nessin posted:

I don't deny that's it happening, or that Trump supporters are instigating it in some cases. I was pretty clear about that in my last sentence. I was replying to someone who was specifically blaming Trump, Trump Supporters, and listed only events which would apply to Trump Supporters lashing out at non-Trump supporters.

The Shortest Path posted:

We weren't sure how they would ever ram Donald Trump into the white house either, yet here we are. Don't underestimate the mountains that can be moved by their spite.

LeeMajors posted:

gently caress this emailbenghaziemailbenghaziemailbenghazi bullshit. It gave license to these morons with no sense of nuance to condemn Hillary over penny ante bullshit.

greatn posted:

I'm not sure how they would ever gain control of either 67 Senate seats or 38 states needed to amend the Constitution.

Cup Runneth Over posted:

This is the most terrifying prospect, aside from all the other ones. Anything that Republicans are currently pushing as law could be enshrined in the Constitution semi-permanently. Not just opposite-sex marriage. Right to work. Religious freedom. Voter ID. The Constitution is the last line of defense. It overrules all other branches of government. Any law that Republicans pass, anywhere in the country, can be declared unconstitutional, up until they control what the Constitution says. Then it's over.

The Shortest Path posted:

We weren't sure how they would ever ram Donald Trump into the white house either, yet here we are. Don't underestimate the mountains that can be moved by their spite.

Cup Runneth Over posted:

They have control of 37 states.

RandomBlue posted:

I've asked people who keep going back to that (frequently throwing TREASON in there) to show some hard evidence of these horrible crimes and explain why, if such evidence exists, she hasn't been charged or convicted. *crickets*

Doesn't matter at this point obviously. I didn't care that Hillary lost, my vote for her was really just an anti-Trump vote, I was just shocked (as was most everyone paying attention, including Trump's campaign) that he won and absolutely none of the mounds of horrible stuff that came out against him didn't mean anything at all while emails/Benghazi were somehow supremely important though no-one I asked could really exactly why or how those were worse.

1-800-DOCTORB posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSANTRnEBgg

"Then we could make all sorts of crazy laws"

LeeMajors posted:

Marriage equality. Voter rights. Climate Change.

The GOP will now systematically beastfuck our fragile environment out of existence. They'll steal hard-won civil rights from millions of Americans. And then they'll stack the deck in their favor to make it an enduring legacy.

We are so hosed that 'hosed' seems completely inadequate to describe it.

speng31b posted:

Was posted earlier, but weren't some of those states actually split?

Cup Runneth Over posted:

At best, we will probably see decades of progress thrown out the window. History repeats itself, indeed. At worst, we are about to enter a part of the history books that gets its own chapter.

Cup Runneth Over posted:

At best, we will probably see decades of progress thrown out the window. History repeats itself, indeed. At worst, we are about to enter a part of the history books that gets its own chapter.

AVeryLargeRadish posted:

Correction: At worst there won't be any history books written about this.

Cup Runneth Over posted:

They have control of 37 states.

RandomBlue posted:

I also find it odd that so many of the religious right want to keep Muslims out of our country given that our country was started by people fleeing religious persecution and founded with religious freedom as one of the core tenets.

I've seen the usual argument about terrorism and "you don't see Christians flying planes into buildings". The 9/11 attacks killed 2,996 according to Wikipedia. The KKK, who consider themselves to be a Christian group, have killed 3,446 African Americans between 1882 and 1968 according to one study.

LeeMajors posted:

If we have that long. Climate agreements that are too radical for antiscience republicans whom now hold the skeleton key to US legislation were not enough to keep us from going over the tipping point.

Trump is going to stock his cabinet with corporate lobbyists, and oil/gas is going to slam down the accelerator over the tipping point.

I had a newborn baby girl less than a month ago. How am I going to explain to her that we literally elected a man that wants to monetize our planet into ruination? How am I supposed to live with the prospect of her shortened lifespan for profitability?

We are fuckity gently caress gently caress goddamned hosed. And there is basically nothing we can do about it.

AVeryLargeRadish posted:

Correction: At worst there won't be any history books written about this.

