Here's Why We Grieve TodayI 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.
I post this because many of my friends are willing just to move on with their lives. Just another shift in the fortunes of life. They put on their boxing shoes and hope to dance like a butterfly until fortunes change again.
I am not ready to do that.
Still processing, yeah I totally get that.
There will be a LOT of post mortems, and the fact is, people need to be allowed to run the numbers and figure out what went wrong.
I say it's a healthy thing for the most part but face it, a lot of people are shell shocked.
Like you, I am one of them.
At times like these, it is important to read some very wise words by a very wise writer:
We sometimes forget that colonialism was and is war, a war to control and own another country’s resources—meaning money. We may also delude ourselves into thinking that our efforts to “civilize” or “pacify” other countries are not about money. Slavery was always about money: free labor producing money for owners and industries. The contemporary “working poor” and “jobless poor” are like the dormant riches of “darkest colonial Africa”—available for wage theft and property theft, and owned by metastasizing corporations stifling dissident voices.
None of this bodes well for the future. Still, I remember the shout of my friend that day after Christmas: No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.
I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge—even wisdom. Like art.
Toni Morrison
Amen!
Wow, go Toni Morrison.
No wonder she received so many honors.
Garrison Keillor speaks for me:
Trump voters will not like what happens next Alas for the Trump voters, the disasters he will bring on this country will fall more heavily on them than anyone else. The uneducated white males who elected him are the vulnerable ones, and they will not like what happens next...
We liberal elitists are now completely in the clear. The government is in Republican hands. Let them deal with him. Democrats can spend four years raising heirloom tomatoes, meditating, reading Jane Austen, traveling around the country, tasting artisan beers, and let the Republicans build the wall and carry on the trade war with China and deport the undocumented and deal with opioids, and we Democrats can go for a long , brisk walk and smell the roses.
It's theirs to run now. They have the Presidency and both Houses, so they can do whatever they want. We'll just watch.
I received a call from my wife today (I'm on the road) that our younger son is despondent regarding the election and his/the future. Our youngest sister is in shambles, according to my twin. Our elder son has been retweeting posts from acquaintances (some quite famous) who are nearly inconsolable. I thought I was the one taking it badly...
I think they all need to understand that sometimes things happen that are not in your control. In this case, they all need to disengage a bit. The Republicans are going to run the government for the next four years, and all they can do is watch (and maybe laugh?),
Sometimes you have to let other people have their turn, even if they are badly incompetent. They get to make their own mistakes, and all you can do is to feel sorry for them that their ideas are going to fail them so badly.
...people need to be allowed to run the numbers and figure out what went wrong.
Zeke and I told you from the very beginning: Hillary is extremely flawed. Yes she has an impressive resume of qualifications - but she is a very, VERY flawed individual.
Sometimes in life, character trumps everything else - and many denied this reality..
What a bunch of a$$hats. Look in the fvcking mirror, dude.
She is right: Here is yet another reason these arrogant fools lost:
![[Linked Image from s4.postimg.org]](https://s4.postimg.org/l67jk27dp/Dingell.png)
Much of the district is Democratic and those voters strongly supported Bernie Sanders in the primary. That result didn’t surprise me, but it did infuriate me that Clinton and her team didn’t show up until the weekend before the primary, when it suddenly became clear they had a problem. I took Bill Clinton grocery shopping that Saturday — too little, way too late. They never stopped on a campus; never went to a union hall; never talked to the Arab American community. Sanders was in my district 10 times during the primary. How would any sane person not predict how this one would go?
This is a topic I wanted to address. Wither the Democratic Party?
Populism has two connotations: 1 positive = actually addressing the needs of the population and 2) negative = a con man/woman feigning to address the needs of the people.
What we have seen, from Dems and Trump alike, in this last cycle is the second type. Bernie was an exception. But they (the DNC) made sure he was pushed aside.
