Only affecting Trump supporters” narrative is exactly what Trump/GOP has been pushing since 2016. As if other 80+ millions of voters are somehow soooo way way better off, don’t understand the poor wee dotes, the “left behinds”. Never bought that bullshit for starters, stiill don’t. Happened to to tune into CNN’s coverage late last night, and there was Scott Jennings crying crocodile tears for all the hurt he and Trump supporters have suffered – as if they’re soooo misunderstood, are somehow suffering the slings and arrows of life more than other Americans.
🤮
Why, because Trump was held to account?
Exactly so.
Pssst…emojis no, emoticons yes. Emojis aren’t searchable. Thanks.
Teh R voters tend to be less educated but not low income. They’re the ones with the big pickups.
The Americans I know will support, cast a safety net around your family.
Thanks Rayne, funny I hesitated on that barf emoji, thought it might not be kosher here, because yeah, it’s a lazy thing end of the day.
I must do better.
The Americans who voted for Trump deserve what’s coming.
The problem is that all other Americans, and the rest of the world, are going to be dragged through it too.
On January 20, things are going to start changing in America, in horrific ways that would have seemed unthinkable even a year ago. Trump might crash the economy with tarriffs; he might use the military against protesters, or get the DoJ to charge his Democrat opponents with trumped-up crimes; he might try to round up millions of residents into concentration camps until they can figure out where/how to deport them.
He might try to “end the Ukraine war in a day” (which of course can only mean throwing them totally under the bus and capitulating to Putin). During the past few months he promised to do all of these things. And of course there will be endless grift.
Putin and Xi and Kim Jong Un are celebrating this huge victory. While America is busy senselessly savaging itself, they will continue trying to increase the chaos and press their advantage.
There might not be presidential elections in ’28. Trump might decide to try and make himself dictator for life, and who will be left to stop him?
I have spent a good bit of my life immersed in what is MAGA culture. A white evangelical community that has been conditioned to see Satan behind every tree and equate Democrats with Satan, largely due to abortion, birth control, inter-racial marriage, sexual preference, etc. A libertarian community that has been conditioned to see socialists/communist behind every tree, and, realistically, when is the last time you actually met a socialist or communist? I mean the communists don’t even believe in communism anymore.
I have had ongoing conversations with three people in particular (all college educated, incidentally all with engineering or law degrees) – specifically about the lessons of The Enlightenment and the uncomfortable fact that empirical rationality is the only method that humans have discovered to determine truth. All three dodge and avoid, but over the course of time all three admit that they simply reject empirical rationality. Their thesis is “my theory/understanding is so obviously correct that anything that refutes it is either flawed data or flawed logic.”
A society like this will inevitably fail. The history of the past 500 years shows that societies that have had a greater embrace of empirical rationality progress and those that don’t regress and disappear. On the “positive” side, climate change is in the process of wiping both these useless political parties [and many more] into the dustbin of history.
Agreed. It’s the defenestration of reason — Enlightenment be damned.
I want to thank Jim for his post.
If the term empirical rationality has no clear meaning, I suggest looking it up.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/
Jim’s last paragraph put many of my thoughts and feelings back into context.
I’m watching my county’s BOE press conference. County’s network had 1 million attempts at intrusion with 600,000 from Russia and Bulgaria. None were successful.
lord fkn jesus. If so, that’s war.
Ugly lazy piddly efforts.
I am very interested to see how well any of this is reported on and how.
Keep breathing, plenty of us out here feel for you and support your courage to look reality over careful and thoroughly.
You said you were scared upthread.
I have some small fear for my teen daughters and toddler boy and their future. I have lived thru a lot of bad shit so I have perspective.
I am feeling your pain some. I hope you can find and feel support
All the best for strength, hope and courage!
Thank you. I was watching ABC news and I had to leave the room. I could not look at or listen to him. When I came back I totally lost it crying.
This is just so bad. I feel such despair right now. I might need therapy, no joke. My core values of truth over lies, and law and order have been trampled over.
