OK...What's Next?

[catrox14]

Just now, Padma said:

A bright spot.

California.

http://www.npr.org/2016/12/17/505904428/california-gets-ready-to-defy-trumps-washington

I have to say. I'm pretty glad I live in California right now.

[Bastet]

Quote

Been trying to avoid quoting anything with his original name in it so the add on doesn't change it. That's all I can do on that. Sorry. Outside of turning off the add on.

Well, can't you turn it off when posting here or go back and edit when your app changes someone else's words that you're presenting in your post as a direct quote, so the original quote is accurate?  I don't care if anyone else refers to him as Drumpf, but I don't revert to his original family name anymore than I'd join Trump in referring to Jon Stewart as Jon Leibowitz, so if someone posted something that purports to quote my words but quoted me as saying Drumpf rather than Trump, it wouldn't be accurate.

[ruby24]

21 minutes ago, VMepicgrl said:

Like many here, I get frustrated that these intelligent Democratic politicians can't seem to learn from the Republicans successes and use it to fight for the other side successfully. You would think they could analyze what the GOP has done and apply it. I've decided that the only possible reason they haven't been able to is because they don't have "evil villain" brains and can't think that way. 

It might actually have something to do with this, to be honest.

From what I can tell, Democrats genuinely believe in things, want the government to work to help people and want to get things done. And Republicans? They don't seem to care about anything except their own power. Well, okay, that and cutting taxes for rich people and corporations. And attacking women's reproductive rights, they're pretty obsessed with that issue.

But they really don't care about anything that would help regular people in any way, so maybe that lack of decency and lack compassion allows them to be just totally heartless and ruthless in a way that many Democrats can't conceive of.

But you know what? There has to be some ruthless, power hungry Democrats out there, and the good Democrats need to hire those guys to be their operatives or something. Because there is no hope otherwise. They have to WIN to do the good things that they want to do, and if they need evil on their side to help them win, it's going to have to happen.

[jhlipton]

2 hours ago, AntiBeeSpray said:

Exactly. I just call them 'Fundies' or 'Christians with a K'. They're in it for themselves. Which goes against Christianity. Jesus didn't like greed. He turned over the money changers tables. He didn't want his father's church turned into a place to make money, ie: greed.

Sources: biblehub.com and jw.org

I differentiate between "Followers of Christ" and "X-tians".

1 hour ago, catrox14 said:

Not to be that gal...but I will. It was 'Resistance is useless" in HGTTG.  ST: TNG coined "Resistance is futile".  :)

And Georg Ohm said "Resistance is voltage times amps :-)

1 hour ago, ruby24 said:

There has to be some ruthless, power hungry Democrats out there.

Alas, Jimmy Hoff is dead.

Edited December 17, 2016 by jhlipton

[sistermagpie]

11 minutes ago, ruby24 said:

But you know what? There has to be some ruthless, power hungry Democrats out there, and the good Democrats need to hire those guys to be their operatives or something. Because there is no hope otherwise. They have to WIN to do the good things that they want to do, and if they need evil on their side to help them win, it's going to have to happen.

Or just an electorate who doesn't constantly let the government down the same way the government lets them down. There's a lot of people out there who are prevented from voting by Republicans so I don't blame them, but it really does seem to me that Republicans are just more reliable when it comes to voting. Maybe I'm not being fair to someone, but it really does seem like there are liberals too pure to sully themselves with the actual system. I don't want to blame it all on them since Republicans have so blatantly suppressed votes etc., but I've also argued with young people online about how they can't be expected to vote or how it's still payback for not picking Bernie. It honestly seems like being politically engaged, for some Democrats, means everything BUT casting a vote.

Am I wrong in this impression? Because I feel like if Democrats knew there was a loyal base out there who would actually respond to them despite their not being swoonworthy they might start playing to them instead of always trying to beg for Archie Bunker's vote. You'd think all this going on would guarantee a huge turnout for mid-terms and beyond, but I don't even feel sure of that. People voted for Bush twice. People are more galvanized, apparently, by fake oppression than the real thing.

[ruby24]

There is some of that too. I can't help but think it would be fixed simply by a candidate people were more excited about.

[Keepitmoving]

1 hour ago, catrox14 said:

Like many here, I get frustrated that these intelligent Democratic politicians can't seem to learn from the Republicans successes and use it to fight for the other side successfully. You would think they could analyze what the GOP has done and apply it. I've decided that the only possible reason they haven't been able to is because they don't have "evil villain" brains and can't think that way. 

Yeah, and this is when I always come back to agreeing with those on the right and the far left of me who criticize them for being elitist. It's made them complacent, weak and totally unable to prepare for different types of battles. This shit is a street fight, these are straight up hood rat thugs surrounding them on all sides and they want to respond as usual. I mean this exactly who Trump and Putin are, they are street thugs, are you kidding me? Obama keeps harping on acting this way because his priority is to preserve our institutions, but this will not do. I love Obama and will not call him out but so much because I'm sorry, I think he did his part time and time again to try appeal to liberals/progressives to get out and vote to give him and the party the support/ power it needed in congress and like this election, time and time again dems. sat on their assess for every fucking midterm/local election.