Glenn Greenwald has the most on point analysis of this phenomenon and, rather than repeat what he is saying, I offer it as a strarting point for this discussion.
THE PARALLELS BETWEEN the U.K.’s shocking approval of the Brexit referendum in June and the U.S.’ even more shocking election of Donald Trump as president last night are overwhelming. Elites (outside of populist right-wing circles) aggressively unified across ideological lines in opposition to both. Supporters of Brexit and Trump were continually maligned by the dominant media narrative (validly or otherwise) as primitive, stupid, racist, xenophobic, and irrational. In each case, journalists who spend all day chatting with one another on Twitter and congregating in exclusive social circles in national capitals — constantly re-affirming their own wisdom in an endless feedback loop — were certain of victory. Afterward, the elites whose entitlement to prevail was crushed devoted their energies to blaming everyone they could find except for themselves, while doubling down on their unbridled contempt for those who defied them, steadfastly refusing to examine what drove their insubordination.
The indisputable fact is that prevailing institutions of authority in the West, for decades, have relentlessly and with complete indifference stomped on the economic welfare and social security of hundreds of millions of people. While elite circles gorged themselves on globalism, free trade, Wall Street casino gambling, and endless wars (wars that enriched the perpetrators and sent the poorest and most marginalized to bear all their burdens), they completely ignored the victims of their gluttony, except when those victims piped up a bit too much — when they caused a ruckus — and were then scornfully condemned as troglodytes who were the deserved losers in the glorious, global game of meritocracy.
she is a very, VERY flawed individual.
Sometimes in life, character trumps everything else - and many denied this reality.
And yet she was beat by someone with absolutely NO character at all. I think you may be confused here. Try to think of a "Hillary flaw" that is not magnified beyond all comprehension by Republicans. She is not perfect, but nobody is. Her "flaws" are 1/1000th of those of Donald Trump, and he won.
I still think she was the better Democratic candidate. (At least she WAS a Democrat!) White people just were not ready for a woman.
she is a very, VERY flawed individual.
Sometimes in life, character trumps everything else - and many denied this reality.
And yet she was beat by someone with absolutely NO character at all. I think you may be confused here. Try to think of a "Hillary flaw" that is not magnified beyond all comprehension by Republicans. She is not perfect, but nobody is. Her "flaws" are 1/1000th of those of Donald Trump, and he won.
I still think she was the better Democratic candidate. (At least she WAS a Democrat!) White people just were not ready for a woman.
Yet she lost to the person who was so much worse
You are judging by your own standards which only inform your opinion. Apparently almost 50 million people don't agree.
Misogyny is only a part - and not a very big one seeing how many votes she lost among women - of the equation. The appeal was not there. And the Dems ran a flawed campaign. And her unfavorable rating was in the high 50s. And...
I still think she was the better Democratic candidate. (At least she WAS a Democrat!)
Analysts are now saying Bernie would have beat Trump. But, we all know how all that analyzing worked so well before...
White people just were not ready for a woman.
So very misogynist of those while folks.
We will never know if Bernie would have won or not. It is an exercise in futility to speculate about that. What is interesting is to see what he will do now. That I am waiting for with bated breath.
All of these polls just tell us how the Republican's favorite "Democrat" would have done if they kept on endorsing him. If he had won the Democratic primaries, the Republicans would have gone into full rabid-dog attack mode. First thing they would have done is revealed how he is a Communist. Which of course he's not, but would the good old boy's at the VFW hall understood the difference?
Then they would drag up his writings from his 20's and his associations with pedophiles. Then... It would have been as brutal as their attacks on Hillary, and they wouldn't care at all how dishonest it was.
Bernie would have ended up with only highly-educated Socialists voting for him. 5% maybe?
That is one of an infinite number of other possible scenarios. But, sadly, we'll never know.
I think it actually says a lot about the "innate superiority" of white people. They think they are superior, but actually they are not as smart as people of color. Hillary was obviously a better choice than Trump in terms of economic and political self-interest for all those white women, and yet they voted for Trump.
