Reading Harry Reid’s letter to the American people brought up such a mix of conflicting emotions. Mostly, though, I feel disbelief that this is reality. I cannot dispute a single word of what Harry Reid wrote. I can’t believe that we’re in a position where the Senate Minority Leader feels so morally outraged at the election of a new president that he feels compelled to respond this way.
Naturally I feel the sting of it. In any normal situation, calling the president-elect “a sexual predator who lost the popular vote and fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate,” would be an inexcusable violation of norms and an actual threat to our democracy. I can’t even imagine the outrage I would feel if the shoe was on the other foot and Mitch McConnell said anything remotely comparable about president-elect Clinton.
There’s a powerful argument that the best defense against Trump is the strength of our history and traditions and system, and that the reality of the requirements of governance are the best bets for house training him and limiting the damage.
But there’s an equally compelling argument that the biggest danger is normalizing Trump in any way, and that making the traditional accommodations to a new president is an irresponsible abdication of moral duty.
I don’t know how to feel, and that’s very unsettling.
On some level, responsible people have to make an effort to keep our government moving, one step after another. How do you do that, though, without validating Trump and Trumpism and in some ways empowering him?
Regardless of what you think you know, does he deserve at least some space to show us how he’ll act now that he’s actually responsible for all of us?
Or has he already signaled that he isn’t about to make any pivot by the people he’s floating to serve in his administration?
What an impossible situation this is!
My respect for Reid just went up.
Like you, I cannot dispute any of it.
I think Trump won the R primary because all of his opponents thought they were dealing with a normal world.
Much the same happened in the election when the Clinton campaign ran a “normal” campaign.
Normal has left the building. Trump should be given no space, no quarter, no breathing room.
All the harder to do from the minority side of the aisle.
A ridiculous letter, illustrating how out of touch Reid is with reality. He bears responsibility as minority leader and should step down. A sorry line-up of Democratic leaders who never knew what pain millions of Americans felt due to globalization, loss of jobs in extended regions of the electorate.
Americans responded by their vote. In a democracy, the voters are always right.
Hillary Clinton’s legacy of the 2016 election, hers for the taking … the millions she earned from her Wall Street bankers and financial institutions. Clinton in preparation for the nation’s highest office should have learned from Obama and his community service.
DNC chair DWS also bears a great responsibility for the downturn across the board for the party. Soul searching and blaming others … the what ifs just don’t cut it.
From Steven D’s link I read kos wrote a major mea culpa and is seeking counsel from Bernie Sanders for DNC chair. Interesting … Bernie and his gang were spot on.
How do we know Bernie wouldn’t have gone down to a McGovern like defeat? Russ Feingold went down with less votes than HRC and Zephyr Teachout also lost. I watched two great Dem pickup opportunities go down to nutbaggers here in Cali. Sometimes shit just doesn’t go the progressive way no matter what we like to tell ourselves. Hell, I work with several Republicans who voted against Donald Trump and a former Obama voter who did. Life can be crazy.
Without being clairvoyant we can’t “know” anything for certain. But i’m relatively sure Bernie would have won as well. Especially since trump coopted much of Bernie’s NAFTA and jobs message.
Not sure why the “adults in the room” were so adamant on forcing Clinton down our throats. It seemed fairly obvious that following Obama with Clinton would be a huge mistake. And turn out proved it. That fact that she lost white women… lol…. i mean…. wasn’t that supposed to be the identity politic “ace in the hole” that was a major selling point for her as well as being an online debate thread closer :-/
I guess people at Balloon Juice couldn’t clap loud enough to over come her lameness
And now disaster. Thank you wise ones. What uninspiring formerly antagonistic 90’s politician shall we nominate next time?
Also, you know, the Obama coalition is still there. We can start engaging it again by promoting, encouraging and developing community organizers all over the country. But especially in the Rust belt. All trump supporters aren’t bigots. They just have the luxury of not seeing his bigotry.
Target 5 states (Wi, Minn, MI, IA, PA) and engage with activists on the ground there. Urban and rural. Zip code by zip code. Most areas have issues that they just need help getting organized to get fixed.
The Democrats should be a party of activists. It needs to become THE party of solutions. Local and National. These areas are not lost. They just need local leadership that affects the local daily issues they face.
Given that Russ Feingold had less votes than Clinton in Wisconsin and given that almost all of the people Senator Sanders personally endorsed lost and given that Colorado’s single payer initiative lost 80-20% there is a strong argument to say Senator Sanders would have lost as many states as Secretary Clinton, if not more.
Of course he may not have either but there is simply no way to know.
True. But my god, why was it so difficult to convince Dems that Hillary was borderline un electable herself? What makes her so damn special that was worth risking rights across almost every single fucking interest group to get her elected? Why was it on US to push her boulder up the hill?
Voter turnout at a 20 year low:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/11/politics/popular-vote-turnout-2016/index.html
The Obama coalition is not dead. Racists are not taking over the country. Please folks, lets nominate someone who the coalition can get behind. If you’re going to nominate someone who may be a tough sell to the country, then it’s better to nominate someone that your majority coalition can get behind. Like say, Bernie sanders.
But please don’t to nominate someone whom many of the coalition would have to “hold their nose” and vote for. Like say, a Hillary Clinton.
And guess what, a lot of our voters decided not to hold their noses and stayed home. And this “incredibly qualified and capable woman” lost to a nincompoop.
Do Democrats actually associate with the voters that they claim they want to motivate to the polls?
Voting is clearly in the self interest of citizens in the United States. What is this bullshit we hear over and over again about “motivating” voters to simply vote?
Now, a candidate and their campaign must motivate voters who show up to vote for them. But five million voters who cared enough to vote for President Obama thought it was perfectly fine to stay at home and enable Donald Trump to take the Presidency. That’s a mind-boggling thing that’s worth sitting with for a minute.
Let’s be very clear: those Obama voters made a mistake, a mistake which is likely to have devastating consequences to any of the hundreds of millions of people Trump identified as an enemy in the course of his horrible campaign.
Hell, their mistake will even have bad consequences for the Real Americans who Trump promised will “GET THEIR JOBS BACK”. Trump will do nothing of the sort. Pulling us out of NAFTA and inciting a trade war would cost us jobs and drive up the cost of consumer goods.
I’ll have none of your rationalizations. If you were out there, as I’m certain you were, telling people that Hillary didn’t deserve their vote because reasons, you forgot to communicate with those voters what they deserved. Did they deserve President Trump?
General elections for the Presidency are binary choices. Anyone who failed to understand that Clinton was a far better choice for progressives than Trump can fuck right off.
Oh i voted for her, for every reason you wrote and others. Plus I explained to any anti Hillary voter who would listen, that though Hilary sucked in some ways, the energy trump was promoting was dangerous and harmful. What i DIDN’T do was blow smoke up people’s asses by telling them their feelings on her were an illusion. You try telling that shit to American Haitians and see how far you get.
However
“Let’s be very clear: those Obama voters made a mistake,”
There you go getting angry at people who didn’t vote for someone they don’t like. Whose fault is that? What country do you live in? Last time i checked i lived in a place where half the populace doesn’t vote. Plus i normally vote for a political party that relies on slightly less motivated voters showing up for it to win.
We all should know this going into every election right? So why get angry at the voters for doing what they are wont to do? Sure, they don’t show, we all pay for it. But if this whole house of cards is built on shaky voters showing up, then doesn’t the blame fall squarely on the “wise ones” who nominated a lame candidate?
When Obama was running people on the streets were talking about him all of the time. I couldn’t even go to a freakin club with out folks handing out info about him.
This election, people on the streets were talking about trump. It was how much they didn’t like him and what not. But he was the one driving the conversation.
Again, serious question. Do the Democrats who claim they want votes from certain sects of people, actually ASSOCIATE with the people they want to lead? I don’t think they do and it shows.
Honestly, how does anyone who spends their time following political trends find themselves surprised that voters wouldn’t show for her? The bill of goods i was sold was that she would counter act that unfavorability with a horde of White woman who would lead to a land slide.