So, he's not going to change and I'm just waiting for the inevitable, him to leave. And then, my level of loathing for every dem. representative who does not fight back like Michael Moore will know no bounds. I will hate them equally if not more than Trump for trying to do anything but obstruct with law suits and votes of nay. I don't want to hear shit about common ground,they were offered that for eight years. I don't even want to hear reports that so and so met with Trump today...I don't want to see nor hear of them talking to the other side. There is no preserving, let's take it down because it's dumb ass delusional to think that we aren't well on our way to destruction. News flash: This is the second Civil War, arm up democrats and stop living in denial.

Edited December 17, 2016 by Keepitmoving

[Shannon L.]

4 hours ago, AntiBeeSpray said:

Yep. And EVERYONE who isn't well off gets screwed, because they want their MONEY. They don't give a damn about anyone but themselves.

More than anything right now, I'm scared for my mother (and others in her position).   She's 69 and medicare/health care has been instrumental in keeping her alive while she's battling cancer.  A long while ago, they found some near her spine, but they've been able to keep it from growing by just medication instead of chemotherapy and radiation.  If medicare is privatized, she may not be able to afford the medication (which could be over a grand a month).  The thought of it scares me to death. 

4 hours ago, Duke Silver said:

Yea, yeah Trump supporters, I know the script, "who gives AF about what foreigners think." 

Except didn't they think that Obama made us a laughing stock?  Yeah....after seeing a video compilation of comedians around the world impersonating Trump*, I don't ever want to hear another word from a republican about Obama and how other countries viewed him (in the comment section of the video I just referenced, I wrote "Poor Obama.....all he got was a Nobel Peace Price.")

*You have to find the Australian 360 camera commercial with a Trump impersonator in it.   It's very funny.

And here's an article I saw on FB about those of us who might be losing our will to fight:

Robert Reich: 4 Signs You May Have Lost Your Will to Fight the Coming Tyranny of Trump

[callmebetty]

12 minutes ago, Shannon L. said:

More than anything right now, I'm scared for my mother (and others in her position).   She's 69 and medicare/health care has been instrumental in keeping her alive while she's battling cancer.  A long while ago, they found some near her spine, but they've been able to keep it from growing by just medication instead of chemotherapy and radiation.  If medicare is privatized, she may not be able to afford the medication (which could be over a grand a month).  The thought of it scares me to death. 

Except didn't they think that Obama made us a laughing stock?  Yeah....after seeing a video compilation of comedians around the world impersonating Trump*, I don't ever want to hear another word from a republican about Obama and how other countries viewed him (in the comment section of the video I just referenced, I wrote "Poor Obama.....all he got was a Nobel Peace Price.")

*You have to find the Australian 360 camera commercial with a Trump impersonator in it.   It's very funny.

And here's an article I saw on FB about those of us who might be losing our will to fight:

Robert Reich: 4 Signs You May Have Lost Your Will to Fight the Coming Tyranny of Trump

And that's what gets me back in the fighting spirit because that pisses me off what's going to happen to people who desperately need those Healthcare policies. Seriously I'm ready to cut a bitch over it. 

[stillshimpy]

From the NPR article above:  

"It's not our responsibility to read the tea leaves and predict what the president-elect may or may not do or what his administration may or may not do," de Leon said. "It's our moral responsibility as Senators, as Assembly members, to do everything within our power to protect our constituents."

I cheered aloud at that sentence.  Fuck wait and see.  He's filling a cabinet White Nationalists, open bigots, proven misogynists,  anti-science climate-change-deniers (in charge of the fucking EPA).   I don't need to be an oracle, a soothsayer or even a two-bit tarot card reader to suss out what the plans are here.    I am so glad I live in California.  

[sistermagpie]

32 minutes ago, ruby24 said:

There is some of that too. I can't help but think it would be fixed simply by a candidate people were more excited about.

Definitely it would. But I wish there were more people willing to vote when they weren't excited about the candidate. In this election I couldn't imagine anybody no realizing how important it was to vote against Trump.

I hope at least one thing that comes out of this is Democrats seeing this as a noble battle they fight in little ways every day instead of just wanting to swoop in to elect a president every 8 years - unless you think it's cooler to make a statement by not voting.

[Duke Silver]

[Chicken Wing]

5 minutes ago, Duke Silver said:

'deed it was. He smote us all.

[OrigamiNightmare]

I keep thinking of the quotes

from V for Vendetta "People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people"

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Thomas Jefferson

[stillshimpy]

Franklin Graham gives opening prayer in Mobile and his reasoning for why Trump won. "I believe it was God."