White women in particular are much more gullible than women of color. Female misogyny is a real thing, and maybe enlightened women need to help their sisters to learn to reject it.
White women have had it a lot easier, especially white women as opposed to women of color - being a minority and a woman is a double whammy.
Absolutely: White women have a sense that they can be wives, with a husband "taking care of them". Much more security, but the trade off is self reliance and self esteem. Women of color have always had to take care of themselves as well as fend off unwanted sexual advances.
Bernie at a Crossroads
Bernie, I know you know that politics is the art of the possible.
I admire everything you stand for and support you and your ideas a hundred percent.
But the real actual "Democratic Socialist Party" tossed you overboard a long time ago and when you announced, their reaction was juvenile, something along the lines of "Yawn, what a sellout, not revolutionary enuff."
Know what, Bernie? You have done MORE for the Democratic Party than ANYBODY in over a generation.
JOIN the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders.
Join them because without you, the party is finished for a generation.
There is NO ONE in the DNC elite that has HALF the brains you have or half the commitment, or half the passion or charisma.
I know that you love that old rebel Dem Soc badge and you wear it close to your heart the way any good soldier does. But given the lack of love from your own Democratic Socialist Party, it’s really more like a tiny clump of long hair on the back of an old bald baby boomer who thinks that his “tail” is a secret freak flag.
But deep down, you are even better...you are, in fact, an excellent New Deal Democrat and I mean that as a COMPLIMENT.
You are so much better than just a Democratic Socialist, you are a unique brand.
Do it Bernie, join the Democratic Party and lead the charge to RETOOL them from top to bottom, and I will follow you through a mile of broken glass and the fires of Hell.
I still will even if you decide not to join them but I just can't help thinking it would do much more good, and it would prevent those old loser bastards from heaping scorn upon you and muttering that "you're an outsider". These old hacks LOST this election for us.
Join them so that you can make them take their medicine.
I think it actually says a lot about the "innate superiority" of white people. They think they are superior, but actually they are not as smart as people of color. Hillary was obviously a better choice than Trump in terms of economic and political self-interest for all those white women, and yet they voted for Trump.
White women in particular are much more gullible than women of color. Female misogyny is a real thing, and maybe enlightened women need to help their sisters to learn to reject it.
So Hillary is channeling her inner Sherrif Bart?
Bernie at a Crossroads
Bernie, I know you know that politics is the art of the possible.
I admire everything you stand for and support you and your ideas a hundred percent.
But the real actual "Democratic Socialist Party" tossed you overboard a long time ago and when you announced, their reaction was juvenile, something along the lines of "Yawn, what a sellout, not revolutionary enuff."
Know what, Bernie? You have done MORE for the Democratic Party than ANYBODY in over a generation.
JOIN the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders.
Join them because without you, the party is finished for a generation.
There is NO ONE in the DNC elite that has HALF the brains you have or half the commitment, or half the passion or charisma.
I know that you love that old rebel Dem Soc badge and you wear it close to your heart the way any good soldier does. But given the lack of love from your own Democratic Socialist Party, it’s really more like a tiny clump of long hair on the back of an old bald baby boomer who thinks that his “tail” is a secret freak flag.
But deep down, you are even better...you are, in fact, an excellent New Deal Democrat and I mean that as a COMPLIMENT.
You are so much better than just a Democratic Socialist, you are a unique brand.
Do it Bernie, join the Democratic Party and lead the charge to RETOOL them from top to bottom, and I will follow you through a mile of broken glass and the fires of Hell.
I still will even if you decide not to join them but I just can't help thinking it would do much more good, and it would prevent those old loser bastards from heaping scorn upon you and muttering that "you're an outsider". These old hacks LOST this election for us.
Join them so that you can make them take their medicine.
Jeff, dear friend, if we don't take corporate money OUT of the Democratic Party, all of Bernie's good intentions will be for naught.
