The Politics Thread

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Your generosity is greatly appreciated, it truly is!

 

This may be an organization that you would like to read up on-- they do advocacy work, mainly legal for immigrants and their clients are primarily women and girls who are either seeking refuge or other protections, many fleeing violence. 

 

Here is the statement from Tahirih Justice Center about Tuesday's elections and just below, there is a donate link.

 

http://support.tahirih.org/site/MessageViewer?current=true&em_id=15989.0

[Ms. Quartermaine]

http://www.aol.com/article/news/2016/11/10/what-americans-said-theyd-heard-about-the-candidates-may-hold-t/21603325/

 

30,000 interviews from Gallup. They were asked what they read, saw, or heard about the candidates from July - September, pre-Trump tape.

 

Trump's top 3: Speech, President, Immigration
Clinton's top 3: Emails, Lie, Scandal

 

Also high on Trump's list: Mexico and Make
Also high on Clinton's list: Health and Foundation

Emails was the most popular word out of all of them. 

 

Harvard did a study with information from the primaries, denoting Clinton got the most negative coverage. Seems the same for post-primary. Even with the Trump tape, I think if you tally the minutes dedicated to her "scandals" and health, it would still be more than any negative coverage Trump got.

Edited November 10, 2016 by Ms. Quartermaine

[DramatistDreamer]

A woman who went for a hike, ran into Hillary earlier today. Bill took the photo.

 

Edited November 10, 2016 by DramatistDreamer

[Ms. Quartermaine]

^^^ Thanks for that! 

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[Vee]

The media is absolutely responsible. They tried to normalize Trump because the alternative would've upended their usual election year ratings. (Mark Halperin, incidentally, resumed being Trumper-in-Chief this morning by apparently going on Morning Joe and decrying the dour NYT headline about the election) They and their years of resentful obsession with the Clintons are extremely culpable. Hopefully some of them will wake up. I doubt much will change unless we make it change, which we'll have to.

 

But truthfully, we're also culpable - many of us anyway, not all of us. Many of us got so enclosed in our thoughtstreams that we got ahead of ourselves. We lost touch with the Rust Belt and we got a bit arrogant about the future; we thought that by simply partitioning ourselves from the systemic problems of ignorance, hatred and fear in the country and dismissing them we could marginalize them to the point of powerlessness in a few short years. This election proves we did not.

 

I hate to go there because quite a few white pundits are trying to lead with this to ignore the sheer tonnage of racism, sexism and hatred that also fueled this win. But looking at how the numbers broke down there is no escaping that issue which we now have to deal with: How we lost and dismissed a lot of Middle America through complacency, inaction and just disinterest in their anxieties. Does that mean I think we shouldn't have nominated Hillary? I don't know. I think she was an exceptional candidate any other year, I thought she ran a great campaign and would be a great president, but this was clearly not the year for just 'an exceptional candidate' - clearly, given the state of things we barely comprehended we needed something more.

 

Does this mean I think we should've nominated Bernie Sanders, absolutely not. He could never have won. But the fact is that we have to find a way to reach back to some of the people who we currently can't stand to look at - people who we, myself included, have dismissed as fossilizing before our eyes either in age or in perspective - and find a way to get them back onboard. Because not every Trump voter was part of the mass of hateful, committed bigots in the alt right or currently committing hate crimes against every minority around (although yes, I personally think all of their reasons come back to white supremacy and anxiety over the changing electorate and nation and are translated to economic and social fears). Some of them were just stupid. Some of them were anxious about the world and blind. A part of me will always hold all of them at least a little in contempt, but going forward, getting out of this, we can't afford to just ignore them. We have to deal with them, as distasteful as we find it. We have to impact them with a new outreach and a harder, more fiery populist message. And we have to reconceive the party and its future leaders.

 

Here's Barbara Boxer, talking to Chelsea Handler in the only time I have ever watched her show:

 

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Meanwhile, things are tense at the DNC. I like Donna Brazile, I don't think it was a DNC conspiracy to deny Bernie and I do not think this year is the fault of the 'flawed candidate,' but I cannot disagree with many of the points the rebellious young staffer makes about why we should trust in the organization. The truth is somewhere in the middle, and more towards the left than the DNC often cares to admit.

Edited November 10, 2016 by Vee

[NothinButAttitude]

A petition was created to sway the electoral college to not officially cast their votes for Donald & to reconsider:

 

https://www.change.org/p/electoral-college-electors-electoral-college-make-hillary-clinton-president-on-december-19

 

 

 

Edited November 11, 2016 by Nothin'ButAttitude

[Vee]

Jezebel has a surprisingly good piece which is just testimonials from teachers on their students post-Trump.

[jcar03]

While I absolutely am devastated that this man is going to be the President, if that were to succeeded I would be even more scared about what his supporters would do.  They already threatened a civil war if he didn't win this would just send them over the edge.

  

I am a teacher.  We did a school wide vote on Tuesday and I saw kids trying to bullying kids into fighting by telling them they voted for Trump.

Edited November 11, 2016 by jcar03

[Vee]

Lindy West on Hillary and Bill.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

You're welcome. I figured this might brighten the mood, if only for a few minutes. HRC is definitely a survivor, that's for sure. I'd like to think I could put on a brave face after losing something I worked so hard toward for so long but honestly, I'd probably be under the covers with a big wedge of cake or some chocolate. Her way appears to be much healthier.

 

I think I'm going to read those post mortems on the state of the DNC once I've processed the visceral reaction from this loss but I can only say that it does seem as if the DNC needs to process how they can move beyond this loss and make sure that they can (re) build cohesiveness and that whatever negative feelings have emerged are only temporary and don't follow the organization into the future.

 

The RNC bought themselves some time but they are far from unified, I anticipate that in '17, the same fissures will crop up again and at some point there will be a self-inflicted crisis or breakdown- most likely caused by intra-party fighting. This party is ruled by what it is against, not for, which is simply unsustainable. Plus, simple demographics are not on their side. So we'll see how they all get along- it is very easy for the party in power to lose control of Congress. They've already thrown civility out the window, so I see the different factions (especially the most aggressive ones) within the party going for the jugular when they eventually clash. 

[Vee]

Oh, the Republicans are a shitshow and it will start with their president who is not a Republican. Let's see him and his crew try to take Washington.

[MissLlanviewPA]

 

He is the real danger, for sure.

 

Meanwhile, a letter about why white women suck (not me--this 27 year old blonde white woman voted for Hillary, and proudly):

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dear-white-women-we-messed-this-up-election-2016_us_582341c9e4b0aac62488970e?section=us_women&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000046

[Vee]

No, we all suck on some level right now to the non-white voters Trump will disenfranchise. We have to own that. This is a stain on our conscience like some of the past ones in white American history. And we have to reeducate the voters who did go for him.

[DRW50]

I read that McConnell is already saying no no no to some of Trump's plans, like term limits for Congress and more money for roads. No surprise there. They'll push what they want and plenty of red meat for the bigots but McConnell is the brick wall to any true change. If Trump doesn't know it now he will soon.

[Vee]

Like I said: Team Trump vs. Washington will be extremely enjoyable. It's just going to keep coming and it will be far, far worse for the alt right than the early progressive backlash against Obama that began pre-inauguration.

 

Consider the idea of Bannon or Lewandowski lasting in DC opposite the Republican Congress longer than six months. Not gonna happen.