Category: Politics

From Wil Wheaton:

It is five in the morning. After a little over four hours of restless sleep, I got out of bed before my tossing and turning woke up Anne. I'm not sleeping much recently, and what sleep I do get is plagued by nightmares.

It's been raining all night, which I realize isn't something worth mentioning for most people, but it hasn't rained here in Los Angeles since 1856, so it's kind of a big deal. Back in the old days, when it rained a few times a year, before the myth of climate change tricked us all into believing that we're having a terrible drought that apparently doesn't really exist, we would sleep with the window open on rainy nights, so we could hear and smell the rain.

My dogs looked at me with confusion when I got out of bed, then did the dog equivalent of shrugging their shoulders and burying themselves back into the covers. My cat wants me to let him out, stop the rain, dry off the patio, and then let him back in. And then back out. And then back in again because he's a cat.

So. Let's get to it: we're fucked. Nothing matters, everything is terrible, and we're living in a nightmare that hasn't even begun to hint at how bad it's going to get. I've been spending a lot of time going through the stages of grief, and though it's mostly a lot of anger, I'm bargaining: maybe the Electoral College will step in and prevent this fucking catastrophe from happening. Maybe the vote will be audited in some of these states where the devil won by just barely over one percent, which is honestly kind of suspicious. Maybe the Democrats in Congress will be joined by a few principled Republicans (they exist, right? They have to exist, don't they?) and the white nationalist cabinet this president elect wants to install won't be confirmed.

Bargaining. I know it isn't going to happen. I know we're fucked.

Twenty-five percent of eligible voters elected a racist demagogue who has never held a single elected office in his life, a seventy year-old man who has the temperament of a child. I still can't believe it. When I hear the news say "President Elect Trump" it turns my stomach. It's such an affront to the country, to the office of the presidency, it feels like it isn't real.

Hate crimes are happening all over the country. White supremacists, anti-semites, and the absolute worst of humanity feels validated by this election, and they are boldly and fearlessly attacking people, declaring that this election — votes cast by one in four eligible voters — endorses their hateful, bigoted, regressive world view.

Anger. This never should have happened.

How can so many people, even if they are a statistical minority, have no problem supporting a racist for president? What are these fucking idiots going to do when all the things he promised them don't happen? They say they were voting against corruption and lobbyists and Establishment Washington, but one look at the men this narcissistic sociopath wants in the highest positions of government reveals that none of those things will be reflected in his administration. They won't get their jobs, they won't get their draining of the swamp, but we're all going to get the racism, bigotry, ignorance, and white supremacy they had no problem voting for.

Denial. Somehow, someone is going to do something to stop this from happening. He's breaking all sorts of ethical rules. He's breaking diplomatic norms. He doesn't even want to live in the fucking White House! He doesn't want the job, he just wants the attention. This can't be happening.

And back to Anger. And then more Bargaining.

And Depression. So much Depression.

Paul Ryan is going to destroy Medicare, just because he can. Because he is a selfish, evil, despicable man. For the first time in the history of the nation, the Senate refused to confirm a Supreme Court justice (and apparently even the fucking Democrats who we're supposed to count on to fight back are fine with it) and now our nation will deal with a regressive, right-wing majority on the court for the rest of my life. The Republicans are going to roll back and undo and destroy as much of the social progress of the last 40 years as they can, and in the richest country in the world, our citizens will suffer needlessly, because people like Paul Ryan subscribe to a selfish, hateful, myopic philosophy created by an asshole who never had to experience the consequences of her bullshit.

All of this, and more, because of twenty-five percent of voters.

Oh, there's Anger again.

And so it goes, this cycle of grief, for my country, for the freedom and hope and opportunity I've always believed is fundamental to the American identity, for my fellow humans who are going to suffer now and in the future.

All because twenty-five percent of voters looked at this despicable, hateful, ignorant liar, and voted for him and everything he represents.

…has more class in his little finger than the entire incoming Trump administration possesses in its entirety.