Cup Runneth Over posted:

Yeah, I'm afraid that now is a very bad time to be bringing children into the world. My father told me the other day that he loves me but should never have had me.


True. But optimist that I am, I like to believe that no matter what happens, some society will eventually rise up out of the ashes and document what went down.

Cup Runneth Over posted:

Yeah, I'm afraid that now is a very bad time to be bringing children into the world. My father told me the other day that he loves me but should never have had me.


True. But optimist that I am, I like to believe that no matter what happens, some society will eventually rise up out of the ashes and document what went down.

1-800-DOCTORB posted:

There is no chance this would ever happen but what would happen if 37 electors go faithless and vote for Hillary? Would she still be seen as having a mandate due to having the popular vote?

Cup Runneth Over posted:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/11/12/post-election-spate-hate-crimes-worse-than-post-911-experts-say/93681294/

Carlosologist posted:

So what are the odds that the Republicans cannibalize themselves despite their hold on the House and Senate? I like to think that something like that will happen

RaySmuckles posted:

lol that we're all still fighting the same fight

i get that minorities are worried that white people will sell them out the minute they have their economic security. i can totally see that

but it also needs to be said that the working class is equally worried about the Democrats because we've been promising economic reform and instead actually became comically more and more corporatist.

Admiral Ray posted:

A lot of the Evangelicals don't even think that the Christian God and the Muslim God are the same God of Abraham. They think he's some kinda moon god.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Yeah, this is it. There is an old Upton Sinclair quote about how it is impossible to convince any man something is true when his job depends on his not believing it.

Same mechanism here. If Trump were racist or fascist then having voted for him would have been unforgivable. So a lot of people just find it easier to be blind to his racism than to consider that they might have done something bad when they voted for him.

1-800-DOCTORB posted:

There is no chance this would ever happen but what would happen if 37 electors go faithless and vote for Hillary? Would she still be seen as having a mandate due to having the popular vote?

Admiral Ray posted:

A lot of the Evangelicals don't even think that the Christian God and the Muslim God are the same God of Abraham. They think he's some kinda moon god.

1-800-DOCTORB posted:

There is no chance this would ever happen but what would happen if 37 electors go faithless and vote for Hillary? Would she still be seen as having a mandate due to having the popular vote?

Lightning Knight posted:

Ok I hit the anger/acceptance stage at work. Here is my big huge pointless effort post no one will read.

My Take on the Democratic Post-Mortem, 2016:

* For Everyone

1. We are not doomed. Donald Trump ran on a fascist platform but he's not a true believer, he's a con man. He won't fight for his abhorrent causes, he's going to dismantle the government slowly but surely to enrich himself. The Republican Party is split three ways between the business class, the ultraconservatives/Tea Party and the new Trumpists and they're not going to vote in lockstep on everything. It's a drat near thing and almost everything has to go right, and we need to be lucky, but it's not over. We just have to fight the Battle of Agincourt now, rather than the Siege of Berlin.

2. We need everyone. This will be a recurring theme. We can win the Presidency with a relative few more votes, but we need way, way more voters to win the House, Senate, and state governments. We can't afford to alienate large swaths of people, even if we feel justified in doing so. There's limits to this - there's people we can't win - but that's the long and short of it.

3. We are out of time. We can't wait for demographics to save us and we can't wait for lovely Boomers to die out. If Hillary had won she could've stemmed the bleeding on global warming and given us a liberal supreme court. Now we don't have that luxury. We are on a ticking clock.

* For progressives

1. You (probably) aren't as radical as you think you are. If you think the New Deal, or for that matter Bernie Sanders, is "socialist," you are not a socialist. If you are actually a socialist and know what socialism is, you probably still don't have the spine to go out and fight in person. That's ok, most don't. But we need to be realistic about what we are. Bernie Sanders wasn't that far politically from Hillary Clinton, as much as we want to project our perfect savior fantasies on to him, and the sooner we realize this the better. I'm not saying we shouldn't fight for socialism - we should - but unless you're straight up an actual bomb-throwing anarchist, you aren't that radical. If you are, why aren't you at a protest right now?