Left out a key use of the words " the wrath of" didn't he?   

[Totale]

2 hours ago, jhlipton said:

And Georg Ohm said "Resistance is voltage times amps :-)

Actually that would be "resistance is voltage divided by amps (current),"  We're not in a post-truth world yet!

[callmebetty]

1 hour ago, Duke Silver said:

Oh come on we all know that God doesn't even own a computer!

[aradia22]

I woke up to Fox News again this afternoon which is always horrible. But I didn't let myself sulk and cancel all my plans. I went out. I did errands. I saw a play. I went to work. It was a good day. Not that a lot of wonderful things happened. It was a normal day of petty indignities and rude people and meaningless interactions but that's the thing. It was normal. I don't have a lot of normal days anymore. I rarely do all the things I have on a to do list in one day. And of equal significance, when little stressful things happened my reaction (internally, I mean) was not out of proportion. The negativity didn't linger. I don't feel happiness... I mean, I would if there were something to be happy about. But I feel normal and there's something comfortable in that, like my brain has recalibrated. 

I don't know if any of that made sense. This just felt like a safe place to share. 

[possibilities]

On 12/15/2016 at 2:18 PM, Keepitmoving said:

There was a a pundit on Chris Hayes' show way before the election results came in, she's on his show pretty frequently, I forgot her name, she was a Hillary supporter, but she said that even she was afraid that if Hillary got elected, how would not just the men in this country, but the male leaders around the world, how would they respond? Would she be afforded the same kind of respect by those male leaders around the world so that she could lead?

What? Like Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Angela Merkel, Behazir Bhutto, Corazon Aquino were chopped liver? Like Hillary Clinton didn't manage to hold her authority as Secretary of State? People thought a Black man couldn't do the job, either. Look how that BS fell apart.
 

On 12/15/2016 at 2:24 PM, callmebetty said:

Does anybody know Pence's stance on Russia/Putin?

His current position on everything appears to be "whatever Donald says" but during the campaign I remember he laughed at the idea that DT had praised Putin during a debate, and tried to claim it hadn't happened.

21 hours ago, BookWoman56 said:

if you give the government the right to tell a woman that she cannot have an abortion, you are implicitly giving the government the right to tell a woman that she must have an abortion

Or any other procedure for that matter. If your body isn't your own, what is? If you have more rights to expel someone from your house than your uterus, just how much are you yourself a piece of disposable property, and where does it end?

6 hours ago, AntiBeeSpray said:

Well it's not a mind set I even like to think about, but it's good up to a point to try to understand the enemy and to get an idea of how they work.

This is so true, and so important. I think the number one reason it's so hard to mobilize is that people are exhausted. The second reason is that it is hard to truly wrap our minds around the nature of the problem, which would enable us to more effectively address it, and once understood, it's dispiriting as hell. (The third reason is that a lot of people on the ground and "in power" actually like things the way they are, and are either heavily invested in maintaining it, or not really into changing it, so there's a lot of stuff to overcome even once you do understand and have the juice to mobilize).

4 hours ago, thespiritflies said:

there is NOTHING Christian (radical or otherwise) about greed, hatred, lust for power and control, willingness to cause others to suffer, and all the other despicable traits demonstrated by those people. 

Nothing other than the Crusades? Inquisition? Witch-burnings? Ex-communication of and cursing to damnation those who love the wrong gender or commit other acts outside the lines? Shuttling of pedophiles from parish to parish, maybe? Not to say Jesus would approve of any of that, but it hasn't stopped the institutions formed in his name, and those who follow, from embodying those evils from founding to now, to more than a negligible degree.

OrigamiNightmare: you can find contact info for elected officials (also appointed ones, and candidates running for office) at www.votesmart.org .

I strongly disagree with the idea that the so-called "Old Testament" is to blame for any of the evils we see in the name of "the Bible." I was taught over and over again my entire time growing up and attending religious education in synagogues, where the so-called "Old Testament" is the only one, that we were to be kind to "the stranger" (anyone not like you) as well as to those we personally knew, that "tikkun olam" (repair of the world/social justice) is one of the most important principles to follow, and that if we destroy the world, there will be no other (i.e. God's not coming to rescue us, our job is to create the world we wish to see, from kindness and our own actions). It's not an affinity for the "Old" Testament that has been responsible for global domination and the destruction of other people all over the world. (And before someone brings this up, I'm not defending the wrongs of the Israeli government --though the British created that structure, not the Jews, evil against Palestinians is still being perpetrated on our dime-- or of individual Jews or some Jewish factions whose ideas are as oppressive as any other oppressive groups may be. I'm just saying identifying "Old Testament Christianity" as the source of the bad stuff irks me, because I don't think you can pin those people's actions on the book itself or anyone who follows it. Maybe I'm being over-sensitive here, or splitting hairs.)

