Vee

Not happening, possibly not in my lifetime.

I feel for the innocent citizens in Gaza. But anyone pro-Palestine in this country or any minority who sat this one out or voted for Trump (often for the same reasons as Latinos and white working class males, apparently) have bought and paid for exactly what they will get. Take a good look. And I am as progressive as the next person, but there needs to be a real hard line going forward about how we let academic language and concepts dictate how we talk about policy or issues. I'm also beyond done with the casual antisemitism of the far left (which predates the latest Palestinian crisis, to be clear) being coddled and tolerated. Jews showed up.

This quote above, from Timothy Snyder, is pretty smart and probably the best I can do with my remaining energy any time soon. Small things.

Nope. Pass. The majority of the country wants Roe. They're just stupid as shít about other things.

The answer is clear and it's nothing that any of us would like.

I'll admit it has crossed my mind that CBS will be concerned they have backed the wrong horse. But if it makes money, and gives CBS points with enough key demographics, who knows. I choose to remain optimistic about this show as a business, if not about the country.

My despair comes and goes. History is cyclical, which is what I've always told people in low times like these before. Things come around again. What concerns me most is the damage that will be done to not only people but our fundamental system and institutions in the next 2-4 years, and beyond that how we can begin to combat and counter what is now in place in terms of the media/information war. As I've said, Democrats should've countered Fox long ago with a real media push vs. constantly going begging to the Times or CNN for fair treatment they won't get - too many of them still think the Beltway press are their friends. It's going to take a generation at least to reeducate the youth, and it may take longer to untangle what this crew can do to our government, if it survives. If it only takes a cycle or two and they don't then immediately flip red again the next time folks get bored, I'll call that a miracle. I don't expect all of it to get better in my lifetime at this point, though it sure would be nice to have some of it back. I have to believe it will for the future generations. Maybe I'm being too defeatist for the short term; I hope so. I believe in the spirit of the country when it's at its best, in the ideals. I don't need to believe in the country as it is today to still believe in those things. I'm just so ashamed that my mother is probably living out her last years with it having disgraced her service and hard work and her father's service like this. That's what I can't stomach. I'll probably try to stay for a long while assuming she remains in good health. I'm not ruling out just leaving. I will keep an eye on things in a detached way but I can't engage in the same way right now, at least not atm. Maybe that will change if things change. But that's how I square things in my mind. I believe in what I can and I leave the rest, and I hope down the road we get better. In the meantime the people that asked for this can choke on what they bought. And if there is a female president in my lifetime, I'll remember Kamala maybe even more than Hillary. Because boy did she deserve it. I think the 'what could I have done' question will haunt her to the end of her days and that's just awful, because she did it all.

That's not what I meant. I just don't need any more of this period. I didn't watch Kamala concede and I don't need to watch Joe choke out this loss.

I'll pass.

And older white women moved to Harris. Judging by the numbers it was Gen Z and other minorities (primarily male) who sold us out.

There's absolutely no mistake. If it was some mistake Harris would not have conceded. That happened long before I spoke, and the loss happened before even the networks called the election. Your eyes and ears are not lying to you. Common sense. You are right about 2004. And those people were much more skilled and still lost, Rove's dream never came to pass. But these ideologues are different and more visceral, their patrons are more omnipresent (Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg) and the information environment is very different and much worse. We will be very, very lucky if this administration is somehow half as incompetent as they were last time, and even then it will likely take a generation to dig the country and its government out of the hole this will leave in. If it doesn't and we somehow retain or regain some semblance of a functioning democracy and non-doomed planet by 2030 or 2040-50, if our system of laws, rights, checks and balances aren't in ashes by then or we don't have a permanently right-wing court, we can call it a miracle. I'm not holding my breath. I think it'll take most of the rest of our lives to get a lot of the machinery of government and our laws back to where it was before Trump, if we do. (And the way to start doing it, whenever it happens, is to take back a share of the new media landscape.) I think we can. But I'm done fighting for it today. This is what a majority of people want, and they can have it and lick up the result. Take it all.