She had ONE job……..
You go to war with the army you’ve got, not the one you want. If me must choose between Hillary and Bernie to lead this army, then you have to go with Bernie. He had the better shot.
I don’t “like” Hillary. I care for her much more than the people we see here and elsewhere who paint these absurd horns on her head, using any lies and mischaracterizations they can cobble together to continue now, days after Election Day, to justify their shabby actions which depressed the Clinton vote.
But I organized others to vote for Clinton, because it was vitally important to the progressive project to do so. It is meaningful that millions more voted for Hillary than for Trump. That is important to note in response to THIS passive-voiced baloney:
“Honestly, how does anyone who spends their time following political trends find themselves surprised that voters wouldn’t show for her?”
Look, there was a narrative that was created by both the right and the left in this election. Read the bullshit and lies over the weeks and months here, bullshit and lies representative of what was happening elsewhere on the left. It became far more important to punish the DNC and the Clintons than it was to make sure the best Presidential candidate won. Leftists had a part in creating the “political trend” which now has Trump in the White House. I find that astonishing.
So, yes, the DNC and the Clintons have been punished. Those who prioritized that as Job #1 won, bigly.
Those who prioritized selecting the best Presidential candidate in the general election lost.
And I will conclude with this, in response to your claim that Bernie had the better shot.
Bernie campaigned for the nomination. He was defeated by voters in the several states’ primaries and caucuses. This does not inspire confidence that general election voters, an electorate which is far more conservative than the Democratic Party electorate, would have supported him.
Senator Sanders also would have been swimming upstream in a “change” election against a candidate who would have campaigned against career politician and admitted socialist Bernie. And Bernie would have been even more thoroughly buried by the media and would have been unable to fund sufficient campaign responses because of his refusal to have a SuperPAC. You and I might agree that these final points are very distasteful and are destructive to democratic principals. So what? For God’s sake, the media buried Clinton’s campaign policy proposals, which were the most liberal of any President in the history of the United States.
And then, the final evidence that Sanders would have been a less than compelling voice in the general election campaign is that he was a less than compelling voice in the general election campaign. He campaigned for Hillary rather vigorously, and many Bernie voters angrily rejected him.
They all can now sit back, satisfied that Clinton was punished for her (YOUR VICIOUS PERSONAL ADJECTIVE HERE). Maybe these voters and activists will find themselves able to blame Debbie Wasserman Schultz when the mass deportations begin, when police officers who murder African-Americans are brought to the White House for an approving photo op, when Medicaid is turned into a block grant and Medicare is privatized…
Those who rationalize in these ways will be lying to themselves. Those progressives who refused to vote for Clinton did that. Those on the left who organized to depress the Clinton vote did that. Each and every one of them, individually. If they want to win on their issues and change leadership in the Democratic Party, or organize their own electorally successful Party, they’ll have to figure out a way to overcome their attempts to overcome their very specific complicity in creating the Trump Presidency. Placing it all on the DNC power base will be cowardly and, most importantly, ineffective. They, and the 99%, will continue to lose if they decide to do that.
And unsurprisingly, it’s still going on
Because we all know that the biggest issue facing the democrats right now is whether…..Chelsea Clinton will run for office in two years (or four, or six..who knows?), all with the requisite name calling and comparisons to Liz Chaney (any comparison of Hillary to Dick is coincidence, I’m sure) Is John Bolton going to be SOS, or Newt Gingrich? Who knows, who cares? A Clinton might not go away!
And these are the people who, after months, years even, of repeating republican memes, want to give advice on how the democrats go forward. Yet, no nominee that comes forward will fit their (very precise) standards. So they will go back to their safe zone, repeating their pattern of objection to everything a democrat tries to do.
Very pleased with the results they must be. They get the reset of all Obama policies that they have wanted.
We can try again in ten years. The 10-15 million that lose their health care. Just collateral damage.
.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/paul-ryan-says-medicare-privatization-is-on.html
…
“Your solution has always been to put things together, including entitlement reform,” says Baier, using Republican code for privatizing Medicare. Ryan replies, “If you’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare, you have to address those issues as well. … Medicare has got some serious issues because of Obamacare. So those things are part of our plan to replace Obamacare.”
Ryan tells Baier, “Because of Obamacare, Medicare is going broke.” This is false. In fact, it’s the complete opposite of the truth. The Medicare trust fund has been extended 11 years as a result of the passage of Obamacare, whose cost reforms have helped bring health care inflation to historic lows. It is also untrue that repealing Obamacare requires changing traditional Medicare. But Ryan clearly believes he needs to make this claim in order to sell his plan, or probably even to convince fellow Republicans to support it.”
Obamacare didn’t have a public option. BURN IT ALL DOWN, AND MORE!
Hillary is out of power. That’s the most important thing.
Bernie people weren’t repeating GOP themes.
That is a lie period. An excuse Clinton people need to comfort themselves.
For losing to the most disliked nominee in American Political History.
As much as you want this to be our fault it isn’t.
It is the Clintons.
Period.
“Leftists had a part in creating the “political trend” which now has Trump in the White House. I find that astonishing”
Thats horseshit. This woman has been extremely unpopular for over half my life. Give me a break. Yes lots of it is misogyny. And she has done good things, especially once she gave up that 90’s triangulation BS.
But come on man…. you KNOW there was a damn good reason an upstart Black man from Illinois was able to upset her anointing 8 years ago. Someone once wrote that her support was a mile wide and an inch deep. She’s like the Football or Basketball team that gets upset in the playoffs every year.
Please god stop nominating this woman!!!! She doesn’t even inspire other white woman for christs sake!!!!
Look, i’m Black. So my safety is on the line with a trump presidency. I had family members who actually prayed at night that she would win. I have friends who could get deported or have their families broken up. When she lost i know quite a few people who cried. I damn near teared up myself.
So don’t you tell me about sabotaging this woman. Yes i has to come around to her. But thats because i knew then, what i know now: She has too much baggage and is out of touch with the low information voters she needs to connect with in order to win.
And we do want to win don’t we? I know i do.
BTW…
“For God’s sake, the media buried Clinton’s campaign policy proposals, which were the most liberal of any President in the history of the United States.”
You are very right about this. This is what brought me from “Bernie or bust” to “Go Hillary”. That and the Supreme court. But Center, the Millennials screwed her and i’m trying to explain to you why.
I voted for this woman… of “Super Predators” fame…. I had to come to terms with that….. And forgive her…… And I DID!
But Jesus, if I, a political junkie, had to go through changes to vote for her. Imagine what the “some-timey” voters were thinking? And Dems rely on those types of voters to win!?! What a shit show.
Fair enough, as it goes.
I don’t see a refutation of my points about Sanders having even longer odds of winning, considering the additional obstacles which would have been in his way, and his lack of persuasive power down the stretch.
What you and others have going for you is your opinion, along with polls which were conducted in the first half of the year which showed Bernie in a good position re. Trump. Since polls which were conducted days before the election proved not just worthless but openly damaging to our work, I’d suggest that this evidence is poor.
“I don’t see a refutation of my points about Sanders having even longer odds of winning..”
I disagree. My contention is that he was more acceptable to the people that were skittish on Clinton.
My evidence is the polls yes. But also anecdotal. Her fall off with those voters was real. Doesn’t matter now, except to calm people who suggest everything is racist as shit and there is no hope. There is definitely hope. The voters are still there. Just have to appeal to them.
I read an article about the Obama voters who flipped to trump. The driver of those flips wasn’t race. But economic. NAFA, man…. NAFTA…
The biggest problem was not the Obama voters who flipped to Trump; they actually seem to be small in number. It was the Obama voters who stayed home that was the biggest problem. Trump may end up with fewer votes than Romney gained when Obama kicked his ass. The Trump campaign and the GOP intentionally and diligently worked to suppress the vote, and they succeeded.
You bring up anecdotal evidence. Well, each of us in the Movement needed to come up with better rhetoric to explain to voters why the leftist platform Hillary ran on needed to be urgently supported at the polls, regardless of additional voter suppression efforts by the FBI and WikiLeaks, interventions which were in no way predictable.