Well get you some good well rounded therapy, healthy and casual is usually best but can’t disparage many family and friends who give and receive professional therapy.
My wife came home and cried. She was saying she deals with our community’s littlest and most important people and their problems as a preK-8th public school art teacher. Plenty of basic problems in our city that is poor enough to get flat out free Fed school lunches.
She didn’t another problem to add on.
You don’t either.
May your core values guide you to healing.
Those are the same values that keep me healing. And healing my marriage and family.
Reply to
hippiebullsht says:
November 6, 2024 at 7:18 pm
Thanks again. I’m doing a little better today. I was exhausted Wed. from lack of sleep and emotions. I’ll be leaving my Harris signs up for a while.
FUCK!!!
I didn’t think there were that many gullible (or stupid) voters in the country.
I’ve never bought that they’re stupid or gullible.
They want what they wished for.
Now they have it.
Aren’t they clever?
I take seriously people who hold signs declaring “Mass Deportations Now!”.
Who could hold such signs and sleep at night?
People who are white.
People who have been here a while and think they’re safe.
People who think they don’t know any “bad ones”, because surely it’s only the “bad ones” who will be rounded up.
People who haven’t had to worry about money.
People who don’t need Social Security or Medicare, because those are “entitlements”…and they may not understand unemployment insurance, either.
People who don’t live in Canada in other words.
No, don’t get me wrong. This country has it’s share of problems too.
They are just so much different.
Coming from a place of universal health care and so much more, it’s incomprehensible that the wealthiest country in the world hasn’t covered everyone on the basics, and that now, they are fighting for what they view as their diminishing piece of the pie.
The wealthiest country in the world
One thing I haven’t seen written about or commented on is that this is the third consecutive presidential election the candidate of the incumbent’s party has lost. I think there are a lot of reasons for that, but Marcy’s main point, that grievance drove this particular result, is salient. In a world where people self select sources of information, grievances are amplified. Long term stability is a casualty of this trend, I fear.
My sincere thanks to Dr. Wheeler for her continued thoughtful, well researched and sometimes acerbic commentary on our politics.
The shock of this loss is so profound to me because I fell into the news silo which segregated me from other realities which I reject because I am a liberal thinker.
However, I anticipated trouble on an intuitive level when Biden was forced to step down.
Even his Primary season was flawed. Democrats had Harris foisted on them by the richest of the rich contributors. She was not chosen candidate by the process of Primaries, not by running against other Democrats. Although I voted for her, I resented the process of choosing, because it was obvious, the process was fueled by money; big money. She had one billion dollars worth of contributions. If that had reflected small donors, that would have won her the election.
In spite of all this, which troubled me at the beginning, I believed that we, as a Nation, were finally free of racial prejudice, and that women, enough women and young women, would support another woman to be their leader. I drank the Democratic Party cool-aid.
As an 84 year old woman, I am deeply disappointed; with Party, with the people of this country, and with the process, which is totally corrupted by too much money. How to save this democracy with such flimsy resources as the Congress-to-be and a flawed Supreme Court, without a Constitutional Convention to correct the structure of elections, seems a very hard task before us. However, I still believe in miracles. I just may not live long enough to see one.
I don’t have it in me to fight the massive wad of bullshit you just dumped in here. It’s not the first such bullshit you’ve dumped, either.
Go find something constructive to do elsewhere because your complaint boils down to “Why didn’t Democrats choose a younger white man.”
Rayne, I do not understand your contempt for me. I am not against having a woman or a person of color be a candidate. I am protesting the process. Our candidates must be chosen by more people than insiders in the Party and by billionaires who fund them.
Harris is extremely intelligent, and I think she would have made a good President. Please stop making assumptions about me because of the way I perceive reality. I’ve lived through every President since and including Roosevelt, and I have voted every election since I became of age to do so. I care about Democracy, and I am committed to being a Democrat for all that signifies, but we are in danger of selling our souls to the very people who want to own it: the super rich, who have benefited from Trump’s tax policies. We have to find a better way to choose and elect our government representatives.
including Roosevelt
Since FDR last ran in 1944 and you were born in 1940 so what are your 4 year old memories of FDR
Inquiring minds want to know
It is not bullshit. Biden cleared the field then timing being ripe, he cleared out. Stammering shamefully on exit. It is a legitimate statement to say he did so. Even perhaps helpful toward a better longterm future.