I just think you can't point a finger at the "Old Testament" as a source (or exempt the "New" one) and blame it for the wrongdoings of the world, any more than you can point a finger at the Quran. People who do shit do it for their own shitty reasons. There's not a single Christian on the planet who doesn't follow the "New" Testament in their own way. The book is not to blame or to credit for the actions of its adherents. (I can't tell if I'm so worked up about this as a Jew, or as a book-defender, all of a sudden.)

2 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

if Democrats knew there was a loyal base out there who would actually respond to them despite their not being swoonworthy

Bernie wasn't swoonworthy. I mean, who would have guessed he'd catch fire the way he did, with anyone, but especially "the youth"? He's not a heartthrob, he's not glamorous, his suits barely fit him, he's a grumpy old man. Unfortunately, I think there are a damn lot of Dems in the party hierarchy who truly are corporatists, and don't believe in bottom-up organizing, or want to do it, or want to sit in Congress next to anyone who comes from there or got voted in by that kind of organizing. Those people are at best operating under "noblesse oblige" rather than true grassroots identification (plus the idea that it's unpleasant to see starving people in the street, so at least give 'em enough handouts that they don't spoil the view).  It's been a long time since the party was made up of "the people" -- if it ever was-- look how much money it takes to run for office, and who generally does it, and you see just who's really "in" the party. I think it would be possible to build a party that was not beholden to the few, but I think it would be hard for a lot of the current Democratic leaders to feel comfortable in it. This is why I think they are having so much trouble choosing a new leader and making a shift. There is a genuine struggle between the people who want the party to win based on appealing to "the middle" and those who want it to win by appealing to "the masses"-- some of the way they've done things may have been cynicism and feeling it was the best they could do in the world as it is, but others I think really aren't on board for a change, even if it's possible.

I wandered over to this forum today because I wanted to post about this app that automatically fact-checks DT's tweets. Of course, those who need it probably won't use it, but I love how dead pan it is: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/12/16/1611931/-The-Washington-Post-just-created-a-plugin-that-instantly-fact-checks-one-person-s-Twitter-account

[stillshimpy]

I don't know if any of that made sense. This just felt like a safe place to share.

It makes perfect sense, aradia22 :-)  Feel free to share!  That was a great way to approach the day.  Do stuff, fun stuff, small stuff, stuff that shows people just being people.  

Hang in there, we are all in this together and whenever it feels like you're alone with it, give a shout and someone here can shout back.  Whenever I'm around, I will, I promise.  

[sistermagpie]

5 minutes ago, possibilities said:

Bernie wasn't swoonworthy. I mean, who would have guessed he'd catch fire the way he did, with anyone, but especially "the youth"?

I don't actually mean that swoonworthy has to be young and attractive, just somebody that catches fire as you say. But the thing is, first, we don't know how he'd have done because he wasn't the nominee--he didn't win enough votes for that so he didn't bring in enough people already. But also this election more  than any other we needed voters to go to the voting booth whether or not they were excited. It was a duty, something a responsible person would do. It just floors me to think of someone saying they let Donald Trump become president because they weren't excited enough about the highly competent alternative.

That said, I do think the Dems need to do something that shows that they share their voters' actual concern. Just as the voters seem to often let them down by not voting, the one complaint I hear the most from all Democrats is that their people let them down by just giving up at the first opportunity. It's like somebody once said: no matter what the outcome of the election the Republicans will act as if the won and the Dems will act as if they lost. Now we've got Trump stomping around congratulating himself for a landslide when he lost the popular vote.

[NewDigs]

33 minutes ago, aradia22 said:

I don't know if any of that made sense. This just felt like a safe place to share. 

It made complete sense. I share so many of those emotions as I'm sure many here share. The mental hurt approaches physical. 

Got home after a horrible 1+ hour drive home from work and asked my husband if he'd move to California. "Expensive", was his first word. Followed by, "Not too far north." Doubt we'll move but it was a nice moment.

I've taken much comfort from the Soft Kitty thread. It's like yoga for the brain.

[HunterHunted]

3 hours ago, ruby24 said:

It might actually have something to do with this, to be honest.

From what I can tell, Democrats genuinely believe in things, want the government to work to help people and want to get things done. And Republicans? They don't seem to care about anything except their own power. Well, okay, that and cutting taxes for rich people and corporations. And attacking women's reproductive rights, they're pretty obsessed with that issue.

But they really don't care about anything that would help regular people in any way, so maybe that lack of decency and lack compassion allows them to be just totally heartless and ruthless in a way that many Democrats can't conceive of.

But you know what? There has to be some ruthless, power hungry Democrats out there, and the good Democrats need to hire those guys to be their operatives or something. Because there is no hope otherwise. They have to WIN to do the good things that they want to do, and if they need evil on their side to help them win, it's going to have to happen.

You can still find those Democrats in places where there are still powerful unions. There aren't a ton of those places left. Additionally, some of their union members voted for Trump because no one explained to them that the US is not in possession of a nuclear powered Delorean or a time traveling blue police box so we're not going back to 60s and early 70s when people could get jobs with solid salaries with only a high school education.