Democratic Party leaders are not the only people responsible for persuading voters; it’s counterfeit to claim they should be. Some people are unwilling to be persuaded by people representing any organization, such is the mistrust of institutions today. Institutions must exist to organize voters into action, but conversations with friends, family and colleagues help form the opinions of voters.
Your claims that Hillary inspired no one is false. Hillary won the primary and won the popular vote on Tuesday because she inspired millions of Americans. To pretend that she did not is a comforting lie some in our movement are telling themselves so they can blame the eeeeevil DNC.
And it’s important for Bernie supporters, Stein supporters and other leftists to understand that they are a minority in our movement, and that means they must persuade others in the progressive movement. We see here and elsewhere that some Hillary haters are swaggering around, spouting out their I told you so’s. They’re going to have to drop the attitude very, very soon and start working in coalition together with people they claim to hate. Left-centrists will not be insulted and immediately go “Yes, you were right.” It’s not just that institutions don’t turn around that way. In my experience, people don’t turn around that way.
One article cannot summarize the reasons the Obama coalition did not hold; it was much more complicated than a single reason. You want to claim that trade was it, but you must recognize the uncomfortable truth that racism and sexism were major parts of the toxic brew which delivered the horror of President Trump. The KKK endorsed him, for goodness sake. The anti-woman, anti-pluralist evangelical movement strongly supported the most immoral Presidential candidate imaginable. And the white people who are terrorizing communities throughout the nation right now are not taunting non-whites about the killing of international trade deals.
I agree that there is hope; in fact, there’s every reason for optimism. Trump has as far from a voter’s mandate as can be imagined. He enters the office as a remarkably unpopular, enormously divisive President. Most of the progressive/liberal movement and the centrists who were part of the winning Obama coalition will be brought together when the GOP assault on the New Deal and Great Society begins.
W. Bush was a relatively popular political figure after his re-election, and even he and Republican Congress were unable to privatize Social Security, despite their coordinated campaign to do so in 2005, at a time of much less economic insecurity. Taking apart the Federal safety net will be triply more difficult in 2017. I don’t even think they will rip out all of Obamacare; the political damage would just be too great.
What does give me pause is that the national security state, the militarization of the police and voting rights are at different levels than they were in 2005, and the GOP has spent the last decade driving their extremist social and economic agendas through ruthlessly in the States where they have full control. The conservative movement has jammed through these agendas as forms of social and electoral experiments, and now have the opportunity to try to drive through an extremely unpopular set of laws and budget decisions which might be maintained with the help of voter and social repressions. That seems to me to be the only chance that a maximal Trump/Ryan agenda will be passed and sustained for decades.
We need to come together. It’s really important. Everyone in our movement, and I mean everyone, needs to be accountable for what they did in 2016.
This is goddam bullshit and it will not stand:
“Look, there was a narrative that was created by both the right and the left in this election. “
Fuck that. The left did not create a narrative that was the same as the right.
That is a goddam lie and I won’t let you repeat the slander.
Clinton PROVOKED the left. Even Robby Mook tried to get her to not go to JP Morgan.
You are lying.
I have no respect for you. I want no part in any coalition with you.
I went door to door for Hillary. I worked as a lawyer for her.
But I will goddamned if I am any alliance who tries to lay this defeat at the foot of Sanders people.
Clinton’s campaign was incompetent on so many levels it is hard to know where to begin.
THAT is the truth.
I don’t lay this at the feet of “Sanders people” generically; you’re misstating what I’ve written here. The vast majority of Sanders supporters in the primary voted for Clinton in the general. It’s apparent to me that even the majority of those who were supporting Stein ended up swallowing their misgivings and voted for Clinton.
However, those progressives who spent their time here and elsewhere throughout August, September, October and November slagging Clinton were playing with fire. They were effectively organizing for a Trump Presidency. Even if that’s not what they wanted, even if they personally voted for Clinton, that was the effect of those who worked nonstop to blow up the latest WikiLeaks propaganda or FBI intervention in the election.
You dropped that rhetoric after the primary. You, like me, worked with voters to pull Clinton over the top. Our candidate won the popular vote, solidly. It wasn’t enough. We lost every single swing state, barely.
About five million people who voted for Obama failed to vote for Clinton. If they cared one whit about the agenda of the candidate they supported in 2012, they made a collective decision which makes little sense, given the choice of candidates and the tremendous amount at stake. I spoke with people on the left who didn’t want to vote for Clinton because they wanted to punish her. They told me so during the general election campaign. That’s why I stopped assuming a Clinton win here, and put my nose to the grindstone to organize voters.
You’re calling Hillary a terrible candidate, laying it all on her and Bill. But you were projecting that she would win all the way to Election Day. A couple of weeks out, you had her winning comfortably. Something happened which was very strange.
I think the FBI’s intervention in the election, supplemented by WikiLeaks’ very intentional propagandizing all the way to November 8th, were decisive. I can concede that Clinton’s campaign was inferior to Obama’s and come to that conclusion at the same time. The FBI intervention, in particular, was in no way predictable.
There is little in Hillary’s legislative record to explain the mistrust the public held for her. That was a mass opinion based on a media-created narrative. I’m a far leftist, and I didn’t feel provoked by her. She ran on strengthening Dodd-Frank and using the regulatory and tax structures to tighten the oversight of financial institutions even before she improved her platform right after Sanders conceded. On balance, I’m uncertain that she benefited from those positions. To say that’s a disappointing conclusion is putting it mildly.
I read very well thank you.
I am done with you.
No. Just no. If you’re talking philosophically then it’s not the damn job of any candidate and to try and get anyone to show up and vote.
Voters have the power. If you don’t vote you say “I am fine with giving up my power and letting everyone else make decisions for me.”
This ideal that voters should need to be pushed to vote because they need something to vote for is a cancer on the body politic.
It’s one thing to understand that it is the way things are, but it’s another thing to do as you are and saying it’s the way things should be.
If people don’t show up to vote, that’s on them. Period. These are people, and they have the right to do as they wish. You don’t get to pass the buck because the majority of Americans are bad citizens who won’t do the most basic form of civic engagement and vote. That’s on them, not any political party.
“If you’re talking philosophically then it’s not the damn job of any candidate and to try and get anyone to show up and vote.”
Yes it is. In fact its one of the most important things a candidate can do.
I think many people who are political junkies can get high and mighty about this. I was once too. Then i realized that i live in the real world. And i want to win. Liberal ideals are whats going to create prosperity, safety and basically save this nation. So if a candidate needs to put people in a dump truck and haul their asses to the polls then thats what they should do.
I don’t know about you, but i think the climate on this planet can’t afford to wait for the general public to motivate themselves.
“If people don’t show up to vote, that’s on them. Period.”
No, it’s on us too. Because we have to pay right along with them.
Anyone who wants the Democratic nomination has to understand that the party relies on a shit ton of low motivated voters in order to get elected. Many of those voters are simply the young. If you are going to rely on these voters, then you have to have an evolving plan to get them organized and motivated every single election. If you don’t, or you plan isn’t adaptable enough to account for young people in 2016 being different then young people in 2012, then you run the risk of the music stopping and you not having a chair.
Again, the party relies on these voters. There are always lots of votes to be had their, but you have to be on top of your shit to constantly get them.
Hillary has trouble connecting with those voters. It happened last week and it happened in 2008. My advice that seems so controversial: don’t support anyone who can’t connect with your core constituency. If you want to win at least. Otherwise you end up in the losers circle shitting on the voters who’s support you claim you wanted.
Jerome, I care for the conversation here. In clear agreement with you that plans to turn low-propensity voters into more regular voters must be constructed and executed. However, I’m having problems with your conclusion here.
First, Hillary won the popular vote, so she did sufficiently connect with an awful lot of voters in our constituency. For the needed voters she lost, the FBI’s intervention in the final days before Election Day was not something which could have been predicted. Nor could we have anticipated that WikiLeaks would successfully propagandize portions of the Left in order to see to it that Donald Trump became President. It’s falsely embroidering history to claim that these things were at all knowable.