Despite all that, Harris clearly was, objectively, the better candidate. On that basis I supported her, expected her to win, but she lost. Harris had tons of Hollywood money behind her and Emhoff, big time. They are millionaires. The Obamas have their oceanfront mansion on Martha’s Vineyard. As in doing okay.
Healthcare security for most less monied people is still reliant on being steadily employed at a level providing the benefit, a disincentive to job change, and the young face much worse. What exactly did Harris emphasize about minimum wage? And is the Democfatic Party actively recruiting the young, or saying they must come to us on our terms, which terms are Obama moved and had traction, but after that it was Hillary’s turn? Hillary who gave Goldman Sachs speeches. Not that she was unique doing so, but she did. Hillary’s turn after the Clintons had two fucking terms already and did NAFTA and played ball with Newt.
There is room for improvement – and I do not mean white Gavin in place of brown Kamala. I mean actual improvement, Corey Bush got spent out of office with little party help. You, Rayne do not have the resources to run for Senate. Etc
Yet with Harris there was a hope, I held it too, but Harris lost, and Trump carried coattails. That has to be faced.
“Biden cleared the field then timing being ripe, he cleared out. Stammering shamefully on exit.”
You actually read this site regularly and you had the balls to write this crap. Clearly you grasp little you’re reading.
I admire Rayne’s habitual understatement. I could never manage it.
Reply to earlofhuntingdon
November 6, 2024 at 2:27 pm
sksksksksksk “habitual understatement”
What would we do without you, EoH?
Probably, moderate fewer comments and open the likker cabinet less often. :-)
Over half of all Latinx voters in Texas voted for BOTH Trump and Cruz. Despite their rhetoric personally targeting in many cases family, extended family, or acquaintances. Nearly half of PA white female voters voted for Trump, despite the existential threat to autonomy. Despite one of the best run campaigns by numerous metrics in the modern era, likely only beaten by ’08. And your panacea was picking someone with less recognition, less available funds, less experience, and potentially more alienating policies after wasting time trying to create a brand new mini primary process out of thin air?
@Megabeth4
You keep spouting this stuff, persistently de-legitimising the candidacy of Harris, as if there was, by some magical process, a way of manufacturing a better campaigner and a better campaign which was waiting in the wings ready to save democracy, if only the Democratic Party had wasted time resources energy and credibility in indulging in a crazily constructed pseudo primary.
It was a ridiculous argument at the time Biden stepped down and your “I told you so”s now are extremely fanciful self indulgence.
I understand that processing grief arising from this terrible set back to US democracy and the cause of democracy worldwide, is not easy. But magical thinking doesn’t help anyone, least of all yourself.
I can’t imagine the feeding frenzy in the media over a contested primary had not the party delegates done what delegates are supposed to do.
We’d have seen a month of “Dems in Disarray” reporting which would have further undermined ANY Democratic candidate, while giving them even less time to campaign.
“Magical thinking” is spot on.
Yes. It would have delayed the new candidate getting their campaign off the ground for a month. If it were anyone but Harris, it would have meant doing so without the Biden-Harris campaign chest.
Harris did a stellar job with the hand she was dealt. Her fundraising was formidable. But it’s hard to compete against the Big Lie, a press that ignores it and normalizes the candidate who spreads it, and an authoritarian rulers death grip on his followers.
You’ve just identified a handful of the many things that caused Harris and the Dems to lose so much this election. Harris’s race and sex have only a small part to play in voter’s preferences, compared to the normalizing press, which hides its active campaigning for Trump, billionaire money, illegal foreign influence, and the Pied Piper effect of running on the Big Lie, aided by countless daily lies. To name a few.