(Photos via Pete Souza)

While I never agreed 100% with everything Obama did during his tenure in the White House, I will still take solace in knowing that if the United States descends into madness after 20 January 2017, I had the pleasure of living through what was still one of the greatest Administrations this country has seen.

Barack, Michelle…I'm going to miss you and your exceptional family. After Tuesday's election I'm not sure we ever deserved you, but I'm grateful we had the opportunity.

…is that even though their God Emperor won the election (yet lost the popular vote, by an ever-increasing margin), this does not give them license to freely go around beating up anyone they don't like and act like they're now above the law.

BECAUSE THEY AREN'T.

The United States is a still a country of laws, and if they go beating on someone, threatening lives, or commit any number of the other horrific acts that have occurred in ONLY THE LAST TEN DAYS and they're caught, they will pay the price. They will go to jail. This isn't a free-for-all, and it isn't The Purge.

So if you see any of this shit going down, intervene if you feel safe doing so, or at the very least get a good description of the assailants, use your goddamned cell phone for something beyond Candy Crush and CALL THE FUCKING COPS so these animals can be caged…while you still can.

I get that you're upset. I get that you're processing in the comments. And its not my place, nor would I ever suggest you stop. But I would like to suggest that things are not as bad as your reactions seem to make them out to be. And that's not to suggest that things are good. This is not last Tuesday at noon with all the promise that day seemed to hold. But its also not the fall of Rome either.

Right now, between the most senior of the President Carter appointments, as well as the much younger still President Clinton and Obama appointments, the Federal judiciary at the district and appellate levels maintains a majority of judges appointed by these three Democratic Presidents. That isn't going to change any time soon. Trying to pack the district and appellate courts isn't going to be done quickly or easily. And even with a Supreme Court justice, provided the Senate Democratic caucus doesn't slow things way, way down and the nomination, advise and consent occurs at a normal pace we're talking March or April before whoever is nominated gets their final vote. This means that the Supreme Court will be 4-4 this term and if the nomination can be slowed into the summer, then at least the first half of the 2017-2018 docket will be chosen by a 4-4 court. So few momentous, major change of direction cases, because neither side wants to risk a 4-4 tie that affirms an appellate decision the other side can't live with. And even with a 5th conservative justice we're just back to where we were before Associate Justice Scalia died.

From what I'm observing things are going to be a shitshow. Even the folks around the President Elect with government experience don't seem to actually have a clue what they're doing. This too will slow things way, way down. Right now inexperience and incompetence are good things. Remember, our system of government is not meant to be efficient—as in quick—even in a crisis. It's a high veto point system, and inherently ademocratic to anti-democratic specifically because the Founders and Framers were concerned with something like this happening. They wanted to make it as hard as possible for the system to be turned against the citizenry, to be turned toward autocracy. That works in the favor of the loyal (to the Constitution) opposition. ~ Adam L. Silverman, Balloonjuice

https://twitter.com/willettstockton/status/796496196068118532

And I concur.

It's completely doable. Here's how:

1. Get your state legislature to adopt the National Popular Vote scheme. In this system, a state would pledge its electors to whoever won the national vote. States have the authority to do this if they wish, but would have to change their respective state laws to move it forward. Some have, some haven't. If yours hasn't, push your state legislators to do so.

– or –

2. Amend the Constitution. Here's what that takes: 

Article 5, US Constitution:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Obviously that's not going to happen, but we can hope.

And by the way…the Democrat's ability to stop Constitutional Amendments from going forward is hanging by a razor thin thread, something that has not been widely reported.

I don't think you understand us right now.

I think you think this is about politics.

I think you believe this is all just sour grapes; the crocodile tears of the losing locker room with the scoreboard going against us at the buzzer.

I can only tell you that you're wrong. This is not about losing an election. This isn't about not winning a contest. This is about two very different ways of seeing the world.

Hillary supporters believe in a diverse America; one where religion or skin color or sexual orientation or place of birth aren't liabilities or deficiencies or moral defects. Her campaign was one of inclusion and connection and interdependency. It was about building bridges and breaking ceilings. It was about going high.