2. Bernie Sanders is smarter than you. That's why when he knew he couldn't win the primary he endorsed Hillary and campaigned for her. That's why now he's not abandoning the Democrats and is fighting for their leadership. Progressives labor under the delusion that we are the most charismatic people ever and if everyone could just hear our ideas they'd believe us and join us. That the Democrats will just magically come around and become a progressive party on their own. That's bullshit. If we want a progressive party, we have to make one. Building a third party is much, much harder than just taking over the Democrats. That means voting - especially in primaries - fighting for leadership positions, and still showing up even if we didn't get what we want. Conservatives don't stay home if their guy doesn't win the primary. We shouldn't and can't afford to either.

3. Leave your pride at the door. I want Chuck Shumer's head on a pike too. Too bad. Progressives need to be willing to work with the party and to compromise and play nice with others. That means realizing we won't always get what we want. Bernie Sanders didn't take his ball and go home when he lost. Why should we? This does not mean do not question the party. Far from it. It means that instead of fighting a pointless civil war with the conservative wing or staying home like children, we work to change the party to fit our vision. That means we sometimes won't get what we want. Grow the gently caress up.

4. Republicans change the system so they have an easier time holding on to power. We should too. I do not mean voter suppression. But why aren't we pushing for a constitutional amendment to harmonize elections and get rid of off-year votes? Why aren't we fighting against gerrymandering, voter suppression, and the Electoral College? Why aren't we pushing for automatic registration at 18, mail-in ballots in every state, extended early vote, and if necessary national ID? We should be.

5. White straight male progressives are not the future of our movement. Yes, that means Bernie should not run again. White straight male progressives need to learn to sit down and shut the gently caress up some of the time, and to listen to minority voices. POC, LGBT, and female candidates are our future and we need to pave the way for them, not throw tantrums when we don't get to run the show. And for that guy reaching for his keyboard to say " why do you hate white straight men???" shut the gently caress up. Don't even. White straight men already get to be the center of the universe every other place. If you even want to pretend to be progressive don't you start that poo poo here.

6. Nativism, isolationism, and anti-trade positions are a cancer upon the Western World. The progressive left needs to drop any notion of adopting these planks right the gently caress now. Demonizing Chinese and Mexican people to appeal to white working class voters won't help us because we can't out-Republican the Republicans. The rest of the world is also deserving of not being poor too, and the West is largely responsible for their poverty, so we should be responsible for helping them too. American foreign policy is poo poo but withdrawing and letting world trade collapse will just lead to another war. And if you are too much of a sociopath to care about foreign poor people or world peace, then at least remember what happened the last time we mixed nativism with leftism.

7. The Russian Government is not your friend. Neither is the US Government for that matter. You might think it's great that the Russians did Watergate 2.0. on the DNC, or that Comey kneecapped our campaign in the last 14 days, but realize that they won't stop when the progressives take over. It won't be funny anymore when Kamala Harris 2020 gets sunk by Russian hacks. Only the most delusional tankies think the Russians are a friendly power as they fund and nurture dangerous far-right movements throughout the Western World. Remember Paul Manafort? Donald Trump was their bid to kill America. Don't think they'll be helpful to a progressive DNC. Ditto for institutions like the FBI.

8. White working class people ARE racist, sexist, and homophobic. But we need them. We really, really do. At the same time keep in mind that we are asking minorities to sit at the table with people who are ambivalent to their right to life at best and who happily voted for a man who ran on a platform of hatred and murder towards them. We have to walk a razor thin line to keep a coalition like this together and trying to whitesplain to black people that no really they aren't racist is stupid and pointless. This is more about our dialogue than what we campaign on.

9. Identity politics DO matter. A program of economic reform and anti-poverty measures are good and will help everyone if we do it right, but a higher minimum wage and free college doesn't stop police bullets, conversion therapy, or lower the rates of sexual assault, and if you aren't prepared to fight just as hard for forgiveness of your student debt as you are for Black Lives Matter, go home, we don't need you.