But the biggest problem with your conclusion is that there was no candidate in the Democratic Party who successfully persuaded all voters in our coalition. Bernie did, and almost certainly would have done, worse with non-white voters and women than Hillary did. That, along with the other obstacles I mentioned earlier, make it difficult to easily sustain the case that Anyone But Hillary would have won.
Must importantly, the voters chose Clinton in the primary. The choice in the general election became a binary one; all theorizing became significantly worse than useless. People who should have known better continued to behave as if November 8th was an appropriate time to deliver punishment to Clinton and the Democratic Party for their numerous sins, even when faced with the prospect of Trump. I found that unpredictable as well. Astonishing, in fact.
Well, clearly they were wrong, then.
Who will have the courage to tell them this?
Right?
We should leave aside the snark and lay their case out plainly:
The general election voters, and those who worked to influence and organize them, should be honored and not criticized.
The Democratic Party primary voters, and those who worked to influence and organize them, should be viewed with contempt.
Wow. Just wow.
The last objective evidence is that Bernie ran between 8 and 12 points ahead of Clinton against Trump.
There is no evidence in those numbers that his margins were any different from Clinton’s.
That is just an empirical fact.
You can spin all you want, but there is NO evidence Bernie would not have had the same margins among POC that Clinton had. The polling had his margin identical to hers.
Beyond that it is all speculation.
Clinton has direct ties to the two great establishment failures of the last 15 years:
She chose, on her own, to take money from Wall Street. In so doing she created an impression that hurt her very badly.
There were signs very early she was in trouble. When half of a Democratic Electorate says you are not honest and trustworthy you have a problem.
When you struggle to carry 20% of the vote of those under 30 you have a problem.
There was 16 point swing among voters who make under 30K. There were similar swings among union voters.
BY my math between one quarter to one third of white voters who make less than 30K a year and who voted for Obama in 2012 voted for Trump in 2016.
That was a failure of historic proportions. She simply failed to connect with white voters on the lower end of the income scale in the same way that Obama did.
She did better than Obama ,by 9 points, among voters making over 100K.
That was her coalition – upscale and POC.
It failed in the Middle West where Obama was never threatened.
It is a failure of catastrophic dimension, one many her saw coming.
And make no mistake – it is her failure. Obama won trail heats before this election by more than 10. Romney beat her in trial heats by 10 before the election.
She was a terrible candidate from beginning to end.
A journalist I went to school with put it this way: “you can’t gripe about flag football being too dirty and then later claim the Super Bowl woulda been yours.”
No, the “voters are NOT always right,” but they are the deciders.
kos is only trying to salvage his own little business after going all in with Clinton (and some money that came with that) and chasing off wiser and long-standing voices that increased traffic to his site. He needs now needs their eyeballs to return. Those with any sense, wouldn’t just say no, but hell no as he put on his authentic colors on full display to reveal that he isn’t an acceptable person.
wrt Sanders as DNC chair, this isn’t 2004. Unlike Sanders, Dean didn’t make it out of Iowa and New Hampshire alive. Sanders has a day job and Dean didn’t have one; so, offering Dean a consolation prize to retain the support he’d generated in his campaign was sensible and practical. DC folks are floating Dean’s name rehire as DNC chair. Unfortunately, during his wilderness years, he unlearned whatever it was that had made him effective as DNC chair and substituted that with the shill and cluelessness of all the other DC Democratic Party elites.
Yes about Kos. As I said above, I would trust him about as far as I can buy him. He is a left-wing Drudge, only not as clever.
AG
Harry Reid is retiring so you don’t have to worry about him. He did his part by handing his organization over to his successor to make sure there is still a D in his seat and that Hillary carried the state of Nevada.
Along with his state’s senate seat, and two more representatives.
Neoliberal sellout….
Trump:
. applauded Brits for Brexit
. criticized NATO for aggression
. prefers to reset relations with Russia
Another establishment needs to be awakened to the needs of common people, the undemocratic EU leadership sitting in its ivory tower in Brussels.
Jean-Claude Junckers doesn’t get it, blinded by conservative neolibetal fiscal policy with austerity measures in Greece and Spain after the banking crisis of Ireland, Iceland and Cyprus.
Blunt talk from Brussels …
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37957673
Another member of the Putin fan club?
Would you prefer a nuclear war? No skill or art is required to talk with/to those like oneself. Great empathy, knowledge, and jaw-jaw skill is required to effect a positive and mutually beneficial relationship change.
Get real, Marie. Putin isn’t afraid of NATO or Europe; he could have a ‘mutually beneficial relationship’ whenever he chooses.
He’s been using the alliance and European geopolitiics as a bully’s playground for years. He uses geopolitical strife to uphold an unsustainable domestic regime characterised by waste, privilege and omertà.
It’s not really a question of Putin fearing but greatly mistrusting. And it’s kind of hard for Russia to have a “mutually beneficial relationship” when US/Nato forces are massing on Russia’s western border, the greatest military buildup since the Nazis in 1941.
Putin and the Kremlin thus have reason to be concerned, very concerned about what we’re up to.
Imagine if Russia entered into an alliance w/Mexico or Canada and began sending in its troops and tanks etc. Would the US be as restrained in responding as Russia/Putin have been so far?
Laughable. We would freak out. Another Cuban Missile Crisis, the world on the brink.
Putin is far from my ideal leader, but he’s far from the worst Russia could have in office. How about a real hardliner anti-western type, someone from the Kremlin stable who exists now but who feels Putin has been far too soft and trusting towards the US.
Your underestimation of Putin is disturbing. I suspect snark.
No snark. But you might want to consider other points of view for a change — plenty of reasonable, intelligent comment at ConsortiumNews.com for instance. Stephen Cohen at The Nation Magazine. A few others like Patrick Lawrence also at Nation.
Putin is a man of considerable ability for a gov’t leader, but is neither a buffoonish Yeltsin nor, contra Hillary, a Hitler. Though our corporate MSM in this country and in the UK continue to try to make us believe he is far closer to the latter. I’m not buying the snake oil.
Agree he’s no Hitler, he lacks conviction; siloviki ex-KGB Colonel, bloodless and calculating but quick to strike. A Himmler with playboy affectations. And charmingly quirky:
What a guy.
Agree with some of this, actually, but ‘demonizing its leadership’ probably needs to be defused before we touch it. ‘Pushing NATO up to its borders’ is arguably neo-conservative overreach and in the case of the Baltic States a geopolitical mistake perhaps graver than Iraq. But some of the sanctions are Putin’s own doing, I assume you would agree.
Not seeing however, how this makes Putin not a fascist. As for Robert Parry:
That is hagiography of the first order. Seriously. No Apartment Bombings, the atrocities of the Second Chechen War reduced to “often employing harsh means”. We have the lessons of the 20th century before us and every public thing Putin has done; why are we trying to fluff him?
Ha, another ridiculous European fool …
NATO SG Stoltenberg’s stark warning to president-elect Trump:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/12/us-must-not-abandon-nato-europe-go-alone-jens-
stoltenberg
As has the U.S. under any number of presidents. As Marie states, “No skill or art is required to talk with/to those like oneself.” That’s what’s going to happen, one way or another. Power acts as it desires to act…to effectively sustain and/or improve its own position… until it falls apart. Here and there. Clinton would have continued to “oppose” Russia, but in truth that opposition was and has continued to be based on power, not morality. This approach has not been working very well…witness the ongoing sea change in the power structures of the Middle East away from the U.S. and towards Russia…and Trump wants to “make a deal.”
You say “[Putin] uses geopolitical strife to uphold an unsustainable domestic regime characterised by waste, privilege and omertà.”
As a long-time U.S. citizen, this sounds somewhat…familiar…to me.