I have a knot in my stomach the size of Iowa and a very specific lens through which to focus my privileged rage and despair: the arrival of our first grandchildren (one of them imminently). What have we wrought?
A friend urged us via text to take the high road and try to understand these people blah blah blah (paraphrasing). To which I replied: check back in six months when their gloating has transformed into cruel vengeance that affects real people and families.
Still stuck in “mortem”: phase, can’t match the fierce passion of y’all to shift to clear-eyed postmortem analysis. Probably need a digital/political detox period.
((((punaise)))) <3 harpie
merci, harpie
Family who are non-white, non-cis/het, immigrants…sometimes more than one of these.
And people who are in poor health or living on SS/with Medicare.
I don’t expect to survive the next four years.
I’m an ocean away and don’t really know you three (or the rest of this mad crew) but I feel like I do.
I wish you luck, may you all stay safe :-).
@punaise
I think you speak for many and I am glad you did.
Processing grief, which is what we are all suffering from, is difficult.
Those who are managing to engage in clear eyed analysis, are processing their grief in a similar way that some people are able to do when throwing themselves into arranging the funeral.
Your comment reminds us that:
We can only do what we can do, and hopefully we do it with kindness and thoughtfulness, which includes kindness and thoughtfulness for oneself, even as we appreciate the down-to-business approach others are able to take.
Thanks, Steve, We’ll all find a way o muddle on through.
My daughter has been weighing adding to her family. I suggested she wait until post election to decide, as both she and her spouse are likely to be targeted due to their employment as members of the “deep state”. So that’s gonna be that.
I do wish you joy with your grandbabies. Lavish them with love.
Thanks, LaMissy. Selfishly, we are happy to welcome grand-kids (one nearby, one across the country), but if our children and their spouses had opted out (for environmental/climate and financial reasons most likely) we would have totally understood.
I have an employee who recently got married and is on the cusp of aging out of prime child-bearing years. She and her hubby have been on the fence about starting a family, leaning towards opting out. (Info that she offered, not me prying).
Yes, my other two have opted out of children due to those same reasons.
punaise, please don’t detox for too long, you are needed here.
You and I have to be grateful for where we live. If only I could get my daughter and her family out of Tennessee, but the SIL has a business there.
I guess we will need to take our inspiration from The Resistance in WW ll.
See you at Peet’s, I’ll be the one in the black beret.
Niece and her family live in Georgia. Probably safe – he teaches at Emory, and they’re white – but…I’d prefer them in California.
@ Molly ;
(Peeking back through the curtain… which Peet’s: Vine? Domingo? Alcatraz?)
Son and D-i-L are in Brooklyn, so they’ll be fine. Daughter and S-i-L are here in Oakland.
Both have French passports, but spouses are not francophone, and their jobs would not “translate” to living abroad. There is a Canada option for the latter.
Oh, I like Domingo, so I can go to Fourne’e. Isn’t that the one you go to also ? I thought that was your neighborhood.
We’re actually smack dab between Domingo and Alcatraz as the crow flies (and lordy, there re crows these days). Big fan of Fournee bakery, for sure… We’ll have to figure out a rendez-vous some day!
This site has done more than most to warn of the dangers of Trumpism and MAGA, while being informative and pragmatic about the progress of legal cases, and appropriately upbeat and optimistic about a Biden – then Harris – victory. I fail to see what more you could have done.
It’s weird. We hear the awful garbage spewing from Trump’s mouth and are repulsed by it. Rightly so.
But 71 million people have listened to the same lies, racism, sexism, homo- and transphobia, the bullying, the threats, the gibberish, the goddam WEAVE for god’s sake; and thought “Yup. That’s our guy right there.”
I’ve seen it here with Farage, and the extreme fringes of the once-sensible Conservative party. No lie is off-limits. Actions that would have been disqualifying a generation ago barely make the news.
How do you fix that? I wish I had the answers.
Germans are still looking for answers to that last question. So are Hungarians.