10. Stop buying into Republican framing. Bullshit like "establishment, coastal elites, (((globalism))), etc." are poo poo that the Republicans use, among a host of other phrasings, to delegitimize and undermine the left. Remember, that poo poo is all too often dogwhistles for Jewish people or the urban poor black community. We constantly, constantly harp on the failure of Democratic messaging and it's because we always, consistently buy into Republican framings of every issue. You hate Bill Clinton? Well guess what, his innovation was to attempt to out-Republican the Republicans. He failed. We can't make the same mistakes. This isn't about the correctness of these terms (for example, "establishment"), but more so about the framing of our issues.

11. People are three-dimensional. It's bad to boil down white working class people to "they're racist" even if they are because they have more going on than that and we can still reach them through other messages in spite of their racism. By the same token however, neoliberals and conservative Democrats are not mustache-twirling villains. Many of them really do believe that their ideology is good and right and can help people. If you insist on simplifying them to "evil assholes who don't agree with me" we won't get anywhere. This also goes for Republicans, we just can't reach them realistically in the time we have.

12. Stop trying to vilify Hillary Clinton. You don't have to like her. You're free to hate her in fact. But realize that trying to retroactively turn her into "American Margaret Thatcher" is both ahistorical and will alienate many, many people. We are not the mainstream in our hate for her on the left. Most of her unpopularity was with conservative straight white men. She still won the popular vote and there are millions of women and minorities who look at her as a hero, and it isn't a good look for white straight male progressives to poo poo on the legacy of one of the most influential women in American history. Even if you hate her, we can't win with that message going forward. Grumble in private about her if you must but make your peace with her legacy in public and move on.

* For conservative/centrist Democrats

1. Hillary Clinton is smarter than you. She saw that Bernie represented a sea-change in Democratic politics and adopted most of his platform after she won. She fought a largely congenial primary with him and worked hard not to alienate his voters. Conservative Democrats are not the way forward, and this election was proof. You will have to learn to live with the progressive wing.

2. Paying lipservice to identity politics isn't going to cut it anymore. The poor white population just voted in a monster because they hate you. They're fools, but you have to recognize that this is the new normal. Likewise telling minority voters you will help them and then abandoning them in office is no longer acceptable either. You get to choose between being less rich and helping leftist causes for real, or losing everything to insane fascists. No more threading the needle to maintain your power.

3. We need to engage young people. Yes, that means Hillary should not run again. Making stupid pop song ads and campaigning with famous people isn't good enough. Neither, apparently, is offering free college. But we need to engage young people and we need to do it now. We all saw that state map if only young people could vote. We need that now, not in 20 years.

4. Stop fighting a civil war with the progressive wing. Bernie Sanders didn't win the primary but he came drat close with no prep time and a conservative DNC that was hostile to him. The writing is on the wall. You don't have to roll over and die if you're a true believer in neoliberalism but you must compromise with progressives lest everything you've ever cared about is laid to ruin by the Republican Party.

5. Unions, unions, unions. Relying on big business and Wall Street for our funding has been a disaster. We need a financial base that won't sabotage our efforts from within. Unions conveniently also own and would go a long way towards helping us attract working class people of all colors again, provided we fight hard for them to both flourish and be inclusive.

6. Give up on gun control. I hate the Second Amendment and gun culture and all the horrific toxicity surrounding them. I hate that mass shootings have become so common as to be like a hazardous weather condition more than a tragedy. But gun owners care more about voting down gun control than liberals care about voting for it. We can mitigate and prevent mass shootings and gang violence with guns without direct gun control and it's a dumb hill to die on.

7. Give up on the war on drugs. Legalization of all controlled substances and prison reform would earn you huge points with young and black voters and they are good things. Clinging to the war on drugs for the sake of a foreign policy tool or the enrichment of corporate interests is foolish and short-sighted. Give it up.

8. It's time to abandon the middle class. We bought into the Republican framing of "a strong middle class," but the truth is that this is a huge dogwhistle for white suburbanites. I bet enough of us are white suburbanites to know that they vote straight R anyway regardless of how much we pander, because they care more about tax cuts than people's lives. We need working class people, not lovely FYGM suburbanites.