There is really uneasy peace with the three types of Republicans morality, business, and true local control believers. It's also funny when you see the tensions arise between the different types. In Texas, a very conservative County banned franking. The Republican legislature passed legislation that prevented communities from implementing these types of bans.

I don't want this to come off the wrong way, but Hillary and Democrats are the candidates of pragmatism and pragmatism isn't sexy. We're not suddenly going to get a ray gun that gets rid of ISIS, Boko Haram, or Al Qaeda. A big wall impossible will not solve our immigration issues. We've got demand issues for produce that it impossible for us to cease using migrant labor. And no one wants to pay $5 a pound for apples.

My point being that most people don't want to hear that things are crappy, but here is my plan to make things marginally less crappy. They want to hear that I'm Donald Trump and I'm going to punch ISIS in the face and give it a wedgie. It doesn't matter if that makes no sense. Or build a wall. These feel like active solutions to things even though they're completely impossible. Even with Bernie Sanders, there a number of things that he was advocating for that were hopelessly naive. I don't think that much of the populace is capable of understanding nuance anymore. It's funny because the same judgment and pragmatism most people apply in their daily lives, they seem incapable of transferring to picking a leader. People all over America go grocery shopping and realize that they only have so much money to spend so they spend it wisely. They choose between cake for dinner or chicken, rice, and vegetables. They like cake more, but realize you can't live on cake. And on November 8 a bunch of people voted for cake.

[EyewatchTV211]

6 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

Or just an electorate who doesn't constantly let the government down the same way the government lets them down. There's a lot of people out there who are prevented from voting by Republicans so I don't blame them, but it really does seem to me that Republicans are just more reliable when it comes to voting. Maybe I'm not being fair to someone, but it really does seem like there are liberals too pure to sully themselves with the actual system. I don't want to blame it all on them since Republicans have so blatantly suppressed votes etc., but I've also argued with young people online about how they can't be expected to vote or how it's still payback for not picking Bernie. It honestly seems like being politically engaged, for some Democrats, means everything BUT casting a vote.

Am I wrong in this impression? Because I feel like if Democrats knew there was a loyal base out there who would actually respond to them despite their not being swoonworthy they might start playing to them instead of always trying to beg for Archie Bunker's vote. You'd think all this going on would guarantee a huge turnout for mid-terms and beyond, but I don't even feel sure of that. People voted for Bush twice. People are more galvanized, apparently, by fake oppression than the real thing.

I don't disagree that there's a large problem with so many people in this country not voting. And it seems especially crazy to me considering how clear a threat, to many of us, one candidate was. But I don't think your conversations with young people are the best sample to measure considering that for all of recent history, the youth turnout has been poor. It's nice to know that those young people seem to grow up to be slightly older people who do turnout in larger numbers, although still not as large as we really should be. What's sad is, despite so many of us being riled up and wanting to take action, I can also see turnout getting worse after this election. As I've previously posted, our status as a supposed democracy seems very shaky to me right now. I'll still always vote in every election (big and small) as I always have, because doing nothing certainly won't help, but I can see why people might be extremely cynical after this. With the voter suppression, the lack of action being taken when we know the Russians interfered and the other iffy election information, and the electoral college going against the popular vote twice in recent years, it's hard not to be discouraged.  

[sistermagpie]

1 minute ago, VMepicgrl said:

But I don't think your conversations with young people are the best sample to measure considering that for all of recent history, the youth turnout has been poor.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that young people now were doing something different or were especially apathetic or even that it's only young people staying home. It's just that when I think about how it seems like a no-brainer to get out and vote, it seemed like that to me back in November and all those same people still stayed home--many intentionally to make a point that they're not actually making. So when I try to imagine everyone coming out to vote in response to Trump, I just can't feel any confidence in it. Not because young people alone will be a problem, but that Democrats will stay the same despite the new, terrible circumstances. As you say, people might just get even more cynical about voting, even if that makes no sense to me because if more people had voted for Hillary we wouldn't be in this mess. It's always that simple, from the local level on up. Yes, Republican shenanigans certainly add to it, but that's why you have to vote to fight it.

[EyewatchTV211]

I think this is an important thread to read: 

 

and someone made a twitter list of politicians who are opposing Trump in big and small ways. https://twitter.com/summerbrennan/lists/politicians-against-trump

Edited December 18, 2016 by VMepicgrl

[onthebrink03]

So the American public will be paying to provide protection for Trump wherever he may be and NYC will be paying to provide a second team to protect Melania and Barron as well (unless they are successful in having it funded by the government).  On top of that it looks like you will all be paying for these "rallies" for the next four years .  Yes, this is a precursor to fascism but it is also the way for this moronic tyrant to get his overblown ego stroked. It's going to be a very long, expensive and emotionally taxing four years.