Bernie's OpEd in the NY Times:
In the coming days, I will also provide a series of reforms to reinvigorate the Democratic Party. I believe strongly that the party must break loose from its corporate establishment ties and, once again, become a grass-roots party of working people, the elderly and the poor. We must open the doors of the party to welcome in the idealism and energy of young people and all Americans who are fighting for economic, social, racial and environmental justice. We must have the courage to take on the greed and power of Wall Street, the drug companies, the insurance companies and the fossil fuel industry.
Though not a Sanders supporter, we must change, so I look forward to seeing this.
Jeff, dear friend, if we don't take corporate money OUT of the Democratic Party, all of Bernie's good intentions will be for naught.
Well that much is a given, yes?
There will not, however, be a unilateral disarmament, nor should there be. Obama learned this in his first campaign, after trying mightily to succeed without succumbing. The laws need to change and be applied equally to all parties.
Jeff, dear friend, if we don't take corporate money OUT of the Democratic Party, all of Bernie's good intentions will be for naught.
Well that much is a given, yes?
One would hope so.
There will not, however, be a unilateral disarmament, nor should there be. Obama learned this in his first campaign, after trying mightily to succeed without succumbing. The laws need to change and be applied equally to all parties.
So never?
The path became immeasurably more difficult this week.
I just did a bunch more research, and put myself in a deep funk. If Trump manages half of what he has promised - a near-term disaster looms. I keep finding more and more reasons to be scared.
The economic consequences, for the U.S and the world, are disastrous. Economies today are interdependent, and as we know, Trump and his band of merry morons have no conception of what foreign policy is.
Their stupidity could drive not just us, but a better part of the globe, off an economic cliff.
What is worse is that if people like him remain in power in the UK, and take over in France and other European countries, I don't want to even speculate what the results will be.
It is, doubtless, the scariest thing we have ever confronted.
This is a sonic black hole. Are we headed for this?
![[Linked Image from s13.postimg.org]](https://s13.postimg.org/c6ac2qzqv/Sonic_Black_Hole.png)
The economic consequences, for the U.S and the world, are disastrous.
That's how I see it. And that's where I see redemption for the rest of us.
For the record, I must say that I hope President Trump succeeds. But looking at the people he's surrounding himself with I have some serious doubts.
I see a rapid deterioration of the economy coming and the tide that rose up to support Donald Trump will recede just as quickly. His supporters have promised to hold his feet to the fire and I expect their disillusionment will be swift and their wrath unprecedented.
There will be a fork in the road at the midterms. By then we should see unemployment rising rapidly, healthcare disappearing for most of the middle class, consumer confidence tumbling and worldwide economic uncertainty. This is the point when Republicans usually double down on everything they are doing wrong, thinking that if they just do more of it things will work out fine. But I'm not sure the voters are going to continue to go along with it.
Donald Trump's agenda is not the agenda of the Republican Party. He's not a conservative and is not passionately dedicated to conservative principles. He's a businessman and when he sees one of his business ventures failing he dumps it. Bankruptcy is not going to be an option this time so he'll have to change the business model or go down with the sinking ship.
The midterms will be the key to his success or failure.
I agree with your assessment, Greger. There are dark, dark clouds on the horizon.
Trump has demonstrated already that he is not up to the task he has set himself. His circle is full of neophytes, and the only adults in the room have been jettisoned. The administration will quickly be subsumed by lobbyists and cranks, as serious-minded experts are either shunned, or shunning. I don't think that Pence is up to the task of righting this ship.
Russia has already started adventurism - currently bombing the hell out of the rebels in Syria to prop up the Assad regime. China will be next off the block. Foreign affairs will quickly spin out of control, particularly if Giuliani is tapped. He's just unqualified, period.
I am not looking forward to the economic shocks that are inevitable.
![[Linked Image from s4.postimg.org]](https://s4.postimg.org/gut0im86l/Tomb.png)