Believe what? I'm not changing election results.

Well, I'm not dying! Or leaving the forum. We'll always have our soaps. Just dealing with a physical issue that has been pretty taxing and is an ongoing process to recover from, but not life-threatening (AFAIK, anyway). I'm just done with this shít.

Well, what's to be said? Carl was right and I was resoundingly, astonishingly wrong. I am Booboo the Fool, and America is what it has chosen. I sincerely apologize to him and to anyone else here who wants it. I am not a rosy-cheeked optimist nor am I a cynic; I'm simply a usually hopeful pragmatist. But what pragmatism tells me now is that once is an aberration, twice is the truth. This is what a majority of the country wants, and that it is going to get so much worse before it gets better, if it gets better. I don't blame Kamala Harris who ran a great campaign, but I do blame many people. It will be a generational wound: The right has created a sophisticated right-wing media ecosystem with the help of a pliant, right-leaning press owned by largely disinterested or amoral oligarchs. And no progressive media comes anywhere close to the trifecta of Musk's Twitter, Zuckerberg's Facebook and the rest of the right wing fever swamp, because Democrats have simply refused to invest in it, instead going hat in hand to CNN or MSNBC or the Times cycle after cycle begging to continue to play by the same old fair play good chum rules from decades ago. We should've invested in an alternative to Fox long ago, something I've said many times. We haven't and it will have to happen now if we any have any hope of recouping. That said, the systemic and structural changes this administration will wreak will likely cripple America as it was for the rest of my life. If we do start to dig out of what they will do to government it will take many years. And I see no sign that the Democratic machine has any kind of plan to combat any of this, or to fight the media war that is extremely necessary in a new way beyond continuing to cozy up to the Beltway press, or do anything but maybe 'run another Midwestern dude they might like next time'. That right wing messaging system has made the casual sociopathy - and apathy - of the public much more commonplace, and has lazily radicalized a generation of youth. We will be very lucky if our democracy survives this to root it out, or to find some sort of squishy middle to appease the most squeamish enough to make them turn blue. And we can most likely not run another woman for many years, let alone another non-white male. And at that point, with all those caveats as we struggle to play Operation and find the perfect identikit midwestern White Guy candidate to run to coddle enough bored 20-30somethings raised on right wing TikTok (or yes, Latinos or other minorities who magically think Trump meant someone else), I have to ask, what the fúck am I still doing here? I have no faith in the country or in a majority of its people to shake this off again any time soon, and no faith they'd stick to it. This shít is heroin to the masses. So my feeling is to just get out. Either out of serious political engagement, out of the country or both. Maybe that will fade, maybe I'll change my mind in a few days or weeks or months. But I can't do this the same way anymore when it simply has not worked. I have friends in the UK and places to go. If it wasn't for my mother, who I am really worried about right now and would be heartbroken if I did go (she's fine, for the record) I would very seriously consider it. I don't know that I can do that to her, or what to do. But whatever I do, for right now I can't do this anymore and stay well. This was already the worst year of my life due to considerable health issues but somehow this election found a way to top that. I have to take care of myself and the people I care for, and that's it. So for now at least, when it comes to politics I'm just out. If this is what America wants it can have it. As Jerry Springer said: Take care of yourselves, and each other. I hope they and voters in Dearborn enjoy the Big Lots formerly known as Gaza next year.

Meanwhile: Charlie Kirk and other right wing chuds are notably concerned about turnout, vote cannibalization in NV, AZ, etc.

As I said last week:

I called this a while ago. IF we win, you'll hear this kind of rationalization from a lot of people - oh, it was MSG/Puerto Rico, it was Vance, it was just Trump being Trump. And you won't just hear it from the right but also from mainstream media dudes and from coping far leftists and bad faith merchants of all kinds. Much like with Obama (until it became undeniable) they won't want to give an inch of credit to Kamala. We will have to force them.

It was posted, yes. Ralston almost never misses. And he is also a notorious stunt queen/engagement farmer, who had his new red followers bamboozled with lots of his usual dramatic antics for weeks.