Sigh…
Trump appears to quite correctly understand that the power angle has been the real force in action, not any kind of “morality.” The morality thing was just an advertising tactic. I mean really, Shaun…which nation has been involved in causing more human suffering (domestically and internationally…all human lives matter) during Putin’s reign? It’s not even a competition. Should things be different? In my heart I say yes, but as my wise old grandmother often used to say, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
Sigh twice…
Whatever happens, it’s basically out of our hands now. It has been out of our hands at least since the Clinton I accession, maybe as far back as the assassination years. Our fight is at home. Change the sociopolitical culture, change the society and you change the rulers.
Keep working.
Please.
Any which way you can.
Later…
AG
Wouldn’t trade a US passport for a Russian one, would you?
No.
I do not want to be thrall to any empire. Generations of my family have fought to remain independent in Scotland, in Ireland, in Northern Italy, in Spain and…as far back as the 1630s…right here in North America.I’ll take my chances in an empire the ins and outs of which I somewhat understand than try to learn a new one.
If I do leave, it will be to somewhere relatively isolated from the imperial wars.
AG
Vladimir now has a new potential recruit to his network of sociopath tyrants; yes, this is going to be rich.
You’re on first name terms with Vladimir? Maybe you can introduce me one day.
He seems to invite it; he’s the Russian white-nationalist Everyman. Would my comments be more effective if I eschewed the familiarity? I could do that if you thought it would help.
It’s disrespectful to omit his patronymic…
Vladimir Vladimirovich it is then. Thanks.
Ha. I’ve been saying for weeks Putin wanted a crippled Hillary, not an exalted Trump. Stiff sh*t, Vladimir, you hacked yourself into a world of hurt:
“Putin is, of course, a winner here…” Because pffft… The only way Putin was going to wriggle out of domestic noose closing on him was to play big stakes foreign policy on a risk-averse NATO and Europe.
Now he has a real “madman theory” to contend with. How does he bluff Trump? Trump’s unpredictability renders Putin’s carefully orchestrated traps largely pointless. Let’s see how bold bloodless Putin turns out to be.
So one positive out of this is Putin laid an egg. A real cackler. Serves you right, Vlad. Putz.
I find this sort of sports trash talk absolutely mind-boggling.
Russia and China are currently in an alliance to extend pipelines to pump Russian oil, create rail transportation over eastern Russia and much of central Asia and connect China to Europe overland for the hauling of freight and passengers.
US and NATO strategists are stuck with the geopolitical writings of Halford Mackinder (Heartland, Rimland) and Nicholas Spykman who refashioned Mackinder’s British imperial geopolitics for the Cold War, thus:
The Joint Operations Environment projection of 2035 is rooted in the geopolitics of these two imperialist geographers. The US strategic community (especially the neoconservatives) have been freaking out about the Shanghai Cooperation Agreement and China’s One Belt One Belt One Road infrastructure development projects because they will unite and rule Eurasia in spite of US efforts to thwart this by having Afghanistan as a proxy. Or by trying to divert China’s investments into defending the South China Sea.
What this does is gives China an overland route for trade with Europe allowing shipping to bypass the sea route through the Molucca Straits and the Red Sea. The US, which has naval power even in the Indian Ocean (a base in the British Indian Ocean Territories at Diego Garcia, for example) is not pleased with this soon disappearance of a squeeze point for trade with China. Moreover, US aggressive behavior over the period since the end of the Cold War has stimulated both China and India to increase their blue water navies.
Clinton’s neoconservative advisors would have accelerated tensions if Clinton took their advice. It is they who likely created the Putin threat and Putin control of Trump. If there is substantive evidence of Trump actually being a Putin proxy, I haven’t seen it. What they do share is an authoritarian nationalism that uses religion (the Pence’s Religious Right for Trump, the Russian Orthodox patriarch for Putin) as a means of legitimating a form of autocracy.
In a game that the US defined, not Putin, Putin is a winner–implying that the US is a loser. The public didn’t buy this, which surprised me. I thought it was Clinton’s best Maggie Thatcher appeal.
Now that Putin actually knows who Putin is bringing into his administration, Putin’s coy statements during the campaign are being reversed quickly. I don’t think that Putin sees Gingrich, Corker, or Bolton as allies.
I’m sure that that analysis was part of Obama’s “Come to Jesus” introduction to the Presidency yesterday.
Yes, but Russia and China are trapped together on the same continent; the bear and the dragon tethered to each other by the ankle. Neither one a naval power.
Where their aspirations align cooperation is inevitable but where the diverge the opposite is also true.
In due time you will be proven correct. Orwell’s 1984 predicted all of this…three intercontinental superpowers dancing the supremacy power dance, alliances shifting and changing. But right now? The U.S./NATO superpower is the odd man out, and all of the members of that alliance are currently experiencing massive shifts in political orientation. Why? Because the old line simply simply aren’t working very well anymore, that’s why. Brexit was the first to actually win a national election in a powerful state; the Farage-labelled “Brexit Times Three” Trump win is the second, and more cracks in the neoliberal NATO wall promise to follow.
Soon.
A possible alteration of this three power system lies in the rise of multinationals, and another in the rise of Artificial Intelligence. It will take another genius-level Orwell to put those possibilities in a form that normal human beings can begin to understand.
Meanwhile…the Great Game continues.
As it has always continued throughout the history of mankind.
Watch in wonder.
Later…
AG
Funny, now I’m the one who’s going to suggest that the permanent layer of elite power will simply assimilate Trump and Farange into the Borg.
Maybe.
But it will either necessarily be altered in the process or it will continue to fail.
AG
Putin and Trump have another thing in common, namely they both came to power as a reaction to what came before them. In Putin’s case, a drunken pushover Yeltsin seen as far too easily controlled by the US, and someone who arguably would have been ousted in 96 but for the assistance of the US. With Putin we see someone considerably more in charge of himself and his country, far more of a nationalist determined to restore Russia’s greatness. Going forward, we are very unlikely to find a better Russian leader to work with.
As for Trump, coming to power via a blue-collar whitelash, he smartly went to Clinton’s left on Russia, Syria and wars involving the US generally. This I see as possibly the only silver lining, perhaps a very major one if he actually follows through on his campaign rhetoric, to a Trump presidency. FP was the one and only area that had me worried about my candidate Hillary, someone I cast a very unenthusiastic vote for. Her hawkishness I found very troubling.
Precisely.
The geometrics of power.
Well put.
AG
You’re hinting that Putin came to power in a democratic way. Here’s a long read for you if you want it. Please do your own critical research on his origins and history before you normalise this guy as a cheerful, geopolitical rascal.
My comment was more to do with why Putin/Trump came to power, not how.
But as to the mechanics of how he rose from PM to President, I suspect we don’t have the full story, no matter how long that article is from the western perspective you cited.
Who cares though. Russia is only 25 years removed from Soviet communistic gov’t. It’s a little early in the game to be lecturing them from afar about the purity or lack thereof in the way the presidents come to office.
Especially so after we’ve just elevated a doofus tough-talking bully boy to the highest office in the land using a rather peculiar and deeply flawed antidemocratic system which does not reward the will of the people, for the second time in 16 yrs no less. And this recent following still more recent shenanigans and illegalities in several elections prior, leading to the guilty party taking power. Yeah, let’s all get on our high horse about Russian politics.
My purpose isn’t to lecture Russia. Nor catalogue the current and historic imperfections of the USA. I’m making the observation that Putin is little more than a traditional 20th century fascist demagogue served up in a Surkovian mind-salad. I’m suggesting we should probably conduct ourselves accordingly.
PS Putin came to power because he saw an opportunity and seized it.
Echo of Moscow and new Soviet style dissidents. Agreed human rights in Russia are under pressure, same in the western world of implied liberals. Simply look at the ugly process of the presidential campaign.
Obama was fully involved in meddling in Russian domestic affairs pushing Putin aside in preference for Medvedev. He failed in the mission. Where George Bush failed in Georgia (2008), Obama managed a staged coup d’etat in the Ukraine in 2014 with support of right-wing extremists. Whining about Russian preserving its naval base in the Black Sea.
A fool’s campaign.