Trump supporters believe in a very selective America; one that is largely white and straight and Christian, and the voting verified this. Donald Trump has never made any assertions otherwise. He ran a campaign of fear and exclusion and isolation—and that's the vision of the world those who voted for him have endorsed.

They have aligned with the wall-builder and the professed pussy-grabber, and they have co-signed his body of work, regardless of the reasons they give for their vote:

Every horrible thing Donald Trump ever said about women or Muslims or people of color has now been validated. Every profanity-laced press conference and every call to bully protestors and every ignorant diatribe has been endorsed.
Every piece of anti-LGBTQ legislation Mike Pence has championed has been signed-off on.

Half of our country has declared these things acceptable, noble, American.

This is the disconnect and the source of our grief today. It isn't a political defeat that we're lamenting, it's a defeat for Humanity.

We're not angry that our candidate lost. We're angry because our candidate's losing means this country will be less safe, less kind, and less available to a huge segment of its population, and that's just the truth.

Those who have always felt vulnerable are now left more so. Those whose voices have been silenced will be further quieted. Those who always felt marginalized will be pushed further to the periphery. Those who feared they were seen as inferior now have confirmation in actual percentages.

Those things have essentially been campaign promises of Donald Trump, and so many of our fellow citizens have said this is what they want too.

This has never been about politics.
This is not about one candidate over the other.
It's not about one's ideas over another's.
It is not blue vs. red.
It's not her emails vs. his bad language.
It's not her dishonesty vs. his indecency.

It's about overt racism and hostility toward minorities.
It's about religion being weaponized.
It's about crassness and vulgarity and disregard for women.
It's about a barricaded, militarized, bully nation.
It's about an unapologetic, open-faced ugliness.

And it is not only that these things have been ratified by our nation that grieve us; all this hatred, fear, racism, bigotry, and intolerance—it's knowing that these things have been amen-ed by our neighbors, our families, our friends, those we work with and worship alongside. That is the most horrific thing of all. We now know how close this is.

It feels like living in enemy territory being here now, and there's no way around that. We wake up today in a home we no longer recognize. We are grieving the loss of a place we used to love but no longer do. This may be America today but it is not the America we believe in or recognize or want.

This is not about a difference of political opinion, as that's far too small to mourn over. It's about a fundamental difference in how we view the worth of all people—not just those who look or talk or think or vote the way we do.

Grief always laments what might have been, the future we were robbed of, the tomorrow that we won't get to see, and that is what we walk through today. As a nation we had an opportunity to affirm the beauty of our diversity this day, to choose ideas over sound bytes, to let everyone know they had a place at the table, to be the beacon of goodness and decency we imagine that we are—and we said no.

The Scriptures say that weeping endures for a night but joy comes in the morning. We can't see that dawn coming any time soon.

And this is why we grieve.

[Source]

If this is going to be a time of healing, we must first put the responsibility for healing where it belongs: at the feet of Donald Trump, a sexual predator who lost the popular vote and fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate. Winning the electoral college does not absolve Trump of the grave sins he committed against millions of Americans. Donald Trump may not possess the capacity to assuage those fears, but he owes it to this nation to try." ~ Harry Reid

https://twitter.com/RonCharles/status/796178335055417347

Considering all the other luminaries 2016 has taken from us, it's not surprising that the United States itself just joined their ranks.

Well, Redneck America, I hope you're happy.

https://twitter.com/markneefuzz/status/796287885586612224

You sure showed them gol-durn Northeast elites and Hollywood liberals a thing or two, didn't ya?

Because of your abject hatred of Hillary Clinton, instead of electing an admittedly flawed, but competent, intelligent, politically savvy woman who genuinely cares about the people of this country to the office of President, you just handed the most powerful position in the world to an orange-faced narcissistic sociopath with the temperament of a 4-year old who cares about one thing and one thing only—himself.  And by proxy to his anticipated advisors, a Short Bus of Deplorables who are openly at odds with pretty much every progressive ideal the majority of Americans hold dear—who will not only undo Obama's own amazing accomplishments, but set the country back fifty years—if not more.