I was in line to cast my first-ever Presidential vote in 1980 when the election was called for Reagan. I went ahead and voted to re-elect Carter anyway, then went home and got shitfaced drunk. I vowed that I was done with politics, but of course I wasn’t. I worked for Mondale; I worked for Dukakis; I worked for Bill Clinton; and I worked for down-ballot candidates even more.
Then came 2008, and I thought my nation had come to its senses. It’s hard, and painful, to remember how proud I felt then.
In 2016, I consoled myself with the thought that Trump was a shiny object, and I figured that 4 years of misrule would surely correct our nation’s course. 2020 seemed to validate my stance.
Now this. By coincidence, I had a cancerous growth removed from my body yesterday; my nation was not so fortunate, and now its prognosis is bleak.
Can it be that I was right 44 years ago, and have been deluding myself ever since? What do I do now?
stick around and watch us kick some fascist teeth in via most deft and legal ways. You will find a way to work for the country you love into a better future.
I have 2 teen girls and a toddler.
We are not going easy or quiet into a bleaker future.
This is all a lazy disinfo shell game and they will be all taking turns pretending they have the only ball then all the sudden theys going to have 2 many cups with 2 many balls and people are not gonna go for that, certified election gone by or not.
These incompetent nincompoop h8rs are not going to accomplish their wistful wasteful dream slag.
Ima peach, your a peach I bet we can impeach in the next 4 circles around the sun.
Again to Maga, from my lips to your rotten auditory nerves: you are going down on your own terms.
My soundtrack to that- Andrew WK – Get ready to DIE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlu1ZfYr6vA
I’ll see you and raise you Phlotilla’s “Going Down Fighting”
https://youtu.be/efZDxIswmBc
Thanks, new to me, I like that song in its quiet building strength.
Like some phunny band names too!
Bless your heart, soul, fingers and liver for the work and good you do here thru the stress!
I’ve seen suggestions that Biden should offer Trump a pardon (or pardons) as if that would somehow induce Trump to moderate his behaviour. I hope Biden is not fool enough to consider that. Not in any way, shape or form.
Trump is a taker, not a giver. He wasn’t embarrassed by being indicted, he just saw it as another money-making opportunity and a way to boost his cosplay as a superhero: the one who can fix it. Biden should not assist Trump’s assault on law and order in any way. Let it all be on Trump’s head, make him do the dirty deeds.
Perhaps it will finally dawn on the willingly blind that nobody is safe from Trump’s vindictiveness when he starts coming for health care, for women’s rights, for workers’ rights, for the parks and forests, for anything that isn’t making enough money for him and his billionaire buddies.
That’s my little bit of hope in what is likely to be a very dark future.
MY hope is that Biden tells Zelenskyy to unleash the hounds immediately. Bomb the shit out of the Russians as soon as possible. They have two months.
If Biden and Democratic leadership had that in them, we wouldn’t have lost like this.
Well thats how we were with WWII until we weren’t and then my grandfathers and a grandmother crossed oceans and faced deadly challenges to win.
The Ukrainians are ready to go big or lose their home and heritage. We can help them. I will, you should too.
That simplistic analysis ignores a few structural issues, such as the press’s willingness to normalize Trump and, in fact, but in disguise, actually push his candidacy. The NYT and WaPo come to mind, but there are others.
It ignores the effect of hundreds of millions of dollars in billionaire donations, and the many unaccounted for in-kind contributions from Trump’s patrons and the businesses they control.
I’d expect a number of retiree faces to be eaten over the next 4 years as ridiculous tariffs and social spending cuts take hold.
My retirement plan includes a bottle of pills and a bottle of whisky. I doubt I’ll be alone.
Snark aside, suicide hotlines are available nationwide. Use one, if the snark ever gives way to temptation. But it’s not a topic I would pursue here.
I’ve looked into the deep end of the pool and I’m OK, but I do apologize for making light of it.
I’ve considered a beach with a riptide or a good undertow, with a beer and some pills. More than once.
My concern is that others may not have your stability and resources, whatever they may be.