Labour’s Corbyn in The Guardian: NATO’s push to the Russian frontier an Cold War rhetoric the wrong headed course of action for a peaceful world – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/13/jeremy-corbyn-hints-at-reducing-nato-presence-russi
a-putin
Obama managed a staged coup d’etat in the Ukraine in 2014 with support of right-wing extremists.
Arrant nonsense.
Ready to reset relations between the two global powers …
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/53255
Another small sample:
Emphasis added.
Georgia Ukraine Crimea … (sigh) Yes of course when you omit the discussion of what preceded those Russian moves, namely the aggressive actions by the US/Nato and State/CIA-funded operatives, and when there is no honest discussion of the events seen from a Russian perspective, iow the context, then Russia looks pretty bad. With those omissions, Russia does look like the aggressor, Putin bad.
Sometimes there are two sides to the story. Usually so in the case of coverage of US-Russia relations in this era of one-sided propaganda in our MSM.
As Stephen Cohen, who was around often in the MSM (for CBS) during the 70s discussion of whether to pursue detente, has often commented, the MSM during this New Cold War has virtually censored all dissenting views from the neocon DC national security state establishment party line. Only rarely is his perspective (from which I draw much) allowed on the MSM — a few minutes on CNN once or twice a year, usually facing a hostile anchor/questioner.
Two sides, three sides. Is your argument that the West provoked Putin in these aggressions; that he would not otherwise have taken action? Methinks you misapprehend the man; not saying the West didn’t create inadvertent opportunities for him.
Yes, Putin likely would not have acted in these areas but for not merely “opportunities” the West “inadvertently” created to do so, but for what were seen as serious provocations by the West in those countries, which Russian leaders saw as a direct threat to their national security. Putin and other leaders have been outspoken about their perspective, couldn’t be clearer.
Methinks you have drunk the MSM propaganda demonizing Putin. You seem rather extreme and dug in. And if I tend to lean more in the direction of giving him the benefit of the doubt, probably this is due to a) the west’s coordinated ongoing propaganda war to demonize him and b) his recent statesmanlike efforts to work with us in reaching a compromise in Syria and Ukraine, and his attempts, publicly offered, to join with us in a new Grand Alliance to fight ISIS/Islamic terrorism. A failure so far on Syria and Ukr, but mostly due to our failures and reluctance to agree on anything not resulting in Assad being ousted and in the case of Ukr, a failure by the US-backed regime in Kiev to play ball and implement Minsk II.
On the eminently sensible and wise public offer by Putin on the Grand Alliance, made more than a year ago, he got a rejection from the Obama admin. Possibly because O, who seems by nature to be inclined to want to make such a deal, has been unable for whatever reason to rein in some of the bigwig hardliner neocons in his national security chain.
I think cooperating w/Russia in destroying ISIS/AQ/etc is a major key in getting rid of this scourge. Putin recognizes this, but our side stubbornly refuses to see it. Without Russia, we will at best be playing whack-a-mole, probably for many decades to come.
A warning flag on the subject of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Secretary Clinton, as president-elect Trump had formerly threatened during a live televised presidential debate:
At the moment Guiliani would have to be considered an authority on this subject. It should be pointed out that “a tough decision” might simply elide discussing the merits of the case and whether there was sufficient evidence to bring a successful prosecution. But it doesn’t sound that way and Guiliani should know better. His suggestion that this will require “thought” versus analysis perhaps betrays a strategic dimension to this which has nothing to do with evidence or wrongdoing.
Or, hopefully and perhaps naively, it may be a mid-way step in a public utterance to begin to ease Trump’s fervent Hillary Haters away from the notion of prosecuting her. But we’ll see. I don’t trust any of the incoming crowd.
If they did aggressively pursue prosecution, I think it would be the one thing that would galvanize Dems and many Bernie backers, along with remaining sensible Republicans who voted for her, as well as Dems in Congress, to rise up in righteous anger and fight it. For that reason, near-civil war conditions in the land, I doubt ultimately a prosecution will occur. Trump has already spoken of all the other to do things on his list in the first 100 days, prosecution of Hillary not among them.
Correct again.
AG
Campaign rhetoric. Trump is seeking to calm the waters.
What many do not understand is that Trump is a guy who has spent 20 years playing parts on TV. What are his real beliefs? I have no idea. Neither does anyone here.
His campaigning was done for reasons. He did a pretty solid job of pulling people along. All accidental? I doubt it. Like Reagan, he has the ability to act in public and say things which have a purpose.
I have great doubts that a special prosecutor will be investigating Hillary. She lost. That’s enough for Trump.
I would trust Kos about as far as I can buy him.
AG
We should give Trump some space, if only to give him some rope to hang himself, and to demonstrate that our side has respect for the institutions of our nation.
BUT, we must get organized and watch the apparatus of the state very closely. A fascist can’t do his fascist thing without being enabled by the limbs of government (unless they create an SA, God forbid). So when we see the FBI overstepping the bounds, instead of tut-tutting on Facebook, we should be marching on Washington to demonstrate. That sort of thing has worked before, remember?
The other alternative is some kind of direct action, aka riots in the streets, weathermen bombing, and that is not the way to a viable future for our nation, or success for our cause.
My iPod served this up to me today. I love this song, what what happened then was sooo unhelpful.
Without having read this beforehand, what you’re saying is pretty much what I said in different words elsewhere on this thread, and I think some other people too. So yeah. Keep our powder dry, but organize.
I just read Harry Reid’s letter. I am very proud of Harry Reid. Leaders in our government cannot just allow this transition to look like business as usual. No one can.
I hope more of our leaders speak out like this. We know who Trump is and regardless of what he said in his speech on Wednesday, Trump has already signaled that he isn’t going to pivot.
We have to organize NOW. They are going to try to push things through so fast that our heads are going to spin. We have to be ready.
Trump is not an elected official who ran a campaign which establishes that he is willing to work within the American tradition. He is not normal. I applaud the Minority Leader for refusing to normalize Trump and what he stands for.
I particularly respect Harry for documenting what is going on in the United States right now. I have colleagues, friends, and members of my Union who are personally experiencing white nationalists roaming the streets shouting at non-whites “Trump is going to make you go away!” while using vile racial slurs. My “favorite” bit of ignorance: a Filipino-American who was told “Go back to Mexico!”
Those emails seem very, very trivial right now. Yet the election turned on them. And here we are.
Trump is about to set our country on fire.
Anyone who is still talking about Bernie is missing the point. We need to stop fighting each other and band together to face the danger that is ahead.
I agree WaterGirl, that Sanders is irrelevant. But the republicans on this site are back doing their thing…sowing discord.
.
I’m not sure we can agree to stop fighting each other if we don’t also agree about what to start fighting for. Anti-Trumpism is enough for me, but clearly it’s not enough to win.
William Buckley said that what the conservative movement was fight for was traditional Christianity, anti-Communism (essentially robber-baron capitalism), and anti-liberalism (suppression of liberal ideas). As a Catholic, traditional Christianity mean the papal Christianity of Pope Pius XII, the pope that cut a diplomatic deal with Hitler in the middle of the Holocaust. Capitalism meant the system that brought the US to the Great Depression. And anti-liberalism the intellectual battleground of religious ideas that created the long wars of the Reformation.
We agree what we are fighting for: equality of all people under the law; a global order in which the norm is peace; opportunity for all people to achieve prosperity within a dramatically more constrained natural environment; the dialogue among a diversity of cultural traditions; recognition of human rights that turn a war of all against all into a civil society.
The direction that Trump and his constituency is going seems to us not to being going toward any of those.
And he has the means of force to make sure that he as an autocrat can move in that direction. And unless I’m mistakened about the vote totals and exit polls, he has enough followers in law enforcement and the lower ranks of the military to enforce his will on those who might be squeamish about abuse of the Constitution.
Freedom, equality, fraternity was what the political theorists of the 18th century were fighting for. The political theorists of the 19th century started asking why they were not achieved by the revolutions that promised them.