And by the way, none of them gives a rat's ass about any of you beyond being the useful tools that you were.

You have sent worldwide stock markets crashing, and have given the entire planet an anxiety attack that may never wear off. And thanks to you, I have a reasonably good idea of what the average German was feeling in 1933.

"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

You have all but guaranteed an ultra-conservative Supreme Court for your—and your childrens'—lifetimes. But gol-durnit, no one's gonna be takin' your guns away now, are they? That'll show 'em!

But based on Trump's (and his anticipated advisors') own statements,  what will be taken away?

A Woman's Right To Choose? Gone.
Combating Climate Change? Gone.*
Voting Rights? Gone.
NATO? Gone
GBLT Rights? Gone.
The First Amendment? On life support if not gone.
Our standing in the world? Gone to HELL.

And you have given THE NUCLEAR LAUNCH CODES to the man ("We have nukes. Why can't we use them?") who had to have his TWITTER account taken away from him.

And Evangelical Christians: you just help elect your own textbook description of the AntiChrist…and you weren't raptured before he came to power. That means you're all going through The Tribulation with the rest of us. Where is your god now?

It's bad enough that Trump was elected President. What's even worse is that we (Democrats, Progressives, Liberals) failed to flip the Senate or the House. That means—coupled with his expected nomination of a far right wing conservative Supreme Court judge—Trump will get whatever he wants unless cooler Republican heads in the Senate give him a time out in the corner—something I'm not entirely sure will happen. Or they could impeach him outright if his transgressions get too egregious and put the country in mortal danger—but then we'd be stuck with President Pence, who has absolutely no love for the LGBT community. Out of the frying pan, into the fire—literally.

At this point I'm depressed, angry, and thoroughly disgusted with my fellow Americans who elected this wannabe dictator to the highest office in the land because apparently Hillary's emails were more important than allegations of serial rape, financial malfeasance and ties to Putin. But as others have already said, we need to stay strong, regroup, and hopefully flip the Senate in 2018.

But that's a long two years, and if some foreign power disrespects the Donald, I'm not even sure we'll be alive by then.

*Probably not a bad thing since we'll finally be rid of the national embarrassment that is Florida.

…from now until well past Tuesday night.

Photo courtesy my longtime friend Chalkdog.

Intellectually I know Hill's got this under control, but I am still terrified that something is going to hand the Presidency to that Cheeto-faced Shitgibbon—and what his psychotic followers will do in the aftermath of Tuesday's election regardless of who wins.

Someone please tell me again that it's all going to be all right and not alt-right!

The "Politics" section in my RSS reader will remain collapsed and I will be hitting "Mark All As Read" often.

Because I can't afford to buy a new computer or a trip to the E.R. because I put my fist through its screen.

Hillary's most scathing jokes about Donald Trump at the 2016 Al Smith Dinner.

Burning Down The House

Timothy Egan, NYT:

A wounded bear is a dangerous thing. Detested and defeated, Donald Trump is now in a tear-the-country-down rage. Day after day, he rips at the last remaining threads of decency holding this nation together. His opponent is the devil, he says—hate her with all your heart. Forget about the rule of law. Lock her up!

He's made America vile. He's got angel-voiced children yelling "bitch" and flipping the bird at rallies. He's got young athletes chanting "build a wall" at Latino kids on the other side. He's made it O.K. to bully and fat-shame. He's normalized perversion, bragging about how an aging man with his sense of entitlement can walk in on naked women.

Here's his lesson for young minds: If you're rich and boorish enough, you can get away with anything. Get away with sexual assault. Get away with not paying taxes. Get away with never telling the truth. Get away with flirting with treason. Get away with stiffing people who work for you, while you take yours. Get away with mocking the disabled, veterans and families of war heroes.

You know this by now —all the sordid details. For much of the last year, the Republican presidential nominee has been a freak show, an oh-my-God spectacle. He opens his mouth, our cellphones blow up. But now, in the final days of a horrid campaign, an unshackled Trump is more national threat than punch line. He's determined to cause lasting damage.