The End of the World isn’t new, it’s been around for time out of mind.
Not to make light of things but in times like this, I can’t help but turn to literature over the ages, and music.
We in this Age aren’t unique. We suffer and rejoice just like our ancient ancestors.
So, being an Irish immigrant kid (you know our history, famine, Brits, mass migration, bla bla) to Canada, with strong Republican ties (that don’t necessarily bind ), I’ve come to appreciate – The Bare Naked Ladies.
It’s All Been Done Before
https://youtu.be/2q9xbJhKHNI?si=3dUQ44mYDW8BZ8TG
Grateful Dead sang, “I will get by.” It is a thought for us. We have no choice now but to get by. And to seek a better world, mid-term and 2028. At my age, I might not make 2028, but I aim to. The party has to examine how it does things. Corey Bush getting cold comfort is a fact. How and why she got no help is a fact. Jamal Bowman. Not rich. Not helped. The Cheney clan will return to their roots, if the roots are still there.
I lost a post that wasn’t quite ready to go. Imma look again, but if see a post that appears unfinished let me know here so I can go deal with it.
This day just doesn’t stop sucking..
Fancy, there’s nothing in pending, the trash bin, or the spam heap. Sorry but you might need to start over.
Best to draft in Notepad then copy and past into Reply here. Hang in there.
The shit coming out of MSNBC commentators to explain the politics and the Democrats’ loss is remarkably superficial and bad, even the ones Nicolle Wallace hosts.
Nicolle made a plea on-air a couple of days ago to W, her former boss, to please speak out in public and maybe just maybe endorse Kamala or at the least express his non-support of Trump. He remained silent.
And then lined up right behind Bezos to congratulate Trump this morning.
Just going to drop this here in case anybody hasn’t read it. Seems apropos.
https://aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ASIMOV_1980_Cult_of_Ignorance.pdf
Thanks for that. Read a lot of that guy when I was a kid.
I’m thinking that the line ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’ applies especially to this election cycle.
I’ve often shared that Asimov quote about “My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” It appears to me that many MAGAs cling to their ignorance out of spite just to prove “You can’t tell me what to believe.”
Recommended reading/viewing: https://billmoyers.com/content/isaac-asimov-on-his-faith-in-the-power-of-human-reason/
He touches on several relevant issues.
I was thinking about the tariffs. Trump is going to implement them, he promised and he will keep this promise.
The tariffs are going to be a tax on the low and middle class, a way to suck out money from the low and middle class.
The question I have, why does Trump needs the government coffers filled with money?
What is he planning to do with the tariff money? Suspecting Project 2025 has a planning for the money.
Money flows to the top.
Maybe not. He will try and he could do a lot by executive order. But the markets will scream.
At some point, he will say, I’m bringing the plants back home, and someone will say, There will not be anybody to work in them.
He’s too stupid to understand, but people in business will lean on him, hard, and he will buckle.
And China,China will pass back a word that we ain’t buying any more bonds.
He may well wreck the system getting to that point but he will get there.
Newsflash: the stock markets reacted with glee yesterday to the election news…
Except for freight forwarders LIKE THE ONE I WORK FOR, whose share price was down nearly 4% all day.
Tariffs are going to be a disaster for this country and nobody cares.
Yeah, Trumthp has agitated his party and as much of the populace to not in anyway go along with well coordinated and purposeful programs.
If he tries to run one that conflicts with their pet private programs like PROFIT, he is gonna get kicked in the teeth.
This is all a shell game. Not too long til they all realize there are too many cups and too 2 2 too many balls.
Momentum of what this country is on the daily and at its course will provide crushing momentum that Gripelstiltzkin will fall under.
An orderly society with respect for truth and rule of law is the only real source of wealth and social fluidity. The orderly social and legal systems will keep on despite lazy hacks and they will tire as will most of the people.
But yeah, actually pumped to see Maga shoot itself yet another new butthole.
Statutes and the Constitution give the president enormous power over foreign trade, including setting certain forms of tariffs.