It is not that the public is not fighting for what we are fighting for at an individual level, it is how broad the context is for that fight, and how much they feel (and it is gut-feeling) the current political system can achieve those. Trump was a hail-Mary pass against failure of the slim hope that Obama provided in 2008.
“I got mine” is a reaction to the failure of prosperity.
Fighting has to do with figuring out what a prosperous economy looks like within environmental limits.
Fighting has to do with detacting ourselves from dependence directly or indirectly on fossil fuels.
Fighting has to do with finding alternatives to the bloated healthcare system and university system to stay healthy and to engage in the Great Conversation.
Fighting has to do with defending respect and dignity in the face of a campaign of stigmatizing designated groups with slurs, discrimination, and physical abuse.
Where we fight with each other is in the decision of where we personally fight: outside in a social movement that lacks permanent organization; semi-outside in organizations that have form but are by that form subject to co-option; inside some of the critical supporting institutions of American society, where co-option is a significant spiritual threat. Each one of these considers any or all of the others to be imperfect places from which to fight. In fact, all are necessary, which is why Clinton’s equivocation over the #NoDAPL movement likely discouraged voters from coming out to vote for her and the downticket. Complacency (apathy, paralysis, despair) is the last position to take, but it turns out that seeking safety in this situation has the highest risk of all.
In this, we must be clear about the pain, risks, contention, and chaos we will encounter. And we must find ways to handle the pressure, celebrate (briefly) the victories, and quickly recover after the losses.
We must also endure the ambiguity between what is the larger issue of integrity to focus on as compared to lesser issues of integrity that diffuse our focus but might also risk losing the large issue. When does being boy scouts and girl scouts about means distract from and when does it risk ever attaining the ends. They are intimately and complexly interrelated. And subject to must second-guessing and bickering. Indeed, this is the largest political question of the progressive-liberal-lefty movement that is necessary in opposition to Trump. Or do we adopt a diversity-of-tactics approach that argues not to risk other action by timing and operation near our actions or engaging in implicit campaigns of co-option by those not in opposition to Trump’s regime.
This seems like a real problem. To defeat fascists, you normally need everybody who’s not a fascist to work together. You need Communists allying with Liberals allying with Christian Democrats. We’re going to need to work with anti-choice activists, Wall Street sellouts, and numerous other unsavory characters or we’re all going to get squashed. In a movement where milquetoast statements about Wall Street arouse undying hatred, that’s going to be tough. But we’ll need to.
Yup, and the Reichstag too if I’m not mistaken. But he’s going to destroy his political enemies first. The campaign is now a retrospective loyalty test. He warned them; he warned everyone.
Often less is more. Particularly in moments with high emotions.
For now:
Yeah.
We should make Trump’s reality instead of letting him make ours.
Harry Reid is angry with the consequences of “keeping his powder dry” between 2006 and 2008. No doubt Nancy Pelosi is angry that she took impeachment of Bush off the table. The secret government that Harry Truman created by the GOP-stampeded Red Scare and the policies that W-Cheney instituted after 9/11 to create a police state should have been ended by now. Obama did not for whatever internal political reasons in the administration; I hope he will fess up and tell us in his memoirs. On January 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump will have the power to start a war without declaring one (even with a Congress that could rubber-stamp an AUMF); he will have the power to assassinate anyone in the world on command, without real due process or declared reason; he will have the power to designate a threat and deploy nationally coordinated militarized police forces anywhere in the country with the legal precedent to forcibly attack peaceful protesters.
And only now is Harry Reid outraged. He helped build that architecture of tyrannical rule–without effective checks and balances.
Trump is not making a pivot. He is calming the sheep.
Comparrisons to Grant are popping up. Improved policies but ones that had little long term.impact.
Trump or Reid?
Obama.
In other words, Lincoln without the assassination. Seems that character assassination is just as effective, doesn’t it. Unless you are completely hollow.
A troubling comparison but I can’t say you’re wrong.
I would be more impressed with Reid’s diatribe if on the same occasion …or better yet, much earlier…he had said something like this:
But of course…Harry Reid did not say that.
Why?
You need to ask?
Partisan politics trumps the truth.
Every time.
AG
Yeah, except Hillary Clinton really isn’t doing that any more. More likely she’s going into a convent.
Then there’s the fact that Clinton was not a sexual predator. Ken Starr spent years & zillions of tax-payer dollars looking for evidence of predation and came up with nothing. And if Starr couldn’t find any evidence, you know there wasn’t any.
You really believe that?
I don’t.
Where there is that much smoke, there’s fire.
Starr?Just another incompetent, waffling career bureaucrat shaking his jowls as a way to make a living.
AG
>>Where there is that much smoke, there’s fire.
there was a well-funded 30-year effort to create so much smoke that people would say that. it worked. still no evidence of fire anywhere.
much smoke, there’s fire” is the ultimate statement of a gullible rube. (“What? Evidence? Facts? What are those? Why would THEY matter?”)
Which response, of course, the wingnut propagandists completely rely on.
Compare this to the standard of proof he demands as evidence that Russia was behind the widespread hacking of Democratic party members and orgs. If it conforms to his prejudices no thread of evidence is too thin, the merest hint is proof enough. If it doesn’t, no amount of evidence is convincing. Before blogs AG would be the unwashed cardboard-placard ranter on the street corner soap box.
A/k/a, where there’s smoke, there’s a smoke machine.
supposedly emanating from a VRWC-ginned-up Clinton pseudo-“scandal”, then yeah, absolutely.
Perhaps Rightwing Noise Machine needs revision to Rightwing Noise and Smoke (and Mirrors?) Machine.
Ease your mind. The truth of the assertion is usually considered an airtight defense against libel.
In the courts as we now know them.
It is our moral duty to give him exactly the same level of respect and courtesy that Obama was given by the Republicans.
Less. He’s much less moral or qualified.
It’s hard to reckon how it could be less than what Obama received.
In which another generation of Americans learns that freedom from bigotry and oppression is an endless struggle. Warren already said it; don’t give an inch.
“Regardless of what you think you know, does he deserve at least some space to show us how he’ll act now that he’s actually responsible for all of us?”
He deserves exactly as much space as the GOP gave Obama. NONE.
He should be obstructed at every move. Trump says up, I want Democrats to say down. I want blue slips. I want pointless amendments. I want poison pills.
I wan the Democrats to play the part of Mitch McConnell. That’s what I want.
In 4 years, it will be 2020. I’m a math guy, I know to be a fact.
That is a redistricting year.
If Trump is a major failure, as may well happen, this will be good for D prospects.
HOWEVER, there are several not-so-good things:
Dealing with the rural turfs is Job 1. If Ds continue the identity politic, continue to promote illegals, continue to talk about “white guilt” and all that stuff, that will not be good.
I’ve said this now for 3 years. My track record is pretty good on midwest state matters. Of course, you can continue to discuss my terminology – sure, why not? Defer actually facing facts by tossing the “R” term around.
But eventually, the vast swatches of land between the big cities will be clear to D strategists.
Right now, the D prospects in 2020 are not good. What can be done to turn that around?
Somehow this is set up as a reply to brendan. I meant it to be a general reply.
So because you, like MANY of us, saw that the Ds needed to better address the uneven economic recovery you think you are immune from people pointing out that you proudly use language that dehumanizes people.
Stop acting you were the only one pointing out these issues because you were NOT. Not by a long shot.
And yes you are still wrong to cling to the word illegals. If you wanted a true discussion you would stop using it but you so obviously do not. Instead you want to come here and claim you and you alone saw what was going to happen Tuesday night and that gives you the right to use whatever language you want.
WTF? Why don’t you look at the substance? He didn’t suggest he’s the only one who saw this.
Oh yes he has. Several times before. And what little substance his post has is clouded by his now I know you will focus on me using the term “illegals” because you are just that stupid.
I refuse to let someone post dehumanizing language without pushing back against it and I will do so every time I see it.
You’re just mad because you have been so wrong.
Hey, not a problem.
Shooting the messenger because the messenger uses bad bad bad words does not mean that message is wrong.
It just means that you don’t have your priorities right.