* For minorities

1. If you have to flee, flee. But when you move to Canada or wherever, try and keep your citizenship. We aren't entitled to your volunteer hours or money but an absentee vote to make America not suck is in your interests even if you move abroad because you might escape the persecution of minorities but you can't escape US foreign policy.

2. You're probably going to have to sit at the table with people who hate you. I'm sorry. If I could have a world where we didn't need lovely people with backwards beliefs to win elections I would. But this is not that world. Progressives need to fight for your rights and fight to educate ignorant people, but we need to build a coalition and that is a messy business.

3. We need your candidacy. I care about Black Lives Matter, immigration reform and amnesty, marriage equality and adoption rights, workplace discrimination laws and challenging rape culture. But we need to attract the white working class again. You are right to fear the white moderate, and that's why we need you to run instead. I'm sorry you have to do everything for white straight men. We suck. But the only way we can ensure minority rights get a seat at the table of economic populism is to run minority candidates.

There's probably more and I didn't put everything I had thought of but I think this is my comprehensive hot take (tm).

porfiria posted:

No, but this will never happen. There would actually be some kind of insurgency at that point.

I've been thinking recently about something my brother's Russian History professor told them on the last day of class. This was five or sex years ago now. "Your generation will be witness to the greatest bloodshed since the Second World War." He was himself an old Russian dude, had lived through the Soviet era. Something about those words always struck me as deeply plausible, but at the same time it was hard for me to see how circumstances could lead us to that point. Even after 9/11 and Iraq and the Great Recession I guess it sort of still felt like Fukuyama was right, that history was over, that nothing would ever really change.

Now here we are, and it's not that hard to imagine at all.

HorseRenoir posted:

The one upside to all this bullshit is that we'll probably be remembered as the next Greatest Generation after all this poo poo goes down.

HorseRenoir posted:

The one upside to all this bullshit is that we'll probably be remembered as the next Greatest Generation after all this poo poo goes down.

porfiria posted:

Or the Lost Generation. Last Generation.

HorseRenoir posted:

The one upside to all this bullshit is that we'll probably be remembered as the next Greatest Generation after all this poo poo goes down.

porfiria posted:

No, but this will never happen. There would actually be some kind of insurgency at that point.

I've been thinking recently about something my brother's Russian History professor told them on the last day of class. This was five or six years ago now. "Your generation will be witness to the greatest bloodshed since the Second World War." He was himself an old Russian dude, had lived through the Soviet era. Something about those words always struck me as deeply plausible, but at the same time it was hard for me to see how circumstances could lead us to that point. Even after 9/11 and Iraq and the Great Recession I guess it sort of still felt like Fukuyama was right, that history was over, that nothing would ever really change.

Now here we are, and it's not that hard to imagine at all.

Lightning Knight posted:

If you even want to pretend to be progressive don't you start that poo poo here.

Lightning Knight posted:

Mulva posted:

What if people don't? What if, at the end of the day, people don't want a progressive movement? If they are happy to occasionally make progress on social issues here or there, but honestly don't care about it being the center-point of their social/political system? What do you with that?

Lightning Knight posted:

If that's the direction we go minorities will stay home just as surely as white progressives did when Bernie lost, and we will keep losing.

You cannot win without minority voters, suck it up and fight for them too. If you have the privilege to say you don't care about minority issues you're a massive prick.

Edit: If you're going to quote my big dumb post you might want to change it to to save space.

Lightning Knight posted:

1. We are not doomed. Donald Trump ran on a fascist platform but he's not a true believer, he's a con man. He won't fight for his abhorrent causes, he's going to dismantle the government slowly but surely to enrich himself. The Republican Party is split three ways between the business class, the ultraconservatives/Tea Party and the new Trumpists and they're not going to vote in lockstep on everything. It's a drat near thing and almost everything has to go right, and we need to be lucky, but it's not over. We just have to fight the Battle of Agincourt now, rather than the Siege of Berlin.

Pollyanna posted:

Yeah, when somebody has been convinced of something, they cannot be convinced otherwise, ever. People are one-time use. The only way to get more people on your side is to get undecideds on your side, or breed more people.