Please God let him be impeached sooner than later!

Edited December 18, 2016 by onthebrink03

[sistermagpie]

23 minutes ago, VMepicgrl said:

and someone made a twitter list of politicians who are opposing Trump in big and small ways. https://twitter.com/summerbrennan/lists/politicians-against-trump

Definitely not Huckabee. He's tweeting jokes about how his plane delay must be the fault of those damn Russians. Because, you know, the entire intelligence community is falling for this DNC sour grapes thing. Everybody should undermine their information at every opportunity.

[navelgazer]

7 hours ago, ruby24 said:

But you know what? There has to be some ruthless, power hungry Democrats out there, and the good Democrats need to hire those guys to be their operatives or something. Because there is no hope otherwise. They have to WIN to do the good things that they want to do, and if they need evil on their side to help them win, it's going to have to happen.

It's not an equivalent power of GOP evil; it's the infrastructure and the massive amounts of money that we lack.  They have their own national, powerful media platform anchored by FAUX Noise and fed by various think tanks and other sources of academic-sounding radical right-wing policies and reinterpreted for the masses by the RWNJs on hate talk radio.  

Left policies are usually things that protect the people -- EPA, FDA, Medicare -- and are backed by real facts.  As someone else said here, my apologies, I don't remember where I saw this here, but when people hear these ideas, they win.  That's why the GOP actively cheats with voter suppression and other dirty tricks on Election Day.  They get things close enough for them to steal.  And that's where their ideological infrastructure really comes into play.

[EyewatchTV211]

23 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Definitely not Huckabee. He's tweeting jokes about how his plane delay must be the fault of those damn Russians. Because, you know, the entire intelligence community is falling for this DNC sour grapes thing. Everybody should undermine their information at every opportunity.

Was he on there? I didn't look at all tweets yet. I saw Evan McMullin's response to Huckabee's tweet, which is good like much of his recent stuff.

[aradia22]

Quote

The primary difference between the men’s-rights movement and the alt-right is that the former is largely anti-political. “They tend to dismiss Republicans and Democrats alike as ‘gynocentric’ parties, or parties that are at their root dominated by women’s needs,” Futrelle said. If, like me, you had to force down laughter at the idea of Republicans being dominated by women’s needs, Futrelle explains: “Their argument is that because women are the majority of the electorate, all politicians — male and female — have to pander to them in order to win.” No MRA would vote for Hillary Clinton, he said, and although some consider themselves Libertarians, there was little talk on online forums of Gary Johnson. If they voted, they voted for Trump.

[...] The exception, it seems, is the PUA community. Long before the alt-right went mainstream, RooshV and another PUA who goes by “Heartiste”* were touting its ideologies. “At some point they started talking about actual pickup-artist stuff a lot less and started throwing in right-wing, racist politics,” Futrelle said. At this point, Futrelle said he would describe them as “alt-right fellow travelers.”

[...] When Trump won, RooshV saw it as a victory for the PUA movement. “I’m in a state of exuberance that we now have a President who rates women on a 1-10 scale in the same way that we do and evaluates women by their appearance and feminine attitude,” he wrote. “We may have to institute a new feature called ‘Would Trump bang?’ to signify the importance of feminine beauty ideals that cultivate effort and class above sloth and vulgarity.”

In the same way that RooshV began to adopt alt-right ideology, the alt-right began to publish stories grounded in the principles of pickup artists and the men’s-rights movement. Futrelle said he’s noticed sites like the Daily Stormer publishing explicitly anti-feminist articles — something they hadn’t explicitly focused on in the past. For example, a recent post defends Trump’s comments on Access Hollywood in 2005 using MRA logic to reposition him (and all wealthy men) as the victim: “Why do they keep leaving out the first part of his ‘grab em by the pussy’ quote? He clearly said: ‘When you’re a star, they let you do it.’ He is talking in the context of women throwing themselves at rich men.”

Futrelle rattles off other like-minded men who’ve risen to the surface in Trump’s wake: Mike Cernovich, who got his start during Gamergate; Scott Adams, the Dilbert cartoonist; Milo Yiannopoulos, who’s written countless anti-feminist articles for Breitbart; Stefan Molyneux, a YouTube “philosopher.” Some have their roots in the men’s-rights movement, and others are hangers-on in their own right. “A lot of people who are anti-feminist saw the alt-right as being the thing that was growing and getting attention,” Futrelle said. “So they joined in.”

In the weird mishmash world of online misogyny, Futrelle said one thing is clear: Trump’s election has served as a galvanizing force. “Since I started [writing about MRA], I’ve always wondered to what degree these kinds of attitudes are out there in the culture in a big way,” he said. “I knew it was more than a small group of weirdos on the internet, but I thought it was relatively contained. And then, Trump comes along.”

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/12/mens-rights-activists-are-flocking-to-the-alt-right.html

[possibilities]

This took some guts:

I Trust You

[Moose135]

12 minutes ago, possibilities said:

This took some guts

That was amazing.