The power to impose a tariff is also the power to create exceptions to it. They can be finely tuned, regarding the products, industries, or companies that get hit with them.
Being Trump, he can sell an exception to a tariff or impose the punishment of one, and incur no legal liability. The money will flow to Trump, as well as the government. Few people become billionaires and still retain the concept of “enough.”
Interesting point about the exceptions. This is one way to punish the companies that are not aligned with the Trump agenda.
The expectation is that presidents use their power to impose tariffs to sort out problems with unfair trade practices. But, yes, Trump could impose tariffs for other reasons. He could do it to punish actors he did not like; or exempt them from tariffs, to reward behavior he did. For a fee, of course.
He could also use tariffs to punish people as part of a broader attack, to stop them doing something he doesn’t like or to get them to do something he does. One way that might work is to punish people who did not ask him for special favors, because it was denying him his due: the chance to wet his beak.
I think that government departments should back up everything they can in the next two months, and store it elsewhere, preferably where it can’t be reached by the incoming idjits. In Japan, in Spain, in France….
(Read C J Cherryh’s Foreigner series, where there’s a coup and plotters high in government: how people preserved as much as they could is part of the plotline. “Peacemaker” has a good summary of the mess.)
I read that whole medium article. I’m not following what sports betting has to do with eroding trust in government?
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the SAME USERNAME and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You attempted to publish this comment as “Katie555” triggering auto-moderation; it has been edited this one time to reflect your established username. You have also commented as “Kate” which does not meet the site’s username standard. Please check your browser’s cache and autofill; future comments may not publish if username does not match. /~Rayne]
Perhaps you should consider directing that question to the author of the essay, Cooper Lund.
https://cooperlund.medium.com/the-low-trust-election-fb635f995f3c
America failed a simple IQ test
Ya mean they keep failing it everytime they casually login to Social&Media and hit idiot box remote?
Its actually really easy to listen to your intuition and try again, I bet many will go for that soon.
It’s a fatal mistake to believe that people who wave ‘Mass Deportations Now!’ signs are somehow duped or stupid. They know exactly what they’re doing.
For students of Hitler, like Stephen Miller, it’s a form of domestic terrorism, designed to terrorize and enforce conformity and submission against the entire population, not just those forcibly deported.
Spot on.
Witness young women, men, placed behind Trump waving those banners.
That could be my youngest daughter, many folk’s kids.
Except they aren’t.
Normalizing such things as mass deportation (which would compromise every American in it’s reality) is what they seek/sought to do.
Steve Bannon’s Project 2025 Joke Says What We Knew All Along
Donald Trump’s allies are celebrating the arrival of the Christian nationalist agenda.
https://newrepublic.com/post/188097/steve-bannon-donald-trump-project-2025
I worry about Ukraine, it’s courageous people, and their President Zelensky. The sanctions against Russia are kicking in very well now, it takes time, but here we are, finally. Putin’s ask of his pal Trump is obvious at this moment. Putin’s been hinting around lately, a bit obvious (it’s the way an asset must be handled), reminding Trump, and throwing in a sweetener of bomb threats in battleground states.
A commenter above referenced adopting WW2 resistance fighters’ MO. To those reeling in the EW community: ‘keep calm and carry on.’
looks as though we shall all be called upon to defend something or someone. If you go into free-fall and that unexpected event catches you unprepared, you will be unable to mobilize.
When chaotic forces are unleashed, instability affects everything. Who knows what unexpected events may take place? Even between now and January 20th?
As always, much appreciation to the hard-working, hard-thinking principals at emptywheel.
Resistance doesn’t necessarily mean armed resistance. I know what that is. It’s funerals.
Being armed carries a huge responsibility.
Professor Timothy Snyder (Yale) has some very sage advice. From his book ‘On Tyranny’:
Twenty Lessons on Fighting Tyranny in the Twentieth Century:
1. Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
2. Defend institutions. It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. So choose an institution you care about and take its side.
3. Beware the one-party state. The parties that remade states and suppressed rivals were not omnipotent from the start. They exploited a historic moment to make political life impossible for their opponents. So support the multi-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections.