But hey, we can sit around sipping tea, confident yet again that we are using teh right words.
In 2 years, I will remind you again that you are wrong. Because you are just a language fascist. Focus on the right terms to say the wrong things.
Great.
It doesn’t mean the messenger is wrong. It just means that the person using dehumanizing, cruel, and juvenile language is dehumanizing, cruel, and juvenile.
But possibly right about some things, so okay!
Try again. I have often agreed with you on the Ds immigration policy. I have brought up both the wrongs of the H-1B and the J-2 visa programs time and again
I can both criticize the Ds immigration policies and not dehumanize people.
I’m not stupid. I just hadn’t been following his latest rants. He seems to be quite the crank on that subject.
He should not be obstructed at every move, just every bad move. Sanders and Warren have already made statements to this effect.
nope. every. single. move.
also investigations and hearings.
Nothing’s stopping us from organizing, right now. In fact, that will just continue what was already started, first to beat Clinton, and now, to beat Clintonism.
As for Trump, we have to watch very closely, but it’s much more important what he does than what he says. Especially for someone like Trump, where the two things often have nothing to do with each other.
I am coming around to the view that even among people who voted for Trump, most of them voted for him to improve things, and they expect that. I take what Sanders and Warren have both said very seriously: to the extent he does the right thing, we will support you. But anything else, we will oppose you with everything we’ve got.
The fact is that Trump has a number of ostensible positions that Sanders people and at least some Hillary people agree with. Such as being against TPP. If Trump really wants to tell the globalists to go fuck themselves, that’s fine with me.
One way or the other, we have to watch very carefully. The truth is that as of now I have zero faith in Trump. He’s a pathological liar. But it’s kind of hard to go after somebody before he does anything. I mean, yeah, he’s done a lot of stuff already, but not as president. But don’t over react. Go by what he actually does, or tries to do, not by what he says. But we need to be ready.
My point is, there’s a huge potential opposition to Trump if he starts, say, trying to sell off our national parks, or backing out of climate agreements, etc.
I share your apprehension of Trump and it goes well beyond concern over mere lying. If Trump sets out to make examples of a few former political opponents or media personalities my concern will escalate rapidly.
If his first instinct is to bring possible coalitions of opponents to heel by attacking and attempting to publicly destroy outspoken or potential leaders then we’ll know the magnitude of our dilemma.
Hard to describe the sinking feeling listening to these earnest Trump supporters suddenly talking about all the mechanisms of government which constrain the executive branch. Wow, are they in for a surprise.
In point of fact, Bush II and Obama pretty well managed to obliterate those mechanisms. Given that Trump has a Republican legislature…if indeed they don’t rally behind the PermaGov Republicans and turn against him…he will have a free hand.
God help us all.
AG
I’m curious of something. Has Harry noticed the state of the party across the nation? How many states are under complete GOP control? How many are under complete Democratic? Stuff like that.
I mentioned this above. State control by the Rs is increasing. MI, WI, PA all saw small increases in H and S seats by Rs. In many cases, Rs who are more extreme replaced less extreme ones. At the state level, the “blue wall” of MI-WI-PA is becoming the “red wall”.
It’s in PA where the possibility of the “electoral vote by congressional district” is most likely. I did read that this system was more widespread 100 years ago and was abandoned in favor of the winner take all we have today. That’s interesting, but the current dynamics of the rural dominance of the Rs makes the EV=CD more attractive.
You do realize that this make more Republican EV’s in Illinois and California, don’t you?
Maybe I’m missing something, but worrying about the propriety of Reid (or anyone) saying this stuff seems ridiculous after the indignities heaped on Barack “You lie!” Obama or even on Bill “They came here and trashed the place” Clinton.
Episodes in Recent American History — Counterpunch.org
>>Reagan wins. Is much worse than anyone imagines is possible.
that writer obviously wasn’t voting in 1980.
I was an undecided first-time voter in 1980. Never once anywhere did I hear anyone say “Jimmy Carter deserves to be re-elected”. What I heard Democrats saying was “if Reagan is elected he’ll start a nuclear war and it will be then end of the world.” And the one thing I was certain about was that no matter how bad Reagan turned out to be, he couldn’t EVER be as bad as they predicted. And he was terrible, but not as bad as they predicted.
That rather underscores the point of the Democratic contribution, including reliance on doomsday scare.
The subtle transmutation was that the progressives were becoming a conservative party, working to preserve the status quo, while the GOP started to win calling for change! Since then progressives had difficulties promising and delivering progression, except in the direction pushed by the GOP. An irony!
Yeah but he was patient zero for erosion of trust in federal institutions and that’s where we are now.
Yes, but Shaun…maybe that was a good thing.
“Federal institutions” in a relatively small country may be one thing, but as a country grows they inevitably become less and less trustworthy…more and more mired in their own sustainability rather than pursuing their effectiveness. And eventually, there you have the giant, almost totally ineffective Federal bureaucracy under which we labor today.
Have you seen the film “Brazil?” If not, you should. Unchecked, that is a comedic version exactly where we are inevitably headed if this bureaucracy is not seriously controlled.
Bet on it.
AG
I have a copy of Brazil; my housemate and I reference it often in our discussions of modern politics and culture. Don’t miss Idiocracy if you haven’t seen it. It’s another leg of the same stool.
That it is.
ASG
I’m ashamed of my country and of all the illusion that voted for Trump.
They are an embarrassment to themselves, their country, and humanity.
And I never really felt this way before but after Reagan, Bush II, and now Trump these people are no longer worthy of any respect whatsoever. I’m beyond caring about people who continually indulge in self-destructive behavior.
My family will be fine, good luck to the folks in the red states that voted for the most unfit, character defective monstrosity – and rewarded all the Republican obstruction.
Luckily, living in CA means my path never crosses with many of these losers.
When I read Reid’s letter I was struck by his emphasis on fear. Such and such people among his family, friends, constituents, and fellow citizens have been made afraid. OK. Now what do you do about fear? What you say to children or teens/young people or adults may differ . . . but wasn’t Reid once a boxer? I don’t know the story but I’ve never heard of him trembling so much that he couldn’t step into the ring.
Wasn’t fear the theme of the 2016 election? Reid just hasn’t rebooted his message machine to whatever new theme the two parties are busy cranking out for the rubes to get us through the inauguration and they’ll have new ones for after that.
Mexicans! China! Muslims! v.
Putin! Russia! Wikileaks! Julian Assange!
Embedded in Trump’s symbols of fear was a single message — They are coming here to take your jobs and hurt you and they are shipping your jobs to China.
Embedded in Clinton’s symbols of fear was more war, including cyberwar, because Hillary is a fighter.
Both-Siderist steroids?
Not that I want any.
Just curious.
Last I heard, the Russian government is now being open about its contacts with the Trump campaign.
They’re only doing it to save us from corrupt, plutocratic, neo-Nazi banksters, though.
This piece is an example of why I check into the pond every day that I can. You wrap up our dilemma concisely and clearly. Thanks Martin for what you do and for your uncanny ability to hit the nail square on more often than not.
I think Barack Obama handled the situation perfectly, citing Bush’s assistance to his orderly transition. Obama was gracious, gentlemanly and in the best tradition of American democracy. Trump even said as much. Michelle Obama was no less gracious to the new First Lady. I take my hat off for him and her. Harry Reid’s behavior was unbecoming to a US Senator. He should relinquish his leadership role. There will be a need for strong opposition to much Republican legislation. The Democratic Party needs to show that its opposition is based on principle, not sour grapes.
Reid is retiring.
He should shut up until he’s a former Senator.
Reid and Obama guided the Dems into a disaster. He’s mad because he has been so wrong so long.
The dems have turned the party over to the SJWs. Normal people do not want to be told that white privilege is a problem.
The longer the SJWs run the Dem party, the more trouble there will be. And Dems have not learned this. It’s more white guilt, it’s more microaggression.
2018 is going to be bad for Dems. Even though it is an off-election and should be bad for Rs, I predict a bad outcome for Dems.