[PatsyandEddie]

Made me cry with happiness that he was approached and yet with extreme despair that he felt the need. 

[Duke Silver]

What's next???  I dunno...try to hammer some basic facts into the heads of Republicans?  Nahh, waste of fucking time, and the next 4 years is going to make it worse w/ Trump/Bannon/Kushner running their reality distortion field media:

A new poll shows an astonishing 52% of Republicans incorrectly think Trump won the popular vote

[izabella]

You can fool some of the people, all of the time...

[PatsyandEddie]

The stooopid continues to astound me. 

[onthebrink03]

1 hour ago, possibilities said:

This took some guts:

I Trust You

I'm sitting here in tears.  So beautiful, so moving, so heartening.  I know that there is evil in the world.  I know there are liars and cheats, hate and prejudice.  But there is also kindness and compassion, fairness and trust.  There are those that love their fellow man because they realize we are all stewards of this world, all deserving of respect and equality.  They know we are more alike than different and want to treat all people as they would like to be treated.

Yes, the world has evil but I want to believe those that live with love and compassion in their hearts are still in the majority.  The next four years are going to be tough for Americans and perhaps many others around the world.  Things will change and it may take years to reverse what this new administration puts in place.   But I have hope that right will win out in the end.  Yes, I am an eternal optimist so I hope because I can't fathom that the good in this world will be held captive by evil forevermore.

Edited December 18, 2016 by onthebrink03

[Padma]

1 hour ago, Duke Silver said:

What's next???  I dunno...try to hammer some basic facts into the heads of Republicans?  Nahh, waste of fucking time, and the next 4 years is going to make it worse w/ Trump/Bannon/Kushner running their reality distortion field media:

A new poll shows an astonishing 52% of Republicans incorrectly think Trump won the popular vote

From the above: "

Twenty-nine percent [of all respondents--so, nearly 1/3[ said Donald Trump won the popular vote. This is a slightly larger proportion than in a recent Pew survey in which 19 percent [nearly 1/5[ said Trump won the popular vote.

Respondents’ correct understanding of the popular vote depended a great deal on partisanship. A large fraction of Republicans — 52 percent — said Trump won the popular vote, compared with only 7 percent of Democrats and 24 percent of independents. Among Republicans without any college education, the share was even larger: 60 percent, compared with 37 percent of Republicans with a college degree."

That says so much.  Without even being lied to (well, except for that "landslide" thing), 60% of his non college educated base believe exactly what Trump would want them to believe (and nearly 40% WITH college degrees feel the same way) even when it should be so obviously untrue.  How can anyone fight this?

[DollEyes]

2 hours ago, possibilities said:

This took some guts:

I Trust You

Beautiful. From now on, whenever Trump/the Republicans says and/or does something terrible-which, knowing the Orange-Tinted Turd, will be on a daily (if not hourly) basis-that video, like this thread and most of the posters here, will remind me that there's still good in this country-and the world. 

[anyanka323]

On 12/17/2016 at 11:38 AM, Duke Silver said:

How many people here would be offended if I used the term "radical Christianity"?  That's Pence, Santorum, etc.  Or as Will McAvoy called them:  the American Taliban.

I'm not.  As a recovering Catholic, it's refreshing to see that others share my distaste for those who politicize organized religion for their own twisted motivations.  I don't agree with both the evangelicals, whom my late mother's sarcastic term for was " 'fun' Christians that follow only the parts of the bible we like and agree with" and their counterparts in mainstream Christianity, the more conservative and extreme Baptists and the Catholics that reject most of the Vatican II reforms.  This was also the same woman who would claim to be suffering from severe cramps to be too sick to attend the annual "abortion is the devil mass" aka the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.  She also would match his donation to the church that week and send it to Planned Parenthood.  She also made sure they missed the annual diocesan appeal mass, which she called the "we need to pay off our legal fees because of the pedophile sex offender priests fund".  I think my dad was in agreement with her in that issue because the parish he grew up in central Wisconsin had one priest that was there a short time that he was told not to be alone in the room with.  It later came out that other now adults from his childhood parish had sued the diocese because of that priest. 

[khyber]

14 hours ago, onthebrink03 said:

So the American public will be paying to provide protection for Trump wherever he may be and NYC will be paying to provide a second team to protect Melania and Barron as well (unless they are successful in having it funded by the government).  On top of that it looks like you will all be paying for these "rallies" for the next four years .  Yes, this is a precursor to fascism but it is also the way for this moronic tyrant to get his overblown ego stroked. It's going to be a very long, expensive and emotionally taxing four years.

Please God let him be impeached sooner than later!

From your lips to God's ear.