4. Take responsibility for the face of the world. The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and other signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.
5. Remember professional ethics. When political leaders set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become important. It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges. Authoritarians need obedient civil servants, and concentration camp directors seek businessmen interested in cheap labor.
6. Be wary of paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.
7. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.
8. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.
9. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books.
10. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.
11. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad). Take responsibility for what you communicate to others.
12. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is part of being a citizen and a responsible member of society. It is also a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down social barriers, and understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.
13. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.
14. Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the Internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble.
15. Contribute to good causes. Be active in organizations, political or not, that express your own view of life. Pick a charity or two and set up autopay.
16. Learn from peers in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties in the United States are an element of a larger trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.
17. Listen for dangerous words. Be alert to the use of the words extremism and terrorism. Be alive to the fatal notions of emergency and exception. Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.
18. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. Do not fall for it.
19. Be a patriot. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come.
20. Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny.
I don’t think we should underestimate the woman candidate barrier. This guy:
Beat a woman while losing the popular vote;
Lost to an old guy;
Beat a woman of color–this time winning the popular vote but, interestingly, getting fewer electoral votes than before.
I don’t often care to pull out the sexism card, but I think it played this time.
Of course, all the “good” work done by the GOP to cut out voters probably helped. 15 million fewer people voted than in 2020.
(I guess the Biden administration really did get rid of those 13 million “illegals” and dead people who stole the election in 2020).
I was basically unable to function yesterday, and I am not listening/watching news because I can’t stand the BS.
Thank you Rayne, for your defense of the D Party for the good things it has stood for and has done. I have been dealing with people I know who are on the “duopoly” bandwagon, and others who used my vote to privilege their voting purity. They could not see the benefit of casting a real vote against Him, and while the situation in Gaza/etc is beyond my comprehension of cruelty, the outcome with Him is going to be much much worse for Palestinians, and for the people who voted purely. How they did not see this coming and are still on their purity path today is sickening. I read somewhere that Harris lost all the college towns in MI. Is that true? What did these people gain for Palestine beyond purity for “punishment”?
I think it is fair to look at ways the D Party has failed a lot of people in our culture. I live in a poor blue state with thousands of immigrants who will be at risk. They are business owners, they work hard. They are fully employed. They are not among the hundreds who are living on the streets here. They are solid members of the community who also own homes or are renters, buy vehicles, groceries, clothing, etc. and contribute to social security without any hope of benefit. They are students who strive in our schools.The list goes on. Their families will be separated, there will be no discrimination between their immigration status’ when push comes to shove. I hope we can protect them. I imagine they are living in terror today.
We have trans family members and trans friends. We have many same sex marriages, families with children. People who voted for Him have same. They also know women who have been victims of abortion bans, though my state is a health care destination.
I was doing a lit drop in a county about 100 miles away. A college town with a small island of privilege surrounded by incredible poverty. It is heartbreaking. Generational suffering. I don’t think our government, which is largely blue, is doing enough, and there is probably never enough we can do to change it. The MAGA candidate reclaimed the seat she lost there to a more progressive D the last time around.
Despite being blue, He got increased vote totals than in 2020 in most of our counties. I think it is less likely that he is more popular, though he made a pitch for votes here, than misogyny and racism delivered the votes. I don’t know if we will know. On one of the alternative news outlets, the editor opined that He is just so charismatic. I really do not understand that word in this case. UGH.
I cannot live without hope. I will pick myself up, and I will work in community to resist, to lift up, and move on. It is going to be terrible. I know my privilege will protect me to some degree, but I am a dissident. Perhaps living in a blue state, we will have some safety. It remains to be seen.
In solidarity, except we’re in a blue dot in a Red sea. Our local (county & municipal) government works well, is representative, and is conscientious (another pretentious). The biggest fear we have of Kaptain Kaos is that self-censoring fear is precipitated by His vengeful nature and his willing accomplices (echoes of the 3rd Reich).