Is there one sector of society he has yet to maul? Until this week, it was the denial wing of his own party, those "leaders" who looked the other way while their leader walked all over the Constitution.

But those who take pleasure in watching Trump destroy the Republican Party are missing the bigger picture. He's trying to destroy the country, as well. Civility, always a tenuous thing, cannot be quickly restored in a society that has learned to hate in public, at full throttle.

Trump has made compassion suspect. Don't reach out to starving refugees — they're killers in disguise. Don't give to a charity that won't reward you in some way. Don't pay taxes that build roads and offer relief to those washed away in a hurricane. That's a sucker's game. We're not all in this together. Taxes are for stupid people.

Every sexual predator now has a defender at the top of the Republican ticket. The most remarkable thing about last Sunday's debate was Anderson Cooper having to school a 70-year-old man on workplace taboos that most of us learn on our first job.

"You described kissing women without consent, grabbing their genitals," said Cooper. "That is sexual assault. You bragged that you have sexually assaulted women. Do you understand that?"

What you heard was the lecture the human resources director gives just before saying, "You're fired." Trump could not get hired at the drive-through window at a Jack in the Box. Knowing about his history would make any employer liable. It took decades to get the workplace to that point where Trumpian predators are shunned. Given the biggest pulpit in the world, Trump is trying to bring that consensus down.

He calls it locker room talk. The locker room has pushed back, resoundingly. Let's call it what it is—the workplace. And as Trump told Howard Stern in 2005, when he bragged about his voyeur intrusions into backstage beauty pageants, "I sort of get away with things like that." He made a similar comment—the blueprint for his actions—in the 2005 television tape that has blown up in his face. If he can do it, any creep outside of the celebrity bubble should be able to get away with the same thing.

He's destroyed whatever moral standing leading Christian conservatives had — starting with Mike Pence. Their selective piety is not teachable. Take solace in one of the small acts of courage breaking out in recent days: a group of students at Liberty University telling their Trump-supporting president, Jerry Falwell Jr., to practice what the school preaches.

Trump is "actively promoting the very things that we Christians ought to oppose," the students wrote. These young people, at least, are smart enough to see what Trump is doing to their world.

It will take many people like those students, and like the first lady, Michelle Obama, a model of decency and class, to repair the awful damage Trump has done.

In a powerful speech Thursday, the nation's most respected public figure scorned the "hurtful, hateful language" of Trump and its effect on children: "The shameful comments about our bodies. The disrespect of our ambitions and intellect. The belief that you can do anything to a woman. It's cruel. It's frightening."

So it has come to this: The core lessons that bind a civilized society are in play in the last days of this election. We long for family dinners where Trump no longer intrudes, for tailgate parties where football is all that matters, for normalcy. Remember those days? They may be gone forever.

Donald Trump is not a black swan, an unforeseen event erupting upon an unsuspecting Republican Party. He is the end result of conscious and deliberate choices by the GOP, going back decades, to demonize its opponents, to polarize and obstruct, to pursue policies that enfeeble the political weal and to yoke the bigot and the ignorant to their wagon and to drive them by dangling carrots that they only ever intended to feed to the rich. Trump's road to the candidacy was laid down and paved by the Southern Strategy, by Lee Atwater and Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove, by Fox News and the Tea Party, and by the smirking cynicism of three generations of GOP operatives, who have been fracking the white middle and working classes for years, crushing their fortunes with their social and economic policies, never imagining it would cause an earthquake….

But they don't control Trump, which they are currently learning to their great misery. And the reason the GOP doesn't control Trump is that they no longer control their base. The GOP trained their base election cycle after election cycle to be disdainful of government and to mistrust authority, which ultimately is an odd thing for a political party whose very rationale for existence is rooted in the concept of governmental authority to do. The GOP created a monster, but the monster isn't Trump. The monster is the GOP's base. Trump is the guy who stole their monster from them, for his own purposes." ~ John Scalzi

This doesn't sound so far-fetched!

One day, Donald Trump is going to look a reporter straight in the eyes on national TV and say "I never ran for President."

— matt aukamp (@mattaukamp) July 19, 2016