[MulletorHater]

18 hours ago, aradia22 said:

I woke up to Fox News again this afternoon which is always horrible. But I didn't let myself sulk and cancel all my plans. I went out. I did errands. I saw a play. I went to work. It was a good day. Not that a lot of wonderful things happened. It was a normal day of petty indignities and rude people and meaningless interactions but that's the thing. It was normal. I don't have a lot of normal days anymore. I rarely do all the things I have on a to do list in one day. And of equal significance, when little stressful things happened my reaction (internally, I mean) was not out of proportion. The negativity didn't linger. I don't feel happiness... I mean, I would if there were something to be happy about. But I feel normal and there's something comfortable in that, like my brain has recalibrated. 

I don't know if any of that made sense. This just felt like a safe place to share. 

You make a lot of sense, Aradia22.  I actually got my roots touched up yesterday (those pesky grays); went to Sephora to get gifts for the special ladies in my life; went to another store to get a special foodie gift for a wonderful Jewish lady whose husband is Indian (they're scared shitless); had dinner; and wacthed reruns of Sanford and Son.  

Today I actually attended church services at the church I've attended ever since I was a child.  Hugged and kissed people I've known all my life.  Afterwards was brunch at a neighborhood Indian restaurant.

 It all seems like a small thing but right now I crave a sense of normalcy.  After last week's headlines, tomorrow's expected bad news and seeing yet another picture of Ivanka the Terrible with her father at a high-profile meeting, I am determined to hold on to what I can.

My highlight of the day?  Receiving a large envelope from my concierge when I came home.  It's from the ACLU and contains a poll on the role of religion in government.  I will be representing a sample of DC residents and boy   am I ready to let loose!  I would implore everyone to participate in polls whenever the opportunity presents itself.  Let your voices be heard!

[callmebetty]

I too am going day by day and enjoying the normal things, but then sometimes the small joys get tinged a little. I've been watching reruns of Night Court (don't judge) and been enjoying them, such a silly show not much thought to put into it. And then you have an episode with Yakov Smirnoff and how he wants to defect from Russia and his brother doesn't and now it doesn't seem as funny. I think when this first aired I was a naive teenager and the thought of wanting to leave your country because it is so horrible was still a concept I truly didn't grasp, but now with what is coming how many Americans are going to want to defect?

But still little things everyday. And keeping informed.

[AntiBeeSpray]

21 hours ago, Duke Silver said:

Doesn't he mean Satan?

In all seriousness though, people such as himself wanted Drumpf in there.

 

4 hours ago, PatsyandEddie said:

Made me cry with happiness that he was approached and yet with extreme despair that he felt the need. 

Yea it is amazing. What a good person. I have respect for him stepping up and doing that.

 

52 minutes ago, callmebetty said:

I too am going day by day and enjoying the normal things, but then sometimes the small joys get tinged a little. I've been watching reruns of Night Court (don't judge) and been enjoying them, such a silly show not much thought to put into it. And then you have an episode with Yakov Smirnoff and how he wants to defect from Russia and his brother doesn't and now it doesn't seem as funny. I think when this first aired I was a naive teenager and the thought of wanting to leave your country because it is so horrible was still a concept I truly didn't grasp, but now with what is coming how many Americans are going to want to defect?

But still little things everyday. And keeping informed.

I love that show too :). It was my go to as I was growing up and I still love the reruns. Damn, that's sad :(. Exactly.

Yep.

[Duke Silver]

23 page Google Doc....

Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda

Quote

The authors of this guide are former congressional staffers who witnessed the rise of the Tea Party. We saw these activists take on a popular president with a mandate for change and a supermajority in Congress. We saw them organize locally and convince their own members of Congress to reject President Obama’s agenda. Their ideas were wrong, cruel, and tinged with racism - and they won.

[OrigamiNightmare]

http://jezebel.com/congressional-republicans-close-investigation-into-flin-1790250704

I'm just so fucking tired ...

[AntiBeeSpray]

8 minutes ago, OrigamiNightmare said:

http://jezebel.com/congressional-republicans-close-investigation-into-flin-1790250704

I'm just so fucking tired ...

So am I. Fuck Snyder and his cronies for getting away with it. 

[Lantern7]

The sad thing is that would probably have been the case even if Larry Wilmore still had his show. "What? The guy taking Colbert's old job is still up people's asses about how people in Flint have to pay a lot more for drinkable water? Oh, no! We have to change our ways! Wait . . . nobody cares about him, and Flint gave us Michael Moore. Fuck 'em."

[AntiBeeSpray]

1 minute ago, Lantern7 said:

The sad thing is that would probably have been the case even if Larry Wilmore still had his show. "What? The guy taking Colbert's old job is still up people's asses about how people in Flint have to pay a lot more for drinkable water? Oh, no! We have to change our ways! Wait . . . nobody cares about him, and Flint gave us Michael Moore. Fuck 'em."

Yep. And from what I heard from a friend is that they haven't cared about Flint. It's all about Detroit and even then, that city is being neglected as well. It's screwed royally to say the least.